06.28.22 Council Minutes

THE STATE OF UTAH
COUNTY OF SEVIER
CITY OF RICHFIELD

At the City Council
In and For Said City
June 28, 2022

Minutes of the Richfield City Council meeting held on Tuesday, June 28, 2022,
at 7:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers of the Richfield City office building located at 75 East Center, Richfield, Utah. Mayor Bryan L. Burrows presiding.

1. OPENING REMARKS
2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
3. ROLL CALL
4. MINUTES
5. PUBLIC HEARING – APPLICATION TO THE CIB FOR CAPITAL FACILITIES MASTER PLAN UPDATE
6. RESOLUTION 2022-11 ACCEPTING THE CERTIFIED TAX RATE ADOPTED
7. BUDGET RESOLUTION 2022-9 ADOPTED
8. RECESS
9. RECONVENE
10. PURCHASE NEW COMPUTER NETWORK EQUIPMENT APPROVED
11. AMENDMENT TO AGREEMENT TO RENT OLD ELKS LODGE APPROVED
12. OTHER BUSINESS
13. MEETING ADJOURNED
14. OPENING REMARKS were offered by Councilmember Hansen.
15. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE was led by Mayor Burrows.
16. ROLL CALL. Present: Mayor Burrows, Brayden Gardner, Todd Gleave, Kip Hansen, Elaine Street, Tanner Thompson, Michele Jolley, Tyson Hansen.

Others present: Edward Nielson, Kylee McClure, Carson DeMille, Michelle Olsen, Trent Lloyd, and Keith Mogan.

4. MINUTES APPROVED. The Council reviewed the minutes of the meeting held on June 14, 2022. Motion: Approve the minutes of the meeting held on June 14, 2022, Action: Approved, Moved by Tanner Thompson, Seconded by Elaine Street. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yes = 5). Yes: Brayden Gardner, Elaine Street, Kip Hansen, Tanner Thompson, Todd Gleave.
5. PUBLIC HEARING – APPLICATION TO THE CIB FOR CAPITAL FACILITIES MASTER PLAN UPDATE. At 7:07 p.m., Mayor Burrows opened a public hearing to receive comments on the City’s application to the CIB to fund an update to the capital facilities plan for the water and sewer systems. Carson DeMille explained that we are pursuing money from the CIB to redo the water master plan and update the sewer master plan and incorporate all of them together including the impact fee studies. The water study will update the GIS and water model and go through growth projections as well. This plan has to be updated for the City to apply for funding. The grant through the CIB is a 50/50 match. We are applying for $35,000 so the City will need to match the $35,000. Because this application is less than $50,000, it can be approved by the CIB staff and does not need to go before the Board.

Those present: Edward Nielson, Kylee McClure, Carson DeMille, Michelle Olsen, Trent Lloyd, and Keith Mogan.

No one from the public had any comments or questions, so Mayor Burrows closed the hearing at 7:09 p.m.

