Regular Grand County Commission Meeting (part 2 of August 19)
All right, you’re good Bill.
All right, I will start this regular Grand County Commission meeting at 4 30 on Tuesday the 19th of August 2025 and we will, let’s see, present Commissioner Hadeem, Commissioner Hadler, Commissioner McCurry, Commissioner McGann, Commissioner Martinez, Commissioner McCandless and myself, Commissioner Hunville and we will stand for the Pledge.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
But before we start, for citizens to be heard, I’ve got three different items that I’d like to update on. The first one being is that item number 15, the CUP or conditional use permit for Randy’s Medal has been moved to the next agenda due to a request from the applicant. That one will not be heard. I don’t know if we had people here to speak about that one. We are also pulling item number 12, appoint interim Planning and Zoning Administrator from the agenda of this meeting and also regarding number 14, we will be discussing and likely accepting number 14, the audit findings for our financial statements that were presented to the Audit Committee at yesterday’s meeting. Our external auditor has a scheduling conflict, unable to present. Tonight he did present yesterday to, let’s see, six out of the seven of us commissioners, so all were present for that. All edits and additions recommended to the auditor at yesterday’s meeting have been made and are included in the audit for acceptance by the commission tonight. Don Hatterley from Larson’s will present the audit for the benefit of the public at the next commission meeting on September 2nd and if anybody would like, there’s a recording of yesterday’s Audit Committee meeting. It’s available for the public on the county’s YouTube channel, so anybody can go back and look at that if they would like to. So with that, I think we are ready for sitting to be heard. If we have folks, Charlotte, first one with your hand up. I’ll take over the microphone here. Either one and please, we try to keep it to three minutes. Introduce yourself and either one can sit that microphone. My name is Charlotte Mates. I’m a citizen of Grand County for 30 years now.
This afternoon, I first of all want to thank the commissioners for your long days. I know they don’t always get easy. I appreciate it as a citizen that you take the responsibility. I am here today because approximately a year ago, the Utah Alzheimer’s organization approached the Grand Center staff. One of their board members came in and asked if they could come in and present if there was any need in our community for Alzheimer’s awareness and education. You already set it up so that they would come in on the coffee and tea and present for an hour. A young woman named Raven Albertson came in and there were 20 people in the room. Instead of starting her presentation, she began by going around the room and asking each individual person why they were there. Of the 20 people in the room, 18 of them had a family member or dear friend with the signs of Alzheimer’s dementia. Raven has come back several times and she’s coming tomorrow for the third time. I thought this was a great chance and opportunity to get this before the public as well as the commission to let you know. I’ll leave this flyer if anybody wants to take a picture of it or whatever. Tomorrow from 1 to 3 p.m. it’s Alzheimer’s Association Empowered Caregiver, August 20th, 1 to 3 p.m. Communicating Effectively and it will be at the Grand Center. Just an FYI, there are two social workers, Terry Galen and Gail Jenkins Patterson who have started a support group twice a month on the second and fourth Friday of the month from 4 to 5 p.m. where the caregivers who do a fabulous job and just put a little plug in. I’m hoping that we as a community can come together and find a way to get an assisted living facility in our community. We don’t want to see our loved ones have to leave to go and be cared for and we have to travel three and four hours to visit them. So thank you very much for your time and attention and let’s hope that we all keep us safe and as thoughtful and as considerate of one another as we can. Thank you. Thank you Charlotte. We have anybody else? Yes, please. So just recently, yeah up until just recently, we had to introduce yourself. I’m sorry for those off lines. Yes, 100 percent. My name is Scott Sully. I’m a citizen here at Grand County and I just wanted to get clarification on the what was previously item 15. It was stated that on the the CUP that you were that you were moving it until September 2nd but that we could comment at this meeting and have our comments be noted on the record. Is that still a possibility? That’s the CUP for item number five. At 1540 Spanish Valley Drive. You’re welcome to speak on any subject that shouldn’t be heard. Well, I wasn’t going to be in town for the next meeting and I just wanted to as a resident of that neighborhood just kind of voice my opposition to bringing in basically what I feel is like industrial commercial activity into a residential neighborhood. I’ve been there for 10 years, a little longer and I do remember when they were there working as a commercial business and I found it odd and then I had basically found out that in fact it was operating illegally and I just wanted to merely just voice my opposition and that’s about it. Thank you, sir.
Yes, please.
All right. My name is Shirley French and I’m here about the zoning change or CPU to the Randy Martin’s metal shop and I would like to voice my opposition to this. Probably a lot of you remember from meetings going back over the last three years. I’m adamantly opposed to this. It’s a large lot residential neighborhood. I’ve lived there for 13 years now and again this type of large metal fabrication shop does not fit in our neighborhood and I’m just dreadfully afraid that we will have all the same issues that we have had over the last two and a half, three years. I’m not going to be available next week either. I can’t believe that. I wanted to state that right off hand and will we be able to make comments online for the next meeting? Yes. Okay, but in the meantime put me down as adamantly against allowing that. Thank you. So noted. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, ma’am.
Since I’m here, my name is Samantha Derbyshire. Voluntary shuttle’s owner and vice chair of Grand County Trail Mix and I wanted to speak on the Trail Ambassador Program. My business generates 99.9% of our revenue directly from trails and it is very important to protect and take care of our trails and that is what the Trail Ambassador Program does. They have over 35,000 interactions with people providing info and education to trail users. In doing so, they direct folks to trails suited to their abilities. They make sure they are properly prepared, have plenty of water and snacks and they educate them on trail etiquette among other things. All of this among other things preserves the integrity of our trails, reduces the need for search and rescue and so much more. As I’ve said before, our product is the vast landscape and recreational activities that the landscape attracts and we do need to take care of it. I think that the Trail Ambassador Program has been a success. It’s one of the worst. There was an entire class provided at the Utah Trails Conference this year on how to create a Trail Ambassador Program in your town. It’s trailblazing and we should take pride in that. Thank you. Thank you. Next, yes sir.
Bob O’Brien, Castle Valley speaking as a private citizen. I’m currently serving on the Grand County Planning Commission. I have done so for about 10 years and I’m going to address the issue of Kristen Hofhein and a bit about the Planning Commission. Hofhein has done an outstanding job as an Acting Planning and Zoning Administrator and she’s done so with very limited staffing. I’m going to just give one example of the Planning Commission and what we’re working on currently under the guidance of Hofhein. The Planning Department was asked by the County Commission to consider a new zone, multi-family 45, multi-family residential 45 zone. That means 45 housing units per acre. This is 27 housing units more per acre than any of the county’s current highest density. That’s kind of commercial highway commercial which is 18 per acre. This is a major change that could be beneficial in the right area but there’s questions to be considered. Is this the right density for multi-family or should it be multi-family residential 30? That be more appropriate. We’re given current developments our new general plan at the county’s future land use plan should such a development be allowed. What should the standards be for the zone in terms of heights, setbacks, the roads given the traffic impacts of such a development or fire department access? Many other design and location features need to be considered. Once planning and mapping are completed should we have a workshop for the public to comment and make suggestions on a new zone? In considering this zone change at our last meeting, Kristen presented a draft outline encouraged this sort of discussion and added crucially professionally to the discussion. Part of the work of a planning commission is to ensure that development aligns with community vision and goals while assessing public safety, environmental concerns and the overall quality for residents. Holfein encourages, facilitates and helps lead this work. I urge you to have her remain as the planning and zoning administrator. It is crucial. It’s a crucial role. Thank you. Thank you. Yes.
Hi, I’m Mary O’Brien, Grant County resident and I emailed you all four questions and I just checked and still haven’t received an answer from any of you. It has to do with what was agenda item 12 and the four questions and I still am going to try to pursue answers. One, what elements of Christine Holfein’s work have prompted agenda item number 12 to replace her as interim planning and zoning administrator while a search for a permanent administrator is already underway? Two, were these work elements of job activities discussed with Chrissy at the behest of or with the knowledge of anyone on the Grand County Commission prior to consideration of replacement of her? Third, was the agenda item the first time that Christine learned that someone or the Grand County Commission was considering replacing her? And four, had a discussion regarding replacement of Chrissy Ben-Hill among the county commissioners prior to placing consideration of her replacement on the agenda? So I really will appreciate getting answers to those. I’m trying to understand how these agenda items end up on the agenda with zero information and major consequences. Thank you. Thank you.
Next.
Hi, my name is Ashley Norman, granddaughter of Jim and Nola Walker. I am dealing or I’m here to request an amendment to the city’s noise ordinance to allow for protective barking by dogs in response to trespassing animals or people. We are dealing with a severe raccoon infestation in our area despite humane attempts to resolve it trapping deterrent mechanisms. The problem has still persisted largely because the neighboring resident is feeding them which supports a growing colony. These raccoons have caused over three thousand dollars in property damage and over a thousand dollars in vet bills for animals. Additionally, we live to a property that is largely blanket and they are dealing with a lot of trespassing and we’ve had items stolen from our shed. Since we brought in a livestock a livestock guardian breed dog with protective instincts we’ve had zero incidents. Unfortunately another neighbor has now filed complaints about the dog barking which has tied directly to protecting our home and pets. In an attempt to avoid a fine we’ve kept our dogs inside at night. This arrangement has been for about five months now and since then the raccoons have ruined our vegetable garden, broken a dryer vent and attacked my cat ray on it on the porch. I’m requesting a reasonable exception to the noise pollution code for dog sparking in defense of property and safety consistent with our rights under Utah code 776-406 and such ordinances have already been implemented in other Utah counties. For example, Sevier County ordinance 2002-11-1 excessive noise 90.006. Thank you for considering this amendment and allowing for us to talk. Yes and Gerald quick are you in the city or the county? You’re in the county. Would you mind going around when you get a chance and leaving your contact information with the Dana administrator the next door down. Thank you. All right thank you. Next.
Anybody online of course? No. All right it looks like no takers. All right we will move on. Looks like we are ready for our presentations. We have one from the Moab area community land trust if you want to come forward.
We don’t have any raccoons here. If any chairs are needed just grab another chair. I completely agree with the raccoon problem but I’m sitting here.
Good afternoon. I’m Sherry Griffith chair of the Moab area land trust. I’m Shaylee Ray. I’m a board member of the Moab community community land trust and I am Kailyn Myers executive director of the community land trust. So we’re just here to update you because we work closely with the county and the city to guarding our housing issues and they are certainly on the forefront and recently there was a task force open house that discussed a lot of different issues and concerns and we also realized that because what we do is so diverse and so unusual. Can you let me share screen or you have a presentation. Thank you again.
So it’s so diverse of what we’ve been doing that we wanted to update everybody and the new people I think who started this last year didn’t have the luxury of having some of that education. So yeah it should be great for you. Thank you Kailyn. Give you an update so when you are asked questions mostly by citizens and outside people that you have the answers of what we’ve been doing. We the land trust started in 2012. It got funding and support in 2018 by an individual who donated the land 42 acres and we had a new market tax credit loan for us to build the infrastructure. So it was all within we had no outside tax dollars. It’s all loan and we created a non-profit corporation and the first couple years was run specifically by volunteers of that non-profit. There’s absolutely no outside people hired or or money spent on that. Over time of course as we grew we needed to do more. But if you could show us the site plan.
So everybody is probably ready at some point. This is a review. There’s the orientation. Here’s Spanish Valley Drive. Here’s what we call Bonnie’s Way and goes out to the highway. Does that kind of give everybody. Bonnie’s Way is where Synergy is on. Okay so we’ll get close to it. And the development is one of the large largest in the state by the way. And it is one of the largest in the nation. And we were very excited to have lots of help in putting it together. But as you’ll see the cool thing is that we have single family homes in ownership. We have twin homes in ownership. Those brown buildings are our apartments that are rentals. And we have one, two, three, even some four bedroom rentals in the form of town actually townhomes. There’s kind of the rust colored and go along Spanish Valley Drive are townhomes. The little yellow ones at the bottom are individual houses for rentals. So about half of the program or the project is rentals and half is ownership. And we did that just to try and have something for everyone. Because we have everything from people that are paraprofessionals to people that have families that struggle. And the goal is to have some of the homes. Our median income ranges from 70 percent to 120 percent in there so that we have some variety. We currently, I think pretty impressively, have almost a hundred homes already built in five years that are already in there. And when I say we built, we use developers. We put the land under. We support the developers. We support the build out. We came up with the dream, the plan. And so we have okay 96 occupied homes. We have 85 going in form of we have apartments, twin homes, townhomes. And in the end we’ll have another 119 when the project is completely built out. So we’ll have over 300 housing units for people which, I don’t know, 600, 700 people. And the way that it’s set up is that they get a hundred year lease. So that’s why it’s a land trust because we put the land under them. For the donation and from our new market tax credit money we’re paying back. But we hold the land trust. And the reason we do that, it’s a hundred year with a hundred year renewal. The reason we do that is because then we can de-restrict. And that’s how we keep it affordable in this town. So we restrict it by you have to work here or you have to work here five out of ten years and retire here. You have to make a certain amount of income. And when you go to sell it you can’t just flip it to Aspen. You have to keep it within the workforce. You have to keep it within this price range so that it can become permanently attainable to the next person down the road. And that’s the piece that Grand County was really missing for a long time. USDA, self-build, you could build it and then you could flip it to anybody. And so what nothing was staying in the attainable housing industry, you know. And we were losing all of the, all of the, what we thought we were gaining we were just losing again. And to be honest this is not just a Grand County issue, right. We understand that this is a country-based issue. And so that is one thing that we’ve come to the table. I have been on a lot of boards to help talk about grants. And I just, I really want to tell you guys that for me I really thought it was only about a Royal Crossing. I know we’ve had a lot of conversation individually about that this was a Royal Crossing. That’s what I thought was under the assumption of that. When I came to the table and started talking to the board and what their dream is and what they have accomplished so far, it became a big reality to me that this is how my kids will get to live here. This is how they’ll get to afford living here. Because it is a joke. I’ve watched so many friends with older teenagers in high school they’re going, I mean I guess I can live in this rundown trailer with six people. How do we keep this permanently attainable for the next generation? For our children, for our workforce. Which is what made me join the board. Watching what we’ve accomplished and proving it. Caitlin has been invited to go to Washington and teach people how to do this. We have surrounding counties, people in the state. They want to know what we’ve accomplished because we’ve proven it can be done. Well what’s great about, so here’s what’s great about it, is it’s collaborative. It’s taken the county, taken the cities, our individuals, everybody here, the board, the individual people who that have come in and supported us. It’s a vision that people can see as being attainable and permanent. Where we’re at now is we’ve proven that we can do rental apartments and townhomes and individual self-filled. We’ve done a little bit of all of it so that we’re pretty much set in our plan with what we’re doing. That we are ready to take on what’s next. What do we need to do next? And how can we help take all this knowledge we’ve garnered and apply it to the next project? So what we are hoping is that you can come back to us and say here’s some of the things we need to look at. Here’s some directions we need to go so that we can take this expertise and multiply it to the rest of the county. And honestly we want Grand County to be the example for the rest of the country of how to do it. And now like you guys have supported us and we’ve appreciated that support. We definitely wanted to show our gratitude and that we’re so grateful for the support that we’ve gotten from the county and from the state and also the federal government. But we know how much we can do and what we can create for the future of our county, for the future of our community and citizens. And we want the way to be. Do it like Grand County.
So partnerships with you guys of figuring out you know liaisons on our board and what’s next, what’s needed. We know there’s a lot of apartments going up so it’s not the next step for a single family where our focus needs to be. So having a partnership with you guys helps us understand the need so we can go after it. We just want to say thank you so much. We also are very available. We have a really great board and always willing to meet and answer questions. We’re developing a good partnership with Desert Rivers and working on on different funding partnerships with that. We want to talk about this because we can’t do it alone.
And speaking of that we have five board members here. We do. So and these are these are all volunteer positions. And we really appreciate everything. But we meet monthly and spend a whole lot of time at it. We’re pretty dedicated to making sure that citizens have housing right here in Moab. That’s our goal. Any questions? You guys have made a big difference. It’s yeah Mary’s a parent. Thank you for all the hard work and I think it’s exemplary project that has been. It’s been a cool thing. Mary you had a question? I just have a comment. I really want to point out Audrey and Sherry. They have been here from the beginning. They made it through some really scary and rough times where we didn’t know and unsure if this was going to come to fruition. They stuck with it. We stuck with it. I will. I am proud to say it was the county that made it allowed the final jump. The final leap that created this. And I’m proud as a commissioner and proud as a county that we were such an intractable part of it. But I especially want to acknowledge you the two ladies who had the dream. Stuck with it and kept it going. And let’s step forward and help through so many ways. Thank you. I drive by it every day on my way home and it’s just it’s like just heartwarming when I see yards blossoming and kids riding their bikes and it’s a community and it’s just awesome. I can’t tell you enough of how proud I am of your work. So thank you. And it didn’t take a lot of money out of people’s pockets. We made it pretty self-sustainable and affordable. And I think that’s something that is I think impressive for this project to lose it. Grand County didn’t have to open their pocketbook. We had to do it then. That’s not always true in other tourist towns. And I do want to thank Chris Baird. I remember Chris saying we should pump some money into it. So I do want to thank him for having that thought. He funded the second director position for the first year and then we’ll take it over from there. And you know we have over a $50 million project out there right now and it’s all done. It’ll be $150 million by the time it’s finished. It’s said done and done pretty much. It’s ROI probably 85%. And it took everybody jumping in there and contributing and supporting. So I appreciate that. So we want to know what’s next for you guys.
This goes to our city counterparts too. But I know the county is looking to partner and to help you guys find that next project. I hope the totality of the city is also not to lean on my counterparts down there. But if the city and county are behind you we should 100% partner with you guys and get more houses on ground. We’re building quite a few shelves out there for some of your shelves. It’s always nice to stop by your ex-wife’s house. Thank you. Thank you. Speaking totally as an Apple, not going to touch the city but we are also as an organization going to be talking to the city about this.
Working on a lot of partnerships as we know it’s so important.
I want to thank all of you ladies for coming in and the board. So good about supporting you and being here for sure. I was at the task force we had the other night and I know there’s ongoing conversations I was part of about finding the next piece of property. So I look forward to it. There’s a lot going around. I need to just keep moving it forward. Yeah and decide what is it that we need. Right. Right. Do we need the 80 to 120 percent AMI? Do we need rentals? Do we need homes? Do we need family homes or individual apartments? So I think that’s our we need it all. The reality is it’s like what chunks of land can we do it? And we carefully compartmentalize each of these projects so that we can take it and apply it to the next project because there’s such a variety and diversity in what we’ve done. And we have enough knowledge there’s no reason to reinvent the wheel. Let’s just take it to the next thing. And we’ve done enough now that we feel like it’s such a big project we didn’t feel like we could take on anything else until we made sure this was super successful. But over the point now we can start planning for that next one. And we would love a county liaison on our board if anyone is so willing because it would help keep the communications lines of communication open. It’d be awesome. Very good. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.
We’ll move into our update from the IT department.
Hello everybody. I’m Matt Sanaceros if you don’t know. I’m the IT director here at the county.
The microphone there. There’s microphones there. We all have microphones. We’re going to sit. I might stand up. I don’t know. Biggest improvement since I’ve been on the commission. Yes.
It’s always good to be heard. Absolutely.
I didn’t prepare like a long exasperated speech. Those of you that have been on this commission for a little while you’ve heard me come up in front of you and talk to you a couple of different times. Year over year I try to give you a good overview of what my department does. It’s a lot of text. I did that this year as well but then I massaged it with time. Because it’s my disclaimer. So the piece that you have in yours is a summary of my overall 1500 word report. But I’m not going to exasperate your word. I don’t really get into presentations very much because you don’t want to see a bunch of pictures of computers and wires and antennas and all sorts of help desk tickets or pieces. But I’m always happy to come back and give you any kind of input that you’re interested in as far as any kind of numbers if you’re interested on spam filters or cyber attacks or any of this kind of stuff. These are not topics that I’m going to discuss at a meeting. But we’re in a good state as far as security and those items are concerned. But you know it’s just an open door. Always happy to answer anybody’s concerns or questions. To that end I’m just going to kind of run through my refined overview of the thing. If you didn’t know I’m an IT director again. Within my department I believe in mission statements and goals. It’s something I think that is critical to review every year. The mission statement I came up with really hasn’t changed a whole lot and this is my 16th year here. I’ve been here for a while. But it’s to provide reliable robust and integrated technology to improve the county’s ability to serve its residents. My overall goal with that is to deliver solutions that improve efficiency, accessibility, and security of communications and data. A couple of sentences that really goes down into all 1,500 to all the various categories that I’m going to touch here.
Within my scope as a director I have several different staff members at this point and I thank you very much for approving those positions. As we go along technology is an integral part with everything that we do, everything we do on a daily. But one of the people I do have is our GIS specialist. He’s proven to be on many, many different times a critical part of being able to get you data, analytic data, you know, assemblage of maps. He’s been a huge help within the boarder’s office and getting drawings and everything turned over in a timely manner to make sure everything’s accurate so we’re able to provide a better product quicker. It’s more accurate to show more information out to the public as needed. Just a big shout out to him. He is named to be a co-chair on the innovation committee for UGIC and UGIC is the Utah Geographic Information Council. It’s a bunch of IT people but they’re all GIS mapping related. It’s a good group of people to be in. Him being in the innovation group actually speaks pretty loudly for what he’s been able to just pick with. Everything that comes out of that position feedback to the state. So we’re the collector or the aggregator. So anytime that you see, you pull up your phone when you reference a map and any kind of give away address or any of those type of things, just know that those pieces are being initiated and cross-checked and otherwise before they’re put up to the services that you enjoy. So all that definitely starts here with the local tech. Just a big shout out to James. Appreciate him. But by and large, the responsibilities of the IT is that I’m not your administrator by any stretch of the imagination on anybody’s database. It’s not because we don’t know how to administer databases but I don’t run your department either. So each office department otherwise that has a database, they have a master supervisor that’s responsible for all administration pieces. Everything else that makes that system work, all the wires and all that other stuff, that’s where IT comes in. So all the procurement that goes along with it, installation, maintenance, security, as well as planning and whatnot that goes over all the computers, endpoints, devices, you know, the different platforms and whatnot that we utilize on a daily here. Also, I’m deeply involved with the Sheriff’s Office on a daily, a public safety answering point that we have here. We’ve been able to migrate to a lot of different things with the state. I’d be happy to discuss any one of these particular items. It’s at a really cool point now where it’s a statewide system and it’s included with online as well as radio. It’s really improved communication coverage, back-end but there are some gaps.
The websites, email, conferencing system, software, cyber security, privacy is another big one that I got handed this year. That’s going to be great and just overall, you know, disaster recovery, data analytics, try to see it with a smiling face and everything’s going to be good. Just a couple highlights. We did hire a sysadmin. We all approved that position last year. Thank you very much. Having that position, we’re able to fill that, that really allows for a much faster response time. It frees me up to be able to actually focus on some more of these overarching pieces and make sure that all of the, all the pebbles are tended to. We’ve upgraded several of our core services, servers rather, a bunch of the networking hardware, still a bunch of things that will still need to be upgraded. There’s only 25 workstations replaced this year. I say only because we’ve been, and this is a reflection from all standby departments, everybody’s really been trying to contract a little bit more, trying to get some more life out of their endpoint computers and whatnot too. So, this number is a little bit lower than what I typically see. On the daily, we run right around 200 workstations. So, every year, I typically expect about 35, 40 of those to be replaced. I have a rotation schedule that goes through at endpoints and all those things too. But just want to note that out that people are being very budget conscious.
Jay has to talk a little bit about before, and Jane, what he’s doing.
The completion that was, that happened this year is that we were able to get the LiDAR mapping for the Moa Valley done. We don’t know what LiDAR is. It’s Light Imaging Detection and Ranging. IT deals with lots of acronyms. It’s ridiculous. I can remember some of these some days. But if you’re familiar at all a little bit with this process, I hope, why we did all of this. But it’s really cool to be able to have it pre-flood and post-flood because we have data from 2015-2019. Right now, we’re working with Nesultan to aggregate data from not only that LiDAR information, but a bunch of different advanced modeling techniques to potentially put out a bit of an advanced warning system. And it’s pretty tricky. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this. Kate Finley, our emergency manager, is definitely involved in it. This is something that was set up through CORA and otherwise. But it’s really, really cool how that’s being carried out. We’re one of the kind of a beta tester, if you want to call it that. The state’s involved with this effort as well. It’s kind of a national type of thing that they’re looking at. How can we make this better?
I still am on the cybersecurity commission for the state of Utah. I’m the UAC appointed member of that commission. That’s a governor’s commission. Initially, we were created through legislation to be able to deal with a handful of different federal monies and whatnot. It’s, I’m not going to say morphed, but it’s grown in responsibilities and scope. I, as being the little guy in the room, I really try to advocate for smaller entities, smaller agencies. This legislation comes out that dictates that all government agencies within Utah have to abide by various levels of privacy and security. And a lot of these agencies just don’t have any kind of technical breadth to be able to deal with it. So, I’m continuing to keep doing that. Throughout my time there, the Utah Cyber Center has been created. There’s a lot of great tools that are being offered to, again, the little guys and the big ones as well. I mean, all in this together. One of the things we say with cybersecurity is cybersecurity is better when we play as a team. As long as we all play together, we all talk and we’ll fight the same guy. But if we’re not talking, I can be getting attacked here, but my neighbor doesn’t even help. So, we all try to be as best we can.
Like I said, I can go on on any one of these particular points here. I’m not going to bore you with a whole bunch of terms on them, but I do have some other projects about just expanding network, finalizing, expanding more of these core servers, really drilling down into access management, privacy programming. We’ll talk about that a little bit. We’ll see you back up here very soon with the privacy policy revolution or however that’s going to work. We’re going to make this all official. Upgrading phones, data circuits, AI usage and its policy. That’s going to be a big focus on the upcoming over the year. And within those two pieces, within the privacy programming, AI, one of the pieces I’m looking at very particularly is our third-party tech stack. I call it a tech stack. But once upon a time, kind of pre-COVID, right? I was able to know exactly where all my computers are, my servers, they’re all here. Everything’s kind of proliferated. I don’t know necessarily where anybody’s working. That’s great sometimes. But within that, we’ve also kind of, I’m not going to say shot ourselves in the foot, but we’ve committed ourselves as a county to purchasing a number of different third-party services that do different pieces. I’m not going to get into specifics on a lot of these. But as I’m finding these, I have concerns, one from the privacy standpoint of the data records, all of those fun things can go into it. Part of being the administrative officer for data privacy is that I have to create a whole schedule that goes over all these record series, so for collecting data in any kind of way that has, whether it has personal information or not, I need to make sure that data classification is handled. Part of as I go through that, I know I’m going to find multiple different platforms that we have that are being either underutilized, not utilized, and they cost us a pretty penny. A lot of these cases are out-of-cloud services, SaaS solutions, things that are easy to be able to buy. It gives a great salesman easy sale, pretty good when you have something to come back on. These are some of the folks that I’m going to be really looking at next year, so next report. I can also guarantee I’m going to come in and say, there’s a number of things here. If you guys really want to start talking about money and cutting without getting down to the nitty-gritty of operations, there’s a number of third-party services and things that we’re paying for right now that might be used, and they’re coming up for renewal very quickly. There’s one right now that is in for different pieces. It’s $25,000. I’m looking for renewal here in a month.
There’s so many of these different types of peripheral services that are costing the county money. I want to make sure that we’re getting a holistic view of money.
I’ll stop jabbering on the last piece that I will ask of. It’s, again, in conjunction with the Utah Cyber Center. With the Utah Cyber Center and, again, with my advocacy for smaller agencies and otherwise, so much better as a team, there is a letter in your consent agenda. The letter is pretty self-explanatory. It’s part of a bit of a grassroots effort from other IT directors and whatnot across the state. It’s being led by a fellow named Josh Provo. All it is is looking for your support in sending this letter that they’ve drafted back to the Cyber Center and to the Cybersecurity Commission and state legislature, governor, any other kind of somebody that we can use to benefit or to be able to get funding for this. That’s what that letter really is about. It doesn’t cost the county anything. It’s just seeking continual funding for the Utah Cyber Center and talking about all the good things that it needs to do. I’d ask that you consider that as you go through. If you don’t, I can understand that too. I’ll be going to you next week or the week after.
I really would love some questions, so I’ll send myself off.
I’d love to see a list of those third-party services that, even in your opinion, if they’re low usage and cost, if you have them, even on that, they’re coming up on these dates, that is important information. We’re entering budget season, you know, but that would be fine. I totally anticipate having that. I don’t have a list ready for you. I have a number of things I can give you right now that we won’t buy into that, but that’s certainly one of my goals is to have that for a budget plan right this year. Thank you. And I think that would go to admin, and he could maybe reach out to make sure that no one else intends to use any of those programs, you know. Oh, absolutely. And as I go through this again, I mean, there’s a lot of – it’s not just me saying, like, oh, hey, that’s – it’s really, like, does the software actually do what we want it to do? Is it being used? I’m not saying it’s bad software, you know, but if we’re not using it and we’re not doing it, like, why pay for it for a year? You know what I mean? Let’s catch up and maybe we can come back into it another year. But in all of these contracts, too, you know, part of it is – once we get into it, right, every year we need to review what those price models are and make sure that we’re using effective contracts and everything else, too. And Google’s a perfect example. I pay for Google Workspace every year. It’s a third-party. It’s a SaaS solution. But every year I only do it on one of your agreements, and I make sure that I’m leveraging back and forth between state agreements to make sure that my vendor is still qualified, that they’re all RAP certified, too, so I’m dealing with security situations and whatnot. But it’s just kind of one example of lots of different ones that are being controlled kind of by the legal department, so to speak, if that makes sense. Yes. So, does that answer your question? Yeah. Sure. Continued voice from UAC has been cybersecurity for several years now.
A to F, what’s our grade in Grand County? A to F? A to F. Are we passing? A to F, I’m sorry…?
A to F, you know, when you start looking at modeling for cybersecurity, nobody’s ever going to be an A. Most people are not going to be an F, even if they’re completely informal and it’s just one person. Where I would put us is probably somewhere in a C, which is a good place for me because it means that I’m not so bleeding-edge that I’m forgetting what I’m leaving behind, and it’s progressive enough that I know kind of where a lot of the gaps are. Okay.
I had a couple of questions. The cyber center letter kind of describes, is there a certain size of community that we’d be working with or would that be all? So, does it basically invite the larger communities in as well as the smaller communities and then shares the cost? Yes. Yes, the cost would be essentially funded through the state government office, like through government operations. So, it’s actually like a legislative funded model through the appropriation funding that way. So, it’s a way basically for a smaller community to have the same services that a larger community would have as well? Yes. And in the short answer, but it even just gives them the ability to really access the resources in which place to do it. And you’re absolutely right. It’s every way that legislation has been written. And that’s part of what I keep coming to them is that they’ve come at it and said, it’s every governmental entity. And this last year with legislative session, they went through really hard and they did a good job of trying to define a lot of things because it used to be any political subdivision state and now it’s any governmental entity. Any political subdivision state still means all of our special service districts, everybody else too. Any governmental entity also starts including water boards and all sorts of things. It’s something like 2,700 entities just in the state of Utah. When they first started this whole thing with the cyber commission, otherwise we started doing it, trying to collect some of these land and food, so to speak. I mean, they looked at it initially as being just counties and cities. It’s like 383. And I speak up, it’s like, well, what about all my special service districts that I have just in Grand County? They don’t count. That makes like 1,280 or something like that. Then you start looking at what is a governmental entity and why is it that we have small guys down here that have no connection. So past definitions, what are some of the concerns of that working group for this interim legislation right now? What are some of the concerns of the working group? For what’s going to be coming up in the next legislation? The working group for this, for the one that you’re signing, as far as just garnering support, particularly for the Utah Cyber Center, is by and large what we’re looking at is providing resources and a centralized reporting facility that’s unique to Utah. And part of this, and I’ll address this in trying to get these off, but with all of those things that’s happened with Trump, there’s been a number of different federal cuts, as you know, across the board. One of the ones that they’ve identified and it’s all part of what’s called ISACs, which ISACs are the Steering Analysis Center. And we rely on the MS-ISACs pretty heavily here because they do a lot of different cool services, especially back. It used to not be a thing because it was venture-funded. Now they’re pushing models that might be great, which is kind of defeating the purpose. On a national level, in Utah, what our response to that is we look at it and say, well, the MS-ISAC, that’s great. We can appreciate why it’s there, but we can also have this model to where we can take care of ourselves to a point. And so when we say the model and what we’re focusing on, it’s exasperated. It’s not just networking to make sure we’re applying the same thing. It’s also looking for funding to make sure that we have resources, things like endpoint detection and response, having qualified email services for small users. We’re going to have to get a NASA Dolly to be able to get a Google Workspace license that state’s providing at cost from them, security training, replacing end-of-life equipment. But these are some of the top ones. But in the cybersecurity world, we look at and say, those are kind of low-hanging fruit. I can take care of all that really quickly, just now let’s actually start focusing on frameworks. And that’s where the cool part for the cyber center comes in is that, yeah, we can take care of some of the low-hanging fruit, but it’s a whole lot better when we can envision the whole tree or the BDI, right? Make sure that we can share some response plans that we can work together collectively.
Does that answer your question? It does. Abstract. Yeah, I just wanted to kind of get a better general overview of it.
All right. Thank you, Matt.
Thanks for sending out those spoof emails every once in a while. Absolutely. Thanks for clicking on them, guys.
I know that that was spoofed, but all right, we will. Do we have Izzy outside waiting? There she is. Thank you, Izzy. Come on in. And we’d love to hear from you. So, I have a PowerPoint presentation, but no laptop. It no longer turns on.
What is it in the?
I did bring some goods this time. So, did you bring the sparkly sticker?
I’m so excited.
Thank you. Yeah, very exciting.
Anything to cross out of this. Definitely.
File plan.
This is going to be the fastest way. She was giving you the left, right? She’s bringing me in. So, it’s important.
I’m not going to go full screen, but.
Dang, we might not get the. Okay, why don’t I can hang on.
I can’t.
That’s as full screen as it’s going to go. All right. Cool. Well, my name is Izzy. I am the department director slash supervisor. And this is my annual report.
Perfect. So, the overview for my part will be background. I’m not sweets. Once you go in department structure, annual department cycle funding for my department. Our new facet of our department, which is the community. Well, our defense grant. I think that we battled through that for positions. I’ll talk about our partnerships, education and outreach. Our challenges and accomplishments.
So, I usually give a really long overview of what it is. But this time I shortened it down to 1 slide. And essentially, we are very subjective. It’s can just be native, non-native invasive. That’s just everything they don’t want. I mean, the noxious weed is a legally recognized invasive non-native plant. That’s listed on the state list. But each state has its own list. And so, in the other, the smaller boxes, I’ve listed some of the noxious weeds. You’re in county. Not all of the state listed weeds are found here. These are priorities.
Okay. So, our department structure. We have a supervisor, which is me. And I’m funded by the general fund. And we have a lead technician slash the crew lead. Who is also funded by the general fund. The crew lead is approved.
Right now, about 4 people. 2 of them being full-time weed technicians. And 2 of them seasonal. And all 4 of the technicians are grant funded.
The full-time invasive plant technicians are mostly grant funded. I believe that their benefits through being a full-time employee are generally funded.
Okay. And on the other side, we have the fuels reduction coordinator. Which is a new position that we created this year. Through the community wildfire defense grant. That I will be talking about later. And that is fully grant funded up until 2025. The fuels technicians, there will be about 4 of them under the fuels reduction coordinator. That is a position that I will request for next year. Starting next year. And those will also be fully grant funded up until 2025. And our projects. Completely vary by time of year and weather. Of course, our projects are outside in the elements. So, this is kind of a brief overview of how each year looks for us.
I’ll just kind of give a brief overview. We won’t read it. But in the winter, we do a lot of work on private property. By digging with hand tools. It’s pretty intensive.
In the spring, we do a lot of herbicide treatments. All over the county. Mostly on public lands. The summer, we do a lot of goat heads. Which is what we’re doing right now. And also, summer or July is the end of our fiscal year. With the project partners that we work with. So, a lot of our grants and contracts end at the end of July. And start over fiscal year in August. And then, in autumn, we do a lot of winterization. So, we get ready for the winter. We do a lot of private property treatments. I’m going to do late season treatments.
And if anyone has questions, feel free to ask.
Here’s an overview of our funding. So, we do have funding through general funds. But through county funded. And it’s on a calendar year basis. The rest of our funding is on the state fiscal year. Which is, again, July through, yeah. August through July. And some of our funding. Or actually, it’s the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food. And that’s an annual grant that I apply for. We have a five-year agreement with the Bureau of Land Management. To work on BLM lands. We have an annual agreement with Department of Natural Resources. Forestry Department of State Lands. And that’s a lot of river work. That’s actually on the consent agenda, I believe. It’s that agreement. We also partner with a lot of grant applications. On the Watershed Restoration Initiative platform. Which is a Utah grant platform focused on watersheds. And I don’t personally apply for them. But we are contracted through, usually, two or three per year.
And then, again, the Community Wildfire Defense Grant. Is one that I won’t speak on a little bit more. But that is a five-year agreement. Renewal annually. But for five years up until 2029. And that is administered by Precure Restoration. And then, our least common funding is through private property treatments. That aren’t grant funded. We do spray on private property. It’s not often. But it’s a Community Wildfire Defense Grant. We are a participating agency in CWDG. It was applied for by Renfrew Restoration. I believe in 2023. Okay. To me, it works for Renfrew Restoration. We were allocated $375,000 over the next five years. And that comes out to be about $75,000 per year. For personnel, equipment. Such as chainsaws, brush cutters, hand tools, herbicide equipment. And also, truck leads. Again, we hired our fuels reduction coordinator in spring of 2025. So, it’s a pretty new position. And, again, I will be requesting fuels reduction technicians this year. To start in 2026. And this program, this facet of our department is brand new. And the focus is on how invasive plants specifically change fire patterns. Wildfire and urban fire. So, it’s a brand new facet. And we are creating it as we go. But the goal is to create a robust resource for fire prevention. And response with lead work. Does that make sense? Yeah. All right. Moving on. And then this is another facet of the greater grant. Which is the fire break campaign. This is from the Instagram. The fire break Moab Instagram. Which I recommend everyone check out. Basically, this is, again, trying to become a resource for fire resilience. Within the Mill and Pat Creek Corridor specifically. So, break stands for build resilience. Rent a property. Engage community. Act together. And know how.
