04.13.21 Council Minutes

THE STATE OF UTAH
COUNTY OF SEVIER
CITY OF RICHFIELD

At the City Council
In and For Said City
April 13, 2021

Minutes of the Richfield City Council meeting held on Tuesday, April 13, 2021
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. EXPENDITURES APPROVED
6. PROCLAMATION FOR ARBOR DAY
7. PURCHASE OF A NEW MOWER FOR THE CEMETERY APPROVED
8. ORDINANCE 2021-8 ADOPTED – Gurney Annexation
9. PLANNING COMMISSION REPORT
10. ORDINANCE 2021-9 TO REZONE PROPERTY OWNED BY LAND REMNANTS LTD ADOPTED
11. CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT APPROVED
12. OTHER BUSINESS
13. EXECUTIVE SESSION
14. RECONVENE & ADJOURN

1. OPENING REMARKS were offered by Mayor Ogden.
2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE was led by Kathy Christensen.
3. ROLL CALL. Present: Mayor Ogden, Bryan Burrows, Kathy Christensen, Todd Gleave, Kip Hansen, Michele Jolley, Tyson Hansen. Excused: Connie Nielson.
4. MINUTES APPROVED. The Council reviewed the minutes of the meetings held on December 8, and December 15, 2020, and January 12, January 20, January 26, February 9, and February 23, 2021. Motion: Approve the minutes of the meetings held on December 8, and December 15, 2020, and January 12, January 20, January 26, February 9, and February 23, 2021, Action: Approved, Moved by Kip Hansen, Seconded by Kathy Christensen. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yes = 4). Yes: Bryan Burrows, Kathy Christensen, Kip Hansen, Todd Gleave. Excused: Connie Nielson.
5. EXPENDITURES APPROVED. The Council reviewed the March 2021 Warrant Register. Councilmember Hansen stated that Councilmember Nielson wanted to know if A & D Jensen had finished the canal bank stabilization. Mr. Hansen indicated that they had completed this project. Councilmember Burrows noted that they had also finished cleaning up the canal bank along the bike path and that it looked really good. Councilmember Hansen stated that Councilmember Nielson had also asked about the payment to Bobbie Jensen CSS Composites. It was noted that this was for plan reviews. Motion: Approve the warrants for March 2021, Action: Approved, Moved by Kip Hansen, Seconded by Kathy Christensen. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yes = 4). Yes: Bryan Burrows, Kathy Christensen, Kip Hansen, Todd Gleave. Excused: Connie Nielson.
6. PROCLAMATION FOR ARBOR DAY. Erin Thompson stated that the Youth City Council is planning to do an event at the park on April 30, 2021, for an Arbor Day Celebration. Motion: Adopt Arbor Day Proclamation declaring April 30, 2021, as the day it will be celebrated in Richfield, Action: Adopted, Moved by Kathy Christensen, Seconded by Bryan Burrows. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yes = 4). Yes: Bryan Burrows, Kathy Christensen, Kip Hansen, Todd Gleave. Excused: Connie Nielson.
7. PURCHASE OF A NEW MOWER FOR THE CEMETERY APPROVED. Mr. Mogan stated that Jorgensens have a mulching mower in stock for $12,800. Motion: Approve the purchase of a new mulching mower for the cemetery for $12,800, Action: Approved, Moved by Kip Hansen, Seconded by Kathy Christensen. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yes = 4). Yes: Bryan Burrows, Kathy Christensen, Kip Hansen, Todd Gleave. Excused: Connie Nielson.
8. ORDINANCE 2021-8 ADOPTED. The Council reviewed Ordinance 2021-8 to annex the property owned by Gurney Investments, Inc. and located between 500 West and 350 West 1300 South. Mr. Gurney had also requested that the Council approve cash in lieu of water shares.