6. RESOLUTION 2022-11 ACCEPTING THE CERTIFIED TAX RATE ADOPTED. The Council reviewed Resolution 2022-11 setting the certified tax rate for the tax year 2022/23. Mayor Burrows noted that the tax rate is .001673. Mr. Hansen noted that this rate is down from the rate last year. Mayor Burrows clarified that this is the property tax rate. Motion: Adopt Resolution 2022-11 accepting the certified tax rate for the tax year 2022/23 at a rate of .001673, Action: Adopted, Moved by Kip Hansen, Seconded by Todd Gleave. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yes = 5). Yes: Brayden Gardner, Elaine Street, Kip Hansen, Tanner Thompson, Todd Gleave.
7. BUDGET RESOLUTION 2022-9 ADOPTED. The Council reviewed the budget for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023, and the amendments made to the budget for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2022. Mr. Hansen stated that the most significant change in the 2021/22 budget is that the fire truck will not be here before the end of this fiscal year. We did receive the necessary equipment, but the truck itself had some freight damage so it will be another 6 months before we receive it. He added $230,000 to the new budget for next year, 2022/23, and noted that half of the cost of the truck will be paid for by the County. All of this will be paid for out of this year’s budget. Mayor Burrows noted that we will probably be opening and amending the budget because he anticipants the need to increase the budget for fuel costs that he felt will continue to rise. Motion: Adopt Resolution 2022-9 accepting the budget for the fiscal year 2022/23 and amending the budget for the fiscal year 2021/22 as discussed, Action: Adopted, Moved by Elaine Street, Seconded by Brayden Gardner. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yes = 5). Yes: Brayden Gardner, Elaine Street, Kip Hansen, Tanner Thompson, Todd Gleave.
8. RECESS. At 7:12 p.m., Motion: Recess to convene a Richfield Municipal Building Authority meeting, Action: Recessed, Moved by Tanner Thompson, Seconded by Brayden Gardner. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yes = 5). Yes: Brayden Gardner, Elaine Street, Kip Hansen, Tanner Thompson, Todd Gleave.
9. RECONVENE. At 7:18 p.m., the regular session of the Richfield City Council reconvened.
10. PURCHASE NEW COMPUTER NETWORK EQUIPMENT APPROVED. The Council reviewed an estimate of $17,983.23 to update the City’s computer network equipment. Mr. Hansen stated that we have talked about this off and on, but he recently attended a seminar where one of the presenters talked about backups and things that affect the information that we have stored on our network equipment.

Craig Curtis, who does our IT and has done it for years, gave Mr. Hansen some information on why we should upgrade our system and what should be updated. Mr. Hansen noted that Mr. Curtis also takes care of the School District IT. If we were to lose data due to malware or ransomware it could be very costly.

Councilmember Thompson asked if the update would store more of our information in the cloud. Mr. Hansen stated that it would. Councilmember Gardner asked if we are not currently backing up to the cloud. Mr. Hansen stated that we are some physical backups that update every day, but other information gets backed up weekly and some monthly because of our limited storage capability. Our system is quite old-school. The new equipment would be similar to what the school district has, so if we have issues we could retrieve our information using their system in the event of an emergency.

Chief Lloyd has worked with Mr. Curtis on his system for the police department. In his opinion, Mr. Curtis is very knowledgeable when it comes to IT and if he is saying we should do this, then there is a reason he is saying that.

Councilmember Thompson felt that this is not like people cannot do their job well because we have antiquated technology. This is if something were to happen this is the trouble you would be in. With inflation and gas and as crazy as things are, he felt that this is something that we can kick down the road a year or two. There are other areas where $18,000 could be used, especially this year because of all the question marks and unknowns that we have.

Mr. Hansen noted that about a year ago we were having trouble with our system. Everything was bogged down and nothing was running right. Mr. Curtis looked into this and told Mr. Hansen that our server has been compromised and the hacker was using our server to mine cryptocurrency. Mr. Curtis explained that they were into our system but they did want to ransom our information. They were just stealing our computing power.

Councilmember Hansen stated that we are also a business. He knew of something that happened to Intermountain Farmers about a year ago. They were locked out of their accounts payable, their inventory, point of sale, and time clock; virtually their whole organization was forced to go back to paper and pen. He does not know how it was resolved, but they had to scrap everything and start over.

Mayor Burrows said if we break it down between our 6 departments, it would be about $3,000 per department. He does not think that is extreme. Councilmember Hansen wondered what would happen if we disrupted one billing cycle on our utilities. What would that do to us financially? He felt that this is a real threat.

Councilmember Thompson asked where the redundancy is. Mr. Hansen stated that he was not sure, but he could have Mr. Curtis explain it. Councilmember Thompson noted that we already have backups, so what do we not have backups for, so what would we lose?