There’s a lot of different partners involved. Rental restoration is the main partner in all of this. We also work with Moab Valley Fire Department. The DNR, Forestry Fire and State Lands. And the city of Little Rock. Other departments within Grant County. Such as Roseville.
And this is very sad. This was an awesome before and after picture. Where it faded out. But unfortunately, my laptop no longer turns on again. What did you say? Oh, sorry. This is a really cool before and after. Where the first picture kind of fades out. And then you can see the really awesome work that the Utah Conservation Corps did. With RIM-to-RIM restoration and our crew.
But it won’t work. And my laptop doesn’t turn on. That was the last thing. I can speak to the work you guys did. There’s a lot. Thank you. Yeah, I’m happy to share all those photos with you. They were taken by Sophia Fisher with RIM-to-RIM. And they’re fantastic.
A little bit about our partnerships. Education and outreach. We have many partnerships throughout the state. And including Colorado State as well. We are part of the Utah Weed Supervisors Association. Southeastern Utah Riparian Partnership. The Middle Colorado River Waterfed Cooperative Weed Management Area. Which is a huge mouthful. MCRWCWA. And that is a partnership that crosses several counties. And also state lines. Many agencies. Education and outreach. We have put in a lot of effort for creating informational flyers. You may have received these in the mail. You’ll find a lot of this. As well as RIM-to-RIM restoration. And a couple others. These go to the mail. They’ll help you gather some knowledge about weeds. And if anyone has any questions. Of course you can reach us at our office.
And then we participate in a lot of online events. This is a picture from the spring spruce up. Where we weeded a lot. And we need to go back there. Yeah. It’s a forest. So this is an awesome annual volunteer event. And we’re very happy to participate in it every year. We are also hosting goat head and tumbleweed removal events. At popular trailheads around this time of year. Like updates on that. Posted on our Instagram. Which is right now. Grand County Weeds Department. No. Grand County Weeds Dept.
So some challenges that we face. We work with a lot of different specialized tools. On the left hand. We have a spray trap. And the blue is herbicide. And blue dye.
Pressurized equipment. That can make people wrong pretty quickly. And we do our best to maintain them. But they are old. And they need a lot of work. In the middle we have a saw. We’re always related to saw issues. All the work we do with chainsaws. On the right we have a tool that we were just too strong for. We’re dusting it too hard.
Again these are more maintenance issues that we face. Equipment maintenance is a huge chunk of our budget. And we try and cover that cost when we can. With grants and agreements. But a lot of it falls outside of what’s allowed.
So this is an essential part of our budget. We are constantly fixing things. Accomplishments. That is the crew at the top. Standing in front of the massive weed pile. That we accumulated throughout the winter. All of that used to be on private property. It’s a lot bigger than it is in the picture. But that is Jose at Old Spanish Trail Arena. And each year we burn it. And it’s awesome. And thank you to Angie for letting us dump our weeds there. And then the truck. I just had to throw out a little rest in peace to our expediter. I mean expedition. That’s what we called it. The expediter. It finally died this year. And we miss it terribly.
So here’s just some numbers. I can read them out loud if you’d like. Or I don’t need to. I can just read it. But we’ve done a tremendous amount of work throughout Grant County. On private and public lands. And these numbers are taken from this past fiscal year. So from last August to all of that.
Yeah.
And this is a slide specific to our river projects. We just finished a purple loosestrife hunting trip. It started in Wilma. And we worked with Grayson County. We went all the way down to Westwater. We did not go through Westwater. It was tied. But we will later this year. And we found about nine loosestrife plants. And it’s a very successful interagency project that we organize each year.
This is a slide to pause and ask if you guys have any questions. Or comments. Were you able to hear me? Okay.
Okay.
Personally, it’s good to see you guys out. Tackling some tamarisk down at the portal. It was a month or two back. But I saw you guys down there. So. Thanks. Yeah. That’s being on the river. It’s like, I like seeing you guys out there. Killing that tamarisk. So we’re trying. The beetles are also doing very well. This time of year. Yes. That’s a tamarisk beetle.
Anything else? Anybody? Yeah. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. That’s a sticker.
One unifier. You guys still have the rental program or the lower program of the. Of the removal tool. Yes, we do. Okay. That’s a shameless plug.
So you can buy yourself. They’re about $200 right now or more. But we have some loan out. We try. Okay. It’s a new program. So we’re working on some kinks. But we usually lend it out for like a weekend. And we pick it up the following Monday or Tuesday. We’re working out some problems where the go ahead. Rollers don’t work on it. Swivel. Sand. If they don’t work on your property, I’m so sorry. But, yeah, if you just want to send me an email. That’s the best way to get in contact with me and time to drop it off. Just so everyone knows and general public knows. It’s a great tool when it does work on your property. And it’s the equivalent of a goat head lawnmower. And it picks them up in droves. I agree. They’re really awesome when they work. Yep. But it doesn’t work on sand. Doesn’t really work on sand or loose dirt. But sometimes you got to have kind of a hard surface for it to push up.
Thank you. All right. All right. Thank you so much, Izzy. We appreciate your time and all that you do out there. All right. Thank you.
All right. We will move into commission disclosures. Do we have anything? Anybody? I’ll hear nothing. All right. So maybe I’ll just touch bases on one. There seems to be some concerns or talk going around that I might be financially involved in some housing projects that are going on around. One of them being the Knowlton group. That’s trying to do a project over on, I think, Boulder Avenue. Another one is on time, right? The Garn group. Yeah, we’ve been on that a long time. But there’s some rumors going around. And I just want to address them in the disclosure here. And then there’s the Garn group and the Red Rock Partners that are putting in housing. They’ve started up at the top of Mill Creek. I think Harrison is doing the work on that project. But I have no financial ties to any project in this county. And the people that are concerned about that, reach out to me first. I’m always glad to discuss that or let everybody know I am partners in a construction company here with my son. But we are currently not working on any housing projects that I have been involved in as a commissioner trying to help push forward. The goal is more housing. So thank you for that. And we will move on to commission reports. Yes, sir. I just have one. There’s an item for a contract for the Indigent Defense Council. My office is prosecution. The Indigent Defense Council does defense work. That’s an obvious conflict with prosecution. The county always has a different attorney to review the IDC contracts, public defender contracts, et cetera. So I just wanted to note that for the public as well. But all your guys’ public defender contracts don’t get reviewed by my office. So I just wanted to disclose that. All right. Thank you for that. We will move into commission reports. Trish, you can start us off. I was on vacation. So I did not attend any of my meetings, but did let them all know that I was going to be absent. So yay. You did a job. You want to just carry us around? Yeah, definitely. August 12th, trail mix meeting. We voted in our first active transportation rep, Emily Wessner. We also talked about bylaws that we had had discussions here about. We got rid of the attendance qualification for the at-large members and clarified some of the rep positions, like turning the climbing rep into the road activities rep to more accurately reflect those groups they represent, the mountain biking rep against the cycling rep, et cetera. And those should, those are with Stephen to review, and they should come to us at the next commission meeting. So expect to see that. We talked about Mud Springs. There are, Mud Springs is moving along. It’s great. It’s on time. It’s going to be, hopefully it’ll be finished this fall. That’d be wonderful for everybody. There are two volunteer dates for Mud Springs. So people can go out and help out with the work. And those are September 27th and October 18th. And also we heard from our SAR rep, and they said that they have been strained this year. There’s more rescues this year than previous years. And their perception is that there’s a lot of people out in the back country that need rescuing. August 12th, also I attended the Colorado River Authority dinner that Grant Kennedy hosted. I did just attend the dinner. On that itinerary, it said there’d be discussions. I was a little bit disappointed that there wasn’t any substantive discussion about water at that. I was kind of expecting that. There was other events associated with that that I wasn’t invited to. So it is what it is. August 13th, TSSD, we had a board member resign. So there’s an open spot on that. Also discussed budget on the Thompson water. There’s an open spot there. We also discussed a budget amendment. They are needing to spend more money than previously discussed on basic or previously budgeted for maintenance things. But luckily, loadout sales have been far exceeding what the budget showed. So there is a little bit of extra money to cover some expenses. Also, there’s ongoing discussion with WSAA about taking over that TSSD. A couple of the TSSD board members and the secretary had attended a WSAA meeting. I think Brian can speak to that a little bit. I think that’s a good step. I’m not sure when that’s going to happen, but hopefully it will. Also, there is a, we talked about what needed to be done before WSAA might take that over as well. There’s a lot of cleaning up and other things that TSSD needs to do for that to happen. And as far as that goes, that board is very, or that district is very under banned as far as how it goes. The water master out there is very part-time. He has a full-time job looking for water. And there are some things that just they haven’t been able to get done. So we talked about ways that that might be able to, some of those things might be able to move forward. August 14th, I was on the selection committee meeting for choosing the branding agency with Brian.
We had three great candidates. That was a pretty interesting process. We narrowed it down to two, and then eventually one of them is the one that will appear on our agenda today that we’re going to vote on later. Again, I don’t think we could have gone wrong with either of the top two.
And I think the key to all this, and we discussed this in the meeting, is very strong community engagement and just working on representing kind of the whole, all aspects of our community and finding a branding message that we can all buy into, that we can kind of get behind to highlight what we have here and get people in and keep people happy. So I think that’s going to be a great endeavor. We’ll see that come up on that agenda item. Then yesterday, I attended the audit committee meeting. Other commissioners attended that as well as far as that presentation. So I won’t go into that. But we did have a couple items after that we went over the 2024 audit. One of them was discussing further direction for an internal auditor. So we talked about them doing a little bit of digging into oversight of departments. We talked about electives, offices, and SSDs, et cetera. And we also discussed a budget for the internal auditor. And the budget we discussed is significantly higher than we’ve had, than we’ve paid for an internal auditor in the past. Again, that was just a discussion. But I do think that the internal auditor that we chose looks optimistic about their capacity. So that’s all I got. Mike, sir. I was at the same meeting that you guys were. It was actually devil’s book on to my transportation special service district meeting. Have updates coming from that. And have my rec special services meeting tomorrow. So no real updates other than meetings you guys all attended. Thank you. Mary? Yes. I attended the Colorado River Authority dinner. And I was very excited. And I was disappointed I didn’t learn anything. I was really looking forward to a presentation and at least some information on what’s happening and what’s moving forward. But it was nice being around people. On the 13th, I had a homeless coordinating committee meeting. And our uptick of homeless has increased a bit. But it’s still low for this time of year. Which we haven’t, we don’t know what. We, you know, we normally have more homeless in the spring, summer, and fall. And then it ticks down a little bit in the winter. But right now, it’s still higher than the winter. But it’s not where it has been in the past. The Monterey Clinic is doing a lot as far as helping our homeless community with hygiene. Helping them get into areas where they can take a shower. And with clothing, which is really nice. And the work that Seek Haven is doing. And then, you know, the fact that they’re moving forward to having more beds and such for our people who are working with domestic violence has been really helpful.
And domestic violence still remains the top reason outside of addiction and drug abuse. I mean, addiction, this is a drug abuse. And mental illness. Mental illness are the two main reasons people are in a homeless situation. And the third is domestic violence. And they also make up the largest group of people who are at risk of being homeless. But I’m really excited the way that our Homeless Coordinating Committee is working together so closely. There’s been a big improvement over how that committee works and exchanges information and helps coordinate so that the homeless that we do have get better, you know, better services. And you don’t have the homeless come in that drain the system by going from one agency to another. Because there’s a real good communication to know that they came there and got it. So when they show up to another place, you go, well, you got your voucher. So that’s good. That’s nice to see. That was a problem before. And that’s all I have to report on other than I attended the other meeting. And it was really quite informative. And yeah, I can’t say I enjoyed it. But it was also, I thought it was very thorough and I really appreciated it. Thank you, Brian. Yeah, thanks. So let’s see here. On the 6th, I had a meeting with Planning and Zoning. And we discussed the timeline of how we will get the MFR 45 and introduce the landscape ordinance into the Planning and Zoning Commission. And then also on the 6th, I had a meeting with Jason Curry. And we kind of discussed some of the options that we’re going to have to work with the state to accomplish some work and additional maintenance on some of our motorized trails.
On the 12th, I had a meeting with MTAP. And they gave us an update from Madden, which is our agency of record. The board commented that they feel that Madden is on the right track right now with connecting appropriate ads to the targeted customers. They gave us a little slide deck. And there was a slogan that I really liked. It was, every traveler has an edge in Rowan. You find yours. But they have a lot of big things. I can’t remember. I think they did 160 ads right now. Our previous agency, I think, had done six. So they are definitely putting in some work over there. Camera stories. Sorry, Brian. Are they out currently? Or should we be seeing them? They are out. They are out currently. You should be seeing them on social media. And you should be seeing them on quite a few different platforms. I haven’t noticed them yet. But it would be cool to get that presentation. I’d love to check something out. Have to see what Madden’s up to. Yeah, we can talk to them. There’s also, the deck is available on the end tab for Agenda. So if you want to just go on to the previous Agenda, you can go up and go see the deck and see what the actual ads are that we put now. Camp stories updated. That’s our PR agency. They got a story published in the recent Wall Street Journal for an article. They’re also plotting an idea for a Christmas story. That should be pretty cool. Oh, yeah.
They requested change. The end tab board requested some changes to the bylaws before they could approve them. There were some incongruencies. And so those should be sitting with admin right now. So we’ll get those taken care of. And then they can vote on those when they come back next month. There was two subcommittees formed. One is going to be for the TRT, TRCC application, which is going to be an application process for all of our departments. They’re going to be requesting TRT, TRCC. So that the travel power of the end tab board can provide us with the recommended.
Spent and then also for the special events grants. So there is a marketing match that we have previously provided. That system and that process is kind of falling to the wayside. So there’s going to be a new subcommittee or there’s a subcommittee that was formed. That’s going to be helping getting that process back up again and starting working with those special events.
They also did approve the selection of the two agencies that we had and left it in the hands of the selection committee for the branding agency. There was a follow up that happened two days later for that branding agency. So they wanted to just make sure that they boasted or they voted that they approved of the two choices for the branding agency. See, on the 12th, I briefly attended the Colorado River Advisory Council, which I’m part of. And we kind of just went around. There was a lot of legislature and delegates that were here to kind of discuss some of the problems that were going on with the, or not the problems, but the process of what’s going on with the Colorado River Interim Guidelines. And so we had that dinner. That’s a joint dinner at the Sunset Grill. I thought it was very successful. Gene Shawcraft gave a nice presentation and it was a great, great opportunity to mingle with. I think Senator Lee had some delegation there. And then we had Shu and Casey Snyder came and joined us from the state as well. Yeah, a lot of great people sitting there talking about Colorado River. I don’t know what happened at your guys’ table, but we had a whole bunch of great discussions sitting over at our- We talked about Trump’s takeover at DC. Yeah, with Senator Lee’s office.
Yeah, and so then on the 13th, there was a river trip that was hosted by ORS. ORS did a fantastic job out there, taking us out there on the Colorado River. We had three breakout sessions along the banks of the Colorado. The first one was we built a model of the Colorado River system. And then we talked about legal infrastructure, energy, agricultural, recreational, fish and wildlife concerns along the Colorado. The second stop, Gene Shawcraft, he’s the Colorado River Commissioner of Utah. He gave an update on the current state of the negotiations and the timeline of the upper and the upper and lower basin. Running into to have an alternative set for the interim guidelines. So that’s going to need to probably be set sometime by mid-November. So that’s what we’re looking at as far as that goes. I did hear that they did have some negotiations happening two days prior up there in Salt Lake City. So they are happening right now as we’re speaking. I think they’re meeting weekly, if not every other week. On the third stop, Amy Haas, who’s the Executive Director of the Colorado River Authority of Utah. She spoke and talked about a lot of the initiatives that Utah is taking towards voluntary conservation. It’s a pretty neat little program that they got going on. On the 14th, we had a branding. We talked about the branding for the Moab Office of Tourism. And yeah, there was a lot of great conversations held. And we ended up coming up with two picks, I think. It was one pick that I think that was a little bit better than the others. And we had some follow-up questions. So I think that we’re going to get the answers to those questions tonight. And it should be on our agenda. On the 16th, we have the Audit Committee. And as the Audit Committee came through, Karen, who’s our financial advisor. Yep, she gave us some great recommendations on the audit. I believe that those should have been implemented. And then in her assessment, she felt that Larson had fulfilled their obligations as an auditor. And then also in that, for future considerations, I’d like to consider putting GPP on the next agenda. And talk about, as a discussion item, and talk about contracting them for the program that he was talking about at the end of our Audit Committee. What’s GPP? GPP. That’s our internal audit. Our internal audit. Oh. Internal audit.
That’s it. That’s it. All right. Before we go to mail, I am going to break for the six o’clock citizen to be heard. So we’re six minutes late for our apologies. But if there’s any citizens that would like to speak, citizens to be heard, now would be the time to do so. Anybody online, Quinn?
Oh, Charlotte normally would do once a day. Okay. You can wait. I’m just headed to League of Women, League of Voters in Grand County. That’s all I wanted to say. Okay. Thank you. Resurrecting. All right. Anybody else? Lynn, Mr. Jackson, please introduce yourself. Is Mike working here? I believe so. They’re over. Okay. We had a hard time hearing that lady earlier. So Lynn Jackson, just a couple of comments. I heard some great news about trails that are being built, mud springs and some others. My question is, when are we going to build a trail for the local citizens that goes out Spanish Valley? It’s in process. Good. It’s in process. We were talking about that when I was on a commission clear back in January. All right. I know I’m not supposed to be talking. We did say we’re going to start getting monthly updates built about. And so we maybe should, I don’t know, push that out somehow. Anyways. That’d be nice. Yeah. There was some information. Okay. So just one other quick thing, and it relates to the ballot initiative. And I think I commend you guys for putting that to the voters. That’s a good thing. What the city did with their property tax. But I see some optic issues if the way it’s worded, the state statute allows that tax if it’s passed. And I know most of you know, this to be used for like, six different entities. Yes. And, but the ballot just identifies three, you know what they are. So what I see is a problem. If, if it passes, there’s going to be a time, a year or two down the road, three years, who knows. When you guys as a commission are going to exercise your authority under the statute to allocate that money to all six entities, you’re going to pull some away from one of the three that the citizens voted for, and it’s going to raise questions. None of these entities, from my experience, like losing money. Some of them are likely to come in and wave that ballot in front of your face and say, oh, you never talked about giving money to solid waste or avalanche control. So my suggestion is probably a legal thing for you guys, particularly Stephen is. I think your ballot should list all six things rather than just say, well, you know, the statute says we can do anything we want. The voters think it’s only going three places. So I just think you’ll avoid some optical problems down the road. Thank you.
Thank you. Anybody else?
Still nobody online. All right. We will continue on with our commission reports, Mel.
Okay. Thursday, the 7th, I went to the Moab Area Housing Task Force meeting just as an interested person. But there wasn’t anyone there from the county, so they ended up asking a lot of questions. But anyways, it was an update on what’s happening with all the entities that are involved with that. And we also discussed that $15,000 ask that we were discussing on the agenda. So that was good information for me. Then on Monday, the 11th, the Council on Aging. And we’ve had our biggest discussion there is just the need for assisted living facilities in Grand County. Tuesday, I did go to Sunset Grill for that dinner with the Colorado River Authority. It was great. I did sit with Amy Haas, who’s the director of that, and also delegation from the office of natural resources. So it was good to visit with people. And I did learn some things. Wednesday, a 12-minute agenda review. And then right after that, I went to go to the Moab Chamber of Commerce board meeting, as I was filling in for Brian, since he was on the river with the Colorado River Authority. Winter festivities board is hard at work. The winter shoulder season marketing has gone out. I didn’t notice it. I was out. So I don’t know what Brian talked about with the MTAB board and the chamber kind of combining to do PR to coincide with the December holiday festivities. So it’ll be a collaborative effort and hopefully some funding from our TRT to push that. They have a business survey out on Facebook, so they can find out what local businesses want or are interested in participating during that time. The other events they have going on is the monthly meetup at the Hoodoo is August 21st. And then the chamber banquet is November 8th at the Hoodoo as well. That’s always a big event. And then the business summit is scheduled for January 15th at Spring Hill Suites. Canyonlands Health Care Special Service District was last Thursday evening. And they are moving forward with a master plan for the eight acres behind the ground center and adjacent to the care center. So I don’t know what they’re going to do with that piece, but they’re moving along to make a plan, which is good. They didn’t get the CIB grant because I don’t know why, but they didn’t get it. But it’s not going to slow things down. They’re going to continue to do it. And then I did go to the audit committee yesterday. So it was very enlightening. A lot of information. I don’t know if we’ll discuss it more later in the agenda. This morning I had the EMS Special Service District meeting, and there was a great financial review from the director. And I emailed that to all of you commissioners. So my first future consideration would be that we should put on action items for liaison to the Moab Area Community Lab Trust.
That’s it. All right. I started off with a meeting with the IDC, and they are looking at hiring a regional manager that would be over, I think, four counties or five. So possibility of some savings actually there for the county in the future. We currently, I believe, are paying half, and they fund the rest, the other half of the director currently with a grant. Also part of an airport board meeting, some bylaw changes, some discussions around the BOR and a possible having to move that in the future.
Let’s see. I was also part of a centrally assessed conversation with UAC, the Utah Association of Counties in Salt Lake. And there were a couple of senators, Senator Owen, Senator Colomar, and Representative Bollender that attended that. And they are pushing a little bit harder this year to try and get some of our centrally assessed issues possibly under control, or at least get us some help with it. We continually get requested from some of the larger companies through the county to reduce their tax rate, which forces us then to have to repay that money. We’re currently working, I think, on 2017 with the Mid-America Pipeline requesting money back. So we’re so far behind that we’re repaying for previous, during previous commissioners’ time on the commission. So we aren’t even up to what’s going on currently. Thanks. Let’s see. I was also at the audit committee in the financial statements that we were going over there. There was a lot of information. I think the biggest thing was the fact that Karen did appreciate the job that Larsen’s had done and felt like they were doing an adequate job there. I also see, or had some conversation around our component units and the possibility of moving their deadline dates forward so that our reporting is not late as it has been for past years. And currently we are. I also was at the Colorado River dinner. And then the next day on the raft trip, the dinner was quite interesting. I was sitting by Gene Shawcroft. So I did get some information there. I would say the highlight of the dinner evening for me, though, was Commissioner McCurdy took us on a boat ride in the dark out on the Colorado River. And so that was, I actually had a lot of fun on that. That was the highlight of my evening there. And then there was a lot of good information on the trip down the river. And we had multiple breakout sessions. And Brian spoke about building a model of the river. And I have to say he knows the Colorado River better than anybody that I am aware of. And I learned a lot about the river. There were so many tributaries that come into that system that I had never even heard of the rivers that dump into the Colorado. But I learned a lot from that one and thought it was quite interesting.
Let’s see, what else? I was in a meeting with Enbridge, who is the company that bought out Dominion Gas here locally. And that was just regarding updating our franchise agreement as they run pipelines throughout the county. And they have agreements to be able to pick those up and repair them, whatnot. And I think that is the end of my report. And so we can move on to electeds, sir. Just real brief, the county attorney’s office, we’re putting on more exciting trainings. So everybody get ready for our next one. It’s going to be retention requests and rights, an exciting training on GRAMA, the Government Reference Access Management Act. So I know you guys all have plans and planners out, but it will be in September. We’ll save the date to you guys. It’ll be really exciting. We’ll have everybody aware of that date so we can get that training. Additionally, just letting folks know, this weekend, August 23rd, the Friends of the CJC is putting on a scoops flash and support. It’s an event where they’ll be serving banana splits and doing free pass to the Marriott Resort style pool as a fundraiser. And that’s this weekend, August 23rd. For more information, you can check out the Friends of the CJC. They have that information and flyers available. Apart from that, that’s all the updates that I have. I’ve got legal review on topics tonight, but I’ll just get to that when we do. Thanks. Thank you, sir. Dave? Thank you, Chair. Glad I made it back in time to give the reports. So a couple of things my office is working on. One thing, I’m working with Zions Bank right now and taking sort of regular steps in incorporating some new anti-fraud measures. There’s one particular called Positive Pay. And we’ll upload a file of all of our checks that we write for every check run and make sure that those are sort of cross-referenced with information that the bank has, just to make sure that there aren’t any fraudulent checks. It’s pretty standard practice now. And so it’s good for us to get up to speed with that. Thankfully, we haven’t run into any issues, but this is going to be a nice measure that we can put in place. And along with that, exploring some possibilities for efficiencies in terms of outsourcing the printing of checks potentially for some more of the regular checks that we do. And so just seeing what costs might be associated with that, just exploring those options as they come up. I’ve got a couple of large complex grammar requests in my queue I’m trying to work through and maintain some progress on. It’s everything else that I’m kind of working on on a regular basis. The budget process is underway in the sense of communication with all department heads and preparing an initial draft budget so that we can get those in by the first week of September and have those start ready for feedback and for a presentation before the Budget Advisory Board and just getting that ball rolling. There’s a lot of back and forth. There already is. I’m building at least a dozen emails today with some specific questions about, you know, some of the finer points of filling out the budget and I expect that to continue. I’m really happy to be a resource for all the department heads as we go through this process together.
One other thing kind of heating up is the oversight of the Board of Equalization appeal processing of all the applications that we received. And so I mentioned before that we have an online application submission process now, which I think has been a really welcome thing for a lot of property owners to be able to submit their applications online. It had been all really old-fashioned but really hard copy paper strictly until now. So really glad to sort of open up that improvement and it’s been going on, been going off without a hitch. And with that scheduling appeals, the hearing officer will be here next week, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to see the first round of in-person appeals. I know we had spoken in previous years about the possibility of members of the Board of Equalization yourselves appearing at the hearings. We do delegate a hearing officer. So it would be something that I think in times that we’ve talked about in the past, it would have to be strictly as an observer, but I don’t see why if you were interested in that, how that process goes. I think that there has been increased interest in that process and it will be held here in the chambers starting next Wednesday where most of the residential appeals will be heard. So I don’t know if there’s a desire for me to send some information out about when that is, just as a reminder, but I can do that. And yeah, along with that is, sort of as a somewhat independent third party to the process in the sense of setting up the hearings and receiving the applications, but not being involved in the determinations and the initial valuations and things of that nature. My office and my role in particular often serves as a sounding board for property owners in regards to the process. In regards of what their valuations are. But I do take pride in giving constituents someone that will listen to them and listen to their concerns, but also be clear about the responsibilities that the county has to uphold its own regulations and laws associated with valuation. So it’s an interesting process, but I do find myself these days sitting in my office with constituents for extended periods of time. And that’s, but I do enjoy doing that.
So Steven Bowles, the finance director, he had his last day on Friday. He had to go up and be with family up on the Wasatch Front. And I am very happy to announce that I was able to turn around really quick given the timing and the situation that we’re in with the budget season upon us. I thought it would be at least worth a try to post the position and see if there was a qualified capable applicant to fill in and get into that position as soon as possible. And so I was able to find someone. Their name is Chantal Jensen. They’ve worked with the Moab City previously. They served as the appointed treasurer for Moab City. Lots of really applicable, great experience. It relates to how government finance works. I think it’ll be really valuable. I think we’ll get a different perspective than Steven was able to provide. And I think we’ll learn a lot from having Steven with us for a year and be able to pivot and adjust as necessary. It was a relatively new position when we hired him. And I think that we have an opportunity now to set the tone, especially in terms of how that position serves and provides a regular source of information for the commission. So I really look forward to any improvements possible that can be made on that front. And so, yeah, I look forward to continuing discussions on that.
Yeah, there’s lots of other things, little small bits. I just had a long list of things that end up on my desk every day. I’m part of a legislative steering committee for the county clerks in the state, representing rural counties. And as part of that, so for the rest of this week, I’m attending a conference in Salt Lake City for the National Election Officials Conference, SARA, as part of a certification that I’m completing this year that’s made up of 12 courses. And there’s an opportunity to sit in on a hearing tomorrow morning at the capitol as part of my role in the legislative steering committee for the county clerks. But otherwise, I will also be conferring with election officials from across the country. And I’m really looking forward to the honor of being able to do that. And then one last thing, we’re 77 days from the general election on November 4th. And I also have a new staff person who’s serving as the elections coordinator in the clerk’s office, and that’s Emily Ballantyne. And I’m just really excited as well. I think we’re really lucky to get Emily and plug her into that role. She’s gonna be a tremendous asset to the county for many years to come. So, yeah. Thank you, sir. Quinn, you have anything? All right. So we will move onward then with our consent agenda items.
I have, let’s see, we do not have the minutes in this one. We will skip the minutes. I’ve got ratification of payment of bills. Total bills, $835,047.58. Total payroll, $601,210.71. With a total bills and payroll of $1,436,258.29. Local consent for liquor license, Red Cliffs Lodge. Fiscal year 26 cooperative agreement between the DNR Forestry Fire and State Lands, FFSL, and Grand County Noxious Weeds Department. Consideration of signing a letter of support for the cybersecurity funding and the grant contract for $192,283 for non-motorized trail projects and the Indigent Defense Council grant contract approval. Bill, is it possible if we pull the F off for discussion, please? Sure. All right. So we will look for a motion to approve the consent agenda minus item F. So moved. Motion by Commissioner Hadler, second by Commissioner McCurdy. All in favor? Aye. We will look at the grant contract for the non-motorized. Commissioner Martinez. Yeah, give me one second just to go ahead and pull it up here. I just had some questions and I don’t know if anybody can answer that.
So I just wanted to clarify. So when I look at the fiscal impact on the agenda summary, it says $192 coming in revenue right there. But I remembered that there was a match. So if we actually look at the 2025 RTP contract right there, there is a match on that of $78,928.29. So I’m just wondering if that agenda is correct right there. Is it in kind? No, that’s a cash match right there. And then the in-kind match is $9,368.80. Do you know, Quinn? No. And also if it is a match where it comes from, it’s that optional tax. Yeah. Which I think it has been in the past. Yeah, Stephen, I do have a question for you on the optional tax. And you might need to look into this. Are trails an allowable use for the optional tax? I thought that they would have to be something for transportation. Are you talking in the revised mitigation for TRT? No, not TRT. I think it’s option B tax. It’s the other restricted fund. It’s one of the other restricted funds. I’d have to look into it. Yeah, if you could look into that and just let me know how that works. I know that the trails are, but I think it has to be for a means of convenience.
Anyways, yeah, I just wanted to bring that up right there, that there is a match on that of $78,928. So we would need to move this considering that it has a fiscal impact on the county. Do we need to have an actual vote and determine where that funds are coming from? You guys have pulled it from the… You guys will have to make a motion anyways on what you guys want to do because you pulled it from the consent agenda. Okay. Can we maybe find the answer and move it? Yeah, the next meeting. No, or even… I’m always worried about these grants having a debt. You know, I want to know what that deadline is for that. So number 30 is… Let me try to check on that. It’s good to pass it for a moment, then we can come back to it. Yeah, but I get the answers before the end of the meeting. Sure, we’ll just bring it up later in the agenda then. Thanks. Is that all right? Okay. All right, we will move on then to item number four, Proclamation and Suicide Prevention Month. And I know that you ladies have patiently waited for that and I appreciate and thank you for doing so.
Good evening, commissioners. Thank you so much for your time. I will start at that end of the table and let these ladies introduce themselves. I am Elizabeth Wright. I work at Four Corners Community Behavioral Health and I facilitate the RAPE Coalition, which is our local prevention coalition and resident for almost 20 years. I’m Loralee Green and I’m a Red County School District School Board Member. I’m Taylor Passarella and I am the Prevention Director at Four Corners Community Behavioral Health. So I cover Carbon, Emory, and Grand Counties prevention efforts. And I’m Amanda McIntosh. I’m the Suicide Prevention Liaison with Four Corners Community Behavioral Health, formerly the Suicide Prevention Specialist with the Southeast Utah Health Department. So I recognize a couple of you. Thank you again so much for the opportunity to just talk a little bit about why we’re here. This is the first time that I have come to Grand County Commissioners to request for a proclamation to be read into the minutes for naming September Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month. And it’s the first time for a couple of different reasons. I’ve been in this work and in this field for the last seven or eight years and I have to test the waters when I come into different spaces for suicide prevention. And the last couple of years, it’s kind of been hot and cold as far as it being accepted and willing to be talked about and things like that on many different levels. And so again, my appreciation goes to you for allowing me to come and speak on it. It’s really up to you if you’d like me to read the proclamation or if you would like to read the proclamation. But by doing so and having an out loud conversation about it, we’re breaking down the stigma and the burden that people carry when it comes to talking about mental health in general, but suicide prevention specifically. And when we talk about suicide prevention and we bring to light the numbers of people that we are losing to suicide, not just in our small community of Grand County, but as a three county area, the statistics are alarming and it’s a public health issue that we want to keep at the forefront of our prevention efforts across the board, at the school level, at the prevention level, at the local mental health authority level. And with that, I’ll again, turn it to you if you would like to read the proclamation, that’s fine, or I can read it, it’s up to you. I’m sure Brian, I would be glad to also, but please, either way, I think it’s great that we get to do that here and appreciate you letting us do it. Yes, thank you. Suicide prevention and awareness, whereas the state of Utah has consistently been at the top 10 for states for suicide deaths since 2012, currently seventh in the nation versus 2024 reporting of ninth. And whereas Carbon, Emory and Grand County often lose the state of Utah in suicide deaths per capita. And whereas people who lose a loved one to suicide are at a 30% higher risk of ending their lives to suicide as a learned coping mechanism and learned behaviors. And whereas the risk of suicide can be reduced through awareness, training, proper educational resources and treatment. And whereas according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Statistics, suicide is the second leading cause of death amongst Utahns age 15 to 24. Second leading cause of death among ages 25 to 34, second for ages 35 to 44, fourth for ages 45 to 54, fourth for ages 55 to 64, ninth in 2024 and 18th for ages 65 and older. And whereas suicide affects everyone. Suicide is everyone’s business and suicide is one of the most preventable deaths that can be avoided by one, learning the warning signs of depression and suicide ideation. Two, knowing how and when to ask about one’s suicidal thoughts. Three, being aware of life-saving measures. And four, familiarizing ourselves with the resources available locally, such as Four Corners, Community Behavioral Health, statewide, such as Live On Utah, and nationwide, such as calling or texting 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Now, therefore, we, Grand County Commissioners Winfield, Martinez, McCurdy, McCandless, McGann, Padler and Hedin on this 19th of August 2025 do hereby proclaim September 2025 to be Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month in the County of Grand and encourage all residents of Grand County to recognize how serious suicide is and the steps each of us can take to protect those around us from the preventable tragedy, one with devastating generational and community-wide effects. Thank you. So there are a couple of things that I would like to bring to your attention as far as what we are doing in the community presently for suicide prevention. Working with the Great Coalition and the Prevention and Wellness Coalition that have teamed up together with the school district, we are getting more mental health messaging into our school, into our students’ hands. We are also in the process of creating for the first time a suicide prevention walk happening at Grand High School on October 4th. On-site registration begins at 5.30 and the program begins at 6. Representative Logan Monson has already agreed to come and speak at it, amongst other great speakers that will be there to talk to us. Another thing that we are doing is on World Suicide Prevention Day, which is Wednesday, September 10th. These ladies are hosting a candlelight vigil at Swanee Park, beginning at 7. This National Day of Recognition is a reverent support system for those in our community who have lost somebody to suicide and need to be surrounded by others who know that healing journey and the struggles that come with the difference in grieving a loved one lost to suicide versus a different kind of debt. So that is a free event. Four Corners will be providing the battery lit candles so there’s no fire concern there, but they will meet for an hour and worldwide at 8 o’clock p.m. in respective time zones. Time zones that candles are lit and remembered that the loved ones that we’ve lost. In recent years, looking at our data for Carbon Evergreen Grand Counties, we are seeing an influx in suicide deaths in Grand County and especially amongst our older seniors across the three counties. So we really are trying to put forth a diligent effort in bringing more resources, more training, and more opportunities for us as community members to prepare ourselves and be ready in the event of a suicidal crisis. Also on September 9th, we are hosting a community for a free to the community QPR training, which stands for Question, Persuade, Refer. It’s a two hour suicide prevention training where you are certified and will learn the common warning signs of what’s going on in somebody that is currently struggling with a suicidal crisis, how to safely question their suicidal intent, persuade them to live and to get help, and then who and when to refer them to for resources. That will be taking place at the mark starting at 6 p.m. Again, we encourage you to apply. We encourage you to attend to see the efforts that we are making. I open it up to you for questions. Yes. I applaud everything you guys do in erasing the stigma of it taking place in many of our lives. So thank you for the work that you do. Two, I’d like to make the motion. I move to approve the proclamation here by proclaiming September 2025 to be the Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month. I second. Motion by Commissioner McCurdy, second by Commissioner McCandless. Do we have any further thoughts, discussions? This is an easy one. Thank you.
I’ll say a few things. Okay. You talked about the warning signs. Just in my own life, it’s been a number of years ago, there was a young lady that was waiting on me and on her face was hell. And that’s a warning sign that I passed. And she ended up taking her own life. And so those things, if we realize sometimes just how tough life is for some other people when we’re just going about our daily lives, whether it be at a restaurant or wherever, it’s very important. So the warning signs are sometimes at least they get missed for sure. I do also thank you guys for everything that you’re doing. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate you all again. Thank you so much. I hope that you will create maybe a Grand County team and join us on October 4th. Come to the training on September 9th. Come to the candlelight vigil on the 10th just to show your support to a community that is in desperate need of comfort and support and encouragement. I can email the flyers. If you would. We still have to vote. Anybody else? Sorry. I don’t like it to be very argument. All those in favor? Passes unanimously. Again, thanks for being patient with us. Thank you for hearing us out. Yes, thank you.
All right. Let’s see. The next item was one we discussed that was postponed or moved. So we will move on to number six, the approval of the final flap of the FEMA subdivision.
Hello.
So this is for parcel number 0217120. It’s a 1978 Platteau Drive in Moab. It’s a final flat approval of a nine lot subdivision. It’s mixed zoning, have a commercial on one side and there’s some residential, I’ll get back.
This was, they received preliminary flat approval on May 2nd. There were some conditions with that. Those have been addressed. All of land use requirements have been met. The staff is recommending that you guys approve this.
Do you guys have any questions? This is the applicant. Troy Naylor. Anybody? Questions? Mike? Following the recommended motion, I’d like to make a motion. I move to approve the final plat for the Lavena subdivision, parcel number 02-0017-0120, submitted by Foothold Incorporated with the findings of fact and conditions of approval as recommended by staff. All right. Motion by Commissioner McCurdy. Second by Commissioner McGann. Any further discussion?