Carson DeMille stated that the type of development Mr. Gurney is doing would require less than 3-acre feet because the major We also need to approve a development agreement with Mr. Gurney stating that if the property is developed for something other than a campground, additional water shares will be required. The agreement should also include the Council’s decision to not require the development of 350 West Street and his fence will be on the other side of the waterline. The improvements along 1500 South will be waived until the property develops on either side of Mr. Gurney’s property. Motion: Adopt Ordinance 2021-8 annexing the property owned by Gurney Investments, LLC., with $10,000 for cash in lieu of water shares, and a development agreement as discussed above, Action: Adopted, Moved by Bryan Burrows, Seconded by Kip Hansen. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yes = 4). Yes: Bryan Burrows, Kathy Christensen, Kip Hansen, Todd Gleave. Excused: Connie Nielson.

9. PLANNING COMMISSION REPORT. Rick Robinson reported on the Planning Commission meeting held on April 7, 2021. The Planning Commission approved a conditional use permit allowing Justin Zenger to conduct a business for the rental of compact equipment at 820 South 100 East. The Planning Commission discussed a request for the rezone of property located at approximately 1000 West Center from the F-1 to the R1-10 zone. They moved to recommend the Council approve the rezone of this property.

Preston Harward requested that the Zoning Code be revised to allow short-term rentals in the R1-6 zone. Mr. Robinson noted that they are already allowed in all other residential zones. Baldauf Excavating applied to construct a metal building at 3045 South Mulberry Lane, Richfield Business Park. This was approved based on the Development Review Committee’s recommendations.

Dan Farley discussed the possibility of rezoning the property located at 1050 West 530 South. The property consists of two lots. It is zoned RM-11 and Mr. Farley wondered about rezoning one of the lots RM-24 and the other lot CG, general commercial, to allow for self-storage units. The Planning Commission was not in favor of putting commercial and they did not want to increase the density to RM-24.

10. ORDINANCE 2021-9 TO REZONE PROPERTY OWNED BY LAND REMNANTS LTD ADOPTED. The property being considered for rezone is located at approximately 1000 West Center. The rezone would change the zoning from Forestry (FS) to single-family residential (R1-10). There was some discussion about the Planning Commission’s recommendation because 2 of the members voted against rezoning the property. Councilmember Burrows wondered why that was. Kelly Crane stated that Ms. White brought up infrastructure costs, road costs, etc., but Mr. Crane addressed those items, but she still did not like the fact that it would change the use from how it is currently used, a 4-wheeler trail, to single-family homes. Kendrick Thomas also voted against it but did not indicate why.

Councilmember Hansen stated that we are not going through a project review. We just need to decide if this is an appropriate zone for this location. The other issues would be addressed in the approval process.

Councilmember Burrows asked if the road is paved to the old Lind house that is currently there. Mr. Crane stated that there is some roto mill on the road to that point. He then explained that this was set up as a dyke for I-70, so they will have to bring the road out in front of the dyke.

Councilmember Christensen does not see a problem with this and thought it would be fine to have a subdivision there. Motion: Adopt Ordinance 2021-9 rezoning property owned by Land Remnants LTD and located at approximately 1000 West Center to single-family residential R1-10, Action: Adopted, Moved by Kathy Christensen, Seconded by Bryan Burrows. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yes = 4). Yes: Bryan Burrows, Kathy Christensen, Kip Hansen, Todd Gleave. Excused: Connie Nielson.

11. CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT APPROVED. The Council reviewed a request from Justin Zenger to conduct an equipment rental business at 820 South 100 East. The property was used by Boyters for U-Haul rentals and they are going to rent the property to Mr. Zenger. Councilmember Burrows did not think this property was on 100 East. Mr. Zenger noted that the access to the property is off of 100 East. The Planning Commission recommended approval of a conditional use permit. Motion: Approve a conditional use permit for Justin Zenger at 820 South 100 East, Action: Approved, Moved by Bryan Burrows, Seconded by Kip Hansen. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yes = 4). Yes: Bryan Burrows, Kathy Christensen, Kip Hansen, Todd Gleave. Excused: Connie Nielson.
12. RECESS. At 7:21 p.m., Motion: Recess to convene a Community Reinvestment Agency meeting, Action: Approved, Moved by Kathy Christensen, Seconded by Bryan Burrows. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yes = 4). Yes: Bryan Burrows, Kathy Christensen, Kip Hansen, Todd Gleave. Excused: Connie Nielson.
13. RECONVENE. At 7:32 p.m., the regular session of the Richfield City Council reconvened.
14. UPCOMING BUDGET NEEDS FOR THE LIBRARY. Michelle Olsen discussed some items that she felt needed and asked that the Council consider an additional $40,000 in her budget this next year. She did not know if it would be that much, but that is her estimate. Currently, there are 3 furnaces at the library. They are commercial furnaces and they should last 8 to 10 years and they are 21 years old right now. One is not working, another is heating the whole library and the other one only has air conditioning. She has a recommendation from Blake Electric to replace all 3 furnaces. Each one of the units would cost $6,500. If the unit is only heating it is $4,000. They strongly suggest that we have all 3 as heating and air conditioning so that one furnace does not overcompensate which would reduce the life of the unit. There is a possibility that if we put an air purifier in, we could maybe use some of the COVID money to pay for it. The cost would be approximately $800 per unit and going forward they would need to be replaced every 2 years. Recently one of the furnaces leaked and damage was done to the particle board which has to be replaced, but that can be done as we put the new furnaces in. She did not have an estimate on this because it was just discovered last week.

The wood shingles need to be oiled and it should be done every 5 years. It should have been done last year, but she has a quote from Outsiders and we are on their schedule. Ms. Olsen is not sure which budget year it will come from either this year or next.

The library needs some paint on the trim, doors, and windows. We are going to rebid this because of the bid that was given last year, but we only received one bid at $33,852. Mr. Hansen felt that the price was high, so she is going to rebid this. The total cost would be $48,297 to complete the work she has requested.

Councilmember Hansen wondered if we put the air purifiers on the furnaces, could we use the American Rescue funds to pay for the whole unit. Mr. Hansen stated that there has not been a lot published on this yet, but so far, the only thing he has seen is that the funds have to be used for critical infrastructure such as water, sewer, roads, and broadband.

Mr. Hansen also suggested that it would not be that difficult to paint the library. The material would cost approximately $2,000 to $4,000. If we have employees that want more hours than we can give them, we could rent a telehandler for about a week with an experienced operator and have them paint. He wondered how the Council felt about that. Councilmember Burrows noted that we have a telehandler. Mr. Mogan stated that we have a lift that will reach about 30 feet straight up. Mr. Hansen asked if we have all the harnesses. Mr. Mogan stated that we did.

Ms. Olsen indicated that we do have to consider that is a Utah historic site so we do have to take a little bit more care with it than just putting up some paint. Councilmember Hansen would rather rebid this and see what kind of prices come in before we consider doing it in-house on this particular project.

She is bringing it to the Council now so when they consider the budget that she would have some money to complete at least some of the projects before the end of summer.

15. POLICE DEPARTMENT FUNDING DISCUSSED. Chief Trent Lloyd was present to discuss the police department and funding for the upcoming budget. They received an award from the State for their work on traffic safety with their DUIs. Chief Lloyd explained that their calls are up again this year. He noted some calls that stood out to him especially the increase in sex office and domestic calls. The juvenile problems were down, but he felt that was because school was out because of COVID.

Chief Lloyd also discussed the difference in the cases from 2016 to 2020. He only had this information back to 2016 because that is when he became Chief and began to track the case counts. He also compared the number of calls the City had compared to the County, noting that the population the County serves is about the same as what our police department serves. The County has 25 deputies and we have 15 officers. Basically, they are running with 10 extra guys and doing the same amount of work. That is not putting the deputies down, that is showing that his guys are working their tails off and it is to the point that they need more help. When he took over, he thought we were okay and he has stalled it as long as he can, but we need 3 new guys and we absolutely have to have one.

Chief Lloyd indicated that he has felt bad for Salina City because they only have 4 officers. They are averaging 303 calls per officer, but our officers that take calls are responding to an average of 417 calls per officer.