Councilmember Hansen suggested that the bad guys are getting smarter and faster and just saying we hope, we wish is probably not good enough. He does not think we can be too careful and if it were $70,000 compared to $17,000 then we would have a serious discussion. We spend $20,000 on other things that are probably a lot less critical than this issue. Mayor Burrows suggested one of those things was fireworks and Mr. Hansen noted that we spent $29,000 on fireworks.

Councilmember Hansen stated that until we have a problem, we just assume that we are never going to have a problem and this would be an insurance policy for us now. If we have not done any upgrades in this regard for more than 5 years, then he believed we are in a pretty perilous spot. He thought this should be seriously considered.

Councilmember Street stated that working for the School District and seeing how often they update everything and seeing how quickly students can get in and do things, $17,000 versus some of the other things that we spend, she does not think this would be a bad thing. She wondered about putting this out for bid. She agreed that if we have not had an upgrade for 6 years, that is scary.

There was some discussion about the quote for the equipment only being good for 10 days which would have been June 26, 2022.

Motion: Approve the purchase of computer network equipment assuming it does not go above $20,000, Action: Approved, Moved by Kip Hansen, Seconded by Elaine Street. Vote: Motion passed (summary: Yes = 4, No = 1, Abstain = 0). Yes: Brayden Gardner, Elaine Street, Kip Hansen, Todd Gleave. No: Tanner Thompson.

11. AMENDMENT TO AGREEMENT TO RENT OLD ELKS LODGE DENIED. The Council discussed amending a previously approved agreement to rent the old Elks Lodge for $800 a month and a request to reduce that rental price to $400 per month. Councilmember Thompson declared a conflict of interest because it is his business that was allowed to rent the building. He stated that the person who was going to speak about this was not able to come. Councilmember Thompson explained that before he was elected, the Council at that time agreed to lease the building to a company he owns for $800 a month.

Since then, Councilmember Street and Brady Edwards have been using the basement for storage for Miss Richfield and recreation equipment. With the amount of useable square footage being less, he asked the Council to consider reducing the rent to $400 per month.

Councilmember Hansen remembered when the Council agreed to the rental and he wondered what date the rental payments started. Councilmember Thompson stated that they have not been paying rent because they have not started using the building, but they think they are ready to start in July. There has not been a rental agreement signed yet.

Councilmember Street indicated that it was nice to have the basement of the building to build props for the Miss Richfield set. There was some question as to whether or not the business would use the whole building. Councilmember Thompson stated that they probably would not use the whole building in the short term, but long term it would be nice to have the option.

Mr. Hansen wondered what would happen if Councilmember Thompson moves all of his stuff in there and someone wants to buy it and the Council decides to sell it. It was noted that we would have the City attorney write the agreement and a typical agreement we have usually states that either party can choose to terminate the lease at any time with a 30-day notice.

Councilmember Hansen had some concerns about having different entities using the building for storage. There would be a value to the things being stored there and where we would have different people having the same access to that building and access to other people’s stuff and he sees that maybe being problematic.

Councilmember Thompson stated that this was discussed and they had talked about getting a separate entrance to the bottom with a lock on the door down there and then just separating the staircase.

Councilmember Hansen recalled that the last time this was discussed, we had not found a good public use for it at that time, but it sounds like in the interim we have.

Councilmember Gleave asked if we pay rent on storage anywhere else. The library and the police department have storage units. Chief Lloyd stated that they put bikes in theirs and it fills up every year. Mr. Hansen noted that each of them is about $500 to $1,000 per month. The library pays about $250 a month. Councilmember Gleave said that it sounded like they could be using the space of storage as well. The City has a storage unit through Breinholts, but no one knows for sure what was in it. We were also renting one at U-Haul for Miss Richfield, but we are no longer doing that. Councilmember Street said that she will find out what is being stored at the Brienholt storage units.

Councilmember Gardner wondered about having some language in the agreement that if we were to sell the buyer could assume or honor the lease.

Councilmember Hansen asked if the Council approved the lease when Councilmember Thompson would start renting the building. He indicated that it would most likely be in July.