All right. I’ll call for a vote. All in favor? Motion passes with Commissioner Martinez absent 6-0. We got final plat of Thompson tonight. Way to go. Wow. All right. So with that, we will move on to number seven to appoint an additional commission liaison to the Planning Commission. And I’m the one presenting this and bringing it forward. I don’t know if we have a recommended motion with this.
All right. Please do. I move to approve Brian Martinez as an additional liaison to Planning Commission. All right. Motion by Commissioner McCandless. Second by Commissioner McCurdy. Further discussion? Yes, Trish. Just a couple of things. Again, if we go into our governing policies and procedures for Grand County, these positions are appointed in January. And so the fact that we’re going against those policies and procedures is a problem, I think. But on we go. We keep doing it. And I have had no complaints. I’ve actually had a number of compliments. As to my professionalism, Curtis Wells just told me last week, he said, you’re the best Planning Commission liaison I’ve seen since I’ve been interacting with commissions. I think I try to relay information back and forth in a very effective manner. I take extensive notes. I try to interact when asked by either the Planning Director and or the Planning Commission. I try to respond when they have questions for me. So I’m taken aback as to why this is an item.
Yes, Jacques. Yeah, I don’t support this at all. I don’t think we need another Planning Commission liaison. We’ve never, this is kind of unprecedented. We have needed one in the past. Any commissioner can sit in one of those meetings and frequently do.
I think Trish has done a great job of being a liaison in all five years that she’s been on the commission. And I just think this is, I think it’s unnecessary. I think that you tried to remove her from the position a while ago and that didn’t work. So now you’re throwing another liaison out there. Sure, I don’t recall ever trying to remove her. Even at the beginning of the year, she knew that she was like, I’m going to probably lose this position. She left, she stayed on there. I was just going to start going to all the meetings. When I spoke to Stephen, but when Stephen was spoken to, he let us know that it does matter because we can’t speak. If you show up to a board as a commissioner, not the liaison, then you’re a citizen there. And so that’s where you can speak as citizens to be heard. And that’s all, you’re not able to speak on behalf of the commission at all. And I do think that we need to have, Trish has done a good job. She has a lot of extensive knowledge, but last meeting she stated that us commissioners don’t go on there. So I feel like we don’t know what’s going on there that maybe we need to get pointed on there. So I was willing to do it. I know Brian was willing to do it. I think we’re going to swap and take over the chamber. Anyways, yeah, like take over the chamber as a liaison position and then we can learn more. But I do watch every meeting trying to learn what goes on and Trish has extensive background in it. I think that she’s beneficial to staying there, but there could just be another voice. Yes, please, Brian. Sorry, I missed a little bit of what was happening there. But I will say that I did go to a planning commission meeting and I was told that I was not allowed to speak. That was by you, Trish. I’m going to call you out on that because you actually said, we’ll have time to talk about this at the commission meeting, but right now you do not have time, you are not allowed to speak. Talk to Stephen and that’s true. I wasn’t allowed to speak. I said, that’s just fine. But I mean, let’s just make sure that we understand we’re all speaking the same language. You told me I couldn’t speak at the planning commission. So don’t tell me that any commissioner can go there and have a chance to speak. That’s all I have, thanks. Sure, anybody else?
All right, motion by Commissioner McCandless, second by Commissioner McCurdy. All in favor?
Those opposed? Motion passes with Commissioner Hedin, Commissioner Hadler and Commissioner McGann, opposed. We will move on to collection and award contract for the branding agency. It’s like we have folks here. Thank you, Mick and Ali. Hello.
Is this on? Did you leave it here? Well, I had to do a lot of that. Where does that come from? Well, you’ve got my sticker. I know that’s something else. I think they are doing that.
Thank you. Sorry. Hi, Mick from the MOAB Office of Tourism. And Ellie from the MOAB Office of Tourism. This item is to select an agency for the branding RFP that we issued on June 1. If you’ll indulge me, I’ll read the project goal and give a little background of how we got here. From the RFP, project goal is to develop a comprehensive strategy, brand platform, story for MOAB that not only presents it as a must-visit destination, but also incorporates lessons learned from other international destinations and our past promotional efforts. One goal for this project is to create a brand and implement it in a way that touches every state’s business life cycle. And to get buy-ins in our community is critical to the project’s success. I was looking back on what we’ve done this year to get ready for this project. And we started by, after budgeting for it, we started by looking at RFPs that were issued by other destinations. We shared that with the MTAP board. We looked at RFPs issued by the state and destinations in Colorado and Arizona. We also met with TMO teams at Park City and Visit Milwaukee, but recently undergone branding projects.
And from the item itself, I’ll just read the background here. After establishing an RFP with the board, we formed a selection committee made up of commissioners Martinez and Hadler, the chair and vice chair of MTAP, members of MOT, which is the Valley Commission Administration. Quinn sat on the selection committee. The county clerk helped us review proposals. And the marketing director at the Utah office collectively reviewed 36 proposals, nearly a thousand pages with bids ranging from $88,000 to $2.2 million and answered hundreds of questions submitted in the procurement portal. We had a large response that we got a really good sense of what people were offering. From that initial pool, the selection committee selected three agencies. They were named finalists and the lead strategist, creative director and account executive at each agency traveled to Moab for in-person presentations and interviews with many MOT agency partners, which is Camp Stories. From that, the committee made a selection. We recommend selection of Camp 4 tourists to serve as the strategy and branding agency for this limited engagement. The three finalists were reviewed by the Moab Tourism Advisory Board at an August 12th meeting and the board voted unanimously to give the selection committee the authority to choose a branding agency out of three finalists.
From that, the selection committee met and we selected Camp 4 tourists. We had a clarification meeting with Camp 4 tourists as outlined in the RFP and they confirmed that everything we listed under the three phases in the RFP will be included in the scope of our deliverables list. And it was a great meeting with great energy. Everyone’s genuinely excited to get started and with your approval, we will start getting a contract together.
So with that, that’s my questions.
A statement and then I’d like to make a motion. Not often in rural Utah, we see 36 applicants to an RFP. I really like seeing that. It means there was some draw and it wasn’t the cheapest nor the most. So it looks like it was very well gone over from hearing both from Josh and Brian. And with that, I’d like to make the motion. I’m gonna move to award the strategy of branding agency contract to Camp 4 and tourist in an amount not to exceed $750,000 and authorize the chair to sign all associated documents and contracts upon completion of legal review. Motion by Commissioner McCurdy, second by Commissioner Martinez. Further discussion?
As Brian stated earlier during his reports, there were some further questions that the advertising agency had asked. Yeah, we went back to them with those questions. They responded and were satisfied with their answers. It was a great meeting. Like I said, everybody’s excited to get started.
And bulk of the response is just confirming that everything listed in the RFP will be included in the scope of work and contract. So as we develop that over the week, but kind of provide a model to do that, and we’ll start kind of turning proposal into it. And if I recall, I think a lot of that question involved community outreach and then their efforts to come to Moab and really get a good idea about what the community as a whole cares about. And so you were satisfied with their response to that and their commitment to really doing their homework on that front. Yeah, I am. I think the materials that were submitted with this item are good to review. They have a lot of the ideas that they were proposing for the project, including that I’ve earmarked a bunch of things here. But without going into too much detail, yes, I think that from their initial proposal all the way through to these final questions, this is something that they understood as part of the RFP and that they think is really important to getting right. Great.
Yeah, Brian. Yeah, I just want to commend you guys for a great job on this project. I think this was a good example of a good collaboration from everybody around here. I think that there was a ton of work. And I mean, there’s so much you guys went through and you guys brought in a lot of great people here to make this happen. And I feel like we’ve made a good choice right here. I think the only question that I have for you is do you guys feel satisfied? Do you guys feel like this is the, I mean, you’re the one that will be working with them quite a bit. Yeah, totally. Yeah, definitely. The second question is, do you think that that camp floor, I mean, when I looked at camp floor, I think that they were probably the biggest risk, right? Like I felt like we were taking a little bit of a risk by going with them. And I like that. I think that they’re going to be able to deliver something. But do you guys feel that they’re going to be able to deliver a solid product when we’re finished with this, especially after your last little meeting? Yeah, I mean, I think it comes down to their partnership too. Camp Floor is a photography, videography, production company mostly. And we need that in a pretty huge way. And Taurus is based on the knowledge of Alexander Fuller, who was at Struck and developed the Mighty Five campaign. And so I think that both of those two strengths will be really important for us. I mean, I can say just for myself, it was when we came to the original meeting after we had all 36, where Taurus was actually my first pick, right? And I mean, and I let it go. I completely forgot about it because as things went along. But as we went on, I think it was the way that they told the story through pictures. They really did. I mean, some people can tell you exactly what it is, and then some people show you. And I think they really did a good job. Yeah, I’d say, I mean, it was already said, we had three really good candidates again, and we kind of couldn’t go wrong with any of them, but they have different strengths. And I’d agree that they’re visual storytellers. And in this day and age, that’s a real strength that can tell the story of Moab and contribute to our marketing efforts. And I really like the name. You probably know what Camp 4 is, right? Of course, yeah. Famous dirt bag climber camp in Yosemite. There you go. And I like the name first too, Dirt Bag. Yeah, Dirt Bag.
Anything further?
All right. Hey, before I call for a vote, I will say that I’m also looking forward to this and to the next item as well as trying to help us with what we’re in an economic slump here, or you could probably call it worse than that even, but I’m hoping that this starts the needle back to where the county could see a little bit of positive growth because this is a very uncomfortable position to be in, to constantly be having to talk about cuts, budget cuts, remind people of where our budget is at right now. So it’ll be nice to maybe see the county turn back around a little bit. But with that, I will call for a vote. All those in favor?
Passes six to zero with Commissioner McGann absent. And we will move on then to the next one for you folks. Search for Office of Tourism Director. Oh, this one’s with Tess. I thought it would have synced. It’s about us.
Tess is on a mask and she is disposed at this time, so she won’t be able to join us. But you guys sent her PowerPoint, right? Personnel Services recommended Horizon Hospitality to provide that search. The range of the cost of that is dependent upon the annual salary of the person selected. But that ranges from $19,000 to $31,000. There’s a one-year guarantee on the placement that if that person doesn’t make it, then provide that search. Ian?
There were several search firms that were considered. Yes? Oh, I was going to finish up, Mark. Okay. There were several search firms that were considered. Horizon Hospitality is specifically geared toward the hospitality industry or the MOC director, and that also weighed into that decision recommendation.
Again, they say they weren’t the highest, they weren’t the lowest, but they were directly related to the hospitality. Just to repeat, what did it cost? Yes. Just at the beginning of the… The range is from $19,000 to $31,000. And again, this will not be a general fund expenditure. It will be MOC fund or TRT funds. And then there was a one-year guarantee? Yes.
Okay. Jonk, I think, or Mike, I honestly don’t know. Mike’s got his hand up permanently, so. Doesn’t have blood anymore, just hanging out. The question I had is since this position is funded from TRT, I think 100% of the salary, would the promotional TRT also pay for the search service? I’m sorry. Yes. Yes. And we have consulted with the state to make sure that that’s the case. Okay. Okay. Mike?
In this search, have we gotten any current applicants to this position? No, because it hasn’t been advertised to this point because we were looking at search firms. We will advertise it. And any that we get in, if you select this firm, we will forward those to the firm to consider. Okay. I would hope that we would get some and partner with the firm to do so. And do we have any timeline that we’re looking at? We have the possibility of seeing results after the first two weeks after that firm is selected. And so tonight will be the start of that clock? In the morning. Okay. Possibly see something. All right. So I guess we’re looking for a motion from something, right?
If they don’t have one spelled out, but I think the recommendation is for Horizon. Is that the name of it? Yes. Horizon is a search firm for a sector for the OLAB Office of Tourism for the range between $19,000 and $31,000. Motion by Commissioner Martinez, second by Commissioner McCurdy. Any further discussion? I think Tess is online. If you want to ask her any questions now, she just barely got online. I don’t have any questions. Hi. Tess, what’s your feelings with Horizon? Hi there, everyone. First off, I apologize for my technical difficulties. I’ve had the, I’ve been paying my tokens to the travel gods, whatever that means today. But I’ve had great conversations with Horizon. I’ve been impressed by their ability to balance both more of that very personable, customized approach, as well as just their industry expertise. And they’ve been really lovely to communicate with. And I was the most impressed just by their, you know, customized search plans, their customized approach to recruitment based on the client, i.e. us as the employer, as well as their communication. So I assume that what I heard, and again, I apologize I logged on a little late, but I’m excited about us working with them. Thank you.
All right. No further discussion. All right, I’ll call for a vote. All in favor? Passes unanimously for Horizon as our search firm. The Office of Tourism. Chairman, we’ll let the county attorney review those agreements. Okay, thank you. All right, we move on to the funding request for the housing task force via Grand County Housing Subcommittee. Commissioner Hedin. And can I have Kaitlin and Ben come up? Are you guys okay with that?
So I’ll just provide some quick context, but let them answer any more specific questions. So the housing subcommittee, which is Mike, Brian, and myself have been working on, one of the first things that we did was do a priority list of what we felt was needed. And this was one of the items was to basically have update the housing pipeline. And so in that we brought what I consider to be the experts in the county on that, Ben Riley from HSU and Kayla Meyer from McAuliffe. And so in our discussion, it was kind of like, what do we see as the greatest need? And in so they’re asking for 15,500 bucks. This money is in budget. So last year in the 2024 budget, Mary put aside or asked to put aside 100,000 for affordable housing initiatives. And so what this would provide is looking at the housing pipeline to inform future decisions around typology of development needed. And again, this was a priority of the subcommittee. Sherry was here earlier with McAuliffe and she said, so what’s next? And I think this is a really great step in moving towards the what’s next is first of all, figuring out what do we need? So this will allow that to happen. So do you guys wanna add anything to that? Please feel free, I was brief. Sure, I think you said a lot of what I would have said here more so on the housing taskforce side as a participant in the subcommittee, also wanting to explain the taskforce side briefly. The taskforce was created in 2009 for local agreement between city, county and HASU to implement the housing plan. So this is the pipeline is very much in alignment with that. And so part of this request is to support implementing the housing plan on a broader scale, doing community events like we did with the town hall, be able to continue to grow those. But yeah, I think Sherry talked about that. We talked about that a lot, Ben and I and myself and the McAuliffe board about wanting to make sure that as we continue to build, that we are supporting the wants and needs of the county and the residents that live here. And the best way for us to be able to do that is to understand the data, understand qualitative and quantitative. The taskforce ran a second annual housing survey this year that gives us qualitative data. We earlier this year requested RCG funds for building onto our housing dashboard. And all of this is to create more tools and for all of us sitting here, watching online to be able to understand what’s actually going on in our market, particularly in rural areas. Census.gov does not provide us to have in order to understand how to address our housing problems. So it’s kind of on us to figure out what that looks like. And so this request is to answer that first question of what’s happening, what do we see that’s coming? And I think from there, we’ll be able to create more tools to figure out how to move forward with the rest of that funding and be able to spend that well in a way that benefits the community. Yeah, I’ll just add, I mean, we put together some priority lists and there’s a lot of things on here. And I think the pipeline serves as the foundation for all of that. We’ve talked about the public-private partnerships, talking about county-owned land, talk about deed restrictions, single family homes, rental units. There’s a lot coming down the pipeline. As I think most of you know, it’s a lot of taxpayers that just got awarded. So I think the basis for everything on our priority list really revolves around what we need to build and where we need to build it. So I think that’s kind of the basis of the request is to try to get that information so you guys are better informed for if we’re talking to public-private partnership or so housing is better informed, what’s our next building typology? What’s our next development? Where’s potentially the next that we’re crossing potentially gonna be? We talked about what’s next. So I think that’s kind of the, again, the foundation of all of these things that are on our working group list. And we’re hoping to hire somebody on a contract basis with those funds to basically comb through a lot of data, building permits, certificate of occupancies, all these things and try to provide you all with a good presentation that will say what type of housing is being built? What kind of people are being built for? Is it high-end? Is it a high-end luxury apartments? Tax credit housing? Is it affordable rentals? Is it high-end single-family homes? Those are the things that we want, that HOSU wants to learn. I think that the county probably wants to know as well. So that way we’re making sure we’re tackling the problem in the right area. Sorry, you were also in that meeting. So do you wanna add any context? No, no, I just wanna kind of maybe go over a little bit. So it’s 10,000 and 5,500. And then in the way that I looked at it, because it had to break it down a little bit more simply, we’re looking at basically the supply and the demand, right? And how did that break down? The 10,000 would have been for the study on the supply. And then the 5,000 would be for… I’m trying to get the breakdown a little bit. You’re giving me a sheet, but I’ve lost it. I just wanted to go over real quick what that breakdown was of where those funds are gonna be spent. And also we’d be looking for city matches on that as well, correct?
Sorry. Sure. 5,500 is what we’re asking for the study. I mean, we’re trying to find… We’re thinking that if we can find somebody, again, it’s really just combing through data and working on Excel spreadsheets for a few weeks. So trying to find somebody to do some contract work for that. And then 10,000 going to the housing task force to kind of support the events that we had to be able to give out that information once we gather it, right? That and other information. It also has money in there for the dashboard, which we think is a valuable tool. And these are all things that we want to be able to get that information and be able to display it in a good way. So you all know, it’s very clear to you all. It’s clear to Grand County citizens what’s happening. And I wasn’t able to attend the community outreach event. I didn’t sit here that someone from the city was able to speak out about what’s kind of coming down the pipeline there. So is that data already available? Are we only looking for the county right now? The county will take a lot more effort. I think, yeah, Corey Sherliff, the community development director has put more work into developing that. And so I think that that will be the basis through which we design this. I think another part of this, we don’t want this to be just a one-time analysis of what’s happening right now. I think part of this funding is really going towards creating a system of how city and county report on a quarterly basis, tangentially as we’re looking at state funding, state is going to require regular updates and reporting on housing plans in order to access the new infrastructure funding that they’re looking to create. And so I think the more we can get consistent in reporting and making that easier, the more we will have this as an evergreen resource. Yeah, and so Corey has done that. He actually is on a hunting permit for the next month. So… I’ll also add that. I think they’re kind of crude numbers from Corey. Like I don’t think he’s got that solidified. I mean, he had a lot of off the cuff things and a lot of things that may or may not happen and it was not very specific data necessarily. Go ahead. I move to approve the request by the housing task force of 15,500 affordable housing budget funds. I’ll second. Motion by Commissioner Martinez, second by Commissioner Haber. And then you were asking to speak. Was that please? Or if you were reminding me, you were second.
Yeah, I think this is… I think this is… I can’t recall having spent any of that $100,000. But I thought not. So it is in the budget. I think this is exactly what we were intentioning when we put that money aside. I think we get great value out of this amount of money, especially since you’ve got some volunteers and very much appreciate the volunteer effort too. I know it’s above and beyond. So very comfortable getting this money towards this and hope we can find another good use for the other 84,500.
Being part of the committee, I would really like, or the subcommittee, I would really like to, if we do find a person that’s willing to take on the work, to set out hard guidelines to what we’re looking for. I wanna know. I mean, you guys have heard it from me before. I wanna know what we have. I wanna know where we will be in the next three years, five years, 10 years, just with current building, current expected build out. Not to mention, in just thinking about this, we’ve changed some land use policies here before, like HDHO. I wanna know, tied into that also, that if units are available, I wanna know the restrictions that are on those units also. If restrictions are in place, it really, there could be a thousand homes, but with an income restriction of 38,000, it really rough to get into, especially even with McDonald’s pay rate. So I need to know that information. I gladly support the amount of money that’s been asked for.
And I would probably change it to 15,500 just for the study. Before doing more community events, I’d like to know where we’re at, where we’re gonna be, but still support it. Well, let’s continue to talk offline, make sure that we’re getting you what you want. Keep those videos in the same page of what we want. I mean, Hasu is wanting the same thing. I mean, again, like I was saying, we’re in between development product ever, Skyline’s opening, and we’re looking for an exit. We wanna know, should we be building what and where? So I think we’re on the same page. And it’d be vital information for MACLT, HASU, ADO program. I mean, a lot of us. Yeah, I mean, ideally this will go on the dashboard. So this is relevant and information that people can access, developers can access that. I mean, I think it’ll be good information for for-profit developers, everyone.
And just because for the RCG grants, you guys have spelled out pretty good for the mom housing dashboard. So I’m just making sure this is encompassing those needs. So this is just a thought here in the current fiscal situation that we find our stuff. And just because there’s 100,000 sitting there, it doesn’t mean we need to spend it. So if we are gonna spend it, I would like to make sure that the city is matching that because I know you’re asking them. So I think it’s important that we get both entities tied into this. I thought there was a little vague on what the study was gonna do too. And then I also had some questions. I know the subcommittee met and that if we’re gonna follow procedure, I believe on the county subcommittee, there were three people there. That would mean three people would vote on the priorities. And it seemed like there were other entities that were voting. We didn’t vote on the priorities. We did the priorities like in January. Okay, okay. It was just my understanding that other people had voted in that. I mean, that’s what I was… So I think that as the subcommittee, we want to be the ones voting on that subcommittee. And then following up, I mean, this housing task force guys, I think this is a great idea. But what I really think we also need to be doing with that task force is supporting the county’s priorities. And those are shifting a little bit. And I wanna make sure that we’re encompassing all housing. I understand that both of you are working on great projects that meet one niche. Excuse me. And so I wanna make sure that we’re looking at the big picture here when you do a study. And I know you mentioned that, but I’m reiterating it because it’s extremely important to the current mission majority. And so there are things moving forward that we want your support on and we want your help looking to where we can start moving this in a little bit different direction than what’s been in the past. And all your goals are awesome where you’re at, but we’ve got to start looking at some other ones and we’re not always gonna be able to fit people into just in a Royal situation law. So I’m looking for a little bit bigger expansion and then also hopefully that we can work something in to make sure that the city matches and we’re getting a good bang for our buck here. Well, it’s always been our priority to find out what the, I mean, I’ve been on the subcommittee from day one. I’ve said every meeting, I wanna know what you want. I mean, make sure that you have opinions that you pass them to Brian or Mike or Trish, so that way we want, that’s the point of the subcommittee is to make sure that we’re getting what you want. Exactly, I appreciate that. So, yeah, I know Brian, you wanted to say, but I was speaking for Brian and Melody and Mike and myself who currently are trying to move this forward. And I know others are as well, but we wanna look at all housing. We wanna see what niche we can fill for every different level in this community. And it’s been one of my biggest complaints for a long time is that sometimes we’re focused on only affordable housing. And then what used to be affordable housing when I started in Moab is being bought up all the time by people that come in and tear it down and then build a fancy home because we’re not allowing them to build somewhere. And so there’s just this market that needs to be met and we can’t just meet one portion of it. We’ve gotta be looking at the whole picture. So I appreciate it. Brian, go ahead. Yeah, and just as we kind of discussed in the housing subcommittee, just evergreening this process, making it so it’s something that’s repeatable. When I first came in, I came and looked at the housing plan and it’s like my first question, and I’m sure everyone’s first question would be, well, how are we doing now three years later? And it’s like, well, we don’t know. And so I just wanna make sure that what we’re doing right now is setting up that system so that in three years later, when someone comes in, they can go, look, this is what the supply or the demand was back in 2022. This is what the demand now is in 2025. And here’s what we’ve built. Here’s how things are going. So we can see how that trends moving along and making sure that we’re meeting it. That’s fine, that’s the intention. Yeah, no, I just wanted to add that up that I’m happy with. Yeah, thank you. Mike. Subcommittee, HASU, MACLT, we need to get someone from San Juan involved also.
It is across county lines. It’s next door to us. We’ve got to know what they’re doing with housing, where they’re going with housing, what’s on the, I mean, part of the study should be how many houses they’re building also or how much commercial space. So, I mean, this is just talking to everyone in one room. We need to get someone from San Juan on this also. It’s a great idea.
All right. Let’s see, remind me, we have Commissioner Martinez, make the motion. Commissioner Hadler, second. Do we have any further discussion? Seeing none, I’ll call for a vote. All in favor? Passes unanimously. Thanks, folks. I mean, Ben, are you really excited about this? Good. Thank you. All right. We will move on to number 11, resolution in support of public lands. Commissioner Hedin. So, I have, I’m a part of this Western Leaders Network, which is leaders across the Intermountain West. They have been encouraging communities that are dependent on public lands to do resolutions. And that’s where this idea came from. The resolution is in there and you’re welcome to read it. But it’s basically acknowledgement that we as a legislative body are deeply concerned about the economic vitality of tourism. And thus the backbone of our industry and public lands are the backbone of this industry and the health of these public lands. Public lands are of extreme importance to amenity-driven communities such as ours. What they do for us is attract and retain not only visitors, but also residents that come for the beauty of our surrounding lands, but also the quality of life that it provides for all of us. Public lands provide a thriving economy in outdoor recreation, livestock production and resource extraction, producing jobs and in strengthening our GDP. Public lands provide for us health and wellbeing for all visitors and residents. And public lands provide clean water, clean air and wildlife resources. And so this is simply an acknowledgement of this. So I would like to make a motion to approve the Grand County Resolution supporting public lands as presented. Motion by Commissioner Hedin, second by Commissioner McGann. Comments? Discussions? I will start that off then. I would have to say that I’m not in support of this. I think that as we continue to move forward with our acquisition of the UMTRA project, to some degree, this is trying to tell our federal delegates how to do their job. And so I would recommend that we not vote in favor of this. We’re specifically asking Senator Lee. I know that Curtis ran the bill, but we need Lee’s support as well. And I just spent a couple of days with some of their staff, really just one day, but we had dinner with them as well. I think that an effort to work with those people rather than continue to come out in a form that is basically against what they’re doing, maybe on some other agenda items, not the way that we’re gonna go about acquiring the UMTRA property. It’s important that we work with our federal representatives. And I know that Jacques and Brian and Mike have all been back there to do so. And I think it’s important that those efforts are continued, that we continue to work with them, whether it’s on the UMTRA project or something else. There’s just too much at stake here to be doing something that has a slight tone, I would say that is a negative towards a certain Senator specifically. But I think that there’s other options that really we can look at. And I think we all received the email, just came in yesterday or today, I don’t even remember anymore. Utah Public Lands Council that’s going through UAC. And I think there would be far more value in us working with that group, which works across the entire state to protect all of our public lands and our rights on those public lands as a group. I would think that Grand County is, with all of the commissioners, should be involved in protecting that at the state level before we get to where we’re up at the federal level. So I think Mike was next and Jacques and then Trish. Well, Trish’s thoughts on that, I thought it was pertaining to the email that we got a couple of days ago or this item, the Public Lands Council.
What’s your thoughts on, I mean, Utah Public Lands Council is backed by 20 plus. I haven’t looked into them. I mean, I do know some of their board members fairly well, specifically Trevor Barnson. So, yeah, I mean, I could talk to him. I think that would be interesting. He’s a producer that I know fairly well from the Beaver area. Okay. Via working with the Division of Wildlife. So I could talk to him. I could talk to him. I say that because I would want Utah’s interests, EUAC, a bigger voice. Utah Public Lands Council, bigger hammer swinging up the legislature. I mean, there has been a few counties that have been in the state of Utah that have passed a similar resolution. There’s actually did include, I tried to be very, very conscientious about not talking about selling public lands because I know that that’s a hot topic. I tried to really take out anything that would, I don’t think the tone at all pertains to pointing out a certain senator. I worked very hard to make it simply that we acknowledge the importance of our lands and all of the economic vitality that it brings to us. And so I disagree with the comment that there is a tone to it. I worked very hard to remove any such tone, but I, yeah, I acknowledge that. I could, I’ll reach out to Trevor. That’s, yeah, for sure. I like that. With that, sorry if I’m taking up more time. With that, I know for a fact that a senator’s staffers, I did not speak to Senator Lee himself, but in speaking with Senator staffers that there would be, it’s not unexpected backlash coming from the public lands debate that’s been ongoing on a federal level, but it would be looked down upon if we did point anything at a specific senator and really active efforts cannot be the umpterpile. I love joining the Utah Public Lands Council and I love not affecting where we’re trying to get to on the umpterpile, so walking all those lines. Thank you. I’m shocked you were next in the number. Yeah, and I think, I was gonna say what you said. There’s nothing about the sale of public lands in there and I don’t find there to be particular tone or negative pushback towards any one senator. I think this is calling out the value of the lands to our economy and the need to recognize that value. Also don’t think approving this precludes the other item. I did look at that a little bit. I want to look at it more, but that organization, am I wrong or is that a sheep and cattlemen’s organization to begin with? A couple of the members are definitely, there’s not something that I know. That’s what it looks like when I looked into the organization. I mean, obviously that has a small part of Grand County’s economy, but not nearly as much as tourism. But again, I don’t think that one precludes the other. So anyway, as you can probably guess, I’m in favor of this. Brian, go ahead and then Mary.
Yeah, I’m trying to figure out what’s the point of this. Where are we trying to get at with this letter? What action are we trying to create? And I don’t see where this is actually going. I mean, it’s a nice letter, right? But I just don’t see what we’re actually going to be trying for with this letter. And then also I just wanted to ask Mark. Mark, could we put the Utah Public Lands Council on the agenda for the next commission meeting? And I think that we can just put that down for an action item. Thanks.
Mary, please. I agree. This is pretty non-controversial. It’s telling us, you know, just that we want to support public lands for many, many reasons. I personally don’t see any connection to this and the EPST project. I don’t imagine this affecting the transfer of that land at all. I mean, I think that’s real far-stretched. I think this is a pretty… And public lands are our backbone. And to say that we support them and we want to continue to be taken care of and paid for, that the appropriate finances are sent our way, I think that’s the purpose, is to say we want it to continue and we want public lands to continue to be there through different processes that they pay for. So I don’t see any connection to the UMTRA project.
Anybody else? Mike.
Direct connection is actually, I was like, by encouraging the Utah… Sorry. Now, therefore, be it resolved, down on section two, encourages the Utah congressional delegation to impose any legislation that would negatively impact public lands. That speaks directly at Senator Lee’s previous workings. And again, would not want unsupportive natures on the UMPT project. You’re saying it’s negatively impacting public lands?
I’m saying that encouraging the Utah congressional delegation to oppose any legislation. I would not want, in any way, want to tell them what to do when we’re asking them for UMTRA. Brian Gould. I’m going to make a comment. Jacques, I’m going to have to say, this has been five times you’ve interrupted people and spoke out of turn. I mean, I really would like to see, if we’re going to abide by this, let’s all try to abide by it. Otherwise, like, let’s just all talk to each other whenever we want.
Is there any further discussion on this one? I was just going to call for a vote. I just wanted to say one more thing. And as far as going back to Washington, D.C. and working with people on not just the UMPTR project, but other public land situations, I’ve probably done that more than anybody else on this dais. I don’t think anybody was discounting your service. It was encouraging others, I think, is the way that I meant that to come across. It certainly is an encouragement to spend time with them, whether it’s on the river with their staff, or whether it’s back in D.C., or whether it’s up at the state. There’s a real high value in working with our federal and state leaders. Melody, did you have anything? Yeah, just one last comment. So I absolutely agree with the top half of this letter about how it benefits public lands. It’s great for Grand County, but all the things that you had just then when we get to the part where let it be resolved, those are where I find that I don’t think sending negative. And it’s not, like I said, you were really careful to not create a negative tone. And it did seem very, very neutral as I was reading it, but I still can’t support sending something to tell them let’s do it when we have the umpteenth file. Okay, so in the future, though, I am going to just make the statement I’m not picking on you. When I do send it out and I ask for feedback, if you would have given me that feedback, I may have modified it. I try when people give me feedback on letters, I do modify things too. My goal is to have them pass. You know, I put a lot of time and effort. And so I’m just throwing that out. I do try to put out letters if I am going to put something and I ask for feedback and people don’t give me feedback. I sometimes wonder if my email works because I send emails all the time and get no responses. So maybe it doesn’t. I’ll check with Matt. But, you know. Okay, Melanie, I know she kind of took over. I’ll do better. I know you did. I did respond to you one time. You did fix the letter. I will do better at responding to you. I appreciate that. If we took out number two in the therefores, would that make it palatable for everyone? I mean, then it’s extremely neutral. We were recognizing multiple use. We’re urging federal management to continue their collaborative efforts with, you know. And we express its strong support for the continued federal management and stewardship of the public lands with Grant County. So if that would make it palatable, I would like to, you know, see if Trish wanted to just amend her motion to say with the removal of the number two in the therefores. Is that something? I would do that if it would pass. But if it’s not going to pass, then we’ll just move on. I would, you know, I think that’s what everybody’s concerned about. And otherwise, I think it’s just acknowledgement that public lands are important to us. I’m not in favor of it. I think public lands are important to everybody on this dais. We all spend time either roaming in it, recreating in it, working in it. It’s part of every one of our lives. But continually be putting these out there just almost feels like a political statement. And so I’m not in favor of it.
I don’t feel like it’s a political statement. It’s extremely important to me. You know, I am a professor of environment society within the College of Natural Resources. It’s extremely important to me. And hopefully you guys also understand I come from a very diverse interaction with public lands. I grew up in a logging family. My brother’s still a logger. My dad was also a cattleman. So my connection to public lands isn’t just climbing or running or hiking. It’s also, you know, extraction. And so it’s important to me. Obviously, I keep beating the drum. Mike. I want to tell you, I’ll get better at answering the emails. I could have made it clear points to you. I’m sorry about that. I appreciate that. And thank you both for acknowledging that. Thank you. All right. Those in favor.
Those opposed.
Opposed and fails. Four opposed. Commissioner McCurdy. Commissioner Martinez. Commissioner McCandless. Commissioner Winfield. We will move on to resolution repealing and replacing resolution number 3421, approving a special election for November 4, 2025.
Commissioner McCandless. So we already passed this 7-0 last meeting, but after review with the Canyonlands Health Care Special Service District, they were concerned about the wording where it says, the Canyonlands Health Care Special Service District was a long-term care facility in Grand County, and they are not. They help operate it. And so they were concerned with that language that was going to be unclear to the voters. And so that’s why I’m bringing this back before us today to change that language. Instead of saying a long-term care facility in Grand County, I’m putting which operates the long-term care facility in Grand County and adding that also and provides resources for other critical health care needs. And those are items that are listed in state statute, which all of the entities are listed in the resolution. And it does state that these funds can be allowed as state statute. And so anyway, that’s why it’s coming back before us. We just need to change the language specifically because I want us to look like the intelligent people that we are. We are the, I can’t even think, but anyways, we’re the lawmaking, we are the authority in Grand County, and we want to make sure that we’re accurate in our areas of expertise for voter trust and confidence in our civic leaders.
You can go, Steve.
Bart and I did both look at this. It looks good for a word search. He made a revision change to it, which I couldn’t see the difference. He deleted one comma and a left parenthetical. So if you guys can find those in the document, that would be awesome. I could not. Instead of popping in the additional document, we’re going to do the word search or the grammar search afterwards. And then we’re going to do the word search so those are the two changes that came from legal, a period and comma and a left parenthesis or a left parenthetical were missing. One other note, there is the word including. So the language states to be used as allowed by state statute, including to help fund the operations and then it lists some organizations. Those are not the only places that it could be utilized for the funds. As you all know, there’s six categories within that breakdown. The sixth one is the combination of the previous five. I believe it’s search and rescue, avalanche, EMS, and then there’s a fire and then medical. And search and rescue. So it’s a combination. It’s all waste. So it’s a combination of all those, but the call out doesn’t limit it to one of those things. That word including means that it’s not just restrictive to that group. It could apply to all based on state statute. So it means legal review. Just noting that I know folks have expressed some concern about that, but that’s the language that we use. And additionally, in the whereas clauses, we do call out that under the current law, those particular entities are the ones that are permitted under statute. So if you have other questions, please just. I’m not sure if it was Jacques or Mary. I was just saying that, yes, in the resolution, it states that those other entities are included in this perhaps maybe. But it is the fire and the EMS and healthcare special service district that are needing the monies and the funds right now. And that’s why we’re asking for them. So I think it’s really very clear to the voters that at this time, that’s where we want to place the money.
I move to approve the resolution repealing and replacing resolution number 3421 and calling for a special election on November 4th, 2025. Second. Motion by Commissioner Hadler, second by Commissioner McGann. Further comment? I’d like to end, have my motion reflect the grammatical changes that Stephen called out. I was gonna say, maybe I found one. I don’t know. Whereas 2025 is a municipal election year and therefore a ballot to be administered. That sentence maybe should end with a period and not a colon. See that, yeah. Okay, so that’s the only thing. And I didn’t find that myself. I had Grammarly do it. Grammarly. That’s right. Mike, please.
As questioned before, does this come across to the Grand County citizens as every one of these districts can get that money?
Like the voters need to know that solid waste is on that list just as much as EMS is.
That’s my only holdup. I love putting it to the voters. I love everything. But when someone votes on it, they need to know trash is just as applicable words as EMS in the funding requests. It’s election labor. Hey. One suggestion I have that I’d be happy to sort of facilitate is there’s an insert that goes in with the ballot and there could be information regarding the ballot measure or there will be information regarding the ballot measure in that insert. And there could be more lengthy description of this allowable statute in the insert. Just a suggestion I’m offering. That sounds good. Yeah. Thanks.
Yeah, I supported this going on the ballot because it allows the voters to weigh in on this. What I don’t support though is the way that it’s unclear. And I appreciate what you’re saying there, Gabe. That would help alleviate for me a little bit because what we’ve got is three out of six entities named who I agree that they need the money right now, Mary. But next year and the following year, that’s the commission’s responsibility. And so what I really see is an opportunity as commissioners here and putting a process together so that yearly people come back with a request, with a plan, with their financials, with an actual need laid out. And I think that we’re in that process. I know that Andy sent some stuff across today, I believe, Melody forwarded it to me. But I think with the current economic crisis that we find ourselves here in the county, it just requires that we make sure not just ourselves, but the entities that we fund are doing a good job of being fiscal with their money. And that needs to be more than just a request when it comes before the budget committee. It needs to be with a plan and it needs to be laid out with what exactly are those needs so that we can look at their financials, we can look at how they’re doing, where their spending is in comparison to the revenues and look across those numbers. And I just think there comes a fiscal responsibility to the county commission to be aware of that rather than it just being a request and we all decide, okay, we’re gonna vote EMS and vote it in. I’m looking for a little more than that. And in general, I’m against any increase in taxes. And I’m appreciative that the voters get to pick whether this passes or not, because otherwise I’m against taxes. I’m especially against taxes when we don’t show that we’re cutting our budget or that we’re cutting and trimming to meet the situation that we’re in. And that feels a little bit like this right now. I think the only saving grace, I guess, for me is the fact that the voters will make the decision.