Today he learned that he not only had one officer that had decided to retire, but he now has another officer that will be retiring in the next 2 months. With Alan DeMille retiring, Scott Hatch, and Jared LeFevre retiring he will lose over 90 years of experience in the police department. When he became the Chief, he did not want to become the training ground for everyone else, yet that has been what has happened. He has hired 9 of the 15 officers that he has hired since becoming chief and the City has paid to send 7 of those officers to the police academy. Not only is he having a difficult time getting employees who are already trained, but he cannot get the recruits into the academy for training because they have been canceled due to a lack of interest.

We have been discussing some other incentives we could offer. He offers his officers all the overtime shifts they want and he uses a portion of his training budget to pay for gym memberships for his officers. When he started, the City used to give the employees an annual pass to the swimming pool for an annual fee of $25. The City used to give passes to the golf course as well. He felt that we should do this again. He visited with Mr. Mullen and he does not have a problem with giving the full-time employees some kind of pass. He wanted the Council to consider giving the employees some of these benefits to help incentivize them to come and work for the City and stay.

Councilmember Burrows asked what percentage of the calls Chief Lloyd would say are drug or alcohol-related. Chief Lloyd felt that a fair assessment would be 35% to 40%. A good share of the calls at night are drug and/or alcohol-related. One of the biggest problems is that there are no longer any consequences for drugs and alcohol. Someone is going to pay the consequences and now that it is no longer the offender, society is paying the consequences. He noted that they have been dealing with this all week because it is no longer required that kids go to school. There is no more tardiness and no more truancy. Councilmember Hansen stated that the teachers can no longer do anything to impact grades based on attendance at school. The students could show up to class 20 minutes late, be disruptive and there is no consequence because it cannot affect their grades.

Chief Lloyd stated that 98% of the Youth Court Cases were truancy cases. All of those cases have been dismissed.

Chief Lloyd would like to have a work session to go over the budget numbers and see how he is proposing to structure his budget. Councilmember Burrows stated that he had been in and met with Chief Lloyd and he would suggest that each Councilmember take time to visit with him and see what he has come up with. Councilmember Burrows noted that he has some creative ways of budgeting. Chief Lloyd stated that we do not have to have a work session, that the Councilmembers could just come and meet with him if they so choose. Councilmember Hansen felt that we should schedule a posted work meeting to discuss this.

16. OTHER BUSINESS. Mr. Hansen reported that he had been looking into a mass communication system where we could send out texts out to inform our citizens about things happening in the community. He gave the example that if a road were closed or the water was off of if the trash collection was affected by a holiday. He found that the cost would be approximately $2,500 a year. He asked the Council if this would be something they would be interested in having. Mayor Ogden asked him to do a little more research on this.

Mr. Hansen also wondered about charging a convenience fee on credit or debit cards and we have people running them for impact fees, connect fees, plan reviews, building permits, etc. Some of these costs have been $8,000 or more which would cost us approximately $200 in credit card fees because we pay 2½ %. Councilmember Burrows thought that we paid fees of about $30,000 at the golf course. At Mr. Hansen’s last employer, if someone wanted to pay for a car with a credit card they could not, but they would let them run it for $1,000 with cash or check for the balance. He suggested that maybe we only allow the card to be run for $1,000 or $500. Mayor Ogden asked Mr. Hansen to find out what other communities are doing because he thought they would charge something.

The Council set a special meeting for 6:00 p.m. on April 27.

Councilmember Burrows heard that the cement plant in Delta has shut down and there is one other cement company that has shut down, and he heard that it was because there is no cement to make concrete with. Mr. Mogan was told the same thing. Councilmember Burrows felt that some of the projects are going to be stifled quickly. He knows of one plant in Weber County that is operating and everything else is shut down.

Councilmember Christensen indicated that Peterson Plumbing is having a hard time getting pipe too.

Councilmember Burrows saw that a sheet of 3/4” wafer board is $100.

15. MEETING ADJOURNED. At 8:23 p.m., Motion: Adjourn, Action: Adjourned, Moved by Kathy Christensen, Seconded by Bryan Burrows. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yes = 4). Yes: Bryan Burrows, Kathy Christensen, Kip Hansen, Todd Gleave. Excused: Connie Nielson.

PASSED and APPROVED this 25th day of May 2021.