Councilmember Gleave asked when this was done the first time. It was thought that this was done in November or December of last year. It was noted that Mr. Edwards felt that the rental amount should not be reduced. Mayor Burrows noted that at $800 it would be $3.12 per square foot for the upper floor. He remembered there to be some liability issues in the last discussion.

(The actual agreement made with the prior Council was July 27, 2021.)

Councilmember Hansen wondered if this would need to be put out for bid. Councilmember Gleave stated that since we made the first agreement the Council has learned in training that we probably should put this out for bid. Councilmember Thompson stated that initially it was sitting vacant and the thought was to pay $800 and the City would make $9,600 a year that the City is not currently making which was the logic. That logic still stands except for now you are using one floor and at $400 the City would be making $4,800 a year.

Councilmember Hansen that while sitting in the same training that Councilmember Gleave was talking about and what Councilmember Hansen is basing this off of is that he has a School District-owned field and irrigation water for that and it has been neglected and the last several years he has not used any of the water and he has leased the water to other local farmers and because it is publicly owned, they have to put it out and give people the opportunity to bid on it. There are only about 3 people on that ditch that can use that water, but he has to go through this process every year. He thought this would be the same way because it is public property and the dollar amount is not the issue as much as the principle of it. He does not know if anyone would squawk about it. He stated that we probably should have gone through this process then.

Councilmember Thompson stated that he currently has an agreement at $800 a month. If they went forward and did not ask for a reduced rate, how would we proceed from here?

Councilmember Hansen stated that we have never consummated that agreement. Councilmember Gleave stated that it has been since last December and nothing has happened, so do we have an agreement? A previous Council agreed to this. Councilmember Gardner wanted to know why nothing has happened since December?

Councilmember Thompson stated that they have not needed the building up until now.

Councilmember Hansen stated that the agreement had to be made before the election because Councilmember Thompson was not on the Council. Councilmember Hansen stated that from his perspective today, the Council should not have made this agreement the first time. His position is that since we do not have a valid contract in place and now we are finding multiple public uses for that building that we have not considered, he would just as soon keep pursuing that and use the building the best way we can ourselves and he would just a soon not rent it to anyone.

Councilmember Gleave had a conversation with Councilmember Thompson back before the agreement was made and Councilmember Thompson knew what his stand was back then. They are friends, but Councilmember Gleave was very uncomfortable with this arrangement when he was running for City Council. Whether it was unethical or not, he does not care. He was uncomfortable with it and now that he is on the Council he is uncomfortable with it.

Councilmember Gardner stated that he knew nothing about the prior scenario, but if there is an asset sitting there that without a lot of risk to the asset could generate revenue, he thought it would make sense. He just ran some quick numbers on a couple of storage facilities that he is involved with and it comes out to be pretty close to average what we have been doing with storage facilities.

Councilmember Gleave asked Councilmember Thompson to explain again what he would be doing there and if he would truly be doing just storage or if he is going to be working in the building. Councilmember Thompson stated it would be 100% storage. He stated that there are 2 shipping containers on the water from China right now and they fulfill everything out of their location on Main Street, but these are overflow boxes that one or 2 times a week they may go down there and pull from that when they run out of their stuff on Main Street. There is no one working there and no one being there for more than about 30 minutes at a time and hauling the boxes back. He noted that the majority of the stuff will be backpacks and duffle bags.

Councilmember Gleave asked if Councilmember Thompson is manufacturing anything. Councilmember Thompson stated that he was not. Councilmember Hansen asked if Councilmember Thompson would personalize this stuff or embroider it. This is just a pass-through or a fulfillment business.

Councilmember Hansen stated that he was getting more and more uncomfortable with this because there are private businesses that do this type of thing and for us to be competing against those businesses adds to his discomfort.

Councilmember Thompson stated that whatever the Council decides this would not affect his relationship with any of them, so they should vote their conscientious.

Councilmember Gleave asked Councilmember Thompson if he could provide the City with a certificate of insurance with the City added as an additional insured.