Yeah, I’m reluctant to vote on the verbiage change without including all six. But again, I see Gabe’s point here helping move this forward. Yes, sir. And just another note on page, it’s page two, one, two, three, four paragraphs down on the whereas. It does state that such tax collections will be allocated by the Grand County Commission as per Utah code 59-12-8026C. Such allocations shall be distributed on a quarterly basis. So this will be done by the commission on a quarterly basis. The listing of the names down below doesn’t give a predetermined equal third allocation to each of the named entities. So I just don’t want there to be confusion that you guys have already done that. You guys still have to do the allocations on a quarterly basis to whatever entities in whatever manner that you guys want to do. And you guys still have to go back and vote on this as a commission. After the ballot. Correct. Right. Yeah. And so you’re saying that quarterly it will come before us for those allocations in a vote? Is that? Wait for clarification though. But when it’s first quarterly. It’s first quarterly, but allocated annually. Annually we’ll decide. Okay. That was where Mike. All right, Mary. Sorry if John. It’s going to be those three entities that will be working hard to, you know, to convince the voters that this is worthwhile. So having them named on is to me appropriate since otherwise it came to us and asked for it. They were all here.
Any further shock? Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry. But that’s okay. Yeah, I’m very supportive of the language. I think it’s appropriate. I think that indicates where funding is going to go. I also, I think that we talk about budgeting shortfalls every meeting and how we’re cutting funding at the county. And I also kind of regret, Bill, you’re saying that we’re in a financial crisis. I mean a crisis. I think if we were down like 30%, that would be a crisis. Absolutely. We’re down a little bit. We’re down within your average ebbs and flows of what people bring in. I mean, you bring that up at every meeting. And I get your point. I think we all do. But I certainly wouldn’t call it a crisis. I mean, we just spent upwards of 2000 bucks the other night on a dinner for a bunch of people. Like that’s not what you do when you’re in an actual crisis. You know, it’s hard to do in business. So anyway, that’s the tangent. I’m supportive of this. I think the wording accurately reflects what we are presenting. And again, voters are the ones who are going to decide. It’s going to come back to us. We have a chance to vote on this again. If it passes, big if.
I also appreciate Gabe’s information about putting information in the ballot. I think that’s going to be a big part of this for sure. Okay, Mike and then Brian. Did I skip you? Okay. Sorry. Thanks Gabe for the information in there. That really brought my decision up.
Previously stated, a $40 million operating budget a year. 6.1% is a lot of $41 billion, at least to me. But thank you for the clarification, Gabe. Of course. Brian. Yeah, so just a couple of things. So first off with this, I have a question.
Lost it. So just on this actual item, before I get off on all the other tangents, is what are the other critical healthcare needs? I mean, that’s the big thing that was mentioned, right? But I want to know what it is that we’re… Go ahead, Melody, thanks. So it’s a hospital. So in that language, it says for costs associated with a federally qualified health center within the county. So that would be the care center currently. They’re in the works of doing an assisted living facility. And that’s the master plan that is being worked on. And I don’t know what will all come out of that, but that money can go towards assisted living facility, a freestanding urgent care center. So we have that right now. I don’t think that the healthcare district is giving money to urgent care currently, but they are giving money to a rural county healthcare facility within the county, which is our hospital. So the Cayennes Healthcare Special Service District does give them the hospital. They do give money to the care center. They also have given money to EMS. Those are those other… It can be used for acquisition of land for a center clinic or facility, or design, construction, equipment, or furniture of the center clinic or facility. So those are all of those other healthcare things. So it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s currently. I mean, it’s hospital and care center currently, and it can go to future, which is where they are going to come and show. I mean, where they would need the money is in those kinds of things. But, and also with, I mean, we don’t know what’s going to happen with Medicare and Medicaid. I mean, it could all be fine. It could all not be fine. And so they would be able to assist in those, but those are those other. If you, I mean, we could take that out, provides resources for other critical healthcare needs, and it would still be okay, if it just said, which operates a long-term care facility in Grand County. But I do think it is important because those other critical healthcare needs really do exist and will be future needs. Are those other needs right there? Are they contained inside of the state statute? I just read the state statute to you. Okay, but I mean, so no, but the, well, the other needs right here is listed. And then inside the state statute, it has another list. Is that correct? Yeah, that’s what I just read to you. Yes, and the state statute for all those items that would be those other critical needs. I’m okay. Yeah, I understand that those other critical needs are. But so the Grand County provides resources for other critical healthcare needs. So is that listing back to the state statute again? I’m just getting confused with all the arrows. Yeah, I mean, the state statute doesn’t say critical healthcare needs, but that’s what they take care of. Let me make a simple question. Is this last sentence right here, that Ann provides resources for other healthcare needs, is that going beyond state statute?
Not in there. If you read their mission statement, their mission statement. Well, the mission statement has nothing to do with being on the ballot for state statute. Do you understand what I’m saying? Is right here, you have the state statute. Then we have, then we’ve listed out, we’ve listed out Canyonlands Care Center, and then we listed out EMS, and then we listed out fire over here. They’re all included inside of the state statute. By adding and other critical healthcare needs, are we adding something that’s outside of the state statute? No, we’re not. Because it says a freestanding urgent care facility, rural county healthcare facility, rural health clinic within the county, ongoing expenses of all of those centers. I mean, so all of those are the things that a healthcare special service does, and those are all included in the statute. That was my question. Okay. I’m trying to get a full understanding, and I think that, you know, I’m going to start off, I’m going to make a substitute motion in a second. I move to approve the changed, the resolution repealing and replacing resolution 3421, approving the special election for November 4th, 2025, with the removal of, and provides resources for other critical healthcare needs. To me, that right there just creates more confusion right there. And if we’re just trying to, I mean, by saying the Canyonlands Healthcare Special Service District, that lists them right there. It lists the fire. It still lists the EMS. Everybody’s still included. I think that additional bit right there just creates more confusion. And if it’s already included in the state statute, which is listed as the primary right there, right, I think that that should be okay. And then just going off onto all the tangents that we had there earlier, I do want to address. Go ahead. And you made the substitute motion, right? Oh, yes, I did. You need a second. Sorry. Do we have a second question? No. Either you make a substitute motion and you get a second. Shut down. I heard that first. Nope. But without the answer to my question. We have a motion. Do we have, making the second still allows the discussion. Okay. I have a motion by Commissioner McCurdy to the substitute motion, removing the sentence critical and provides resources for other critical health care needs. Yes. Okay. With that, with the exclusion of that wording, can we still allocate money to the health care district? Yes. Yeah. Okay. The language within the parentheticals though is providing additional context of what the health care special service district is. That’s what it’s doing, right? So having the language there or not, I don’t think it’s creating, it doesn’t say, you know, had it not been in parentheticals, then I think you could maybe have some arguments. If you put, you know, EMS, buyer, and then ended with the health care special service district and then didn’t have the parentheticals and had other health care, critical health care needs. I think maybe you’d be opening it up, but I think it applies to only that specific item. But I don’t, I don’t think it necessitates moving that language. And Bart, I didn’t feel like it caused that concern. But that would have influenced my second. So Melody, go rough. So the concern of the Canyonlands Health Care Special Service District and why they added that language instead of just having a long term care facility. So number one is people don’t know what Canyonlands Health Care Special Service District does. Actually, I didn’t until I’ve been on the board now for eight months.
So anyways, which operates so, but which operates long term care facility, but that’s not the only thing that they do. So people are thinking, oh, I’m only voting for the care center, even though it’s included in there, you know, but that’s why they added the part. I’m fine with which operates if that’s what stays. But I think that adding in the provides resource for other critical health care needs is important because it isn’t, they do a lot. They do a lot. People don’t know what they do. And I think it’s beneficial language to be in there. Mary. I think it’s also what the health district itself wants. That’s what they ask. Yeah, that’s what they’ve asked. We’ve had the health district ask us to add that so that it’s clear that their vision is not only to the extended care that they, they for years have helped the hospital. And so from the, you know, from the beginning of the tax, you know, Mike and then Melody. Okay. So liking, I get, I’m going to go with your word, apparent tentacles on that one. Inside the premises. Inside the, I have these words. Everything in election integrity going to be followed along there. And state statute there, Gabe.
Can you repeat that question, please? With that, with those words in there, everything hunky-dory with election integrity and state statute on special elections. As it relates to the, you know, the administration of elections, that looks good. Yes. Okay. Melody.
And I just want to say on a side note, so the eight months I have been going to the healthcare special service district, they, I think this has been a fire under their butt to really get some stuff done. We have the council and agents that asking for assisted living facilities. I think it’s a need in our community. So I think that it’s a crucial part to put on there because the care center is doing okay. I mean, they’re still supplementing them. They’re doing good. They want to expand the care center. We have people that are leaving my lab. So I think it is a good thing to put on there. And I think that that’s gotten them. They’re actually super excited to get this plan going and moving forward with some stuff, which is really cool because like eight months, we’ve kind of been just going to meetings. But I think that now that we’ve got kind of a mission or something anyways, that’s a side note, sorry.
And then I just want to address something that Jacques said. And this came up earlier when we had Stephen Vowles here and we were talking and he misspoke. And I know you have email here when he misspoke. And I just like to read this right here. A recession is generally defined as a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy. This is typically associated with two consecutive quarters of negative growth. It is a broader measure of economic contraction. An economic depression, right? In contrast is a more severe and prolonged downturn than a recession. It is characterized by a sustained period of significant economic decline, often lasting for three or more years. It kind of sounds like us, resulting in a total decline of at least 10%.
We’re not close to 10%. Over the last three years. We are not in a depression. It’s certainly not a crisis. Does it have a definition for crisis? It is, sorry, I’m done. Okay, we need to, I’ll call for a vote. Thank you, Mary. I’ll call for a vote also. I’m the substitute here. Those in favor? Oh, I see where the writing’s going. But I like what was said of others. So I have those opposed.
Motion fails. Five opposed. Commissioner Hedin, Commissioner Hadler, Commissioner McGann, Commissioner Winfield, Commissioner Martinez, for having the canvas, right? Okay, moving on then back to a vote on. The original motion. The original motion, mind me, was it Jacques who made the motion and then Mary seconded? I think it was, yes, that’s right. I think that’s right. Okay, Commissioner Hadler’s motion with Commissioner McGann seconding. Is there any further discussion on this vote? Yes, Jacques. Can I just ask, Stephen, I believe this would still need a five to two pass. Is that correct? That’s correct. Okay. Okay. I will say that without adding all six entities on this, I’m not going to support the change. It’s already been passed that it can go before the voters. I wasn’t in agreement then. I’m still not in agreement without listing all six of the entities clearly so that it makes it very clear what the county can and cannot, or basically can, allot money towards. And I still see this as being a little bit unclear, but I will call for a vote. Those in favor of the motion?
Second. And those opposed? And that will be passing six to one with myself opposed, Commissioner Winfield. Thank you for the extra clarification, Gabe. Yeah, thank you for that. I’ll get it drafted. We’ll work on it together. Okay, so we are moving on to acceptance of the 2024 Grand County Audit and Financial Statements. This was for the Commission Administrator’s Office.
Yes, and the Audit Committee met. John Haderlie of Larson went over the reports. That was a public meeting. Also, Haderlie will be here at the meeting on the second for face-to-face with the Commission If you all approve the audit, it will be signed and sent to the state this month prior to September the 1st.
Okay, and yes, Brian and then Melody.
So I saw the email chain going back and forth about the recommendations that Karen had. I was told that those were made, but I have not seen the subsequent note. Gabe, is there any way that you could maybe either read that out to us or so that I can see how that stuff could subsequent note for me? Sure, thanks.
Melody? I just was going to make a motion to accept the 2024 audit as presented. Oh, back up. You have questions, right? So then, you know. You got a motion? A second. If you can come to, you should discuss. So motion by Mary.
Motion was by Commissioner McCandless. Seconded by Mary B. Thank you. Second by Commissioner McGann.
Okay, thank you. Oh, I see. All right. So further discussion? I just want to hear what that. So as requested by Commissioner Martinez and this was presented to John Hatterly of Larson and Company, as well as vetted by Karen Kerfin as an addition into these statements as a subsequent event note, which that means if an action was taken, that’s relevant to information presented in these 2024 statements. But before they’re accepted, even though if it happened in 2025, which these statements don’t directly speak to. However, if it’s appropriate to include that there’s a convention called a subsequent event note that makes note of that because it can be relevant. And in this case, because it is responsive to the state honors finding letter. And there are other actions that are included in the statement that summarize that those actions that were responsive to that letter. That’s why it’s being presented at this time. And so that draft of that notice as follows. In 2025, additional actions taken in response to the state honors finding letter dated December 2nd, 2024, operation of the county commission 40,791 dollars was made from the general fund to the TRT promotion fund in order to reimburse TRT funds used to support the Trail Ambassador Program contained within the Grand County Active Trails and Transportation Department.
All right, any further discussion? All right. We can vote on the motion by Commissioner McCandless, second by Commissioner McGann. All those in favor? Accepting the audit. Thank you very much. That passes unanimously. Moving on. I believe we were crossing the line to discussions now, correct? If I may, I think we were going to bring back… Yes. Thank you. That was item F in the consent agenda.
Mattie did. Maddie and Quinn both sent clarifying emails since then. And I had a couple of remarks. It looked like that the required cash match 20 percent. My calculations say that is what? 38,406 dollars and 40 cents. That would be leveraged by full-time superhology staff, the trail guys, I think Kevin and his crew. They’re going to be out there and the in-kind would be volunteer hours to get a lot of volunteers out there. Also, this commission approved this grant on the 18th of March, as it’s stated.
When we approve applying for the grant, I think my understanding is that if we decline it afterwards, that’s a bad look and it tends to affect our ability to go for these grants. I’m satisfied with Mattie’s explanations on that. And I think that I think these are great projects, the projects that are needed, the projects that are going to help with tourism in the county, the projects that are going to help with, you know, giving locals fun trails. These are trails that, for example, the NICA team that Brian and I, both advocates on the NICA team, use all the time for practice. They’re also trails that are close to town. They’re some of the most popular trail systems. The Raptor Route and Brands trails that tourists enjoy. And as usual, when Moab builds new trails, there’s always huge buzz in the mountain biking community anyway, nationally and internationally. So it helps bring people into the county. So for those and other reasons, I’m extremely supportive of this. So I’d make a motion to approve this grant contract that will provide funding in non-motorized trail construction, maintenance, and user education. I’ll second that motion by Commissioner Hadler, second by Commissioner Hedin. Mike, you’ve got a question. I love the, sorry, I’m dying from almonds.
I love new trails. I want to know if a funding source for this is direct, applicable to TRT funding and not a promotional, but the creation of trails. Is that an allowable use of? I did not. Commissioner Martinez asked that question previously. I didn’t research it. We talked with him about the position not being funded by actual monetary. It was just by the salary amounts. But I can follow up with you regarding that. In future, I’d like to know if that’s an allowable use. I know Brian had something, and Jacques, and I’ll just throw in the mix there real quick myself, but I’m confused. Maddie said approximately 70,000. Jock said, I think 38,000. That’s just where I’m confused. I don’t know if that was your question. And there’s a lot of confusion on this right here because if you look at the grant, it actually lists cash as a $78,000 and then it lists the in-kind as 10,000. I’m told that inside of, see if I can look it up here.
And see inside of the summary, it says budget over project hours by full-time supervisory staff will be leveraged as the 20% cash match. And project hours donated by volunteers will be used as the in-kind match. So we’re basically saying that the $78,000 is going to be our supervisory role. Yeah, mostly salary. Yes, salary. Now, all that said, when you look at the agenda summary up there at the fiscal impact, it doesn’t really list that right there. And so that’s where my question originally arise from, right? I mean, of course, these are all great trails and I’d love to see all of these projects completed right here. That’s not the reason I objected. The reason I objected is it wasn’t clear how that money was coming in. I think that maybe that was listed in the financial responsibility right there. When you looked at the grant itself, where it lists the $78,000 in cash, it wouldn’t be so, well, just so murky. And then another thing that I just wanted to mention right here is this is made possible because there’s a crew available to do that. And that’s one thing that we do not have available for the motorized trails. And I think that’s something that we need to, as a commission, look into is how we are able to leverage that type of supervisory role to get that same kind of maintenance done on our motorized trails.
I know that was a lot and I agree with what he’s saying there, but I’m still confused about the 35,000 or whatever you mentioned, 78 in there. It’s still not real. I thought you mentioned the 70,000 that Maddie mentioned was that. Well, yeah, so now there’s 30,000. That’s the educational component. So that’s the component that she talks about in project four, if you look into the agenda item. I think that’s clearly the, and that she talks about the trail ambassadors and project education. So when she mentions that 70,000, that’s the component that could go out of the county to our now hypothetical non-profit. It’s gonna- Out of the grant money. Correct. Okay, thank you. That’s great. So that is pointing at that. And then I think she, okay, it could be worded better. I think we have a lot of items on our agendas that don’t have fiscal impacts that need them. Maybe it is a little bit murky, but it’s not that hard for me to understand this. When I read through this, it does take a reading for sure. It’s not, and I agree with Brian, yeah, that fiscal note should have been noted at the top instead of the bottom. But I still think this is a great use of these funds. We have everything in place to do it. We’ve already approved the grant or we’ve already approved the application for the grant. And signing off on this now, I think it would be a beneficial thing to all of us. And so once again, what is the full fiscal dollar amount that this is costing the county? I mean, I think- I’m sorry, I’m just gonna- I think that’s a valid question. But it’s our supervisory hours, the hours that the salary that we pay, the staff and the supervisors. I’ve tried to explain it- That’s what I’m saying. Yeah, I got it. So there, but to Brian’s point though, I think Brian’s point is valid. There is an actual monetary cost to the county. Agree. But it’s one that we’re going to encourage over the course of the year anyway. Okay, thank you. That helps for me. And I’m sorry, I didn’t read that whole thing. It was- No, I tried to explain it, maybe I didn’t explain it well enough. I appreciate it, that helps me. Any other questions?
All right, did we- I made the motion, yes. Hadler and Hedin. First, second, Hedin. Hadler, Hedin. Motion by Hadler, second by Commissioner Hadin. All in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you everybody for helping to educate me. Thank you. And we can now move on to the discussion item. Starting with cooperative agreement for dark skies. Do you mind if I bring Chrissy up to assist with this? I do not mind. So I kind of took the bull by the horns regarding the dark skies thing. And I started by talking, I can’t remember how many iterations, but I was meeting specifically with Code Compliance, like how can we expand these funds, basically bringing people into compliance. Maybe you were there too, Stephen. I can’t remember, anyway, it doesn’t matter. Many, many meetings. And we kind of came to this place where it was like, okay, we’re going to send out, Brandon and I work together. We’re going to send out postcards. We’re going to have a little incentive program. People can write in, get 200 bucks to replace lighting. Mick was helping and he was delineating that time into a different, because I’m like, can you help me do the design on this? He was delineating the time. So I want to make sure that that’s noted. And as he was helping, he’s like, gets on this website and he’s like, this program already exists. The Friends of Arches and Canyonlands already runs this program and the city was feeding money into it. So what we finally decided, and tell me, you can walk over me at any time. What we decided is like, wouldn’t it just be easier for them to continue to facilitate the program? We simply put the money that we had set aside for Dark Skies to them and let them facilitate the program. Brandon can help, whatever it might be, but they’ve already got a program rolling. So it seemed like the easiest system is just to let them continue with that program. So I know you guys had some questions during agenda review, so my apologies for that. Yeah, so the $20,000, I think is the question. It was in budget, we budgeted last year and did budget for it, because I know no one had called that and then they were saying there’s maybe $3,000 in there for postcards or something. So we said- All I could find was 3,000 in the 25 budget details. You set aside 20 grand somewhere. It could be in the past it had been. But in the commission discretionary, there is Dark Sky education listed explicitly, but the line only says 3,000. So I’ve got a couple of thoughts. Okay, that’s for you both. I have a few comments, please, because Quinn stepped out. The other things on the contract, when Quinn stepped out, so I’m speaking for him, we were just confused on what Grand County offering technical support and coordination with county staff is needed. Quinn was like, what does that mean for him? So Mick had, and I guess it doesn’t have to be through Grand County, and Mick is actually on the Friends of Arches and Canyonlands board. So he was like, oh, I can kind of manipulate the website to update it to say, now it’s Grand County-sponsored, not City of Moab-sponsored, right? Like all of those little nuances just to bring it up to date. And that was basically Steve and Mick had been talking. So really minor nuances of just, you know, picking that website and manipulating it slightly. That’s a good question. Sure, please do that. And just when we’re, I’m thinking about the 20,000, and I’m remembering back when we talked about it before, and I think I’ve complained endlessly about compliance and, you know, that’s all my office ever wants to do is prosecute. And so one of the conversations that we had at one point was talking about, and I think Commissioner Winfield brought it up, was the shields over the lighting for the sconces. And if we’re doing that, are we going to put some income caps or some things that, okay. Yes, they have a whole system in place, and I think it was like 250 bucks incentive, and you basically just have to provide like the before and after photos, which Brandon would actually do, and then the receipt, and then you’d get a refund. Yeah, I just didn’t, I wanted to make sure that Hoodoo or the Scenic Inn didn’t get bright lightings or sconces based on this. I mean, I guess it doesn’t matter. Do you remember putting 20,000 aside for dark skies? I do remember that. I think it was Kevin’s initiative. I know, but Dave said it’s not in the budget. So if it’s not in the budget, that’s fine. We’ll take three. We’ll take whatever you got. I guess it’ll be a good start. So I’ll make a few comments if possible. I was very much in favor when Kevin brought this out, for the carrot approach. I’m not a big fan of, and I worked diligently with two neighbors that were ready to go to war with each other, possibly even guns. I might be exaggerating, but they were at each other’s throats. My personal feelings on this, and I marked the 20 out, said I would be favorable at 5,000 if there’s zero dollars for administration, because I think that anybody that is serious about dark skies is doing it out of a personal interest. And I don’t think we should be paying administration. Well, just let me finish, please. Thank you. It is, there are some people who are adamant about dark skies, and some people who aren’t. I’ve got a neighbor. His light is always on, and it’s bright, and it doesn’t bother me. It’s just maybe he doesn’t like the cats around. Maybe he doesn’t like the skunks. But I don’t think that we should be paying administrative fees. If we’re going to donate to somebody, I think it should be, here’s your 3,000 or your 5,000 dollars. When you’ve shown us receipts, then we’ll consider another amount of money. But I’m not in favor of administrating costs. So the administrative, maybe we’d go to Friends of Canyonlands, Arches and Canyonlands. And I guess for us to facilitate the program would cost us more than that. Because then you’re talking about employee time, which currently we don’t have any, we don’t have a code enforcement officer. I mean, right now it, oh, okay, great. Oh, good, good. You know, you’re talking about him having to sit and develop all of this program that’s already in place. And if it is only 3,000 bucks, you’re talking about what, 450 bucks? I don’t think it’s a big cost for them to run the program. I’m just not in favor of administrative costs. I know it’s a big push of theirs for Dark Skies. So put their money where their mouth is and let them push it. And we’ll supply the money for the product. That’s what I’m saying is that I’m totally supportive of the product support, but not in an administrative way. So, I mean, I guess I’m- We’re not voting on it now. We’re just putting everything in and we’re throwing everybody’s ideas. I can talk to Steve about it too. And I think that actually was something that I added into the MOU because I wasn’t sure based on our discussion if that was something that we needed. But I don’t think it was an ask from them. I think, I do think that that was something I put in because I didn’t know. But it’s just my, I mean, I work with a nonprofit on the other side of the world and there’s no administrative costs that I’m able to recoup. And if it’s because it’s something that I’m near and dear to me and I work hard on, it comes out of my pocket. I wish I could say that. Like at the school district, my program, the school district takes 18% of all my grants to administer my program, which is cutting three paychecks. So, I mean- Specific program. About 20 grand a year. I know, I know. I get it. But yeah, I mean, we can just, we’re, since it’s just discussion, we can ask Steve. He might be fine with that. It’d be nice to have Steve here. It’s my turn. Is the city- I didn’t, I took it on the microphone. So, is the city still giving money as well? I don’t, I do not think so. I think they have. And so, I think I’m okay with if we give a small amount, because it sounds like at this point it’s going to be a very small amount. And maybe we flip flop. Maybe we funnel this money for the end of 2025. And then to 2026, we ask the city that then they can take over and we can flip flop. That’s something, I mean, the city’s in the county. So, but then is, is that we, are we giving this money to county residents outside of the city limits? Are we giving it to city? Or do we, can we split it and say half of it is used for city residents and half of it’s used for county residents? So, it’s kind of spread all over the county. I mean- I think their program, I don’t, I think when the city was funding, I don’t know if it was just the city. I got it. My understanding was it was just county residents. Right. So, this would just be only county residents. But city residents are county residents. Yeah, I mean, but city residents, I guess, you know, so I just think if, if the city was putting in money, then it would be like, okay, well, their money goes to the city residents. Our money goes to the county residents outside of city limits. But I’m okay with it going to all of the county. But I think we kind of need to have an allotment of a part goes into the city and a part goes into the county. That way, it’s not just all getting sucked into the city. Right. And we can also ask the city to maybe match our $3,000 or $5,000. I know. You know, the small amount we probably can’t ask for. You know, and then they can use that part in the same. Yeah, and they can unincorporated area. I think they’d be easy with that. You did ask and they said no. Oh, and they now, but now the since this is so small, they might be like, fine. Anyways, that’s just my comment. It still has to go to a vote next meeting. Okay, yeah, okay. Mike, please, I’m sorry. Well, I think it’s Mary. Oh, Mary, then Mike. I’m sorry, Mary first, me next. I find it, but I think it would be nice when we bring it up. We could have Steve here. You know, then I think some of these questions would be better answered by the person. I know, was he not able to come today? He wasn’t able. Okay. Yeah, yeah, I just I know. That was what we wanted. So for next meeting, when we put it on the agenda, let’s have him. Or come next week meeting, let’s push it to a meeting. You can. It’s my my suggestion is I think he’s.
So people come next week meeting when it’s presented and flushed out. Yeah, I gotta see how much I can lose my game.
Well, most of my adult life, I do not love the dark skies ordinance, but I would absolutely be in favor of dedicating $20,000 towards dark skies compliance if If it was specifically for. Picture to picture and a receipt to change people’s lights. Along with that, I 100% support. Casting that net wide and sending a letter out to everyone that says this is a program we will be initiating a postcard or whatever the smaller amount was going to be pointed to. Dark skies ordinance brings hundreds of tourists into our area. And I hate it, but, man people love that thing. So it’s I think Mike back to the Abe’s point, though we have $3000 to consider at the next meeting. Yeah, we’ll talk about the bigger number later, but I know that in the budget is 3K. So OK, future thoughts. All right, any other discussion any other discussion on this one? And I guess Commissioner Hedin, you will bring this forward at the next meeting. Yes, I don’t work on some changes. Yeah, yeah, I’ll see what I mean. It’s a start. I have one comment on that way. Under six of them, we run on the boat with all of the Colorado River Authority people. All they were trying to do is take pictures of the stars. I mean, we’re on the river because, of course, it’s dark. There wasn’t a lot of traffic. And but they’re like, I hate this. I can’t take pictures because then it wants to make it look like daytime. But, you know, they were all trying to take pictures. It’s all people mention. I show hundreds of people every single night that you can look up, see the Milky Way in our area. And people attend year after year for that thing. And I hate that Main Street isn’t blindingly lit at all times. But this is a future conversation. All right, thank you. So if we’re done, then we’ll move on to the next one. A special events discussion. And Melody, would you handle this?
So this was originally supposed to be a workshop, so it’ll basically be that tonight. We’d like to talk about it, make some changes. There’s a red line in here with Jenny Beth’s recommendations, which I really liked. So I had them add it. So I asked even to put them into a red line. And then Mike has some comments here. And I’m going to let him go ahead and start off the conversation with his comments in there. And that way he can explain to them. Thank you, Commissioner. Just so you guys know, Angie’s online as well. And Angie’s online, but we don’t have Jenny Beth. No, no. OK. I have started the conversation. The meeting’s still going. I don’t know what this is like. We can still hear. Everything’s still going. Everybody’s still on YouTube.
My quick spiel was here. I’m going to read through here. Definition of a special event per our county website. If you want that, you can look it up. But it lists exemptions, non-commercial, non-competitive family, friends, or youth events such as weddings, family reunions, dances, parties, or garage sales with less than 250 daily total attendance and 50 motor vehicles, conferences, trainings, lectures, sporting events, or similar held events in a permitted permanent facility consistent with the facility’s occupancy and design standards. Community events owned or sponsored by resolution by the Grand County at Grand County-owned facilities. To add to the list of section 8.16.040 exemptions, a special event shall not include, again, a non-commercial, non-competitive family events or youth events such as weddings, family reunions, dances, parties, or garage sales with less than 500 daily total attendance or 65 motor vehicles. Mike, do you want to? Okay. Why don’t we go ahead? Is it just so what you’re, I was just a little confused. So you’re kind of saying you want to replace those numbers in the current exemptions with what you were just reading. Is that, is that? I do believe. Okay, didn’t we vote? Because that was helping the vehicle amounts and the people amount. It’s already in there. It’s a hundred motor vehicles, not 65. So your language, maybe you had an old one. Well, we, I thought we said. 65, we compromised on a 65. I thought we, I thought we, we did do that. I clearly remember having a lot of back and forth. Yeah. Okay. Even if we did, or when we did, it’s not on the county website, which event hosts are looking at. So that needs to get fixed. Absolutely. But it’s already a non-com, or A, already exists. B, conferences, trainings, lectures, sporting events or similar events held in a permanent, permanent facility consistent with the facility’s occupancy and design standards. Community events owned or sponsored by resolution by the county, county-owned facility. The one I was looking to add, and this will continue with conversations with Steven Stoss’s office here, is special events held at county facilities as defined in section 8.16.030, which are organized and approved by the facilities director. And which do not require the closure of public rights of way outside the facility’s property. So the explanation of that would be just alignment with existing policy. And again, I know that contained events, contained events were always, were always a contentious item with OSTA in its sense. But it’s really hard to, as an event promoter, to walk the line of, I have a 10-year permit from BLM outside of, outside of OSTA’s facility. And I, it’s a hard alignment process with a one-year, a one-year approval process of applying for that 10-year permit from a BLM to align with the county’s year-to-year non, or not looking at it as an exemption, alignment with existing policy.
When BLMs, if they don’t close the roadway or impact the, impact people on the roadway, I don’t want to — and the facility, be it OSTA, be it the Grand Center, be it anything, If they have an open timeline, I think that the facilities director should be able to make that call just as good as, I mean, I don’t have the mastery that Angie has at OSTA. I don’t have what the Grand Center’s mastery of the facilities of the Grand Center that the director has. I wouldn’t want my politics to be the deciding factor, especially when BLM already decided 10 years in advance that they have a 10-year running permit on an event. Be it a run event, be it a paint rocks event. I mean, this is unbiased on that. A couple of things. I know the county attorney wants to- Please, we’re trying to schedule time to talk. I’d like to just make the comment that Dana has volunteered to speak to anything regarding Jenna Beth’s portion of this. If we would like her to join us, she said she would. Okay. So you’ve got a proposed changes by Commissioner McCurdy. You’ve got that document, right? And then item D, it says special votes held at county facilities. And then it says, which were organized and approved by the facilities director do not require the closure of public right-of-ways, right? I’m going to be there. Is that meaning as an anchor location or are you meaning that are wholly contained? Because the big- Anchor location. Okay. Then you probably would need to specify on D, it would probably need to say like special events with an anchor location at, then you’re going to have to define anchor location at the county facilities. I think that’s critical. Then the next question, and again, this is why we’re in the discussion phase. The next question is, do you, are you limiting or are you going to classify events that have like a BLM permit? Like those that have BLM permits that are going to go out on those. And you say, hey, this is a different class than the ones that are going to go out and ride on Slick Rock versus the ones that are going to go right on the county’s. Is there a differentiation between any of those? If the answer is no, I wouldn’t put a differentiation between any of those. So then it’s just merely if they have an anchor location at the, at OSTA. And again, my brain’s doing state scenario. So what does that tell? Does that mean that they have, you know, a conference there? Does that mean that they have dinner there? Does that mean, because what, if I’m an evil, you know, event holder, then I just say, I’ll pay the deposit. I’ll be there for one minute. And now I can have a special event in Grant County. So we want to work, we want to make sure and work through like, so that the evil special event creator doesn’t just book a small room in OSTA and have a thousand person UTP route. Not that they would do that, but that’s, those are some of the things to flesh out. Okay, I’m going to go to Jacques and then Trish. Thank you. Yeah, Stephen did actually clarify one of my questions. So I just want to get an input. So Jenny Beth’s portion, when I read through that it’s literally just changing timelines. Is that correct? Okay. And I’m in favor of that. Okay. That’s, that’s cool. Yeah. No, I don’t. Yeah, I think so too. So then all Jenny, but put them in the red line. That part’s done. Thank you. So the next one, I was a little confused about because yeah, there’s exceptions. So basically, literally the only new thing here is D. Is that correct? Otherwise, it’s all stuff that’s been passed is Mike said, it might not be on the website. So that’s just a matter of somebody getting the proper information on the website, right? I think. Okay. And then, and then Stephen did clarify some of that. But I also think that’s the anchor location, even if it’s not an evil event holder, if it could be a massive event, they have BLM permits, but they’re still going to be using public roads. They’re going to be using Grand County infrastructure. There’s going to be using public safety. They’re going to be using things that are in the public domain that could far exceed the scope of simply having an event at OSTA and spending time on roads that BLM deems appropriate. So that I’m much less comfortable with. I’m fine with Jenny Beth’s section. I think that’s cool. I think getting the information on the website is cool. As it reads, I’m not in favor of D, I don’t think, but I could be honorable to new changes. So Trish and then Melodie. I think I’m going in the same direction and Angie, you know that I love you and all that you do out there. But I guess I think about the repercussions too. Like I know that some of the discussions we’ve had in the past is just like purely equestrian events that are totally held at OSTA and those kinds of things I think I’m fine with. But when we talk about, you know, and I’m not picking on the motorized, but the reality is when you have a thousand UTVs, it does reverberate through the entire Valley. And there are impacts outside of OSTA. So I guess I’m a little more reticent to do something like that. And I do appreciate the context that you put it in because I didn’t really think about it in that manner, but it could go in that direction. So I do think we need to think outside the box, like what are the what ifs and the repercussions of those what ifs and the impacts to the community. So maybe we can kind of work on that a little bit if you’re down with that. But I can. Oh, that’s why I really wanted a workshop. Yeah. And I got thrown to the side. Yeah. Okay. So this is a workshop. You know, we’re going to be here until it gets done because I would like to put this as a vote. I would like to have this as an ordinance to vote on next meeting. So we can move along with this. And I want it done right. I don’t want to rush it. But so we did swap it, but it’s going to be talked about. Anyways, here’s my thing that I have. The preauthorized list, which we call the legacy list. I don’t I have a list of those items, but it doesn’t really give me the parameters around it. And I don’t see anything in the ordinance that’s listed in here that talks about like, what are the parameters around the legacy list? And then how often do we update that? I mean, I would love to see all the Mad Moose ones. She has one, two, three, four, five, six total half marathon is on the legacy list. But all I think all six of those should just go on there. She has 10 year BLM. I mean, they’re all running events. They’ve been happening for nine years, 19 years, 11 years, 15 years and 12 years. I mean, I just think that she’s definitely they have definitely earned that spot on that legacy list. So I don’t know when we update that, but I would like to see that happen and kind of have a little bit more clarity around that just because I don’t know. When we when we look at those and I think that that 18 month that the red line that we talked about the 18 month needs to be for OSTA as well for any event. I mean, it needs to be OSTA events and people can’t book out OSTA two years in advance. So the 18 month that would be changing right now from 12 to 18 is going to be across the board. And I’d like to see a deposit. What are deposit structures? So there must be some kind of deposit structure so that we don’t have people just booking it and then backing out. So there’s a you know, when you book it, you have a non-refundable fee, number one, and then and then there’ll be different levels of like the sooner you back it, you know, whatever. I mean, maybe there’s a you pay two thousands non-refundable. But if you if you cancel within a certain amount of time, then you get. And I don’t know what the fees are, even are for renting OSTA. But, you know, if it’s $10,000 rent OSTA, then you pay, you know, $5,000 fee when you book it. And if you cancel within those first, you know, the two thousand of it is non-refundable period, you know, because if you’re going to do an event, you need to be serious about it and not be taking the time from some other event, you know. So that’s something. And then. I think that we need one calendar for sure. I don’t necessarily know that we leave it only to Angie. I think that it’s really important for Angie and Jenna Beth to work hand in hand with these. I think it’s super important that they both need to be involved and they and anyways, one calendar so that. Somebody could call out to Angie and ask if it was available and she would know and so would Jenna Beth know. I mean, either way, because people contacting both.
Then I’ll still let’s see. I know that we have marketing money that comes from MTAB and that there’s grants that they give out and they haven’t given those out yet this year. And they have a subcommittee that’s working on those. But, you know, maybe we need to have some kind of application period in the fourth quarter and it’s due by January 1st. And that way all that can go to the MTAB board so that they can plan their marketing grant out accordingly. And so that’s I don’t necessarily know if that goes into this ordinance, but it’d be a piece. And I think that might be all of my thoughts on.
I’m going to go to the county attorney, then Brad and then Mike. OK.
