01.30.18 Council Minutes

THE STATE OF UTAH
COUNTY OF SEVIER
CITY OF RICHFIELD

At the City Council
In and For Said City
January 30, 2018

Minutes of the Richfield City Council meeting held on Tuesday, January 30, 2018
at 7:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers of the Richfield City office building located at 75 East Center, Richfield, Utah. Mayor David C. Ogden presiding.

1. OPENING REMARKS
2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
3. ROLL CALL
4. MINUTES APPROVED
5. WHITE SANITATION’S ANNUAL REPORT
6. PRESENTATION
7. TRIMMING OF TREES DISCUSSED
8. JR MISS RICHFIELD REPORT TABLED
9. ORDINANCE 2017-6 REGULATING PUBLIC PARADES AND OTHER SPECIAL EVENTS
10. CAPITAL PROJECT LIST FOR STATE FUNDING AGENCIES APPROVED
11. RESOLUTION 2018-1 APPROVING BUILDING PERMIT FEES APPROVED
12. FINANCIAL STATEMENT ENDING DECEMTER 31, 2017 REVIEWED
13. OTHER BUSINESS
14. EXECUTIVE SESSION
15. RECONVENE & ADJOURN

 

1. OPENING REMARKS were offered by Mayor Ogden.

 

2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE was led by Councilmember Christensen.

 

3. ROLL CALL Present: Mayor David Ogden, Kevin Arrington, Richard Barnett, Kathy Christensen, Matt Creamer, Mike Langston, Michele Jolley. Excused: Bryan Burrows, Connie Nielson.

Others present: Max White, Taylor White, Jeff Albrecht, Annicka Albrecht and Dave Anderson.

 

4. MINUTES APPROVED. The Council reviewed the minutes of the meeting held January 9, 2018. Motion: Approve the minutes of the meeting held January 9, 2018, Action: Approved, Moved by Kevin Arrington, Seconded by Kathy Christensen. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yea = 3). Yea: Kevin Arrington, Richard Barnett, Kathy Christensen. Excused: Bryan Burrows, Connie Nielson.

 

5. WHITE SANITATION’S ANNUAL REPORT. Taylor White met with the Council and discussed years past and any concerns or complaints the Council had. They will be getting with Mr. Creamer to schedule the spring clean up in the next month. Mayor Ogden thanked the Whites for the service they provide to our residents.

Mr. Creamer stated that he knows there have been some struggles with the dumpsters for the commercial customers.

 

6. PRESENTATION. Mayor Ogden presented Jeff Albrecht with a plaque thanking him for his 5 years of service on the Planning Commission.

 

7. TRIMMING OF TREES DISCUSSED. Mike Lopez of Atlas Trees Service discussed tree care stewardship for cities and communities. He explained that trees increase property value, control air pollution; enhance water quality, wind protection and privacy screening. He noted that there was an incomplete tree inventory done and the City has approximately 1,600 trees that were inventoried and they are all on City property. That does not include the trees at the golf course.

So what are the responsibilities to care for and maintain the trees? There needs to be proper pruning, replacement planting and monitoring. The city of Richfield has a large quantity of green and white ash trees and there is an impending pest coming into Utah that is on our doorstep and it is going to wipe out ash trees. This is a huge problem and something needs to be done to pre-treat these trees. He does not have a problem teaching our technician what to do and how to monitor this and what to look for.

Mr. Lopez stated that the City should be looking at legal responsibilities and the rules that should be enforced. If a person has a tree in front of their home are they responsible for the tree care and if a branch breaks and lands on a car or hits someone are they responsible or is the City. There should be clear guidelines.

There is also a standard for proper tree care and Mr. Lopez suggested that there should be someone in the City that knows what those standards are. There are other states that require licensing for tree care operations, but Utah is not one of them. The Utah Community Forestry Council is pushing for this and we will see that within our lifetime.

Mr. Lopez is part of a team of 5 arborists and they provide tree maintenance schedule planning, tree and plant diagnosticians, and they also do wild urban interface.

The thing the City can do on its own is plant more trees you just have to plant the right tree in the right place.

Mr. Lopez stated that one of the problems we have at the park is that the grass is right against the trees so when the weed trimmer is used it causes damage to the trees. There should be a mulch ring around the trees to protect the trees. It is also important that we monitor the work done to the trees just like we do with the City vehicles.

Mayor Ogden stated that the Council would take Mr. Lopez’s recommendations under advisement and come up with a plan to maintain the trees.

8. JR. MISS RICHFIELD REPORT TABLED. This report was tabled until the second meeting in February.

 

9. ORDINANCE 2017-6 REGULATING PUBLIC PARADES AND OTHER SPECIAL EVENTS TABLED. Councilmember Barnett felt that there needed to be some changes made to the wording before the ordinance is adopted. He noted that it talks about special events in general and other places we are talking specifically about the 4th of July and it is not clear whether we are talking about one or the other some of the time. He explained that changing the wording would make it so this is not just a 4th of July matter unless we are trying to do this ordinance specifically for the 4th of July.

Councilmember Arrington noted that if we ever have another event of the size of the 4th of July we would want to enforce these rules for that event also.

Motion: Table Ordinance 2017-6, Action: Tabled, Moved by Richard Barnett, Seconded by Kathy Christensen. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yea = 3). Yea: Kevin Arrington, Richard Barnett, Kathy Christensen. Excused: Bryan Burrows, Connie Nielson.