Since a previous Council approved this and he was a no at that time, the Council went ahead and approved it at that time, so he would be okay but he wants to see rent paid and an agreement signed immediately. He would say to stay with the $800 per month.

Mayor Burrows would like to have our liability insurer, Utah Trust, weigh in on this to be sure that we are okay doing this.

Councilmember Hansen stated that we should have the City attorney look at this because there might be another issue we had not thought about.

Councilmember Gardner does not have an issue leasing the facility, but he wondered if it needed to go out to a bid process for transparency. He does not think the lease rate is out of line.

Councilmember Hansen stated that he does not want to get tangled up as a public/private, all using that same building and since we have already decided that there is a public use for it and we are going to continue to find other ways to use it. He does not know how they can amend a verbal agreement.

Motion: Since we have never consummated this as a formal agreement, rescind the original verbal agreement to be null and void, Action: Rescinded,

Councilmember Gardner asked if we can just make the original agreement null and void. Mayor Burrows noted that it was just a verbal agreement.

Moved by Kip Hansen, Seconded by Todd Gleave. Vote: Motion passed (summary: Yes = 4, No = 0, Abstain = 1). Yes: Brayden Gardner, Elaine Street, Kip Hansen, Todd Gleave. Abstain: Tanner Thompson declared a conflict of interest.

Councilmember Gardner stated that if the department heads determine that they cannot use this building, he would be in favor of leasing the building through a bid process. Councilmember Hansen stated that he realizes that we are not in the business of rentals. He sees this as outside the realm of what the City does.

12. OTHER BUSINESS. Councilmember Gleave has had some questions about Villa 647. People on Main Street are concerned that what is happening is very unfair to them and they want to see something happen. Chief Lloyd stated that we have not dismissed the charges against him and it is still going through the court system. Councilmember Gleave stated that it is the people who are going through the right process and having to do all of the things to be compliant, but they see someone else who is not going through the correct process.

The Miss Richfield pageant turned out well. The girls were so nice to each other and fun and they had a good time. Mayor Burrows stated that it was a very nice program.

Councilmember Hansen visited with some people at Wingers who were here in town for the mountain bike race. He had a nice discussion with them and learned they were from Davis County. The gentleman and his wife and kids enjoyed spending an afternoon on our Main Street and how welcoming and inviting it is. He loved the planters. Councilmember Hansen thought that the planters looked especially nice this year. He could not say enough good about the 3 days that they spent here.

Mr. DeMille reported that he attended a trail conference in Cedar City last week and people from all across the State were at this conference. Every example they shared, and every scenario they discussed came back to Richfield and what we have done here with the trails. He would not be surprised if they hold their conference here very soon. Mayor Burrows knew that the owner of the bike shop down there has been impressed with the bike trails and promoted them. He and his employees have been up here and road them quite a bit and they come up quite often. Mr. DeMille stated that it was awesome to hear all of the positive comments.

Mayor Burrows understood that it is looking like we are going to get the funding for the pump track. Mr. DeMille noted that we will have to apply for it, but we should be able to get the rest of the funds we need to finish the bike trail and do the pump track. He also reported that he had visited with the contractor and they are getting back up even further than they thought. They were hoping to get here in September thru October, so it may push us into the spring.

Mr. Hansen reported that we sold the old skate park equipment to Circleville for $675. The new equipment was supposed to be installed yesterday, but the ramps are not here yet. They should be here Thursday.

Chief Lloyd contacted UDOT about having street lights that chirped for the seeing impaired. They want to know the name of the person who reported this because they will only install them in the area where they have someone who uses it a lot.

13. MEETING ADJOURNED. At 8:14 p.m., Motion: Adjourn, Action: Adjourned, Moved by Kip Hansen, Seconded by Elaine Street. Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yes = 5). Yes: Brayden Gardner, Elaine Street, Kip Hansen, Tanner Thompson, Todd Gleave.

PASSED and APPROVED this 12th day of July 2022.