More fun thoughts on my life. The second that you guys make any changes to make an exception by utilizing OSTA, you increase the value of having your event at OSTA substantially. So a thought for looking at fee schedules or anything else, if you can purchase, basically, if you get your foot in at OSTA, you’re going to have a golden ticket to having an event. So it’s going to make those that desire to be out at OSTA on certain weekends. You probably it would probably behoove the county to consider adjusting your fee schedules based on that. So just a thought. All right. Quinn wanted to play too. Sorry, I didn’t know. I just want to say the grants program, and I think I’ve talked to Brian about this, but we need to fix that because it’s too late in the year it needs to be how the application process in the fall. And I would like MTown to kind of run this to the level that they’re able or willing because we do those and they end up being reimbursement grants, which is a it’s not a best practice. It’s a poor process. So I’d like to see the application happen in the fall and be awarded in January for the upcoming year. And then we just cut those checks as they come. Just food for thought. So I’m going to go, Brian, I see Angie— I see you, Angie. Okay, go ahead, Angie. And then we’ll go Brian, Mike. Can you hear us, Angie? Yeah, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yeah, please go ahead. First, I want to start with saying I completely agree with Quinn. It’s a huge disadvantage for the event holders with the way it’s set up right now because they really need the money beforehand. So that would what Quinn said is spot on. If we could get that change, that would be a huge benefit for those event holders. And if Jenny Beth and myself could be a part of that, that would be awesome because we’re the ones that are working hand in hand with the event holders and we’re the ones who know who needs what. And I’ve been seeing that some events have been getting that repeatedly and it’s I don’t think being used appropriately, but those are just my thoughts on that. The other thing to what Commissioner McCandless was saying, OSTA already does have a lot of those things implemented. We do already have security deposits. In effect, it is non-refundable if events are canceled within 30 days before the event. There was a couple other items. As far as the calendar, it would be hard to have just one calendar just because OSTA is so complex with different things. But I would be, I’m totally apt to sharing a calendar. And then maybe like as events are booking and coming in, part of the application process is to like verify if the date’s like available with me, like going through the application. But as far as the two, only going out like 18 months, that would be a huge disadvantage for a lot of the events just because most of my events are legacy events. They’ve been going on for like decades.
So yeah, I don’t, I disagree with that. I think I would lose events if they lost that security of not knowing that they had their dates because a lot of those dates just roll over and they have those guaranteed dates.
Trying to think of what else, but that’s what I have for right now. Thank you. All right, Brian, then Mike. So yeah, I mean, my general thoughts is, and I don’t know what your calendar looks like, but what I see is we’re trying to, or I’d like to see, you know, us get more use out of the OSTA facilities, right? And what can we do to better the process so that we can bring more events inside there and keep those facilities moving a little bit more? A couple of things that I’ve noticed, you know, the one calendar, this idea, you know, a shared calendar, I think would work however it is. I’m not saying one person would have control over the other person. Definitely a shared calendar where you go, someone contacts you and you look on the calendar and you see four things happening and you go, oh, you might want to talk to Jenny Beth first. And same thing otherwise, you know, when Jenny Beth looks on her calendar, she goes, oh man, look what’s probably happening at OSTA. You better go contact them first before we know. So whatever it is, I do think that there’s a lot in the, you know, that could be accomplished just by communication between the two right there. Second, the idea of a deposit, you know, I mean, I saw this in the Mays District of Canyonlands and I thought it was one of their big misses is when they opened up the reservations to people out there and they never raised the deposit, right? I mean, like a severe deposit means that you’re serious about doing it. And I think that with something like this, that we need to have a deposit that matches, you know, the level of intent, right? For something like that. If I’m hosting a 5,000 person event, right? And the deposit’s $250 and it’s refundable up to 30 days, right? That’s the same thing like in the Mays. You know, you see people out there and they’ll book every single campsite because they don’t know where they want to go. And it’s only a $20 deposit, right? It’s not, the fee doesn’t match the level of intent that I think that they need to be putting in there. The second thing is, is this, the way that the calendars kind of line up. So, and I might need a little bit of education on this. So if I wanted to book an event, I called you up and I said, I want to book for August of 2026. Could I make a reservation for that?
Um, you’re- August 27th. Yeah, could I, how far in advance can I make my reservations at OSTED? Yeah, yeah, you could do that. Cause I could tell you right now, like what everything’s looking like as far as repeat events. Yeah. Like I know when Jeep Safari is. I know when Cruise Moab is. I know when all those repeat events are. So I know what weekends are available. But what I’m saying is, is so I could make that event. Yeah, you couldn’t go ahead and apply for a high impact, a high impact, a permit to go out there until even under this new one, under 18 months. So I don’t, you should be allowing anything that’s not legacy, right? At high impacts to be out there because that’s just the way to game the system, right? I could go ahead and say, oh yeah, great. I already got my OSTED permit. Right. Or I already have my OSTED reservation. And now anybody who calls you is going to say, or anybody who calls Jenny Beth, well look, sorry, OSTED is already taken right now, right? And that event might not even get, that event might not get passed, right? It just blocked everybody else out from coming. So I would think that we’d want to have our, whatever our window is for approving events to be the same as our window for making advanced reservations. Something, somewhere similar on that.
And I don’t know. And there might be, I don’t, what I don’t want to create is I don’t want to create a, something that’s going to create more restrictions. But I do see that as a problem right there is having two different windows right there. And then the other thing is, is I do think that there should be some sort of appeal process as well, right? And that I have not seen in there. There should be a way that, let’s say that I call in and I try to get this reservation and you’re like, well, I don’t know if it’s going to happen. There should be some sort of appeal process to where I think admin is brought in as the authority, or I don’t think it should come up to the level as the commission, but I do think that we should have some way to make sure that all things have been looked at before they come back up to us. If that makes any sense to everybody. Yes, I like that. Okay, Mike, you were next. I apologize. Some of you are more nefarious than myself in this discussion. Thank you for, or at least thinking in a nefarious path. I’m trying to take this all in to make this more streamlined for, again, for the need of a workshop. So I will be getting with Stephen’s docs and honestly, his office and taking that all in and trying to get this applied to our next meeting. But in the same sense, I really want to pose a non too nefarious question here. Angie gets Jeep Safari. Cheap safari is coming the end of April. Like all, or it’s rotated the end of April. They cancel. They cancel three months out. They paid the deposit. They take that hit. So be it. Why doesn’t Angie have the capability to turn to FJ or Toyota-thon and say Toyota-thon. Or Toyota-thon walks up to Angie and goes, we want to hold a 20,000 person event. We want to have the X amount of vehicles, same amount of vehicles the Jeep safari has. On your property, the same way as Jeep safari does. And not just go, yeah, the spot’s open. Why can’t Angie just pull that trigger? Hey, county attorney. So this is not exactly a workshop, but it’s a discussion. Folks have mentioned that maybe we’re going to see this next time ready to go and get voted on. And everything is what’s there and I don’t know it. Right. And if that’s going to be the case, I think it’d be really great if you guys, I know I don’t want to force the issue of having too much discussion on this, but if that’s something that’s going to come up about anchor locations and things like that, even if it’s not tonight, maybe you guys should try to communicate. Of course, you can’t predetermine the outcome of a meeting, but it would be great to have some progress and communicate so that you guys, when we roll around to the next meeting, it’s not all just an instant shock because that’s what’s going on. Unrelated in an email between us all? Okay. No, that’s the answer. You can talk with like when a commissioner creates a letter, it has input. And so when you’re thinking about these things to communicate with each other in non quorum functions and I don’t know what I’m worrying is, we’re going to show up next time. We’re going to have Mike’s idea of what it is and then we’re not going to have any work on it. So the idea of an anchor location, for example, you guys want to kind of go into it now? Or if I’m overstepping, you guys don’t want to do that. That’s fine. I’m just trying to flesh some of these details out sooner now rather than the night we vote on it. And then I have to frantically try to make some edits to the document. I don’t think we’re ready for a vote next meeting personally. I mean, maybe some of those, but not all of it. But we made some really good progress tonight. I think there’s some really good ideas. Okay.
Two seconds. I really worry specifically to this year. It’s already without the capability of the OSTA director or another County Facilities Director to fill vacancies. We’re losing money this year. We’re losing income this year. It hurts us even more. Hooray for the policy and for streamlining this. I hope it gets better next year, but we’re already losing money of not being able to fill. I see you there, Angie. Just let me go for a minute if you would. So then maybe the answer is that a couple of you work with the County Attorney. I could use him. And then this maybe could go on the next meeting if he feels comfortable and then it could be circulated. I mean, at least I would think people would nod or say.
But I want to go to Angie first, Trish. She’s waiting. I just wanted to follow back up to Commissioner Martinez’s question as far as calling OSTA and booking the facility. Before anybody could just book the facility, there’s a bunch of questions that are asked. And especially if it’s somebody new that’s coming in. I always encourage a site visit and go through because there’s certain events that can’t happen on specific pieces of the property. Like a motocross race coming into the indoor arena. Yeah, that’s not going to happen. It’s just really bad for the soil. And motocross with equestrian, we’ve tried it before. It doesn’t work. It damages the facility way too much. And it doesn’t work. Now, the outdoor arena, yeah. We could probably do something like that out there. So there’s different parts of the property that could work for different things. So I always encourage the event producer to come to the facility and us walk through their event together and figure out what’s going to work best. But for somebody just to call up and say, hey, I want to do this event, that booking hardly ever happens. It’s usually a meeting, walk through, get a feel for them, get to know them, like raves, big parties like that. There’s dynamics. There’s things that are just I don’t have staffing for, policing, all kinds of fun stuff. So there’s just events that just don’t get to come in without logistics happening first. So I wanted to clarify that. Thank you. You first, and then Mel. I make a recommendation that maybe, and I’m not telling you guys what to do, but maybe Angie, Mike, and Steven do a rough draft and then send it out to us and allow us to make comments. And you guys can take those comments or not, do what you want. But it might help facilitate that final draft. You gave us a couple of days before you put it on the agenda. Are you guys down with something like that? Yeah, I’d like to help too. Our availability, I am. I know we’ve been- Allow us to be consistent. Yeah, Melody’s got that, yeah. So I’d like to help with that as well. And then Angie, so I don’t think that our list has your legacy list. So I think it’s important for you to get that to us. So I think those need to be, because you said it would hurt. And that is, we want those ones that have their spot to have their spot. But then outside of that, to be in that timeframe. So that everybody’s working on that same level, but we don’t want to lose our legacy ones. And then the other thing also is, I don’t want to have anything outside of that 18 months. Like we had people come in to have exceptions, like, oh, I’m outside of the timeline. I think we hold firm to that. We have legacy events that are in there. And then we have the 18 month cutoff and we do not allow anything outside of that. But those are just some of my comments. We can add them in there. So my, I’m sorry. I just want to real quick, my clarification. So my events that have been around for a long time that I am worried about those would be like my legacy events.
Okay. One legacy list. Okay, Mary. And then I think I’ll take Trisha’s suggestion. I’m just wondering, Mike said that he was concerned that there were certain ones that were happening this year that we’re going to be losing money. I mean, I wonder if for the immediate future, so we don’t just rush through things, not have them done really, completed in a really solid fashion where we’re not going to have to be going back and fixing it, is to just look at those situations where we are, that Angie, you know, I don’t know the exact thing that’s causing it, but Angie doesn’t have the choice or, you know, somehow it’s breaking down. For immediate or for quick, you know, for next meeting, maybe just look at that. Just look at that. So we fix that. So we’re not losing the money for the short term. And then have a really long, it’s still going to be really long, you know, taking another, a little more time to just make sure that it’s written in a way that we don’t have to come back later and go, you know, that there’s some time that we have time to digest it and look at it. That’s my suggestion. I think that’s a better way to do it than to try to hurry and get this done in two weeks. Let’s just look at the ones that we are concerned about. Angie, I’ll be getting with you ASAP. Okay.
And if you could get with Angie, get with Angie, draft it up. I don’t, I don’t know what’s there for, you know, I’m not looking for content. You guys set the content. I’ll tell you how somebody will make it not as great. And then I can point out those. I didn’t see some of the holes that you pointed out. So thank you. Yeah, and then you guys can circulate it for the commissioners. The difficulty is when we go through these ordinances and we set them up to make a change, if we get all the way to the point of making a change, and then we don’t have support from the commission or if we really want to make some last minute changes, it just gets really tricky.
With that, is it okay for, I’ll have Mark there too, but is it okay for me to talk to Angie about this? This is because this is, I’m not trying to direct staff, I’m trying to get information on the facility. That the commission has brought forward in a meeting, Every single commissioner knows exactly what you’re doing. This is a very appropriate way to communicate with staff. Okay.
Okay. Are we ready for a motion to go into closed session?
I am. I move to close the lease exchange purchase for sale of real property and pending or reasonable at the end of it. Second. All in favor? Aye. Passes unanimously. You guys are free. We’re going to make some pickleball events. Are you?
All right, I will start this regular Grand County Commission meeting at 4 30 on Tuesday the 19th of August 2025 and we will, let’s see, present Commissioner Hadeem, Commissioner Hadler, Commissioner McCurry, Commissioner McGann, Commissioner Martinez, Commissioner McCandless and myself, Commissioner Hunville and we will stand for the Pledge.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
But before we start, for citizens to be heard, I’ve got three different items that I’d like to update on. The first one being is that item number 15, the CUP or conditional use permit for Randy’s Medal has been moved to the next agenda due to a request from the applicant. That one will not be heard. I don’t know if we had people here to speak about that one. We are also pulling item number 12, appoint interim Planning and Zoning Administrator from the agenda of this meeting and also regarding number 14, we will be discussing and likely accepting number 14, the audit findings for our financial statements that were presented to the Audit Committee at yesterday’s meeting. Our external auditor has a scheduling conflict, unable to present. Tonight he did present yesterday to, let’s see, six out of the seven of us commissioners, so all were present for that. All edits and additions recommended to the auditor at yesterday’s meeting have been made and are included in the audit for acceptance by the commission tonight. Don Hatterley from Larson’s will present the audit for the benefit of the public at the next commission meeting on September 2nd and if anybody would like, there’s a recording of yesterday’s Audit Committee meeting. It’s available for the public on the county’s YouTube channel, so anybody can go back and look at that if they would like to. So with that, I think we are ready for sitting to be heard. If we have folks, Charlotte, first one with your hand up. I’ll take over the microphone here. Either one and please, we try to keep it to three minutes. Introduce yourself and either one can sit that microphone. My name is Charlotte Mates. I’m a citizen of Grand County for 30 years now.
This afternoon, I first of all want to thank the commissioners for your long days. I know they don’t always get easy. I appreciate it as a citizen that you take the responsibility. I am here today because approximately a year ago, the Utah Alzheimer’s organization approached the Grand Center staff. One of their board members came in and asked if they could come in and present if there was any need in our community for Alzheimer’s awareness and education. You already set it up so that they would come in on the coffee and tea and present for an hour. A young woman named Raven Albertson came in and there were 20 people in the room. Instead of starting her presentation, she began by going around the room and asking each individual person why they were there. Of the 20 people in the room, 18 of them had a family member or dear friend with the signs of Alzheimer’s dementia. Raven has come back several times and she’s coming tomorrow for the third time. I thought this was a great chance and opportunity to get this before the public as well as the commission to let you know. I’ll leave this flyer if anybody wants to take a picture of it or whatever. Tomorrow from 1 to 3 p.m. it’s Alzheimer’s Association Empowered Caregiver, August 20th, 1 to 3 p.m. Communicating Effectively and it will be at the Grand Center. Just an FYI, there are two social workers, Terry Galen and Gail Jenkins Patterson who have started a support group twice a month on the second and fourth Friday of the month from 4 to 5 p.m. where the caregivers who do a fabulous job and just put a little plug in. I’m hoping that we as a community can come together and find a way to get an assisted living facility in our community. We don’t want to see our loved ones have to leave to go and be cared for and we have to travel three and four hours to visit them. So thank you very much for your time and attention and let’s hope that we all keep us safe and as thoughtful and as considerate of one another as we can. Thank you. Thank you Charlotte. We have anybody else? Yes, please. So just recently, yeah up until just recently, we had to introduce yourself. I’m sorry for those off lines. Yes, 100 percent. My name is Scott Sully. I’m a citizen here at Grand County and I just wanted to get clarification on the what was previously item 15. It was stated that on the the CUP that you were that you were moving it until September 2nd but that we could comment at this meeting and have our comments be noted on the record. Is that still a possibility? That’s the CUP for item number five. At 1540 Spanish Valley Drive. You’re welcome to speak on any subject that shouldn’t be heard. Well, I wasn’t going to be in town for the next meeting and I just wanted to as a resident of that neighborhood just kind of voice my opposition to bringing in basically what I feel is like industrial commercial activity into a residential neighborhood. I’ve been there for 10 years, a little longer and I do remember when they were there working as a commercial business and I found it odd and then I had basically found out that in fact it was operating illegally and I just wanted to merely just voice my opposition and that’s about it. Thank you, sir.
Yes, please.
All right. My name is Shirley French and I’m here about the zoning change or CPU to the Randy Martin’s metal shop and I would like to voice my opposition to this. Probably a lot of you remember from meetings going back over the last three years. I’m adamantly opposed to this. It’s a large lot residential neighborhood. I’ve lived there for 13 years now and again this type of large metal fabrication shop does not fit in our neighborhood and I’m just dreadfully afraid that we will have all the same issues that we have had over the last two and a half, three years. I’m not going to be available next week either. I can’t believe that. I wanted to state that right off hand and will we be able to make comments online for the next meeting? Yes. Okay, but in the meantime put me down as adamantly against allowing that. Thank you. So noted. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, ma’am.
Since I’m here, my name is Samantha Derbyshire. Voluntary shuttle’s owner and vice chair of Grand County Trail Mix and I wanted to speak on the Trail Ambassador Program. My business generates 99.9% of our revenue directly from trails and it is very important to protect and take care of our trails and that is what the Trail Ambassador Program does. They have over 35,000 interactions with people providing info and education to trail users. In doing so, they direct folks to trails suited to their abilities. They make sure they are properly prepared, have plenty of water and snacks and they educate them on trail etiquette among other things. All of this among other things preserves the integrity of our trails, reduces the need for search and rescue and so much more. As I’ve said before, our product is the vast landscape and recreational activities that the landscape attracts and we do need to take care of it. I think that the Trail Ambassador Program has been a success. It’s one of the worst. There was an entire class provided at the Utah Trails Conference this year on how to create a Trail Ambassador Program in your town. It’s trailblazing and we should take pride in that. Thank you. Thank you. Next, yes sir.
Bob O’Brien, Castle Valley speaking as a private citizen. I’m currently serving on the Grand County Planning Commission. I have done so for about 10 years and I’m going to address the issue of Kristen Hofhein and a bit about the Planning Commission. Hofhein has done an outstanding job as an Acting Planning and Zoning Administrator and she’s done so with very limited staffing. I’m going to just give one example of the Planning Commission and what we’re working on currently under the guidance of Hofhein. The Planning Department was asked by the County Commission to consider a new zone, multi-family 45, multi-family residential 45 zone. That means 45 housing units per acre. This is 27 housing units more per acre than any of the county’s current highest density. That’s kind of commercial highway commercial which is 18 per acre. This is a major change that could be beneficial in the right area but there’s questions to be considered. Is this the right density for multi-family or should it be multi-family residential 30? That be more appropriate. We’re given current developments our new general plan at the county’s future land use plan should such a development be allowed. What should the standards be for the zone in terms of heights, setbacks, the roads given the traffic impacts of such a development or fire department access? Many other design and location features need to be considered. Once planning and mapping are completed should we have a workshop for the public to comment and make suggestions on a new zone? In considering this zone change at our last meeting, Kristen presented a draft outline encouraged this sort of discussion and added crucially professionally to the discussion. Part of the work of a planning commission is to ensure that development aligns with community vision and goals while assessing public safety, environmental concerns and the overall quality for residents. Holfein encourages, facilitates and helps lead this work. I urge you to have her remain as the planning and zoning administrator. It is crucial. It’s a crucial role. Thank you. Thank you. Yes.
Hi, I’m Mary O’Brien, Grant County resident and I emailed you all four questions and I just checked and still haven’t received an answer from any of you. It has to do with what was agenda item 12 and the four questions and I still am going to try to pursue answers. One, what elements of Christine Holfein’s work have prompted agenda item number 12 to replace her as interim planning and zoning administrator while a search for a permanent administrator is already underway? Two, were these work elements of job activities discussed with Chrissy at the behest of or with the knowledge of anyone on the Grand County Commission prior to consideration of replacement of her? Third, was the agenda item the first time that Christine learned that someone or the Grand County Commission was considering replacing her? And four, had a discussion regarding replacement of Chrissy Ben-Hill among the county commissioners prior to placing consideration of her replacement on the agenda? So I really will appreciate getting answers to those. I’m trying to understand how these agenda items end up on the agenda with zero information and major consequences. Thank you. Thank you.
Next.
Hi, my name is Ashley Norman, granddaughter of Jim and Nola Walker. I am dealing or I’m here to request an amendment to the city’s noise ordinance to allow for protective barking by dogs in response to trespassing animals or people. We are dealing with a severe raccoon infestation in our area despite humane attempts to resolve it trapping deterrent mechanisms. The problem has still persisted largely because the neighboring resident is feeding them which supports a growing colony. These raccoons have caused over three thousand dollars in property damage and over a thousand dollars in vet bills for animals. Additionally, we live to a property that is largely blanket and they are dealing with a lot of trespassing and we’ve had items stolen from our shed. Since we brought in a livestock a livestock guardian breed dog with protective instincts we’ve had zero incidents. Unfortunately another neighbor has now filed complaints about the dog barking which has tied directly to protecting our home and pets. In an attempt to avoid a fine we’ve kept our dogs inside at night. This arrangement has been for about five months now and since then the raccoons have ruined our vegetable garden, broken a dryer vent and attacked my cat ray on it on the porch. I’m requesting a reasonable exception to the noise pollution code for dog sparking in defense of property and safety consistent with our rights under Utah code 776-406 and such ordinances have already been implemented in other Utah counties. For example, Sevier County ordinance 2002-11-1 excessive noise 90.006. Thank you for considering this amendment and allowing for us to talk. Yes and Gerald quick are you in the city or the county? You’re in the county. Would you mind going around when you get a chance and leaving your contact information with the Dana administrator the next door down. Thank you. All right thank you. Next.
Anybody online of course? No. All right it looks like no takers. All right we will move on. Looks like we are ready for our presentations. We have one from the Moab area community land trust if you want to come forward.
We don’t have any raccoons here. If any chairs are needed just grab another chair. I completely agree with the raccoon problem but I’m sitting here.
Good afternoon. I’m Sherry Griffith chair of the Moab area land trust. I’m Shaylee Ray. I’m a board member of the Moab community community land trust and I am Kailyn Myers executive director of the community land trust. So we’re just here to update you because we work closely with the county and the city to guarding our housing issues and they are certainly on the forefront and recently there was a task force open house that discussed a lot of different issues and concerns and we also realized that because what we do is so diverse and so unusual. Can you let me share screen or you have a presentation. Thank you again.
So it’s so diverse of what we’ve been doing that we wanted to update everybody and the new people I think who started this last year didn’t have the luxury of having some of that education. So yeah it should be great for you. Thank you Kailyn. Give you an update so when you are asked questions mostly by citizens and outside people that you have the answers of what we’ve been doing. We the land trust started in 2012. It got funding and support in 2018 by an individual who donated the land 42 acres and we had a new market tax credit loan for us to build the infrastructure. So it was all within we had no outside tax dollars. It’s all loan and we created a non-profit corporation and the first couple years was run specifically by volunteers of that non-profit. There’s absolutely no outside people hired or or money spent on that. Over time of course as we grew we needed to do more. But if you could show us the site plan.
So everybody is probably ready at some point. This is a review. There’s the orientation. Here’s Spanish Valley Drive. Here’s what we call Bonnie’s Way and goes out to the highway. Does that kind of give everybody. Bonnie’s Way is where Synergy is on. Okay so we’ll get close to it. And the development is one of the large largest in the state by the way. And it is one of the largest in the nation. And we were very excited to have lots of help in putting it together. But as you’ll see the cool thing is that we have single family homes in ownership. We have twin homes in ownership. Those brown buildings are our apartments that are rentals. And we have one, two, three, even some four bedroom rentals in the form of town actually townhomes. There’s kind of the rust colored and go along Spanish Valley Drive are townhomes. The little yellow ones at the bottom are individual houses for rentals. So about half of the program or the project is rentals and half is ownership. And we did that just to try and have something for everyone. Because we have everything from people that are paraprofessionals to people that have families that struggle. And the goal is to have some of the homes. Our median income ranges from 70 percent to 120 percent in there so that we have some variety. We currently, I think pretty impressively, have almost a hundred homes already built in five years that are already in there. And when I say we built, we use developers. We put the land under. We support the developers. We support the build out. We came up with the dream, the plan. And so we have okay 96 occupied homes. We have 85 going in form of we have apartments, twin homes, townhomes. And in the end we’ll have another 119 when the project is completely built out. So we’ll have over 300 housing units for people which, I don’t know, 600, 700 people. And the way that it’s set up is that they get a hundred year lease. So that’s why it’s a land trust because we put the land under them. For the donation and from our new market tax credit money we’re paying back. But we hold the land trust. And the reason we do that, it’s a hundred year with a hundred year renewal. The reason we do that is because then we can de-restrict. And that’s how we keep it affordable in this town. So we restrict it by you have to work here or you have to work here five out of ten years and retire here. You have to make a certain amount of income. And when you go to sell it you can’t just flip it to Aspen. You have to keep it within the workforce. You have to keep it within this price range so that it can become permanently attainable to the next person down the road. And that’s the piece that Grand County was really missing for a long time. USDA, self-build, you could build it and then you could flip it to anybody. And so what nothing was staying in the attainable housing industry, you know. And we were losing all of the, all of the, what we thought we were gaining we were just losing again. And to be honest this is not just a Grand County issue, right. We understand that this is a country-based issue. And so that is one thing that we’ve come to the table. I have been on a lot of boards to help talk about grants. And I just, I really want to tell you guys that for me I really thought it was only about a Royal Crossing. I know we’ve had a lot of conversation individually about that this was a Royal Crossing. That’s what I thought was under the assumption of that. When I came to the table and started talking to the board and what their dream is and what they have accomplished so far, it became a big reality to me that this is how my kids will get to live here. This is how they’ll get to afford living here. Because it is a joke. I’ve watched so many friends with older teenagers in high school they’re going, I mean I guess I can live in this rundown trailer with six people. How do we keep this permanently attainable for the next generation? For our children, for our workforce. Which is what made me join the board. Watching what we’ve accomplished and proving it. Caitlin has been invited to go to Washington and teach people how to do this. We have surrounding counties, people in the state. They want to know what we’ve accomplished because we’ve proven it can be done. Well what’s great about, so here’s what’s great about it, is it’s collaborative. It’s taken the county, taken the cities, our individuals, everybody here, the board, the individual people who that have come in and supported us. It’s a vision that people can see as being attainable and permanent. Where we’re at now is we’ve proven that we can do rental apartments and townhomes and individual self-filled. We’ve done a little bit of all of it so that we’re pretty much set in our plan with what we’re doing. That we are ready to take on what’s next. What do we need to do next? And how can we help take all this knowledge we’ve garnered and apply it to the next project? So what we are hoping is that you can come back to us and say here’s some of the things we need to look at. Here’s some directions we need to go so that we can take this expertise and multiply it to the rest of the county. And honestly we want Grand County to be the example for the rest of the country of how to do it. And now like you guys have supported us and we’ve appreciated that support. We definitely wanted to show our gratitude and that we’re so grateful for the support that we’ve gotten from the county and from the state and also the federal government. But we know how much we can do and what we can create for the future of our county, for the future of our community and citizens. And we want the way to be. Do it like Grand County.
So partnerships with you guys of figuring out you know liaisons on our board and what’s next, what’s needed. We know there’s a lot of apartments going up so it’s not the next step for a single family where our focus needs to be. So having a partnership with you guys helps us understand the need so we can go after it. We just want to say thank you so much. We also are very available. We have a really great board and always willing to meet and answer questions. We’re developing a good partnership with Desert Rivers and working on on different funding partnerships with that. We want to talk about this because we can’t do it alone.
And speaking of that we have five board members here. We do. So and these are these are all volunteer positions. And we really appreciate everything. But we meet monthly and spend a whole lot of time at it. We’re pretty dedicated to making sure that citizens have housing right here in Moab. That’s our goal. Any questions? You guys have made a big difference. It’s yeah Mary’s a parent. Thank you for all the hard work and I think it’s exemplary project that has been. It’s been a cool thing. Mary you had a question? I just have a comment. I really want to point out Audrey and Sherry. They have been here from the beginning. They made it through some really scary and rough times where we didn’t know and unsure if this was going to come to fruition. They stuck with it. We stuck with it. I will. I am proud to say it was the county that made it allowed the final jump. The final leap that created this. And I’m proud as a commissioner and proud as a county that we were such an intractable part of it. But I especially want to acknowledge you the two ladies who had the dream. Stuck with it and kept it going. And let’s step forward and help through so many ways. Thank you. I drive by it every day on my way home and it’s just it’s like just heartwarming when I see yards blossoming and kids riding their bikes and it’s a community and it’s just awesome. I can’t tell you enough of how proud I am of your work. So thank you. And it didn’t take a lot of money out of people’s pockets. We made it pretty self-sustainable and affordable. And I think that’s something that is I think impressive for this project to lose it. Grand County didn’t have to open their pocketbook. We had to do it then. That’s not always true in other tourist towns. And I do want to thank Chris Baird. I remember Chris saying we should pump some money into it. So I do want to thank him for having that thought. He funded the second director position for the first year and then we’ll take it over from there. And you know we have over a $50 million project out there right now and it’s all done. It’ll be $150 million by the time it’s finished. It’s said done and done pretty much. It’s ROI probably 85%. And it took everybody jumping in there and contributing and supporting. So I appreciate that. So we want to know what’s next for you guys.
This goes to our city counterparts too. But I know the county is looking to partner and to help you guys find that next project. I hope the totality of the city is also not to lean on my counterparts down there. But if the city and county are behind you we should 100% partner with you guys and get more houses on ground. We’re building quite a few shelves out there for some of your shelves. It’s always nice to stop by your ex-wife’s house. Thank you. Thank you. Speaking totally as an Apple, not going to touch the city but we are also as an organization going to be talking to the city about this.
Working on a lot of partnerships as we know it’s so important.
I want to thank all of you ladies for coming in and the board. So good about supporting you and being here for sure. I was at the task force we had the other night and I know there’s ongoing conversations I was part of about finding the next piece of property. So I look forward to it. There’s a lot going around. I need to just keep moving it forward. Yeah and decide what is it that we need. Right. Right. Do we need the 80 to 120 percent AMI? Do we need rentals? Do we need homes? Do we need family homes or individual apartments? So I think that’s our we need it all. The reality is it’s like what chunks of land can we do it? And we carefully compartmentalize each of these projects so that we can take it and apply it to the next project because there’s such a variety and diversity in what we’ve done. And we have enough knowledge there’s no reason to reinvent the wheel. Let’s just take it to the next thing. And we’ve done enough now that we feel like it’s such a big project we didn’t feel like we could take on anything else until we made sure this was super successful. But over the point now we can start planning for that next one. And we would love a county liaison on our board if anyone is so willing because it would help keep the communications lines of communication open. It’d be awesome. Very good. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.
We’ll move into our update from the IT department.
Hello everybody. I’m Matt Sanaceros if you don’t know. I’m the IT director here at the county.
The microphone there. There’s microphones there. We all have microphones. We’re going to sit. I might stand up. I don’t know. Biggest improvement since I’ve been on the commission. Yes.
It’s always good to be heard. Absolutely.
I didn’t prepare like a long exasperated speech. Those of you that have been on this commission for a little while you’ve heard me come up in front of you and talk to you a couple of different times. Year over year I try to give you a good overview of what my department does. It’s a lot of text. I did that this year as well but then I massaged it with time. Because it’s my disclaimer. So the piece that you have in yours is a summary of my overall 1500 word report. But I’m not going to exasperate your word. I don’t really get into presentations very much because you don’t want to see a bunch of pictures of computers and wires and antennas and all sorts of help desk tickets or pieces. But I’m always happy to come back and give you any kind of input that you’re interested in as far as any kind of numbers if you’re interested on spam filters or cyber attacks or any of this kind of stuff. These are not topics that I’m going to discuss at a meeting. But we’re in a good state as far as security and those items are concerned. But you know it’s just an open door. Always happy to answer anybody’s concerns or questions. To that end I’m just going to kind of run through my refined overview of the thing. If you didn’t know I’m an IT director again. Within my department I believe in mission statements and goals. It’s something I think that is critical to review every year. The mission statement I came up with really hasn’t changed a whole lot and this is my 16th year here. I’ve been here for a while. But it’s to provide reliable robust and integrated technology to improve the county’s ability to serve its residents. My overall goal with that is to deliver solutions that improve efficiency, accessibility, and security of communications and data. A couple of sentences that really goes down into all 1,500 to all the various categories that I’m going to touch here.
Within my scope as a director I have several different staff members at this point and I thank you very much for approving those positions. As we go along technology is an integral part with everything that we do, everything we do on a daily. But one of the people I do have is our GIS specialist. He’s proven to be on many, many different times a critical part of being able to get you data, analytic data, you know, assemblage of maps. He’s been a huge help within the boarder’s office and getting drawings and everything turned over in a timely manner to make sure everything’s accurate so we’re able to provide a better product quicker. It’s more accurate to show more information out to the public as needed. Just a big shout out to him. He is named to be a co-chair on the innovation committee for UGIC and UGIC is the Utah Geographic Information Council. It’s a bunch of IT people but they’re all GIS mapping related. It’s a good group of people to be in. Him being in the innovation group actually speaks pretty loudly for what he’s been able to just pick with. Everything that comes out of that position feedback to the state. So we’re the collector or the aggregator. So anytime that you see, you pull up your phone when you reference a map and any kind of give away address or any of those type of things, just know that those pieces are being initiated and cross-checked and otherwise before they’re put up to the services that you enjoy. So all that definitely starts here with the local tech. Just a big shout out to James. Appreciate him. But by and large, the responsibilities of the IT is that I’m not your administrator by any stretch of the imagination on anybody’s database. It’s not because we don’t know how to administer databases but I don’t run your department either. So each office department otherwise that has a database, they have a master supervisor that’s responsible for all administration pieces. Everything else that makes that system work, all the wires and all that other stuff, that’s where IT comes in. So all the procurement that goes along with it, installation, maintenance, security, as well as planning and whatnot that goes over all the computers, endpoints, devices, you know, the different platforms and whatnot that we utilize on a daily here. Also, I’m deeply involved with the Sheriff’s Office on a daily, a public safety answering point that we have here. We’ve been able to migrate to a lot of different things with the state. I’d be happy to discuss any one of these particular items. It’s at a really cool point now where it’s a statewide system and it’s included with online as well as radio. It’s really improved communication coverage, back-end but there are some gaps.
The websites, email, conferencing system, software, cyber security, privacy is another big one that I got handed this year. That’s going to be great and just overall, you know, disaster recovery, data analytics, try to see it with a smiling face and everything’s going to be good. Just a couple highlights. We did hire a sysadmin. We all approved that position last year. Thank you very much. Having that position, we’re able to fill that, that really allows for a much faster response time. It frees me up to be able to actually focus on some more of these overarching pieces and make sure that all of the, all the pebbles are tended to. We’ve upgraded several of our core services, servers rather, a bunch of the networking hardware, still a bunch of things that will still need to be upgraded. There’s only 25 workstations replaced this year. I say only because we’ve been, and this is a reflection from all standby departments, everybody’s really been trying to contract a little bit more, trying to get some more life out of their endpoint computers and whatnot too. So, this number is a little bit lower than what I typically see. On the daily, we run right around 200 workstations. So, every year, I typically expect about 35, 40 of those to be replaced. I have a rotation schedule that goes through at endpoints and all those things too. But just want to note that out that people are being very budget conscious.
Jay has to talk a little bit about before, and Jane, what he’s doing.
The completion that was, that happened this year is that we were able to get the LiDAR mapping for the Moa Valley done. We don’t know what LiDAR is. It’s Light Imaging Detection and Ranging. IT deals with lots of acronyms. It’s ridiculous. I can remember some of these some days. But if you’re familiar at all a little bit with this process, I hope, why we did all of this. But it’s really cool to be able to have it pre-flood and post-flood because we have data from 2015-2019. Right now, we’re working with Nesultan to aggregate data from not only that LiDAR information, but a bunch of different advanced modeling techniques to potentially put out a bit of an advanced warning system. And it’s pretty tricky. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this. Kate Finley, our emergency manager, is definitely involved in it. This is something that was set up through CORA and otherwise. But it’s really, really cool how that’s being carried out. We’re one of the kind of a beta tester, if you want to call it that. The state’s involved with this effort as well. It’s kind of a national type of thing that they’re looking at. How can we make this better?
I still am on the cybersecurity commission for the state of Utah. I’m the UAC appointed member of that commission. That’s a governor’s commission. Initially, we were created through legislation to be able to deal with a handful of different federal monies and whatnot. It’s, I’m not going to say morphed, but it’s grown in responsibilities and scope. I, as being the little guy in the room, I really try to advocate for smaller entities, smaller agencies. This legislation comes out that dictates that all government agencies within Utah have to abide by various levels of privacy and security. And a lot of these agencies just don’t have any kind of technical breadth to be able to deal with it. So, I’m continuing to keep doing that. Throughout my time there, the Utah Cyber Center has been created. There’s a lot of great tools that are being offered to, again, the little guys and the big ones as well. I mean, all in this together. One of the things we say with cybersecurity is cybersecurity is better when we play as a team. As long as we all play together, we all talk and we’ll fight the same guy. But if we’re not talking, I can be getting attacked here, but my neighbor doesn’t even help. So, we all try to be as best we can.
Like I said, I can go on on any one of these particular points here. I’m not going to bore you with a whole bunch of terms on them, but I do have some other projects about just expanding network, finalizing, expanding more of these core servers, really drilling down into access management, privacy programming. We’ll talk about that a little bit. We’ll see you back up here very soon with the privacy policy revolution or however that’s going to work. We’re going to make this all official. Upgrading phones, data circuits, AI usage and its policy. That’s going to be a big focus on the upcoming over the year. And within those two pieces, within the privacy programming, AI, one of the pieces I’m looking at very particularly is our third-party tech stack. I call it a tech stack. But once upon a time, kind of pre-COVID, right? I was able to know exactly where all my computers are, my servers, they’re all here. Everything’s kind of proliferated. I don’t know necessarily where anybody’s working. That’s great sometimes. But within that, we’ve also kind of, I’m not going to say shot ourselves in the foot, but we’ve committed ourselves as a county to purchasing a number of different third-party services that do different pieces. I’m not going to get into specifics on a lot of these. But as I’m finding these, I have concerns, one from the privacy standpoint of the data records, all of those fun things can go into it. Part of being the administrative officer for data privacy is that I have to create a whole schedule that goes over all these record series, so for collecting data in any kind of way that has, whether it has personal information or not, I need to make sure that data classification is handled. Part of as I go through that, I know I’m going to find multiple different platforms that we have that are being either underutilized, not utilized, and they cost us a pretty penny. A lot of these cases are out-of-cloud services, SaaS solutions, things that are easy to be able to buy. It gives a great salesman easy sale, pretty good when you have something to come back on. These are some of the folks that I’m going to be really looking at next year, so next report. I can also guarantee I’m going to come in and say, there’s a number of things here. If you guys really want to start talking about money and cutting without getting down to the nitty-gritty of operations, there’s a number of third-party services and things that we’re paying for right now that might be used, and they’re coming up for renewal very quickly. There’s one right now that is in for different pieces. It’s $25,000. I’m looking for renewal here in a month.