 

10. CAPITAL PROJECT LIST FOR STATE FUNDING AGENCIES APPROVED. Mr. Creamer explained that next year we have all of the class C road funds committed to finishing the 100 East Street project. After that, we are going to have a pretty substantial amount of money per year that at this point is uncommitted. We could do smaller projects every year as far as chip seal, but Mr. Creamer and Mr. Langston felt that we might be able to leverage our money and do better on bids if we took out a short-term loan with CIB and use the class C road funds for 3 to 4 years to pay the loan off. That way we could have a 2 to 3 million dollar project rather than several $600,000 or $700,000 projects.

Another item on the short-tem list was new park development, which Mr. Creamer explained is on the list because we are applying for some CDBG funds for this year.
Councilmember Christensen asked for the Library to be moved from the long term to the medium term list because she felt that there is a real possibility that an upgrade could take place sooner.

Councilmember Barnett asked what is considered to be a project of large enough scale to go to the CIB. According to this list, the smallest project we would go to the CIB for is $100,000. Mr. Creamer stated that we just went to the CIB for a $56,000 project. Mr. Langston stated that the CIB will always participate 50/50 on any master plan. Councilmember Barnett wondered if it matters whether we go in and nickel and dime them or if we are better off to go after a 10 million dollar project or does it matter. Mr. Creamer pointed out that there is strategy involved. He does not think that going in for a small study, but if you have 3 of 4 construction projects, timing and prioritization are important. You would not want to go into every meeting with a new project or they probably would take issue with it.

The Council discussed having a project on the short term list for mountain bike trails.

Motion: Approve the CIB Capital Project List for 2018, Action: Approved, Moved by Kathy Christensen, Seconded by Richard Barnett. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yea = 3). Yea: Kevin Arrington, Richard Barnett, Kathy Christensen. Excused: Bryan Burrows, Connie Nielson.

 

11. RESOLUTION 2018-1 APPROVING BUILDING PERMIT FEES APPROVED. Motion: Approve Resolution 2018-1 setting valuations for building permit fees, Action: Approved, Moved by Richard Barnett, Seconded by Kevin Arrington. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yea = 3). Yea: Kevin Arrington, Richard Barnett, Kathy Christensen. Excused: Bryan Burrows, Connie Nielson.

 

12. FINANCIAL STATEMENT ENDING DECEMBER 31, 2017 REVIEWED. Mr. Langston reviewed the sales tax collection to date noting that we are up 9% for the year, approximately $93,000. The highways tax is up 9.64%, transportation 8% and rec tax about 9.5%. Overall we are up 9% over last year.

Airport fuel sales were down this year. The lack of wild land fires this year had a definite affect on our sales.

We have spent $8,500 in abatements, but we have received a lot of money back from the County through the tax collection process for abatements.

The budget for the pool is slightly over budget because of the vacation and comp time payout for the previous pool manager.

Mr. Langston explained that there is $50,000 in a contingency fund that could be used to cover some of the overages if needed.

As for the police budget, we have purchased and paid for 2 cars, but we need to still pay for the lighting to go on the cars. Councilmember Christensen asked if we are buying cars. We have bought 2 cars and we are still leasing 2 cars, but Chief Lloyd is trying figure out what the best option is.

Impact fees of $180,000 were accrued last fiscal year, so we will not meet a budget this year, but we were way over last year.

We have expended more that we budgeted in the sewer department for professional and technical services because of the commitment we made to clean the sewers every year.

Overall we are in good shape so far. We have some concerns coming into the new budget year in the police department.

 

13. OTHER BUSINESS. Councilmember Barnett showed the Council some pictures of stop signs and yield signs on bike paths that stand about waist high. He thought they would be a lot better than the taller ones we have especially at the intersections.

Councilmember Barnett indicated that there is a problem with cars for sale on the Napa parking lot. Mr. Creamer received a call from one of our car dealers today about the same thing. Mr. Creamer was asked to have the police department enforce our ordinance.

Mr. Creamer reported that Jviation is going to be to the next council meeting to discuss some airport matters.

Mr. Creamer reported that the City’s application to CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) will be submitted tomorrow.

Mr. Creamer stated that the staff is really concerned about irrigation and he wondered if we should even be sending out irrigation schedules to the individual users. If we send them out its always with the caveat if water is available, but all of those people will have paid for irrigation water and what happens is that they expect a credit on their culinary bill if they have to use it to water their gardens or they expect a refund. We will not know how much water we will get until March or April. Mr. Langston stated that schedules need to be sent out in the next 2 weeks. Councilmember Christensen wondered how many residents we have signed up for irrigation. Mr. Langston stated that it is less than 200. Councilmember Arrington wondered what options are on the table. Mr. Creamer stated that we could send out a notice that there will not be any irrigation water available this year. Mr. Creamer stated that if we do send schedules out there ought to be something to the affect that we do not anticipate irrigation water lasting very far into the season and that we will not be making adjustments on water bills or refunds. The Council determined to send out notices stating that there may not be any water available this year at that there will be no credits given on the water bills or any refunds.

 

14. EXECUTIVE SESSION. At 8:49 p.m., Motion: convene an executive session to discuss the purchase of real property, Action: Approved, Moved by Kathy Christensen, Seconded by Kevin Arrington. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yea = 3). Yea: Kevin Arrington, Richard Barnett, Kathy Christensen. Excused: Bryan Burrows, Connie Nielson.

 

15. RECONVEN & ADJOURN. At 8:59, regular session was reconvened and adjourned. Motion: Adjourn, Action: Approved, Moved by Richard Barnett, Seconded by Kathy Christensen. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yea = 3). Yea: Kevin Arrington, Richard Barnett, Kathy Christensen. Excused: Bryan Burrows, Connie Nielson.

PASSED and APPROVED this 13 day of February, 2018.