There’s so many of these different types of peripheral services that are costing the county money. I want to make sure that we’re getting a holistic view of money.
I’ll stop jabbering on the last piece that I will ask of. It’s, again, in conjunction with the Utah Cyber Center. With the Utah Cyber Center and, again, with my advocacy for smaller agencies and otherwise, so much better as a team, there is a letter in your consent agenda. The letter is pretty self-explanatory. It’s part of a bit of a grassroots effort from other IT directors and whatnot across the state. It’s being led by a fellow named Josh Provo. All it is is looking for your support in sending this letter that they’ve drafted back to the Cyber Center and to the Cybersecurity Commission and state legislature, governor, any other kind of somebody that we can use to benefit or to be able to get funding for this. That’s what that letter really is about. It doesn’t cost the county anything. It’s just seeking continual funding for the Utah Cyber Center and talking about all the good things that it needs to do. I’d ask that you consider that as you go through. If you don’t, I can understand that too. I’ll be going to you next week or the week after.
I really would love some questions, so I’ll send myself off.
I’d love to see a list of those third-party services that, even in your opinion, if they’re low usage and cost, if you have them, even on that, they’re coming up on these dates, that is important information. We’re entering budget season, you know, but that would be fine. I totally anticipate having that. I don’t have a list ready for you. I have a number of things I can give you right now that we won’t buy into that, but that’s certainly one of my goals is to have that for a budget plan right this year. Thank you. And I think that would go to admin, and he could maybe reach out to make sure that no one else intends to use any of those programs, you know. Oh, absolutely. And as I go through this again, I mean, there’s a lot of – it’s not just me saying, like, oh, hey, that’s – it’s really, like, does the software actually do what we want it to do? Is it being used? I’m not saying it’s bad software, you know, but if we’re not using it and we’re not doing it, like, why pay for it for a year? You know what I mean? Let’s catch up and maybe we can come back into it another year. But in all of these contracts, too, you know, part of it is – once we get into it, right, every year we need to review what those price models are and make sure that we’re using effective contracts and everything else, too. And Google’s a perfect example. I pay for Google Workspace every year. It’s a third-party. It’s a SaaS solution. But every year I only do it on one of your agreements, and I make sure that I’m leveraging back and forth between state agreements to make sure that my vendor is still qualified, that they’re all RAP certified, too, so I’m dealing with security situations and whatnot. But it’s just kind of one example of lots of different ones that are being controlled kind of by the legal department, so to speak, if that makes sense. Yes. So, does that answer your question? Yeah. Sure. Continued voice from UAC has been cybersecurity for several years now.
A to F, what’s our grade in Grand County? A to F? A to F. Are we passing? A to F, I’m sorry…?
A to F, you know, when you start looking at modeling for cybersecurity, nobody’s ever going to be an A. Most people are not going to be an F, even if they’re completely informal and it’s just one person. Where I would put us is probably somewhere in a C, which is a good place for me because it means that I’m not so bleeding-edge that I’m forgetting what I’m leaving behind, and it’s progressive enough that I know kind of where a lot of the gaps are. Okay.
I had a couple of questions. The cyber center letter kind of describes, is there a certain size of community that we’d be working with or would that be all? So, does it basically invite the larger communities in as well as the smaller communities and then shares the cost? Yes. Yes, the cost would be essentially funded through the state government office, like through government operations. So, it’s actually like a legislative funded model through the appropriation funding that way. So, it’s a way basically for a smaller community to have the same services that a larger community would have as well? Yes. And in the short answer, but it even just gives them the ability to really access the resources in which place to do it. And you’re absolutely right. It’s every way that legislation has been written. And that’s part of what I keep coming to them is that they’ve come at it and said, it’s every governmental entity. And this last year with legislative session, they went through really hard and they did a good job of trying to define a lot of things because it used to be any political subdivision state and now it’s any governmental entity. Any political subdivision state still means all of our special service districts, everybody else too. Any governmental entity also starts including water boards and all sorts of things. It’s something like 2,700 entities just in the state of Utah. When they first started this whole thing with the cyber commission, otherwise we started doing it, trying to collect some of these land and food, so to speak. I mean, they looked at it initially as being just counties and cities. It’s like 383. And I speak up, it’s like, well, what about all my special service districts that I have just in Grand County? They don’t count. That makes like 1,280 or something like that. Then you start looking at what is a governmental entity and why is it that we have small guys down here that have no connection. So past definitions, what are some of the concerns of that working group for this interim legislation right now? What are some of the concerns of the working group? For what’s going to be coming up in the next legislation? The working group for this, for the one that you’re signing, as far as just garnering support, particularly for the Utah Cyber Center, is by and large what we’re looking at is providing resources and a centralized reporting facility that’s unique to Utah. And part of this, and I’ll address this in trying to get these off, but with all of those things that’s happened with Trump, there’s been a number of different federal cuts, as you know, across the board. One of the ones that they’ve identified and it’s all part of what’s called ISACs, which ISACs are the Steering Analysis Center. And we rely on the MS-ISACs pretty heavily here because they do a lot of different cool services, especially back. It used to not be a thing because it was venture-funded. Now they’re pushing models that might be great, which is kind of defeating the purpose. On a national level, in Utah, what our response to that is we look at it and say, well, the MS-ISAC, that’s great. We can appreciate why it’s there, but we can also have this model to where we can take care of ourselves to a point. And so when we say the model and what we’re focusing on, it’s exasperated. It’s not just networking to make sure we’re applying the same thing. It’s also looking for funding to make sure that we have resources, things like endpoint detection and response, having qualified email services for small users. We’re going to have to get a NASA Dolly to be able to get a Google Workspace license that state’s providing at cost from them, security training, replacing end-of-life equipment. But these are some of the top ones. But in the cybersecurity world, we look at and say, those are kind of low-hanging fruit. I can take care of all that really quickly, just now let’s actually start focusing on frameworks. And that’s where the cool part for the cyber center comes in is that, yeah, we can take care of some of the low-hanging fruit, but it’s a whole lot better when we can envision the whole tree or the BDI, right? Make sure that we can share some response plans that we can work together collectively.
Does that answer your question? It does. Abstract. Yeah, I just wanted to kind of get a better general overview of it.
All right. Thank you, Matt.
Thanks for sending out those spoof emails every once in a while. Absolutely. Thanks for clicking on them, guys.
I know that that was spoofed, but all right, we will. Do we have Izzy outside waiting? There she is. Thank you, Izzy. Come on in. And we’d love to hear from you. So, I have a PowerPoint presentation, but no laptop. It no longer turns on.
What is it in the?
I did bring some goods this time. So, did you bring the sparkly sticker?
I’m so excited.
Thank you. Yeah, very exciting.
Anything to cross out of this. Definitely.
File plan.
This is going to be the fastest way. She was giving you the left, right? She’s bringing me in. So, it’s important.
I’m not going to go full screen, but.
Dang, we might not get the. Okay, why don’t I can hang on.
I can’t.
That’s as full screen as it’s going to go. All right. Cool. Well, my name is Izzy. I am the department director slash supervisor. And this is my annual report.
Perfect. So, the overview for my part will be background. I’m not sweets. Once you go in department structure, annual department cycle funding for my department. Our new facet of our department, which is the community. Well, our defense grant. I think that we battled through that for positions. I’ll talk about our partnerships, education and outreach. Our challenges and accomplishments.
So, I usually give a really long overview of what it is. But this time I shortened it down to 1 slide. And essentially, we are very subjective. It’s can just be native, non-native invasive. That’s just everything they don’t want. I mean, the noxious weed is a legally recognized invasive non-native plant. That’s listed on the state list. But each state has its own list. And so, in the other, the smaller boxes, I’ve listed some of the noxious weeds. You’re in county. Not all of the state listed weeds are found here. These are priorities.
Okay. So, our department structure. We have a supervisor, which is me. And I’m funded by the general fund. And we have a lead technician slash the crew lead. Who is also funded by the general fund. The crew lead is approved.
Right now, about 4 people. 2 of them being full-time weed technicians. And 2 of them seasonal. And all 4 of the technicians are grant funded.
The full-time invasive plant technicians are mostly grant funded. I believe that their benefits through being a full-time employee are generally funded.
Okay. And on the other side, we have the fuels reduction coordinator. Which is a new position that we created this year. Through the community wildfire defense grant. That I will be talking about later. And that is fully grant funded up until 2025. The fuels technicians, there will be about 4 of them under the fuels reduction coordinator. That is a position that I will request for next year. Starting next year. And those will also be fully grant funded up until 2025. And our projects. Completely vary by time of year and weather. Of course, our projects are outside in the elements. So, this is kind of a brief overview of how each year looks for us.
I’ll just kind of give a brief overview. We won’t read it. But in the winter, we do a lot of work on private property. By digging with hand tools. It’s pretty intensive.
In the spring, we do a lot of herbicide treatments. All over the county. Mostly on public lands. The summer, we do a lot of goat heads. Which is what we’re doing right now. And also, summer or July is the end of our fiscal year. With the project partners that we work with. So, a lot of our grants and contracts end at the end of July. And start over fiscal year in August. And then, in autumn, we do a lot of winterization. So, we get ready for the winter. We do a lot of private property treatments. I’m going to do late season treatments.
And if anyone has questions, feel free to ask.
Here’s an overview of our funding. So, we do have funding through general funds. But through county funded. And it’s on a calendar year basis. The rest of our funding is on the state fiscal year. Which is, again, July through, yeah. August through July. And some of our funding. Or actually, it’s the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food. And that’s an annual grant that I apply for. We have a five-year agreement with the Bureau of Land Management. To work on BLM lands. We have an annual agreement with Department of Natural Resources. Forestry Department of State Lands. And that’s a lot of river work. That’s actually on the consent agenda, I believe. It’s that agreement. We also partner with a lot of grant applications. On the Watershed Restoration Initiative platform. Which is a Utah grant platform focused on watersheds. And I don’t personally apply for them. But we are contracted through, usually, two or three per year.
And then, again, the Community Wildfire Defense Grant. Is one that I won’t speak on a little bit more. But that is a five-year agreement. Renewal annually. But for five years up until 2029. And that is administered by Precure Restoration. And then, our least common funding is through private property treatments. That aren’t grant funded. We do spray on private property. It’s not often. But it’s a Community Wildfire Defense Grant. We are a participating agency in CWDG. It was applied for by Renfrew Restoration. I believe in 2023. Okay. To me, it works for Renfrew Restoration. We were allocated $375,000 over the next five years. And that comes out to be about $75,000 per year. For personnel, equipment. Such as chainsaws, brush cutters, hand tools, herbicide equipment. And also, truck leads. Again, we hired our fuels reduction coordinator in spring of 2025. So, it’s a pretty new position. And, again, I will be requesting fuels reduction technicians this year. To start in 2026. And this program, this facet of our department is brand new. And the focus is on how invasive plants specifically change fire patterns. Wildfire and urban fire. So, it’s a brand new facet. And we are creating it as we go. But the goal is to create a robust resource for fire prevention. And response with lead work. Does that make sense? Yeah. All right. Moving on. And then this is another facet of the greater grant. Which is the fire break campaign. This is from the Instagram. The fire break Moab Instagram. Which I recommend everyone check out. Basically, this is, again, trying to become a resource for fire resilience. Within the Mill and Pat Creek Corridor specifically. So, break stands for build resilience. Rent a property. Engage community. Act together. And know how.
There’s a lot of different partners involved. Rental restoration is the main partner in all of this. We also work with Moab Valley Fire Department. The DNR, Forestry Fire and State Lands. And the city of Little Rock. Other departments within Grant County. Such as Roseville.
And this is very sad. This was an awesome before and after picture. Where it faded out. But unfortunately, my laptop no longer turns on again. What did you say? Oh, sorry. This is a really cool before and after. Where the first picture kind of fades out. And then you can see the really awesome work that the Utah Conservation Corps did. With RIM-to-RIM restoration and our crew.
But it won’t work. And my laptop doesn’t turn on. That was the last thing. I can speak to the work you guys did. There’s a lot. Thank you. Yeah, I’m happy to share all those photos with you. They were taken by Sophia Fisher with RIM-to-RIM. And they’re fantastic.
A little bit about our partnerships. Education and outreach. We have many partnerships throughout the state. And including Colorado State as well. We are part of the Utah Weed Supervisors Association. Southeastern Utah Riparian Partnership. The Middle Colorado River Waterfed Cooperative Weed Management Area. Which is a huge mouthful. MCRWCWA. And that is a partnership that crosses several counties. And also state lines. Many agencies. Education and outreach. We have put in a lot of effort for creating informational flyers. You may have received these in the mail. You’ll find a lot of this. As well as RIM-to-RIM restoration. And a couple others. These go to the mail. They’ll help you gather some knowledge about weeds. And if anyone has any questions. Of course you can reach us at our office.
And then we participate in a lot of online events. This is a picture from the spring spruce up. Where we weeded a lot. And we need to go back there. Yeah. It’s a forest. So this is an awesome annual volunteer event. And we’re very happy to participate in it every year. We are also hosting goat head and tumbleweed removal events. At popular trailheads around this time of year. Like updates on that. Posted on our Instagram. Which is right now. Grand County Weeds Department. No. Grand County Weeds Dept.
So some challenges that we face. We work with a lot of different specialized tools. On the left hand. We have a spray trap. And the blue is herbicide. And blue dye.
Pressurized equipment. That can make people wrong pretty quickly. And we do our best to maintain them. But they are old. And they need a lot of work. In the middle we have a saw. We’re always related to saw issues. All the work we do with chainsaws. On the right we have a tool that we were just too strong for. We’re dusting it too hard.
Again these are more maintenance issues that we face. Equipment maintenance is a huge chunk of our budget. And we try and cover that cost when we can. With grants and agreements. But a lot of it falls outside of what’s allowed.
So this is an essential part of our budget. We are constantly fixing things. Accomplishments. That is the crew at the top. Standing in front of the massive weed pile. That we accumulated throughout the winter. All of that used to be on private property. It’s a lot bigger than it is in the picture. But that is Jose at Old Spanish Trail Arena. And each year we burn it. And it’s awesome. And thank you to Angie for letting us dump our weeds there. And then the truck. I just had to throw out a little rest in peace to our expediter. I mean expedition. That’s what we called it. The expediter. It finally died this year. And we miss it terribly.
So here’s just some numbers. I can read them out loud if you’d like. Or I don’t need to. I can just read it. But we’ve done a tremendous amount of work throughout Grant County. On private and public lands. And these numbers are taken from this past fiscal year. So from last August to all of that.
Yeah.
And this is a slide specific to our river projects. We just finished a purple loosestrife hunting trip. It started in Wilma. And we worked with Grayson County. We went all the way down to Westwater. We did not go through Westwater. It was tied. But we will later this year. And we found about nine loosestrife plants. And it’s a very successful interagency project that we organize each year.
This is a slide to pause and ask if you guys have any questions. Or comments. Were you able to hear me? Okay.
Okay.
Personally, it’s good to see you guys out. Tackling some tamarisk down at the portal. It was a month or two back. But I saw you guys down there. So. Thanks. Yeah. That’s being on the river. It’s like, I like seeing you guys out there. Killing that tamarisk. So we’re trying. The beetles are also doing very well. This time of year. Yes. That’s a tamarisk beetle.
Anything else? Anybody? Yeah. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. That’s a sticker.
One unifier. You guys still have the rental program or the lower program of the. Of the removal tool. Yes, we do. Okay. That’s a shameless plug.
So you can buy yourself. They’re about $200 right now or more. But we have some loan out. We try. Okay. It’s a new program. So we’re working on some kinks. But we usually lend it out for like a weekend. And we pick it up the following Monday or Tuesday. We’re working out some problems where the go ahead. Rollers don’t work on it. Swivel. Sand. If they don’t work on your property, I’m so sorry. But, yeah, if you just want to send me an email. That’s the best way to get in contact with me and time to drop it off. Just so everyone knows and general public knows. It’s a great tool when it does work on your property. And it’s the equivalent of a goat head lawnmower. And it picks them up in droves. I agree. They’re really awesome when they work. Yep. But it doesn’t work on sand. Doesn’t really work on sand or loose dirt. But sometimes you got to have kind of a hard surface for it to push up.
Thank you. All right. All right. Thank you so much, Izzy. We appreciate your time and all that you do out there. All right. Thank you.
All right. We will move into commission disclosures. Do we have anything? Anybody? I’ll hear nothing. All right. So maybe I’ll just touch bases on one. There seems to be some concerns or talk going around that I might be financially involved in some housing projects that are going on around. One of them being the Knowlton group. That’s trying to do a project over on, I think, Boulder Avenue. Another one is on time, right? The Garn group. Yeah, we’ve been on that a long time. But there’s some rumors going around. And I just want to address them in the disclosure here. And then there’s the Garn group and the Red Rock Partners that are putting in housing. They’ve started up at the top of Mill Creek. I think Harrison is doing the work on that project. But I have no financial ties to any project in this county. And the people that are concerned about that, reach out to me first. I’m always glad to discuss that or let everybody know I am partners in a construction company here with my son. But we are currently not working on any housing projects that I have been involved in as a commissioner trying to help push forward. The goal is more housing. So thank you for that. And we will move on to commission reports. Yes, sir. I just have one. There’s an item for a contract for the Indigent Defense Council. My office is prosecution. The Indigent Defense Council does defense work. That’s an obvious conflict with prosecution. The county always has a different attorney to review the IDC contracts, public defender contracts, et cetera. So I just wanted to note that for the public as well. But all your guys’ public defender contracts don’t get reviewed by my office. So I just wanted to disclose that. All right. Thank you for that. We will move into commission reports. Trish, you can start us off. I was on vacation. So I did not attend any of my meetings, but did let them all know that I was going to be absent. So yay. You did a job. You want to just carry us around? Yeah, definitely. August 12th, trail mix meeting. We voted in our first active transportation rep, Emily Wessner. We also talked about bylaws that we had had discussions here about. We got rid of the attendance qualification for the at-large members and clarified some of the rep positions, like turning the climbing rep into the road activities rep to more accurately reflect those groups they represent, the mountain biking rep against the cycling rep, et cetera. And those should, those are with Stephen to review, and they should come to us at the next commission meeting. So expect to see that. We talked about Mud Springs. There are, Mud Springs is moving along. It’s great. It’s on time. It’s going to be, hopefully it’ll be finished this fall. That’d be wonderful for everybody. There are two volunteer dates for Mud Springs. So people can go out and help out with the work. And those are September 27th and October 18th. And also we heard from our SAR rep, and they said that they have been strained this year. There’s more rescues this year than previous years. And their perception is that there’s a lot of people out in the back country that need rescuing. August 12th, also I attended the Colorado River Authority dinner that Grant Kennedy hosted. I did just attend the dinner. On that itinerary, it said there’d be discussions. I was a little bit disappointed that there wasn’t any substantive discussion about water at that. I was kind of expecting that. There was other events associated with that that I wasn’t invited to. So it is what it is. August 13th, TSSD, we had a board member resign. So there’s an open spot on that. Also discussed budget on the Thompson water. There’s an open spot there. We also discussed a budget amendment. They are needing to spend more money than previously discussed on basic or previously budgeted for maintenance things. But luckily, loadout sales have been far exceeding what the budget showed. So there is a little bit of extra money to cover some expenses. Also, there’s ongoing discussion with WSAA about taking over that TSSD. A couple of the TSSD board members and the secretary had attended a WSAA meeting. I think Brian can speak to that a little bit. I think that’s a good step. I’m not sure when that’s going to happen, but hopefully it will. Also, there is a, we talked about what needed to be done before WSAA might take that over as well. There’s a lot of cleaning up and other things that TSSD needs to do for that to happen. And as far as that goes, that board is very, or that district is very under banned as far as how it goes. The water master out there is very part-time. He has a full-time job looking for water. And there are some things that just they haven’t been able to get done. So we talked about ways that that might be able to, some of those things might be able to move forward. August 14th, I was on the selection committee meeting for choosing the branding agency with Brian.
We had three great candidates. That was a pretty interesting process. We narrowed it down to two, and then eventually one of them is the one that will appear on our agenda today that we’re going to vote on later. Again, I don’t think we could have gone wrong with either of the top two.
And I think the key to all this, and we discussed this in the meeting, is very strong community engagement and just working on representing kind of the whole, all aspects of our community and finding a branding message that we can all buy into, that we can kind of get behind to highlight what we have here and get people in and keep people happy. So I think that’s going to be a great endeavor. We’ll see that come up on that agenda item. Then yesterday, I attended the audit committee meeting. Other commissioners attended that as well as far as that presentation. So I won’t go into that. But we did have a couple items after that we went over the 2024 audit. One of them was discussing further direction for an internal auditor. So we talked about them doing a little bit of digging into oversight of departments. We talked about electives, offices, and SSDs, et cetera. And we also discussed a budget for the internal auditor. And the budget we discussed is significantly higher than we’ve had, than we’ve paid for an internal auditor in the past. Again, that was just a discussion. But I do think that the internal auditor that we chose looks optimistic about their capacity. So that’s all I got. Mike, sir. I was at the same meeting that you guys were. It was actually devil’s book on to my transportation special service district meeting. Have updates coming from that. And have my rec special services meeting tomorrow. So no real updates other than meetings you guys all attended. Thank you. Mary? Yes. I attended the Colorado River Authority dinner. And I was very excited. And I was disappointed I didn’t learn anything. I was really looking forward to a presentation and at least some information on what’s happening and what’s moving forward. But it was nice being around people. On the 13th, I had a homeless coordinating committee meeting. And our uptick of homeless has increased a bit. But it’s still low for this time of year. Which we haven’t, we don’t know what. We, you know, we normally have more homeless in the spring, summer, and fall. And then it ticks down a little bit in the winter. But right now, it’s still higher than the winter. But it’s not where it has been in the past. The Monterey Clinic is doing a lot as far as helping our homeless community with hygiene. Helping them get into areas where they can take a shower. And with clothing, which is really nice. And the work that Seek Haven is doing. And then, you know, the fact that they’re moving forward to having more beds and such for our people who are working with domestic violence has been really helpful.
And domestic violence still remains the top reason outside of addiction and drug abuse. I mean, addiction, this is a drug abuse. And mental illness. Mental illness are the two main reasons people are in a homeless situation. And the third is domestic violence. And they also make up the largest group of people who are at risk of being homeless. But I’m really excited the way that our Homeless Coordinating Committee is working together so closely. There’s been a big improvement over how that committee works and exchanges information and helps coordinate so that the homeless that we do have get better, you know, better services. And you don’t have the homeless come in that drain the system by going from one agency to another. Because there’s a real good communication to know that they came there and got it. So when they show up to another place, you go, well, you got your voucher. So that’s good. That’s nice to see. That was a problem before. And that’s all I have to report on other than I attended the other meeting. And it was really quite informative. And yeah, I can’t say I enjoyed it. But it was also, I thought it was very thorough and I really appreciated it. Thank you, Brian. Yeah, thanks. So let’s see here. On the 6th, I had a meeting with Planning and Zoning. And we discussed the timeline of how we will get the MFR 45 and introduce the landscape ordinance into the Planning and Zoning Commission. And then also on the 6th, I had a meeting with Jason Curry. And we kind of discussed some of the options that we’re going to have to work with the state to accomplish some work and additional maintenance on some of our motorized trails.
On the 12th, I had a meeting with MTAP. And they gave us an update from Madden, which is our agency of record. The board commented that they feel that Madden is on the right track right now with connecting appropriate ads to the targeted customers. They gave us a little slide deck. And there was a slogan that I really liked. It was, every traveler has an edge in Rowan. You find yours. But they have a lot of big things. I can’t remember. I think they did 160 ads right now. Our previous agency, I think, had done six. So they are definitely putting in some work over there. Camera stories. Sorry, Brian. Are they out currently? Or should we be seeing them? They are out. They are out currently. You should be seeing them on social media. And you should be seeing them on quite a few different platforms. I haven’t noticed them yet. But it would be cool to get that presentation. I’d love to check something out. Have to see what Madden’s up to. Yeah, we can talk to them. There’s also, the deck is available on the end tab for Agenda. So if you want to just go on to the previous Agenda, you can go up and go see the deck and see what the actual ads are that we put now. Camp stories updated. That’s our PR agency. They got a story published in the recent Wall Street Journal for an article. They’re also plotting an idea for a Christmas story. That should be pretty cool. Oh, yeah.
They requested change. The end tab board requested some changes to the bylaws before they could approve them. There were some incongruencies. And so those should be sitting with admin right now. So we’ll get those taken care of. And then they can vote on those when they come back next month. There was two subcommittees formed. One is going to be for the TRT, TRCC application, which is going to be an application process for all of our departments. They’re going to be requesting TRT, TRCC. So that the travel power of the end tab board can provide us with the recommended.
Spent and then also for the special events grants. So there is a marketing match that we have previously provided. That system and that process is kind of falling to the wayside. So there’s going to be a new subcommittee or there’s a subcommittee that was formed. That’s going to be helping getting that process back up again and starting working with those special events.
They also did approve the selection of the two agencies that we had and left it in the hands of the selection committee for the branding agency. There was a follow up that happened two days later for that branding agency. So they wanted to just make sure that they boasted or they voted that they approved of the two choices for the branding agency. See, on the 12th, I briefly attended the Colorado River Advisory Council, which I’m part of. And we kind of just went around. There was a lot of legislature and delegates that were here to kind of discuss some of the problems that were going on with the, or not the problems, but the process of what’s going on with the Colorado River Interim Guidelines. And so we had that dinner. That’s a joint dinner at the Sunset Grill. I thought it was very successful. Gene Shawcraft gave a nice presentation and it was a great, great opportunity to mingle with. I think Senator Lee had some delegation there. And then we had Shu and Casey Snyder came and joined us from the state as well. Yeah, a lot of great people sitting there talking about Colorado River. I don’t know what happened at your guys’ table, but we had a whole bunch of great discussions sitting over at our- We talked about Trump’s takeover at DC. Yeah, with Senator Lee’s office.
Yeah, and so then on the 13th, there was a river trip that was hosted by ORS. ORS did a fantastic job out there, taking us out there on the Colorado River. We had three breakout sessions along the banks of the Colorado. The first one was we built a model of the Colorado River system. And then we talked about legal infrastructure, energy, agricultural, recreational, fish and wildlife concerns along the Colorado. The second stop, Gene Shawcraft, he’s the Colorado River Commissioner of Utah. He gave an update on the current state of the negotiations and the timeline of the upper and the upper and lower basin. Running into to have an alternative set for the interim guidelines. So that’s going to need to probably be set sometime by mid-November. So that’s what we’re looking at as far as that goes. I did hear that they did have some negotiations happening two days prior up there in Salt Lake City. So they are happening right now as we’re speaking. I think they’re meeting weekly, if not every other week. On the third stop, Amy Haas, who’s the Executive Director of the Colorado River Authority of Utah. She spoke and talked about a lot of the initiatives that Utah is taking towards voluntary conservation. It’s a pretty neat little program that they got going on. On the 14th, we had a branding. We talked about the branding for the Moab Office of Tourism. And yeah, there was a lot of great conversations held. And we ended up coming up with two picks, I think. It was one pick that I think that was a little bit better than the others. And we had some follow-up questions. So I think that we’re going to get the answers to those questions tonight. And it should be on our agenda. On the 16th, we have the Audit Committee. And as the Audit Committee came through, Karen, who’s our financial advisor. Yep, she gave us some great recommendations on the audit. I believe that those should have been implemented. And then in her assessment, she felt that Larson had fulfilled their obligations as an auditor. And then also in that, for future considerations, I’d like to consider putting GPP on the next agenda. And talk about, as a discussion item, and talk about contracting them for the program that he was talking about at the end of our Audit Committee. What’s GPP? GPP. That’s our internal audit. Our internal audit. Oh. Internal audit.
That’s it. That’s it. All right. Before we go to mail, I am going to break for the six o’clock citizen to be heard. So we’re six minutes late for our apologies. But if there’s any citizens that would like to speak, citizens to be heard, now would be the time to do so. Anybody online, Quinn?
Oh, Charlotte normally would do once a day. Okay. You can wait. I’m just headed to League of Women, League of Voters in Grand County. That’s all I wanted to say. Okay. Thank you. Resurrecting. All right. Anybody else? Lynn, Mr. Jackson, please introduce yourself. Is Mike working here? I believe so. They’re over. Okay. We had a hard time hearing that lady earlier. So Lynn Jackson, just a couple of comments. I heard some great news about trails that are being built, mud springs and some others. My question is, when are we going to build a trail for the local citizens that goes out Spanish Valley? It’s in process. Good. It’s in process. We were talking about that when I was on a commission clear back in January. All right. I know I’m not supposed to be talking. We did say we’re going to start getting monthly updates built about. And so we maybe should, I don’t know, push that out somehow. Anyways. That’d be nice. Yeah. There was some information. Okay. So just one other quick thing, and it relates to the ballot initiative. And I think I commend you guys for putting that to the voters. That’s a good thing. What the city did with their property tax. But I see some optic issues if the way it’s worded, the state statute allows that tax if it’s passed. And I know most of you know, this to be used for like, six different entities. Yes. And, but the ballot just identifies three, you know what they are. So what I see is a problem. If, if it passes, there’s going to be a time, a year or two down the road, three years, who knows. When you guys as a commission are going to exercise your authority under the statute to allocate that money to all six entities, you’re going to pull some away from one of the three that the citizens voted for, and it’s going to raise questions. None of these entities, from my experience, like losing money. Some of them are likely to come in and wave that ballot in front of your face and say, oh, you never talked about giving money to solid waste or avalanche control. So my suggestion is probably a legal thing for you guys, particularly Stephen is. I think your ballot should list all six things rather than just say, well, you know, the statute says we can do anything we want. The voters think it’s only going three places. So I just think you’ll avoid some optical problems down the road. Thank you.
Thank you. Anybody else?
Still nobody online. All right. We will continue on with our commission reports, Mel.
Okay. Thursday, the 7th, I went to the Moab Area Housing Task Force meeting just as an interested person. But there wasn’t anyone there from the county, so they ended up asking a lot of questions. But anyways, it was an update on what’s happening with all the entities that are involved with that. And we also discussed that $15,000 ask that we were discussing on the agenda. So that was good information for me. Then on Monday, the 11th, the Council on Aging. And we’ve had our biggest discussion there is just the need for assisted living facilities in Grand County. Tuesday, I did go to Sunset Grill for that dinner with the Colorado River Authority. It was great. I did sit with Amy Haas, who’s the director of that, and also delegation from the office of natural resources. So it was good to visit with people. And I did learn some things. Wednesday, a 12-minute agenda review. And then right after that, I went to go to the Moab Chamber of Commerce board meeting, as I was filling in for Brian, since he was on the river with the Colorado River Authority. Winter festivities board is hard at work. The winter shoulder season marketing has gone out. I didn’t notice it. I was out. So I don’t know what Brian talked about with the MTAB board and the chamber kind of combining to do PR to coincide with the December holiday festivities. So it’ll be a collaborative effort and hopefully some funding from our TRT to push that. They have a business survey out on Facebook, so they can find out what local businesses want or are interested in participating during that time. The other events they have going on is the monthly meetup at the Hoodoo is August 21st. And then the chamber banquet is November 8th at the Hoodoo as well. That’s always a big event. And then the business summit is scheduled for January 15th at Spring Hill Suites. Canyonlands Health Care Special Service District was last Thursday evening. And they are moving forward with a master plan for the eight acres behind the ground center and adjacent to the care center. So I don’t know what they’re going to do with that piece, but they’re moving along to make a plan, which is good. They didn’t get the CIB grant because I don’t know why, but they didn’t get it. But it’s not going to slow things down. They’re going to continue to do it. And then I did go to the audit committee yesterday. So it was very enlightening. A lot of information. I don’t know if we’ll discuss it more later in the agenda. This morning I had the EMS Special Service District meeting, and there was a great financial review from the director. And I emailed that to all of you commissioners. So my first future consideration would be that we should put on action items for liaison to the Moab Area Community Lab Trust.
That’s it. All right. I started off with a meeting with the IDC, and they are looking at hiring a regional manager that would be over, I think, four counties or five. So possibility of some savings actually there for the county in the future. We currently, I believe, are paying half, and they fund the rest, the other half of the director currently with a grant. Also part of an airport board meeting, some bylaw changes, some discussions around the BOR and a possible having to move that in the future.
Let’s see. I was also part of a centrally assessed conversation with UAC, the Utah Association of Counties in Salt Lake. And there were a couple of senators, Senator Owen, Senator Colomar, and Representative Bollender that attended that. And they are pushing a little bit harder this year to try and get some of our centrally assessed issues possibly under control, or at least get us some help with it. We continually get requested from some of the larger companies through the county to reduce their tax rate, which forces us then to have to repay that money. We’re currently working, I think, on 2017 with the Mid-America Pipeline requesting money back. So we’re so far behind that we’re repaying for previous, during previous commissioners’ time on the commission. So we aren’t even up to what’s going on currently. Thanks. Let’s see. I was also at the audit committee in the financial statements that we were going over there. There was a lot of information. I think the biggest thing was the fact that Karen did appreciate the job that Larsen’s had done and felt like they were doing an adequate job there. I also see, or had some conversation around our component units and the possibility of moving their deadline dates forward so that our reporting is not late as it has been for past years. And currently we are. I also was at the Colorado River dinner. And then the next day on the raft trip, the dinner was quite interesting. I was sitting by Gene Shawcroft. So I did get some information there. I would say the highlight of the dinner evening for me, though, was Commissioner McCurdy took us on a boat ride in the dark out on the Colorado River. And so that was, I actually had a lot of fun on that. That was the highlight of my evening there. And then there was a lot of good information on the trip down the river. And we had multiple breakout sessions. And Brian spoke about building a model of the river. And I have to say he knows the Colorado River better than anybody that I am aware of. And I learned a lot about the river. There were so many tributaries that come into that system that I had never even heard of the rivers that dump into the Colorado. But I learned a lot from that one and thought it was quite interesting.
Let’s see, what else? I was in a meeting with Enbridge, who is the company that bought out Dominion Gas here locally. And that was just regarding updating our franchise agreement as they run pipelines throughout the county. And they have agreements to be able to pick those up and repair them, whatnot. And I think that is the end of my report. And so we can move on to electeds, sir. Just real brief, the county attorney’s office, we’re putting on more exciting trainings. So everybody get ready for our next one. It’s going to be retention requests and rights, an exciting training on GRAMA, the Government Reference Access Management Act. So I know you guys all have plans and planners out, but it will be in September. We’ll save the date to you guys. It’ll be really exciting. We’ll have everybody aware of that date so we can get that training. Additionally, just letting folks know, this weekend, August 23rd, the Friends of the CJC is putting on a scoops flash and support. It’s an event where they’ll be serving banana splits and doing free pass to the Marriott Resort style pool as a fundraiser. And that’s this weekend, August 23rd. For more information, you can check out the Friends of the CJC. They have that information and flyers available. Apart from that, that’s all the updates that I have. I’ve got legal review on topics tonight, but I’ll just get to that when we do. Thanks. Thank you, sir. Dave? Thank you, Chair. Glad I made it back in time to give the reports. So a couple of things my office is working on. One thing, I’m working with Zions Bank right now and taking sort of regular steps in incorporating some new anti-fraud measures. There’s one particular called Positive Pay. And we’ll upload a file of all of our checks that we write for every check run and make sure that those are sort of cross-referenced with information that the bank has, just to make sure that there aren’t any fraudulent checks. It’s pretty standard practice now. And so it’s good for us to get up to speed with that. Thankfully, we haven’t run into any issues, but this is going to be a nice measure that we can put in place. And along with that, exploring some possibilities for efficiencies in terms of outsourcing the printing of checks potentially for some more of the regular checks that we do. And so just seeing what costs might be associated with that, just exploring those options as they come up. I’ve got a couple of large complex grammar requests in my queue I’m trying to work through and maintain some progress on. It’s everything else that I’m kind of working on on a regular basis. The budget process is underway in the sense of communication with all department heads and preparing an initial draft budget so that we can get those in by the first week of September and have those start ready for feedback and for a presentation before the Budget Advisory Board and just getting that ball rolling. There’s a lot of back and forth. There already is. I’m building at least a dozen emails today with some specific questions about, you know, some of the finer points of filling out the budget and I expect that to continue. I’m really happy to be a resource for all the department heads as we go through this process together.
One other thing kind of heating up is the oversight of the Board of Equalization appeal processing of all the applications that we received. And so I mentioned before that we have an online application submission process now, which I think has been a really welcome thing for a lot of property owners to be able to submit their applications online. It had been all really old-fashioned but really hard copy paper strictly until now. So really glad to sort of open up that improvement and it’s been going on, been going off without a hitch. And with that scheduling appeals, the hearing officer will be here next week, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to see the first round of in-person appeals. I know we had spoken in previous years about the possibility of members of the Board of Equalization yourselves appearing at the hearings. We do delegate a hearing officer. So it would be something that I think in times that we’ve talked about in the past, it would have to be strictly as an observer, but I don’t see why if you were interested in that, how that process goes. I think that there has been increased interest in that process and it will be held here in the chambers starting next Wednesday where most of the residential appeals will be heard. So I don’t know if there’s a desire for me to send some information out about when that is, just as a reminder, but I can do that. And yeah, along with that is, sort of as a somewhat independent third party to the process in the sense of setting up the hearings and receiving the applications, but not being involved in the determinations and the initial valuations and things of that nature. My office and my role in particular often serves as a sounding board for property owners in regards to the process. In regards of what their valuations are. But I do take pride in giving constituents someone that will listen to them and listen to their concerns, but also be clear about the responsibilities that the county has to uphold its own regulations and laws associated with valuation. So it’s an interesting process, but I do find myself these days sitting in my office with constituents for extended periods of time. And that’s, but I do enjoy doing that.
So Steven Bowles, the finance director, he had his last day on Friday. He had to go up and be with family up on the Wasatch Front. And I am very happy to announce that I was able to turn around really quick given the timing and the situation that we’re in with the budget season upon us. I thought it would be at least worth a try to post the position and see if there was a qualified capable applicant to fill in and get into that position as soon as possible. And so I was able to find someone. Their name is Chantal Jensen. They’ve worked with the Moab City previously. They served as the appointed treasurer for Moab City. Lots of really applicable, great experience. It relates to how government finance works. I think it’ll be really valuable. I think we’ll get a different perspective than Steven was able to provide. And I think we’ll learn a lot from having Steven with us for a year and be able to pivot and adjust as necessary. It was a relatively new position when we hired him. And I think that we have an opportunity now to set the tone, especially in terms of how that position serves and provides a regular source of information for the commission. So I really look forward to any improvements possible that can be made on that front. And so, yeah, I look forward to continuing discussions on that.
Yeah, there’s lots of other things, little small bits. I just had a long list of things that end up on my desk every day. I’m part of a legislative steering committee for the county clerks in the state, representing rural counties. And as part of that, so for the rest of this week, I’m attending a conference in Salt Lake City for the National Election Officials Conference, SARA, as part of a certification that I’m completing this year that’s made up of 12 courses. And there’s an opportunity to sit in on a hearing tomorrow morning at the capitol as part of my role in the legislative steering committee for the county clerks. But otherwise, I will also be conferring with election officials from across the country. And I’m really looking forward to the honor of being able to do that. And then one last thing, we’re 77 days from the general election on November 4th. And I also have a new staff person who’s serving as the elections coordinator in the clerk’s office, and that’s Emily Ballantyne. And I’m just really excited as well. I think we’re really lucky to get Emily and plug her into that role. She’s gonna be a tremendous asset to the county for many years to come. So, yeah. Thank you, sir. Quinn, you have anything? All right. So we will move onward then with our consent agenda items.
I have, let’s see, we do not have the minutes in this one. We will skip the minutes. I’ve got ratification of payment of bills. Total bills, $835,047.58. Total payroll, $601,210.71. With a total bills and payroll of $1,436,258.29. Local consent for liquor license, Red Cliffs Lodge. Fiscal year 26 cooperative agreement between the DNR Forestry Fire and State Lands, FFSL, and Grand County Noxious Weeds Department. Consideration of signing a letter of support for the cybersecurity funding and the grant contract for $192,283 for non-motorized trail projects and the Indigent Defense Council grant contract approval. Bill, is it possible if we pull the F off for discussion, please? Sure. All right. So we will look for a motion to approve the consent agenda minus item F. So moved. Motion by Commissioner Hadler, second by Commissioner McCurdy. All in favor? Aye. We will look at the grant contract for the non-motorized. Commissioner Martinez. Yeah, give me one second just to go ahead and pull it up here. I just had some questions and I don’t know if anybody can answer that.
So I just wanted to clarify. So when I look at the fiscal impact on the agenda summary, it says $192 coming in revenue right there. But I remembered that there was a match. So if we actually look at the 2025 RTP contract right there, there is a match on that of $78,928.29. So I’m just wondering if that agenda is correct right there. Is it in kind? No, that’s a cash match right there. And then the in-kind match is $9,368.80. Do you know, Quinn? No. And also if it is a match where it comes from, it’s that optional tax. Yeah. Which I think it has been in the past. Yeah, Stephen, I do have a question for you on the optional tax. And you might need to look into this. Are trails an allowable use for the optional tax? I thought that they would have to be something for transportation. Are you talking in the revised mitigation for TRT? No, not TRT. I think it’s option B tax. It’s the other restricted fund. It’s one of the other restricted funds. I’d have to look into it. Yeah, if you could look into that and just let me know how that works. I know that the trails are, but I think it has to be for a means of convenience.
Anyways, yeah, I just wanted to bring that up right there, that there is a match on that of $78,928. So we would need to move this considering that it has a fiscal impact on the county. Do we need to have an actual vote and determine where that funds are coming from? You guys have pulled it from the… You guys will have to make a motion anyways on what you guys want to do because you pulled it from the consent agenda. Okay. Can we maybe find the answer and move it? Yeah, the next meeting. No, or even… I’m always worried about these grants having a debt. You know, I want to know what that deadline is for that. So number 30 is… Let me try to check on that. It’s good to pass it for a moment, then we can come back to it. Yeah, but I get the answers before the end of the meeting. Sure, we’ll just bring it up later in the agenda then. Thanks. Is that all right? Okay. All right, we will move on then to item number four, Proclamation and Suicide Prevention Month. And I know that you ladies have patiently waited for that and I appreciate and thank you for doing so.
Good evening, commissioners. Thank you so much for your time. I will start at that end of the table and let these ladies introduce themselves. I am Elizabeth Wright. I work at Four Corners Community Behavioral Health and I facilitate the RAPE Coalition, which is our local prevention coalition and resident for almost 20 years. I’m Loralee Green and I’m a Red County School District School Board Member. I’m Taylor Passarella and I am the Prevention Director at Four Corners Community Behavioral Health. So I cover Carbon, Emory, and Grand Counties prevention efforts. And I’m Amanda McIntosh. I’m the Suicide Prevention Liaison with Four Corners Community Behavioral Health, formerly the Suicide Prevention Specialist with the Southeast Utah Health Department. So I recognize a couple of you. Thank you again so much for the opportunity to just talk a little bit about why we’re here. This is the first time that I have come to Grand County Commissioners to request for a proclamation to be read into the minutes for naming September Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month. And it’s the first time for a couple of different reasons. I’ve been in this work and in this field for the last seven or eight years and I have to test the waters when I come into different spaces for suicide prevention. And the last couple of years, it’s kind of been hot and cold as far as it being accepted and willing to be talked about and things like that on many different levels. And so again, my appreciation goes to you for allowing me to come and speak on it. It’s really up to you if you’d like me to read the proclamation or if you would like to read the proclamation. But by doing so and having an out loud conversation about it, we’re breaking down the stigma and the burden that people carry when it comes to talking about mental health in general, but suicide prevention specifically. And when we talk about suicide prevention and we bring to light the numbers of people that we are losing to suicide, not just in our small community of Grand County, but as a three county area, the statistics are alarming and it’s a public health issue that we want to keep at the forefront of our prevention efforts across the board, at the school level, at the prevention level, at the local mental health authority level. And with that, I’ll again, turn it to you if you would like to read the proclamation, that’s fine, or I can read it, it’s up to you. I’m sure Brian, I would be glad to also, but please, either way, I think it’s great that we get to do that here and appreciate you letting us do it. Yes, thank you. Suicide prevention and awareness, whereas the state of Utah has consistently been at the top 10 for states for suicide deaths since 2012, currently seventh in the nation versus 2024 reporting of ninth. And whereas Carbon, Emory and Grand County often lose the state of Utah in suicide deaths per capita. And whereas people who lose a loved one to suicide are at a 30% higher risk of ending their lives to suicide as a learned coping mechanism and learned behaviors. And whereas the risk of suicide can be reduced through awareness, training, proper educational resources and treatment. And whereas according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Statistics, suicide is the second leading cause of death amongst Utahns age 15 to 24. Second leading cause of death among ages 25 to 34, second for ages 35 to 44, fourth for ages 45 to 54, fourth for ages 55 to 64, ninth in 2024 and 18th for ages 65 and older. And whereas suicide affects everyone. Suicide is everyone’s business and suicide is one of the most preventable deaths that can be avoided by one, learning the warning signs of depression and suicide ideation. Two, knowing how and when to ask about one’s suicidal thoughts. Three, being aware of life-saving measures. And four, familiarizing ourselves with the resources available locally, such as Four Corners, Community Behavioral Health, statewide, such as Live On Utah, and nationwide, such as calling or texting 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Now, therefore, we, Grand County Commissioners Winfield, Martinez, McCurdy, McCandless, McGann, Padler and Hedin on this 19th of August 2025 do hereby proclaim September 2025 to be Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month in the County of Grand and encourage all residents of Grand County to recognize how serious suicide is and the steps each of us can take to protect those around us from the preventable tragedy, one with devastating generational and community-wide effects. Thank you. So there are a couple of things that I would like to bring to your attention as far as what we are doing in the community presently for suicide prevention. Working with the Great Coalition and the Prevention and Wellness Coalition that have teamed up together with the school district, we are getting more mental health messaging into our school, into our students’ hands. We are also in the process of creating for the first time a suicide prevention walk happening at Grand High School on October 4th. On-site registration begins at 5.30 and the program begins at 6. Representative Logan Monson has already agreed to come and speak at it, amongst other great speakers that will be there to talk to us. Another thing that we are doing is on World Suicide Prevention Day, which is Wednesday, September 10th. These ladies are hosting a candlelight vigil at Swanee Park, beginning at 7. This National Day of Recognition is a reverent support system for those in our community who have lost somebody to suicide and need to be surrounded by others who know that healing journey and the struggles that come with the difference in grieving a loved one lost to suicide versus a different kind of debt. So that is a free event. Four Corners will be providing the battery lit candles so there’s no fire concern there, but they will meet for an hour and worldwide at 8 o’clock p.m. in respective time zones. Time zones that candles are lit and remembered that the loved ones that we’ve lost. In recent years, looking at our data for Carbon Evergreen Grand Counties, we are seeing an influx in suicide deaths in Grand County and especially amongst our older seniors across the three counties. So we really are trying to put forth a diligent effort in bringing more resources, more training, and more opportunities for us as community members to prepare ourselves and be ready in the event of a suicidal crisis. Also on September 9th, we are hosting a community for a free to the community QPR training, which stands for Question, Persuade, Refer. It’s a two hour suicide prevention training where you are certified and will learn the common warning signs of what’s going on in somebody that is currently struggling with a suicidal crisis, how to safely question their suicidal intent, persuade them to live and to get help, and then who and when to refer them to for resources. That will be taking place at the mark starting at 6 p.m. Again, we encourage you to apply. We encourage you to attend to see the efforts that we are making. I open it up to you for questions. Yes. I applaud everything you guys do in erasing the stigma of it taking place in many of our lives. So thank you for the work that you do. Two, I’d like to make the motion. I move to approve the proclamation here by proclaiming September 2025 to be the Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month. I second. Motion by Commissioner McCurdy, second by Commissioner McCandless. Do we have any further thoughts, discussions? This is an easy one. Thank you.
I’ll say a few things. Okay. You talked about the warning signs. Just in my own life, it’s been a number of years ago, there was a young lady that was waiting on me and on her face was hell. And that’s a warning sign that I passed. And she ended up taking her own life. And so those things, if we realize sometimes just how tough life is for some other people when we’re just going about our daily lives, whether it be at a restaurant or wherever, it’s very important. So the warning signs are sometimes at least they get missed for sure. I do also thank you guys for everything that you’re doing. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate you all again. Thank you so much. I hope that you will create maybe a Grand County team and join us on October 4th. Come to the training on September 9th. Come to the candlelight vigil on the 10th just to show your support to a community that is in desperate need of comfort and support and encouragement. I can email the flyers. If you would. We still have to vote. Anybody else? Sorry. I don’t like it to be very argument. All those in favor? Passes unanimously. Again, thanks for being patient with us. Thank you for hearing us out. Yes, thank you.
All right. Let’s see. The next item was one we discussed that was postponed or moved. So we will move on to number six, the approval of the final flap of the FEMA subdivision.
Hello.
So this is for parcel number 0217120. It’s a 1978 Platteau Drive in Moab. It’s a final flat approval of a nine lot subdivision. It’s mixed zoning, have a commercial on one side and there’s some residential, I’ll get back.
This was, they received preliminary flat approval on May 2nd. There were some conditions with that. Those have been addressed. All of land use requirements have been met. The staff is recommending that you guys approve this.
Do you guys have any questions? This is the applicant. Troy Naylor. Anybody? Questions? Mike? Following the recommended motion, I’d like to make a motion. I move to approve the final plat for the Lavena subdivision, parcel number 02-0017-0120, submitted by Foothold Incorporated with the findings of fact and conditions of approval as recommended by staff. All right. Motion by Commissioner McCurdy. Second by Commissioner McGann. Any further discussion?
All right. I’ll call for a vote. All in favor? Motion passes with Commissioner Martinez absent 6-0. We got final plat of Thompson tonight. Way to go. Wow. All right. So with that, we will move on to number seven to appoint an additional commission liaison to the Planning Commission. And I’m the one presenting this and bringing it forward. I don’t know if we have a recommended motion with this.
All right. Please do. I move to approve Brian Martinez as an additional liaison to Planning Commission. All right. Motion by Commissioner McCandless. Second by Commissioner McCurdy. Further discussion? Yes, Trish. Just a couple of things. Again, if we go into our governing policies and procedures for Grand County, these positions are appointed in January. And so the fact that we’re going against those policies and procedures is a problem, I think. But on we go. We keep doing it. And I have had no complaints. I’ve actually had a number of compliments. As to my professionalism, Curtis Wells just told me last week, he said, you’re the best Planning Commission liaison I’ve seen since I’ve been interacting with commissions. I think I try to relay information back and forth in a very effective manner. I take extensive notes. I try to interact when asked by either the Planning Director and or the Planning Commission. I try to respond when they have questions for me. So I’m taken aback as to why this is an item.
Yes, Jacques. Yeah, I don’t support this at all. I don’t think we need another Planning Commission liaison. We’ve never, this is kind of unprecedented. We have needed one in the past. Any commissioner can sit in one of those meetings and frequently do.
I think Trish has done a great job of being a liaison in all five years that she’s been on the commission. And I just think this is, I think it’s unnecessary. I think that you tried to remove her from the position a while ago and that didn’t work. So now you’re throwing another liaison out there. Sure, I don’t recall ever trying to remove her. Even at the beginning of the year, she knew that she was like, I’m going to probably lose this position. She left, she stayed on there. I was just going to start going to all the meetings. When I spoke to Stephen, but when Stephen was spoken to, he let us know that it does matter because we can’t speak. If you show up to a board as a commissioner, not the liaison, then you’re a citizen there. And so that’s where you can speak as citizens to be heard. And that’s all, you’re not able to speak on behalf of the commission at all. And I do think that we need to have, Trish has done a good job. She has a lot of extensive knowledge, but last meeting she stated that us commissioners don’t go on there. So I feel like we don’t know what’s going on there that maybe we need to get pointed on there. So I was willing to do it. I know Brian was willing to do it. I think we’re going to swap and take over the chamber. Anyways, yeah, like take over the chamber as a liaison position and then we can learn more. But I do watch every meeting trying to learn what goes on and Trish has extensive background in it. I think that she’s beneficial to staying there, but there could just be another voice. Yes, please, Brian. Sorry, I missed a little bit of what was happening there. But I will say that I did go to a planning commission meeting and I was told that I was not allowed to speak. That was by you, Trish. I’m going to call you out on that because you actually said, we’ll have time to talk about this at the commission meeting, but right now you do not have time, you are not allowed to speak. Talk to Stephen and that’s true. I wasn’t allowed to speak. I said, that’s just fine. But I mean, let’s just make sure that we understand we’re all speaking the same language. You told me I couldn’t speak at the planning commission. So don’t tell me that any commissioner can go there and have a chance to speak. That’s all I have, thanks. Sure, anybody else?
All right, motion by Commissioner McCandless, second by Commissioner McCurdy. All in favor?
Those opposed? Motion passes with Commissioner Hedin, Commissioner Hadler and Commissioner McGann, opposed. We will move on to collection and award contract for the branding agency. It’s like we have folks here. Thank you, Mick and Ali. Hello.
Is this on? Did you leave it here? Well, I had to do a lot of that. Where does that come from? Well, you’ve got my sticker. I know that’s something else. I think they are doing that.
Thank you. Sorry. Hi, Mick from the MOAB Office of Tourism. And Ellie from the MOAB Office of Tourism. This item is to select an agency for the branding RFP that we issued on June 1. If you’ll indulge me, I’ll read the project goal and give a little background of how we got here. From the RFP, project goal is to develop a comprehensive strategy, brand platform, story for MOAB that not only presents it as a must-visit destination, but also incorporates lessons learned from other international destinations and our past promotional efforts. One goal for this project is to create a brand and implement it in a way that touches every state’s business life cycle. And to get buy-ins in our community is critical to the project’s success. I was looking back on what we’ve done this year to get ready for this project. And we started by, after budgeting for it, we started by looking at RFPs that were issued by other destinations. We shared that with the MTAP board. We looked at RFPs issued by the state and destinations in Colorado and Arizona. We also met with TMO teams at Park City and Visit Milwaukee, but recently undergone branding projects.
And from the item itself, I’ll just read the background here. After establishing an RFP with the board, we formed a selection committee made up of commissioners Martinez and Hadler, the chair and vice chair of MTAP, members of MOT, which is the Valley Commission Administration. Quinn sat on the selection committee. The county clerk helped us review proposals. And the marketing director at the Utah office collectively reviewed 36 proposals, nearly a thousand pages with bids ranging from $88,000 to $2.2 million and answered hundreds of questions submitted in the procurement portal. We had a large response that we got a really good sense of what people were offering. From that initial pool, the selection committee selected three agencies. They were named finalists and the lead strategist, creative director and account executive at each agency traveled to Moab for in-person presentations and interviews with many MOT agency partners, which is Camp Stories. From that, the committee made a selection. We recommend selection of Camp 4 tourists to serve as the strategy and branding agency for this limited engagement. The three finalists were reviewed by the Moab Tourism Advisory Board at an August 12th meeting and the board voted unanimously to give the selection committee the authority to choose a branding agency out of three finalists.
From that, the selection committee met and we selected Camp 4 tourists. We had a clarification meeting with Camp 4 tourists as outlined in the RFP and they confirmed that everything we listed under the three phases in the RFP will be included in the scope of our deliverables list. And it was a great meeting with great energy. Everyone’s genuinely excited to get started and with your approval, we will start getting a contract together.
So with that, that’s my questions.
A statement and then I’d like to make a motion. Not often in rural Utah, we see 36 applicants to an RFP. I really like seeing that. It means there was some draw and it wasn’t the cheapest nor the most. So it looks like it was very well gone over from hearing both from Josh and Brian. And with that, I’d like to make the motion. I’m gonna move to award the strategy of branding agency contract to Camp 4 and tourist in an amount not to exceed $750,000 and authorize the chair to sign all associated documents and contracts upon completion of legal review. Motion by Commissioner McCurdy, second by Commissioner Martinez. Further discussion?
As Brian stated earlier during his reports, there were some further questions that the advertising agency had asked. Yeah, we went back to them with those questions. They responded and were satisfied with their answers. It was a great meeting. Like I said, everybody’s excited to get started.
And bulk of the response is just confirming that everything listed in the RFP will be included in the scope of work and contract. So as we develop that over the week, but kind of provide a model to do that, and we’ll start kind of turning proposal into it. And if I recall, I think a lot of that question involved community outreach and then their efforts to come to Moab and really get a good idea about what the community as a whole cares about. And so you were satisfied with their response to that and their commitment to really doing their homework on that front. Yeah, I am. I think the materials that were submitted with this item are good to review. They have a lot of the ideas that they were proposing for the project, including that I’ve earmarked a bunch of things here. But without going into too much detail, yes, I think that from their initial proposal all the way through to these final questions, this is something that they understood as part of the RFP and that they think is really important to getting right. Great.
Yeah, Brian. Yeah, I just want to commend you guys for a great job on this project. I think this was a good example of a good collaboration from everybody around here. I think that there was a ton of work. And I mean, there’s so much you guys went through and you guys brought in a lot of great people here to make this happen. And I feel like we’ve made a good choice right here. I think the only question that I have for you is do you guys feel satisfied? Do you guys feel like this is the, I mean, you’re the one that will be working with them quite a bit. Yeah, totally. Yeah, definitely. The second question is, do you think that that camp floor, I mean, when I looked at camp floor, I think that they were probably the biggest risk, right? Like I felt like we were taking a little bit of a risk by going with them. And I like that. I think that they’re going to be able to deliver something. But do you guys feel that they’re going to be able to deliver a solid product when we’re finished with this, especially after your last little meeting? Yeah, I mean, I think it comes down to their partnership too. Camp Floor is a photography, videography, production company mostly. And we need that in a pretty huge way. And Taurus is based on the knowledge of Alexander Fuller, who was at Struck and developed the Mighty Five campaign. And so I think that both of those two strengths will be really important for us. I mean, I can say just for myself, it was when we came to the original meeting after we had all 36, where Taurus was actually my first pick, right? And I mean, and I let it go. I completely forgot about it because as things went along. But as we went on, I think it was the way that they told the story through pictures. They really did. I mean, some people can tell you exactly what it is, and then some people show you. And I think they really did a good job. Yeah, I’d say, I mean, it was already said, we had three really good candidates again, and we kind of couldn’t go wrong with any of them, but they have different strengths. And I’d agree that they’re visual storytellers. And in this day and age, that’s a real strength that can tell the story of Moab and contribute to our marketing efforts. And I really like the name. You probably know what Camp 4 is, right? Of course, yeah. Famous dirt bag climber camp in Yosemite. There you go. And I like the name first too, Dirt Bag. Yeah, Dirt Bag.
Anything further?
All right. Hey, before I call for a vote, I will say that I’m also looking forward to this and to the next item as well as trying to help us with what we’re in an economic slump here, or you could probably call it worse than that even, but I’m hoping that this starts the needle back to where the county could see a little bit of positive growth because this is a very uncomfortable position to be in, to constantly be having to talk about cuts, budget cuts, remind people of where our budget is at right now. So it’ll be nice to maybe see the county turn back around a little bit. But with that, I will call for a vote. All those in favor?
Passes six to zero with Commissioner McGann absent. And we will move on then to the next one for you folks. Search for Office of Tourism Director. Oh, this one’s with Tess. I thought it would have synced. It’s about us.
Tess is on a mask and she is disposed at this time, so she won’t be able to join us. But you guys sent her PowerPoint, right? Personnel Services recommended Horizon Hospitality to provide that search. The range of the cost of that is dependent upon the annual salary of the person selected. But that ranges from $19,000 to $31,000. There’s a one-year guarantee on the placement that if that person doesn’t make it, then provide that search. Ian?
There were several search firms that were considered. Yes? Oh, I was going to finish up, Mark. Okay. There were several search firms that were considered. Horizon Hospitality is specifically geared toward the hospitality industry or the MOC director, and that also weighed into that decision recommendation.
Again, they say they weren’t the highest, they weren’t the lowest, but they were directly related to the hospitality. Just to repeat, what did it cost? Yes. Just at the beginning of the… The range is from $19,000 to $31,000. And again, this will not be a general fund expenditure. It will be MOC fund or TRT funds. And then there was a one-year guarantee? Yes.
Okay. Jonk, I think, or Mike, I honestly don’t know. Mike’s got his hand up permanently, so. Doesn’t have blood anymore, just hanging out. The question I had is since this position is funded from TRT, I think 100% of the salary, would the promotional TRT also pay for the search service? I’m sorry. Yes. Yes. And we have consulted with the state to make sure that that’s the case. Okay. Okay. Mike?
In this search, have we gotten any current applicants to this position? No, because it hasn’t been advertised to this point because we were looking at search firms. We will advertise it. And any that we get in, if you select this firm, we will forward those to the firm to consider. Okay. I would hope that we would get some and partner with the firm to do so. And do we have any timeline that we’re looking at? We have the possibility of seeing results after the first two weeks after that firm is selected. And so tonight will be the start of that clock? In the morning. Okay. Possibly see something. All right. So I guess we’re looking for a motion from something, right?
If they don’t have one spelled out, but I think the recommendation is for Horizon. Is that the name of it? Yes. Horizon is a search firm for a sector for the OLAB Office of Tourism for the range between $19,000 and $31,000. Motion by Commissioner Martinez, second by Commissioner McCurdy. Any further discussion? I think Tess is online. If you want to ask her any questions now, she just barely got online. I don’t have any questions. Hi. Tess, what’s your feelings with Horizon? Hi there, everyone. First off, I apologize for my technical difficulties. I’ve had the, I’ve been paying my tokens to the travel gods, whatever that means today. But I’ve had great conversations with Horizon. I’ve been impressed by their ability to balance both more of that very personable, customized approach, as well as just their industry expertise. And they’ve been really lovely to communicate with. And I was the most impressed just by their, you know, customized search plans, their customized approach to recruitment based on the client, i.e. us as the employer, as well as their communication. So I assume that what I heard, and again, I apologize I logged on a little late, but I’m excited about us working with them. Thank you.
All right. No further discussion. All right, I’ll call for a vote. All in favor? Passes unanimously for Horizon as our search firm. The Office of Tourism. Chairman, we’ll let the county attorney review those agreements. Okay, thank you. All right, we move on to the funding request for the housing task force via Grand County Housing Subcommittee. Commissioner Hedin. And can I have Kaitlin and Ben come up? Are you guys okay with that?
So I’ll just provide some quick context, but let them answer any more specific questions. So the housing subcommittee, which is Mike, Brian, and myself have been working on, one of the first things that we did was do a priority list of what we felt was needed. And this was one of the items was to basically have update the housing pipeline. And so in that we brought what I consider to be the experts in the county on that, Ben Riley from HSU and Kayla Meyer from McAuliffe. And so in our discussion, it was kind of like, what do we see as the greatest need? And in so they’re asking for 15,500 bucks. This money is in budget. So last year in the 2024 budget, Mary put aside or asked to put aside 100,000 for affordable housing initiatives. And so what this would provide is looking at the housing pipeline to inform future decisions around typology of development needed. And again, this was a priority of the subcommittee. Sherry was here earlier with McAuliffe and she said, so what’s next? And I think this is a really great step in moving towards the what’s next is first of all, figuring out what do we need? So this will allow that to happen. So do you guys wanna add anything to that? Please feel free, I was brief. Sure, I think you said a lot of what I would have said here more so on the housing taskforce side as a participant in the subcommittee, also wanting to explain the taskforce side briefly. The taskforce was created in 2009 for local agreement between city, county and HASU to implement the housing plan. So this is the pipeline is very much in alignment with that. And so part of this request is to support implementing the housing plan on a broader scale, doing community events like we did with the town hall, be able to continue to grow those. But yeah, I think Sherry talked about that. We talked about that a lot, Ben and I and myself and the McAuliffe board about wanting to make sure that as we continue to build, that we are supporting the wants and needs of the county and the residents that live here. And the best way for us to be able to do that is to understand the data, understand qualitative and quantitative. The taskforce ran a second annual housing survey this year that gives us qualitative data. We earlier this year requested RCG funds for building onto our housing dashboard. And all of this is to create more tools and for all of us sitting here, watching online to be able to understand what’s actually going on in our market, particularly in rural areas. Census.gov does not provide us to have in order to understand how to address our housing problems. So it’s kind of on us to figure out what that looks like. And so this request is to answer that first question of what’s happening, what do we see that’s coming? And I think from there, we’ll be able to create more tools to figure out how to move forward with the rest of that funding and be able to spend that well in a way that benefits the community. Yeah, I’ll just add, I mean, we put together some priority lists and there’s a lot of things on here. And I think the pipeline serves as the foundation for all of that. We’ve talked about the public-private partnerships, talking about county-owned land, talk about deed restrictions, single family homes, rental units. There’s a lot coming down the pipeline. As I think most of you know, it’s a lot of taxpayers that just got awarded. So I think the basis for everything on our priority list really revolves around what we need to build and where we need to build it. So I think that’s kind of the basis of the request is to try to get that information so you guys are better informed for if we’re talking to public-private partnership or so housing is better informed, what’s our next building typology? What’s our next development? Where’s potentially the next that we’re crossing potentially gonna be? We talked about what’s next. So I think that’s kind of the, again, the foundation of all of these things that are on our working group list. And we’re hoping to hire somebody on a contract basis with those funds to basically comb through a lot of data, building permits, certificate of occupancies, all these things and try to provide you all with a good presentation that will say what type of housing is being built? What kind of people are being built for? Is it high-end? Is it a high-end luxury apartments? Tax credit housing? Is it affordable rentals? Is it high-end single-family homes? Those are the things that we want, that HOSU wants to learn. I think that the county probably wants to know as well. So that way we’re making sure we’re tackling the problem in the right area. Sorry, you were also in that meeting. So do you wanna add any context? No, no, I just wanna kind of maybe go over a little bit. So it’s 10,000 and 5,500. And then in the way that I looked at it, because it had to break it down a little bit more simply, we’re looking at basically the supply and the demand, right? And how did that break down? The 10,000 would have been for the study on the supply. And then the 5,000 would be for… I’m trying to get the breakdown a little bit. You’re giving me a sheet, but I’ve lost it. I just wanted to go over real quick what that breakdown was of where those funds are gonna be spent. And also we’d be looking for city matches on that as well, correct?
Sorry. Sure. 5,500 is what we’re asking for the study. I mean, we’re trying to find… We’re thinking that if we can find somebody, again, it’s really just combing through data and working on Excel spreadsheets for a few weeks. So trying to find somebody to do some contract work for that. And then 10,000 going to the housing task force to kind of support the events that we had to be able to give out that information once we gather it, right? That and other information. It also has money in there for the dashboard, which we think is a valuable tool. And these are all things that we want to be able to get that information and be able to display it in a good way. So you all know, it’s very clear to you all. It’s clear to Grand County citizens what’s happening. And I wasn’t able to attend the community outreach event. I didn’t sit here that someone from the city was able to speak out about what’s kind of coming down the pipeline there. So is that data already available? Are we only looking for the county right now? The county will take a lot more effort. I think, yeah, Corey Sherliff, the community development director has put more work into developing that. And so I think that that will be the basis through which we design this. I think another part of this, we don’t want this to be just a one-time analysis of what’s happening right now. I think part of this funding is really going towards creating a system of how city and county report on a quarterly basis, tangentially as we’re looking at state funding, state is going to require regular updates and reporting on housing plans in order to access the new infrastructure funding that they’re looking to create. And so I think the more we can get consistent in reporting and making that easier, the more we will have this as an evergreen resource. Yeah, and so Corey has done that. He actually is on a hunting permit for the next month. So… I’ll also add that. I think they’re kind of crude numbers from Corey. Like I don’t think he’s got that solidified. I mean, he had a lot of off the cuff things and a lot of things that may or may not happen and it was not very specific data necessarily. Go ahead. I move to approve the request by the housing task force of 15,500 affordable housing budget funds. I’ll second. Motion by Commissioner Martinez, second by Commissioner Haber. And then you were asking to speak. Was that please? Or if you were reminding me, you were second.
Yeah, I think this is… I think this is… I can’t recall having spent any of that $100,000. But I thought not. So it is in the budget. I think this is exactly what we were intentioning when we put that money aside. I think we get great value out of this amount of money, especially since you’ve got some volunteers and very much appreciate the volunteer effort too. I know it’s above and beyond. So very comfortable getting this money towards this and hope we can find another good use for the other 84,500.
Being part of the committee, I would really like, or the subcommittee, I would really like to, if we do find a person that’s willing to take on the work, to set out hard guidelines to what we’re looking for. I wanna know. I mean, you guys have heard it from me before. I wanna know what we have. I wanna know where we will be in the next three years, five years, 10 years, just with current building, current expected build out. Not to mention, in just thinking about this, we’ve changed some land use policies here before, like HDHO. I wanna know, tied into that also, that if units are available, I wanna know the restrictions that are on those units also. If restrictions are in place, it really, there could be a thousand homes, but with an income restriction of 38,000, it really rough to get into, especially even with McDonald’s pay rate. So I need to know that information. I gladly support the amount of money that’s been asked for.
And I would probably change it to 15,500 just for the study. Before doing more community events, I’d like to know where we’re at, where we’re gonna be, but still support it. Well, let’s continue to talk offline, make sure that we’re getting you what you want. Keep those videos in the same page of what we want. I mean, Hasu is wanting the same thing. I mean, again, like I was saying, we’re in between development product ever, Skyline’s opening, and we’re looking for an exit. We wanna know, should we be building what and where? So I think we’re on the same page. And it’d be vital information for MACLT, HASU, ADO program. I mean, a lot of us. Yeah, I mean, ideally this will go on the dashboard. So this is relevant and information that people can access, developers can access that. I mean, I think it’ll be good information for for-profit developers, everyone.
And just because for the RCG grants, you guys have spelled out pretty good for the mom housing dashboard. So I’m just making sure this is encompassing those needs. So this is just a thought here in the current fiscal situation that we find our stuff. And just because there’s 100,000 sitting there, it doesn’t mean we need to spend it. So if we are gonna spend it, I would like to make sure that the city is matching that because I know you’re asking them. So I think it’s important that we get both entities tied into this. I thought there was a little vague on what the study was gonna do too. And then I also had some questions. I know the subcommittee met and that if we’re gonna follow procedure, I believe on the county subcommittee, there were three people there. That would mean three people would vote on the priorities. And it seemed like there were other entities that were voting. We didn’t vote on the priorities. We did the priorities like in January. Okay, okay. It was just my understanding that other people had voted in that. I mean, that’s what I was… So I think that as the subcommittee, we want to be the ones voting on that subcommittee. And then following up, I mean, this housing task force guys, I think this is a great idea. But what I really think we also need to be doing with that task force is supporting the county’s priorities. And those are shifting a little bit. And I wanna make sure that we’re encompassing all housing. I understand that both of you are working on great projects that meet one niche. Excuse me. And so I wanna make sure that we’re looking at the big picture here when you do a study. And I know you mentioned that, but I’m reiterating it because it’s extremely important to the current mission majority. And so there are things moving forward that we want your support on and we want your help looking to where we can start moving this in a little bit different direction than what’s been in the past. And all your goals are awesome where you’re at, but we’ve got to start looking at some other ones and we’re not always gonna be able to fit people into just in a Royal situation law. So I’m looking for a little bit bigger expansion and then also hopefully that we can work something in to make sure that the city matches and we’re getting a good bang for our buck here. Well, it’s always been our priority to find out what the, I mean, I’ve been on the subcommittee from day one. I’ve said every meeting, I wanna know what you want. I mean, make sure that you have opinions that you pass them to Brian or Mike or Trish, so that way we want, that’s the point of the subcommittee is to make sure that we’re getting what you want. Exactly, I appreciate that. So, yeah, I know Brian, you wanted to say, but I was speaking for Brian and Melody and Mike and myself who currently are trying to move this forward. And I know others are as well, but we wanna look at all housing. We wanna see what niche we can fill for every different level in this community. And it’s been one of my biggest complaints for a long time is that sometimes we’re focused on only affordable housing. And then what used to be affordable housing when I started in Moab is being bought up all the time by people that come in and tear it down and then build a fancy home because we’re not allowing them to build somewhere. And so there’s just this market that needs to be met and we can’t just meet one portion of it. We’ve gotta be looking at the whole picture. So I appreciate it. Brian, go ahead. Yeah, and just as we kind of discussed in the housing subcommittee, just evergreening this process, making it so it’s something that’s repeatable. When I first came in, I came and looked at the housing plan and it’s like my first question, and I’m sure everyone’s first question would be, well, how are we doing now three years later? And it’s like, well, we don’t know. And so I just wanna make sure that what we’re doing right now is setting up that system so that in three years later, when someone comes in, they can go, look, this is what the supply or the demand was back in 2022. This is what the demand now is in 2025. And here’s what we’ve built. Here’s how things are going. So we can see how that trends moving along and making sure that we’re meeting it. That’s fine, that’s the intention. Yeah, no, I just wanted to add that up that I’m happy with. Yeah, thank you. Mike. Subcommittee, HASU, MACLT, we need to get someone from San Juan involved also.
It is across county lines. It’s next door to us. We’ve got to know what they’re doing with housing, where they’re going with housing, what’s on the, I mean, part of the study should be how many houses they’re building also or how much commercial space. So, I mean, this is just talking to everyone in one room. We need to get someone from San Juan on this also. It’s a great idea.
All right. Let’s see, remind me, we have Commissioner Martinez, make the motion. Commissioner Hadler, second. Do we have any further discussion? Seeing none, I’ll call for a vote. All in favor? Passes unanimously. Thanks, folks. I mean, Ben, are you really excited about this? Good. Thank you. All right. We will move on to number 11, resolution in support of public lands. Commissioner Hedin. So, I have, I’m a part of this Western Leaders Network, which is leaders across the Intermountain West. They have been encouraging communities that are dependent on public lands to do resolutions. And that’s where this idea came from. The resolution is in there and you’re welcome to read it. But it’s basically acknowledgement that we as a legislative body are deeply concerned about the economic vitality of tourism. And thus the backbone of our industry and public lands are the backbone of this industry and the health of these public lands. Public lands are of extreme importance to amenity-driven communities such as ours. What they do for us is attract and retain not only visitors, but also residents that come for the beauty of our surrounding lands, but also the quality of life that it provides for all of us. Public lands provide a thriving economy in outdoor recreation, livestock production and resource extraction, producing jobs and in strengthening our GDP. Public lands provide for us health and wellbeing for all visitors and residents. And public lands provide clean water, clean air and wildlife resources. And so this is simply an acknowledgement of this. So I would like to make a motion to approve the Grand County Resolution supporting public lands as presented. Motion by Commissioner Hedin, second by Commissioner McGann. Comments? Discussions? I will start that off then. I would have to say that I’m not in support of this. I think that as we continue to move forward with our acquisition of the UMTRA project, to some degree, this is trying to tell our federal delegates how to do their job. And so I would recommend that we not vote in favor of this. We’re specifically asking Senator Lee. I know that Curtis ran the bill, but we need Lee’s support as well. And I just spent a couple of days with some of their staff, really just one day, but we had dinner with them as well. I think that an effort to work with those people rather than continue to come out in a form that is basically against what they’re doing, maybe on some other agenda items, not the way that we’re gonna go about acquiring the UMTRA property. It’s important that we work with our federal representatives. And I know that Jacques and Brian and Mike have all been back there to do so. And I think it’s important that those efforts are continued, that we continue to work with them, whether it’s on the UMTRA project or something else. There’s just too much at stake here to be doing something that has a slight tone, I would say that is a negative towards a certain Senator specifically. But I think that there’s other options that really we can look at. And I think we all received the email, just came in yesterday or today, I don’t even remember anymore. Utah Public Lands Council that’s going through UAC. And I think there would be far more value in us working with that group, which works across the entire state to protect all of our public lands and our rights on those public lands as a group. I would think that Grand County is, with all of the commissioners, should be involved in protecting that at the state level before we get to where we’re up at the federal level. So I think Mike was next and Jacques and then Trish. Well, Trish’s thoughts on that, I thought it was pertaining to the email that we got a couple of days ago or this item, the Public Lands Council.
What’s your thoughts on, I mean, Utah Public Lands Council is backed by 20 plus. I haven’t looked into them. I mean, I do know some of their board members fairly well, specifically Trevor Barnson. So, yeah, I mean, I could talk to him. I think that would be interesting. He’s a producer that I know fairly well from the Beaver area. Okay. Via working with the Division of Wildlife. So I could talk to him. I could talk to him. I say that because I would want Utah’s interests, EUAC, a bigger voice. Utah Public Lands Council, bigger hammer swinging up the legislature. I mean, there has been a few counties that have been in the state of Utah that have passed a similar resolution. There’s actually did include, I tried to be very, very conscientious about not talking about selling public lands because I know that that’s a hot topic. I tried to really take out anything that would, I don’t think the tone at all pertains to pointing out a certain senator. I worked very hard to make it simply that we acknowledge the importance of our lands and all of the economic vitality that it brings to us. And so I disagree with the comment that there is a tone to it. I worked very hard to remove any such tone, but I, yeah, I acknowledge that. I could, I’ll reach out to Trevor. That’s, yeah, for sure. I like that. With that, sorry if I’m taking up more time. With that, I know for a fact that a senator’s staffers, I did not speak to Senator Lee himself, but in speaking with Senator staffers that there would be, it’s not unexpected backlash coming from the public lands debate that’s been ongoing on a federal level, but it would be looked down upon if we did point anything at a specific senator and really active efforts cannot be the umpterpile. I love joining the Utah Public Lands Council and I love not affecting where we’re trying to get to on the umpterpile, so walking all those lines. Thank you. I’m shocked you were next in the number. Yeah, and I think, I was gonna say what you said. There’s nothing about the sale of public lands in there and I don’t find there to be particular tone or negative pushback towards any one senator. I think this is calling out the value of the lands to our economy and the need to recognize that value. Also don’t think approving this precludes the other item. I did look at that a little bit. I want to look at it more, but that organization, am I wrong or is that a sheep and cattlemen’s organization to begin with? A couple of the members are definitely, there’s not something that I know. That’s what it looks like when I looked into the organization. I mean, obviously that has a small part of Grand County’s economy, but not nearly as much as tourism. But again, I don’t think that one precludes the other. So anyway, as you can probably guess, I’m in favor of this. Brian, go ahead and then Mary.
Yeah, I’m trying to figure out what’s the point of this. Where are we trying to get at with this letter? What action are we trying to create? And I don’t see where this is actually going. I mean, it’s a nice letter, right? But I just don’t see what we’re actually going to be trying for with this letter. And then also I just wanted to ask Mark. Mark, could we put the Utah Public Lands Council on the agenda for the next commission meeting? And I think that we can just put that down for an action item. Thanks.
Mary, please. I agree. This is pretty non-controversial. It’s telling us, you know, just that we want to support public lands for many, many reasons. I personally don’t see any connection to this and the EPST project. I don’t imagine this affecting the transfer of that land at all. I mean, I think that’s real far-stretched. I think this is a pretty… And public lands are our backbone. And to say that we support them and we want to continue to be taken care of and paid for, that the appropriate finances are sent our way, I think that’s the purpose, is to say we want it to continue and we want public lands to continue to be there through different processes that they pay for. So I don’t see any connection to the UMTRA project.
Anybody else? Mike.
Direct connection is actually, I was like, by encouraging the Utah… Sorry. Now, therefore, be it resolved, down on section two, encourages the Utah congressional delegation to impose any legislation that would negatively impact public lands. That speaks directly at Senator Lee’s previous workings. And again, would not want unsupportive natures on the UMPT project. You’re saying it’s negatively impacting public lands?
I’m saying that encouraging the Utah congressional delegation to oppose any legislation. I would not want, in any way, want to tell them what to do when we’re asking them for UMTRA. Brian Gould. I’m going to make a comment. Jacques, I’m going to have to say, this has been five times you’ve interrupted people and spoke out of turn. I mean, I really would like to see, if we’re going to abide by this, let’s all try to abide by it. Otherwise, like, let’s just all talk to each other whenever we want.
Is there any further discussion on this one? I was just going to call for a vote. I just wanted to say one more thing. And as far as going back to Washington, D.C. and working with people on not just the UMPTR project, but other public land situations, I’ve probably done that more than anybody else on this dais. I don’t think anybody was discounting your service. It was encouraging others, I think, is the way that I meant that to come across. It certainly is an encouragement to spend time with them, whether it’s on the river with their staff, or whether it’s back in D.C., or whether it’s up at the state. There’s a real high value in working with our federal and state leaders. Melody, did you have anything? Yeah, just one last comment. So I absolutely agree with the top half of this letter about how it benefits public lands. It’s great for Grand County, but all the things that you had just then when we get to the part where let it be resolved, those are where I find that I don’t think sending negative. And it’s not, like I said, you were really careful to not create a negative tone. And it did seem very, very neutral as I was reading it, but I still can’t support sending something to tell them let’s do it when we have the umpteenth file. Okay, so in the future, though, I am going to just make the statement I’m not picking on you. When I do send it out and I ask for feedback, if you would have given me that feedback, I may have modified it. I try when people give me feedback on letters, I do modify things too. My goal is to have them pass. You know, I put a lot of time and effort. And so I’m just throwing that out. I do try to put out letters if I am going to put something and I ask for feedback and people don’t give me feedback. I sometimes wonder if my email works because I send emails all the time and get no responses. So maybe it doesn’t. I’ll check with Matt. But, you know. Okay, Melanie, I know she kind of took over. I’ll do better. I know you did. I did respond to you one time. You did fix the letter. I will do better at responding to you. I appreciate that. If we took out number two in the therefores, would that make it palatable for everyone? I mean, then it’s extremely neutral. We were recognizing multiple use. We’re urging federal management to continue their collaborative efforts with, you know. And we express its strong support for the continued federal management and stewardship of the public lands with Grant County. So if that would make it palatable, I would like to, you know, see if Trish wanted to just amend her motion to say with the removal of the number two in the therefores. Is that something? I would do that if it would pass. But if it’s not going to pass, then we’ll just move on. I would, you know, I think that’s what everybody’s concerned about. And otherwise, I think it’s just acknowledgement that public lands are important to us. I’m not in favor of it. I think public lands are important to everybody on this dais. We all spend time either roaming in it, recreating in it, working in it. It’s part of every one of our lives. But continually be putting these out there just almost feels like a political statement. And so I’m not in favor of it.
I don’t feel like it’s a political statement. It’s extremely important to me. You know, I am a professor of environment society within the College of Natural Resources. It’s extremely important to me. And hopefully you guys also understand I come from a very diverse interaction with public lands. I grew up in a logging family. My brother’s still a logger. My dad was also a cattleman. So my connection to public lands isn’t just climbing or running or hiking. It’s also, you know, extraction. And so it’s important to me. Obviously, I keep beating the drum. Mike. I want to tell you, I’ll get better at answering the emails. I could have made it clear points to you. I’m sorry about that. I appreciate that. And thank you both for acknowledging that. Thank you. All right. Those in favor.
Those opposed.
Opposed and fails. Four opposed. Commissioner McCurdy. Commissioner Martinez. Commissioner McCandless. Commissioner Winfield. We will move on to resolution repealing and replacing resolution number 3421, approving a special election for November 4, 2025.
Commissioner McCandless. So we already passed this 7-0 last meeting, but after review with the Canyonlands Health Care Special Service District, they were concerned about the wording where it says, the Canyonlands Health Care Special Service District was a long-term care facility in Grand County, and they are not. They help operate it. And so they were concerned with that language that was going to be unclear to the voters. And so that’s why I’m bringing this back before us today to change that language. Instead of saying a long-term care facility in Grand County, I’m putting which operates the long-term care facility in Grand County and adding that also and provides resources for other critical health care needs. And those are items that are listed in state statute, which all of the entities are listed in the resolution. And it does state that these funds can be allowed as state statute. And so anyway, that’s why it’s coming back before us. We just need to change the language specifically because I want us to look like the intelligent people that we are. We are the, I can’t even think, but anyways, we’re the lawmaking, we are the authority in Grand County, and we want to make sure that we’re accurate in our areas of expertise for voter trust and confidence in our civic leaders.
You can go, Steve.
Bart and I did both look at this. It looks good for a word search. He made a revision change to it, which I couldn’t see the difference. He deleted one comma and a left parenthetical. So if you guys can find those in the document, that would be awesome. I could not. Instead of popping in the additional document, we’re going to do the word search or the grammar search afterwards. And then we’re going to do the word search so those are the two changes that came from legal, a period and comma and a left parenthesis or a left parenthetical were missing. One other note, there is the word including. So the language states to be used as allowed by state statute, including to help fund the operations and then it lists some organizations. Those are not the only places that it could be utilized for the funds. As you all know, there’s six categories within that breakdown. The sixth one is the combination of the previous five. I believe it’s search and rescue, avalanche, EMS, and then there’s a fire and then medical. And search and rescue. So it’s a combination. It’s all waste. So it’s a combination of all those, but the call out doesn’t limit it to one of those things. That word including means that it’s not just restrictive to that group. It could apply to all based on state statute. So it means legal review. Just noting that I know folks have expressed some concern about that, but that’s the language that we use. And additionally, in the whereas clauses, we do call out that under the current law, those particular entities are the ones that are permitted under statute. So if you have other questions, please just. I’m not sure if it was Jacques or Mary. I was just saying that, yes, in the resolution, it states that those other entities are included in this perhaps maybe. But it is the fire and the EMS and healthcare special service district that are needing the monies and the funds right now. And that’s why we’re asking for them. So I think it’s really very clear to the voters that at this time, that’s where we want to place the money.
I move to approve the resolution repealing and replacing resolution number 3421 and calling for a special election on November 4th, 2025. Second. Motion by Commissioner Hadler, second by Commissioner McGann. Further comment? I’d like to end, have my motion reflect the grammatical changes that Stephen called out. I was gonna say, maybe I found one. I don’t know. Whereas 2025 is a municipal election year and therefore a ballot to be administered. That sentence maybe should end with a period and not a colon. See that, yeah. Okay, so that’s the only thing. And I didn’t find that myself. I had Grammarly do it. Grammarly. That’s right. Mike, please.
As questioned before, does this come across to the Grand County citizens as every one of these districts can get that money?
Like the voters need to know that solid waste is on that list just as much as EMS is.
That’s my only holdup. I love putting it to the voters. I love everything. But when someone votes on it, they need to know trash is just as applicable words as EMS in the funding requests. It’s election labor. Hey. One suggestion I have that I’d be happy to sort of facilitate is there’s an insert that goes in with the ballot and there could be information regarding the ballot measure or there will be information regarding the ballot measure in that insert. And there could be more lengthy description of this allowable statute in the insert. Just a suggestion I’m offering. That sounds good. Yeah. Thanks.
Yeah, I supported this going on the ballot because it allows the voters to weigh in on this. What I don’t support though is the way that it’s unclear. And I appreciate what you’re saying there, Gabe. That would help alleviate for me a little bit because what we’ve got is three out of six entities named who I agree that they need the money right now, Mary. But next year and the following year, that’s the commission’s responsibility. And so what I really see is an opportunity as commissioners here and putting a process together so that yearly people come back with a request, with a plan, with their financials, with an actual need laid out. And I think that we’re in that process. I know that Andy sent some stuff across today, I believe, Melody forwarded it to me. But I think with the current economic crisis that we find ourselves here in the county, it just requires that we make sure not just ourselves, but the entities that we fund are doing a good job of being fiscal with their money. And that needs to be more than just a request when it comes before the budget committee. It needs to be with a plan and it needs to be laid out with what exactly are those needs so that we can look at their financials, we can look at how they’re doing, where their spending is in comparison to the revenues and look across those numbers. And I just think there comes a fiscal responsibility to the county commission to be aware of that rather than it just being a request and we all decide, okay, we’re gonna vote EMS and vote it in. I’m looking for a little more than that. And in general, I’m against any increase in taxes. And I’m appreciative that the voters get to pick whether this passes or not, because otherwise I’m against taxes. I’m especially against taxes when we don’t show that we’re cutting our budget or that we’re cutting and trimming to meet the situation that we’re in. And that feels a little bit like this right now. I think the only saving grace, I guess, for me is the fact that the voters will make the decision.
Yeah, I’m reluctant to vote on the verbiage change without including all six. But again, I see Gabe’s point here helping move this forward. Yes, sir. And just another note on page, it’s page two, one, two, three, four paragraphs down on the whereas. It does state that such tax collections will be allocated by the Grand County Commission as per Utah code 59-12-8026C. Such allocations shall be distributed on a quarterly basis. So this will be done by the commission on a quarterly basis. The listing of the names down below doesn’t give a predetermined equal third allocation to each of the named entities. So I just don’t want there to be confusion that you guys have already done that. You guys still have to do the allocations on a quarterly basis to whatever entities in whatever manner that you guys want to do. And you guys still have to go back and vote on this as a commission. After the ballot. Correct. Right. Yeah. And so you’re saying that quarterly it will come before us for those allocations in a vote? Is that? Wait for clarification though. But when it’s first quarterly. It’s first quarterly, but allocated annually. Annually we’ll decide. Okay. That was where Mike. All right, Mary. Sorry if John. It’s going to be those three entities that will be working hard to, you know, to convince the voters that this is worthwhile. So having them named on is to me appropriate since otherwise it came to us and asked for it. They were all here.
Any further shock? Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry. But that’s okay. Yeah, I’m very supportive of the language. I think it’s appropriate. I think that indicates where funding is going to go. I also, I think that we talk about budgeting shortfalls every meeting and how we’re cutting funding at the county. And I also kind of regret, Bill, you’re saying that we’re in a financial crisis. I mean a crisis. I think if we were down like 30%, that would be a crisis. Absolutely. We’re down a little bit. We’re down within your average ebbs and flows of what people bring in. I mean, you bring that up at every meeting. And I get your point. I think we all do. But I certainly wouldn’t call it a crisis. I mean, we just spent upwards of 2000 bucks the other night on a dinner for a bunch of people. Like that’s not what you do when you’re in an actual crisis. You know, it’s hard to do in business. So anyway, that’s the tangent. I’m supportive of this. I think the wording accurately reflects what we are presenting. And again, voters are the ones who are going to decide. It’s going to come back to us. We have a chance to vote on this again. If it passes, big if.
I also appreciate Gabe’s information about putting information in the ballot. I think that’s going to be a big part of this for sure. Okay, Mike and then Brian. Did I skip you? Okay. Sorry. Thanks Gabe for the information in there. That really brought my decision up.
Previously stated, a $40 million operating budget a year. 6.1% is a lot of $41 billion, at least to me. But thank you for the clarification, Gabe. Of course. Brian. Yeah, so just a couple of things. So first off with this, I have a question.
Lost it. So just on this actual item, before I get off on all the other tangents, is what are the other critical healthcare needs? I mean, that’s the big thing that was mentioned, right? But I want to know what it is that we’re… Go ahead, Melody, thanks. So it’s a hospital. So in that language, it says for costs associated with a federally qualified health center within the county. So that would be the care center currently. They’re in the works of doing an assisted living facility. And that’s the master plan that is being worked on. And I don’t know what will all come out of that, but that money can go towards assisted living facility, a freestanding urgent care center. So we have that right now. I don’t think that the healthcare district is giving money to urgent care currently, but they are giving money to a rural county healthcare facility within the county, which is our hospital. So the Cayennes Healthcare Special Service District does give them the hospital. They do give money to the care center. They also have given money to EMS. Those are those other… It can be used for acquisition of land for a center clinic or facility, or design, construction, equipment, or furniture of the center clinic or facility. So those are all of those other healthcare things. So it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s currently. I mean, it’s hospital and care center currently, and it can go to future, which is where they are going to come and show. I mean, where they would need the money is in those kinds of things. But, and also with, I mean, we don’t know what’s going to happen with Medicare and Medicaid. I mean, it could all be fine. It could all not be fine. And so they would be able to assist in those, but those are those other. If you, I mean, we could take that out, provides resources for other critical healthcare needs, and it would still be okay, if it just said, which operates a long-term care facility in Grand County. But I do think it is important because those other critical healthcare needs really do exist and will be future needs. Are those other needs right there? Are they contained inside of the state statute? I just read the state statute to you. Okay, but I mean, so no, but the, well, the other needs right here is listed. And then inside the state statute, it has another list. Is that correct? Yeah, that’s what I just read to you. Yes, and the state statute for all those items that would be those other critical needs. I’m okay. Yeah, I understand that those other critical needs are. But so the Grand County provides resources for other critical healthcare needs. So is that listing back to the state statute again? I’m just getting confused with all the arrows. Yeah, I mean, the state statute doesn’t say critical healthcare needs, but that’s what they take care of. Let me make a simple question. Is this last sentence right here, that Ann provides resources for other healthcare needs, is that going beyond state statute?
Not in there. If you read their mission statement, their mission statement. Well, the mission statement has nothing to do with being on the ballot for state statute. Do you understand what I’m saying? Is right here, you have the state statute. Then we have, then we’ve listed out, we’ve listed out Canyonlands Care Center, and then we listed out EMS, and then we listed out fire over here. They’re all included inside of the state statute. By adding and other critical healthcare needs, are we adding something that’s outside of the state statute? No, we’re not. Because it says a freestanding urgent care facility, rural county healthcare facility, rural health clinic within the county, ongoing expenses of all of those centers. I mean, so all of those are the things that a healthcare special service does, and those are all included in the statute. That was my question. Okay. I’m trying to get a full understanding, and I think that, you know, I’m going to start off, I’m going to make a substitute motion in a second. I move to approve the changed, the resolution repealing and replacing resolution 3421, approving the special election for November 4th, 2025, with the removal of, and provides resources for other critical healthcare needs. To me, that right there just creates more confusion right there. And if we’re just trying to, I mean, by saying the Canyonlands Healthcare Special Service District, that lists them right there. It lists the fire. It still lists the EMS. Everybody’s still included. I think that additional bit right there just creates more confusion. And if it’s already included in the state statute, which is listed as the primary right there, right, I think that that should be okay. And then just going off onto all the tangents that we had there earlier, I do want to address. Go ahead. And you made the substitute motion, right? Oh, yes, I did. You need a second. Sorry. Do we have a second question? No. Either you make a substitute motion and you get a second. Shut down. I heard that first. Nope. But without the answer to my question. We have a motion. Do we have, making the second still allows the discussion. Okay. I have a motion by Commissioner McCurdy to the substitute motion, removing the sentence critical and provides resources for other critical health care needs. Yes. Okay. With that, with the exclusion of that wording, can we still allocate money to the health care district? Yes. Yeah. Okay. The language within the parentheticals though is providing additional context of what the health care special service district is. That’s what it’s doing, right? So having the language there or not, I don’t think it’s creating, it doesn’t say, you know, had it not been in parentheticals, then I think you could maybe have some arguments. If you put, you know, EMS, buyer, and then ended with the health care special service district and then didn’t have the parentheticals and had other health care, critical health care needs. I think maybe you’d be opening it up, but I think it applies to only that specific item. But I don’t, I don’t think it necessitates moving that language. And Bart, I didn’t feel like it caused that concern. But that would have influenced my second. So Melody, go rough. So the concern of the Canyonlands Health Care Special Service District and why they added that language instead of just having a long term care facility. So number one is people don’t know what Canyonlands Health Care Special Service District does. Actually, I didn’t until I’ve been on the board now for eight months.
So anyways, which operates so, but which operates long term care facility, but that’s not the only thing that they do. So people are thinking, oh, I’m only voting for the care center, even though it’s included in there, you know, but that’s why they added the part. I’m fine with which operates if that’s what stays. But I think that adding in the provides resource for other critical health care needs is important because it isn’t, they do a lot. They do a lot. People don’t know what they do. And I think it’s beneficial language to be in there. Mary. I think it’s also what the health district itself wants. That’s what they ask. Yeah, that’s what they’ve asked. We’ve had the health district ask us to add that so that it’s clear that their vision is not only to the extended care that they, they for years have helped the hospital. And so from the, you know, from the beginning of the tax, you know, Mike and then Melody. Okay. So liking, I get, I’m going to go with your word, apparent tentacles on that one. Inside the premises. Inside the, I have these words. Everything in election integrity going to be followed along there. And state statute there, Gabe.
Can you repeat that question, please? With that, with those words in there, everything hunky-dory with election integrity and state statute on special elections. As it relates to the, you know, the administration of elections, that looks good. Yes. Okay. Melody.
And I just want to say on a side note, so the eight months I have been going to the healthcare special service district, they, I think this has been a fire under their butt to really get some stuff done. We have the council and agents that asking for assisted living facilities. I think it’s a need in our community. So I think that it’s a crucial part to put on there because the care center is doing okay. I mean, they’re still supplementing them. They’re doing good. They want to expand the care center. We have people that are leaving my lab. So I think it is a good thing to put on there. And I think that that’s gotten them. They’re actually super excited to get this plan going and moving forward with some stuff, which is really cool because like eight months, we’ve kind of been just going to meetings. But I think that now that we’ve got kind of a mission or something anyways, that’s a side note, sorry.
And then I just want to address something that Jacques said. And this came up earlier when we had Stephen Vowles here and we were talking and he misspoke. And I know you have email here when he misspoke. And I just like to read this right here. A recession is generally defined as a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy. This is typically associated with two consecutive quarters of negative growth. It is a broader measure of economic contraction. An economic depression, right? In contrast is a more severe and prolonged downturn than a recession. It is characterized by a sustained period of significant economic decline, often lasting for three or more years. It kind of sounds like us, resulting in a total decline of at least 10%.
We’re not close to 10%. Over the last three years. We are not in a depression. It’s certainly not a crisis. Does it have a definition for crisis? It is, sorry, I’m done. Okay, we need to, I’ll call for a vote. Thank you, Mary. I’ll call for a vote also. I’m the substitute here. Those in favor? Oh, I see where the writing’s going. But I like what was said of others. So I have those opposed.
Motion fails. Five opposed. Commissioner Hedin, Commissioner Hadler, Commissioner McGann, Commissioner Winfield, Commissioner Martinez, for having the canvas, right? Okay, moving on then back to a vote on. The original motion. The original motion, mind me, was it Jacques who made the motion and then Mary seconded? I think it was, yes, that’s right. I think that’s right. Okay, Commissioner Hadler’s motion with Commissioner McGann seconding. Is there any further discussion on this vote? Yes, Jacques. Can I just ask, Stephen, I believe this would still need a five to two pass. Is that correct? That’s correct. Okay. Okay. I will say that without adding all six entities on this, I’m not going to support the change. It’s already been passed that it can go before the voters. I wasn’t in agreement then. I’m still not in agreement without listing all six of the entities clearly so that it makes it very clear what the county can and cannot, or basically can, allot money towards. And I still see this as being a little bit unclear, but I will call for a vote. Those in favor of the motion?
Second. And those opposed? And that will be passing six to one with myself opposed, Commissioner Winfield. Thank you for the extra clarification, Gabe. Yeah, thank you for that. I’ll get it drafted. We’ll work on it together. Okay, so we are moving on to acceptance of the 2024 Grand County Audit and Financial Statements. This was for the Commission Administrator’s Office.
Yes, and the Audit Committee met. John Haderlie of Larson went over the reports. That was a public meeting. Also, Haderlie will be here at the meeting on the second for face-to-face with the Commission If you all approve the audit, it will be signed and sent to the state this month prior to September the 1st.
Okay, and yes, Brian and then Melody.
So I saw the email chain going back and forth about the recommendations that Karen had. I was told that those were made, but I have not seen the subsequent note. Gabe, is there any way that you could maybe either read that out to us or so that I can see how that stuff could subsequent note for me? Sure, thanks.
Melody? I just was going to make a motion to accept the 2024 audit as presented. Oh, back up. You have questions, right? So then, you know. You got a motion? A second. If you can come to, you should discuss. So motion by Mary.
Motion was by Commissioner McCandless. Seconded by Mary B. Thank you. Second by Commissioner McGann.
Okay, thank you. Oh, I see. All right. So further discussion? I just want to hear what that. So as requested by Commissioner Martinez and this was presented to John Hatterly of Larson and Company, as well as vetted by Karen Kerfin as an addition into these statements as a subsequent event note, which that means if an action was taken, that’s relevant to information presented in these 2024 statements. But before they’re accepted, even though if it happened in 2025, which these statements don’t directly speak to. However, if it’s appropriate to include that there’s a convention called a subsequent event note that makes note of that because it can be relevant. And in this case, because it is responsive to the state honors finding letter. And there are other actions that are included in the statement that summarize that those actions that were responsive to that letter. That’s why it’s being presented at this time. And so that draft of that notice as follows. In 2025, additional actions taken in response to the state honors finding letter dated December 2nd, 2024, operation of the county commission 40,791 dollars was made from the general fund to the TRT promotion fund in order to reimburse TRT funds used to support the Trail Ambassador Program contained within the Grand County Active Trails and Transportation Department.
All right, any further discussion? All right. We can vote on the motion by Commissioner McCandless, second by Commissioner McGann. All those in favor? Accepting the audit. Thank you very much. That passes unanimously. Moving on. I believe we were crossing the line to discussions now, correct? If I may, I think we were going to bring back… Yes. Thank you. That was item F in the consent agenda.
Mattie did. Maddie and Quinn both sent clarifying emails since then. And I had a couple of remarks. It looked like that the required cash match 20 percent. My calculations say that is what? 38,406 dollars and 40 cents. That would be leveraged by full-time superhology staff, the trail guys, I think Kevin and his crew. They’re going to be out there and the in-kind would be volunteer hours to get a lot of volunteers out there. Also, this commission approved this grant on the 18th of March, as it’s stated.
When we approve applying for the grant, I think my understanding is that if we decline it afterwards, that’s a bad look and it tends to affect our ability to go for these grants. I’m satisfied with Mattie’s explanations on that. And I think that I think these are great projects, the projects that are needed, the projects that are going to help with tourism in the county, the projects that are going to help with, you know, giving locals fun trails. These are trails that, for example, the NICA team that Brian and I, both advocates on the NICA team, use all the time for practice. They’re also trails that are close to town. They’re some of the most popular trail systems. The Raptor Route and Brands trails that tourists enjoy. And as usual, when Moab builds new trails, there’s always huge buzz in the mountain biking community anyway, nationally and internationally. So it helps bring people into the county. So for those and other reasons, I’m extremely supportive of this. So I’d make a motion to approve this grant contract that will provide funding in non-motorized trail construction, maintenance, and user education. I’ll second that motion by Commissioner Hadler, second by Commissioner Hedin. Mike, you’ve got a question. I love the, sorry, I’m dying from almonds.
I love new trails. I want to know if a funding source for this is direct, applicable to TRT funding and not a promotional, but the creation of trails. Is that an allowable use of? I did not. Commissioner Martinez asked that question previously. I didn’t research it. We talked with him about the position not being funded by actual monetary. It was just by the salary amounts. But I can follow up with you regarding that. In future, I’d like to know if that’s an allowable use. I know Brian had something, and Jacques, and I’ll just throw in the mix there real quick myself, but I’m confused. Maddie said approximately 70,000. Jock said, I think 38,000. That’s just where I’m confused. I don’t know if that was your question. And there’s a lot of confusion on this right here because if you look at the grant, it actually lists cash as a $78,000 and then it lists the in-kind as 10,000. I’m told that inside of, see if I can look it up here.
And see inside of the summary, it says budget over project hours by full-time supervisory staff will be leveraged as the 20% cash match. And project hours donated by volunteers will be used as the in-kind match. So we’re basically saying that the $78,000 is going to be our supervisory role. Yeah, mostly salary. Yes, salary. Now, all that said, when you look at the agenda summary up there at the fiscal impact, it doesn’t really list that right there. And so that’s where my question originally arise from, right? I mean, of course, these are all great trails and I’d love to see all of these projects completed right here. That’s not the reason I objected. The reason I objected is it wasn’t clear how that money was coming in. I think that maybe that was listed in the financial responsibility right there. When you looked at the grant itself, where it lists the $78,000 in cash, it wouldn’t be so, well, just so murky. And then another thing that I just wanted to mention right here is this is made possible because there’s a crew available to do that. And that’s one thing that we do not have available for the motorized trails. And I think that’s something that we need to, as a commission, look into is how we are able to leverage that type of supervisory role to get that same kind of maintenance done on our motorized trails.
I know that was a lot and I agree with what he’s saying there, but I’m still confused about the 35,000 or whatever you mentioned, 78 in there. It’s still not real. I thought you mentioned the 70,000 that Maddie mentioned was that. Well, yeah, so now there’s 30,000. That’s the educational component. So that’s the component that she talks about in project four, if you look into the agenda item. I think that’s clearly the, and that she talks about the trail ambassadors and project education. So when she mentions that 70,000, that’s the component that could go out of the county to our now hypothetical non-profit. It’s gonna- Out of the grant money. Correct. Okay, thank you. That’s great. So that is pointing at that. And then I think she, okay, it could be worded better. I think we have a lot of items on our agendas that don’t have fiscal impacts that need them. Maybe it is a little bit murky, but it’s not that hard for me to understand this. When I read through this, it does take a reading for sure. It’s not, and I agree with Brian, yeah, that fiscal note should have been noted at the top instead of the bottom. But I still think this is a great use of these funds. We have everything in place to do it. We’ve already approved the grant or we’ve already approved the application for the grant. And signing off on this now, I think it would be a beneficial thing to all of us. And so once again, what is the full fiscal dollar amount that this is costing the county? I mean, I think- I’m sorry, I’m just gonna- I think that’s a valid question. But it’s our supervisory hours, the hours that the salary that we pay, the staff and the supervisors. I’ve tried to explain it- That’s what I’m saying. Yeah, I got it. So there, but to Brian’s point though, I think Brian’s point is valid. There is an actual monetary cost to the county. Agree. But it’s one that we’re going to encourage over the course of the year anyway. Okay, thank you. That helps for me. And I’m sorry, I didn’t read that whole thing. It was- No, I tried to explain it, maybe I didn’t explain it well enough. I appreciate it, that helps me. Any other questions?
All right, did we- I made the motion, yes. Hadler and Hedin. First, second, Hedin. Hadler, Hedin. Motion by Hadler, second by Commissioner Hadin. All in favor? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you everybody for helping to educate me. Thank you. And we can now move on to the discussion item. Starting with cooperative agreement for dark skies. Do you mind if I bring Chrissy up to assist with this? I do not mind. So I kind of took the bull by the horns regarding the dark skies thing. And I started by talking, I can’t remember how many iterations, but I was meeting specifically with Code Compliance, like how can we expand these funds, basically bringing people into compliance. Maybe you were there too, Stephen. I can’t remember, anyway, it doesn’t matter. Many, many meetings. And we kind of came to this place where it was like, okay, we’re going to send out, Brandon and I work together. We’re going to send out postcards. We’re going to have a little incentive program. People can write in, get 200 bucks to replace lighting. Mick was helping and he was delineating that time into a different, because I’m like, can you help me do the design on this? He was delineating the time. So I want to make sure that that’s noted. And as he was helping, he’s like, gets on this website and he’s like, this program already exists. The Friends of Arches and Canyonlands already runs this program and the city was feeding money into it. So what we finally decided, and tell me, you can walk over me at any time. What we decided is like, wouldn’t it just be easier for them to continue to facilitate the program? We simply put the money that we had set aside for Dark Skies to them and let them facilitate the program. Brandon can help, whatever it might be, but they’ve already got a program rolling. So it seemed like the easiest system is just to let them continue with that program. So I know you guys had some questions during agenda review, so my apologies for that. Yeah, so the $20,000, I think is the question. It was in budget, we budgeted last year and did budget for it, because I know no one had called that and then they were saying there’s maybe $3,000 in there for postcards or something. So we said- All I could find was 3,000 in the 25 budget details. You set aside 20 grand somewhere. It could be in the past it had been. But in the commission discretionary, there is Dark Sky education listed explicitly, but the line only says 3,000. So I’ve got a couple of thoughts. Okay, that’s for you both. I have a few comments, please, because Quinn stepped out. The other things on the contract, when Quinn stepped out, so I’m speaking for him, we were just confused on what Grand County offering technical support and coordination with county staff is needed. Quinn was like, what does that mean for him? So Mick had, and I guess it doesn’t have to be through Grand County, and Mick is actually on the Friends of Arches and Canyonlands board. So he was like, oh, I can kind of manipulate the website to update it to say, now it’s Grand County-sponsored, not City of Moab-sponsored, right? Like all of those little nuances just to bring it up to date. And that was basically Steve and Mick had been talking. So really minor nuances of just, you know, picking that website and manipulating it slightly. That’s a good question. Sure, please do that. And just when we’re, I’m thinking about the 20,000, and I’m remembering back when we talked about it before, and I think I’ve complained endlessly about compliance and, you know, that’s all my office ever wants to do is prosecute. And so one of the conversations that we had at one point was talking about, and I think Commissioner Winfield brought it up, was the shields over the lighting for the sconces. And if we’re doing that, are we going to put some income caps or some things that, okay. Yes, they have a whole system in place, and I think it was like 250 bucks incentive, and you basically just have to provide like the before and after photos, which Brandon would actually do, and then the receipt, and then you’d get a refund. Yeah, I just didn’t, I wanted to make sure that Hoodoo or the Scenic Inn didn’t get bright lightings or sconces based on this. I mean, I guess it doesn’t matter. Do you remember putting 20,000 aside for dark skies? I do remember that. I think it was Kevin’s initiative. I know, but Dave said it’s not in the budget. So if it’s not in the budget, that’s fine. We’ll take three. We’ll take whatever you got. I guess it’ll be a good start. So I’ll make a few comments if possible. I was very much in favor when Kevin brought this out, for the carrot approach. I’m not a big fan of, and I worked diligently with two neighbors that were ready to go to war with each other, possibly even guns. I might be exaggerating, but they were at each other’s throats. My personal feelings on this, and I marked the 20 out, said I would be favorable at 5,000 if there’s zero dollars for administration, because I think that anybody that is serious about dark skies is doing it out of a personal interest. And I don’t think we should be paying administration. Well, just let me finish, please. Thank you. It is, there are some people who are adamant about dark skies, and some people who aren’t. I’ve got a neighbor. His light is always on, and it’s bright, and it doesn’t bother me. It’s just maybe he doesn’t like the cats around. Maybe he doesn’t like the skunks. But I don’t think that we should be paying administrative fees. If we’re going to donate to somebody, I think it should be, here’s your 3,000 or your 5,000 dollars. When you’ve shown us receipts, then we’ll consider another amount of money. But I’m not in favor of administrating costs. So the administrative, maybe we’d go to Friends of Canyonlands, Arches and Canyonlands. And I guess for us to facilitate the program would cost us more than that. Because then you’re talking about employee time, which currently we don’t have any, we don’t have a code enforcement officer. I mean, right now it, oh, okay, great. Oh, good, good. You know, you’re talking about him having to sit and develop all of this program that’s already in place. And if it is only 3,000 bucks, you’re talking about what, 450 bucks? I don’t think it’s a big cost for them to run the program. I’m just not in favor of administrative costs. I know it’s a big push of theirs for Dark Skies. So put their money where their mouth is and let them push it. And we’ll supply the money for the product. That’s what I’m saying is that I’m totally supportive of the product support, but not in an administrative way. So, I mean, I guess I’m- We’re not voting on it now. We’re just putting everything in and we’re throwing everybody’s ideas. I can talk to Steve about it too. And I think that actually was something that I added into the MOU because I wasn’t sure based on our discussion if that was something that we needed. But I don’t think it was an ask from them. I think, I do think that that was something I put in because I didn’t know. But it’s just my, I mean, I work with a nonprofit on the other side of the world and there’s no administrative costs that I’m able to recoup. And if it’s because it’s something that I’m near and dear to me and I work hard on, it comes out of my pocket. I wish I could say that. Like at the school district, my program, the school district takes 18% of all my grants to administer my program, which is cutting three paychecks. So, I mean- Specific program. About 20 grand a year. I know, I know. I get it. But yeah, I mean, we can just, we’re, since it’s just discussion, we can ask Steve. He might be fine with that. It’d be nice to have Steve here. It’s my turn. Is the city- I didn’t, I took it on the microphone. So, is the city still giving money as well? I don’t, I do not think so. I think they have. And so, I think I’m okay with if we give a small amount, because it sounds like at this point it’s going to be a very small amount. And maybe we flip flop. Maybe we funnel this money for the end of 2025. And then to 2026, we ask the city that then they can take over and we can flip flop. That’s something, I mean, the city’s in the county. So, but then is, is that we, are we giving this money to county residents outside of the city limits? Are we giving it to city? Or do we, can we split it and say half of it is used for city residents and half of it’s used for county residents? So, it’s kind of spread all over the county. I mean- I think their program, I don’t, I think when the city was funding, I don’t know if it was just the city. I got it. My understanding was it was just county residents. Right. So, this would just be only county residents. But city residents are county residents. Yeah, I mean, but city residents, I guess, you know, so I just think if, if the city was putting in money, then it would be like, okay, well, their money goes to the city residents. Our money goes to the county residents outside of city limits. But I’m okay with it going to all of the county. But I think we kind of need to have an allotment of a part goes into the city and a part goes into the county. That way, it’s not just all getting sucked into the city. Right. And we can also ask the city to maybe match our $3,000 or $5,000. I know. You know, the small amount we probably can’t ask for. You know, and then they can use that part in the same. Yeah, and they can unincorporated area. I think they’d be easy with that. You did ask and they said no. Oh, and they now, but now the since this is so small, they might be like, fine. Anyways, that’s just my comment. It still has to go to a vote next meeting. Okay, yeah, okay. Mike, please, I’m sorry. Well, I think it’s Mary. Oh, Mary, then Mike. I’m sorry, Mary first, me next. I find it, but I think it would be nice when we bring it up. We could have Steve here. You know, then I think some of these questions would be better answered by the person. I know, was he not able to come today? He wasn’t able. Okay. Yeah, yeah, I just I know. That was what we wanted. So for next meeting, when we put it on the agenda, let’s have him. Or come next week meeting, let’s push it to a meeting. You can. It’s my my suggestion is I think he’s.
So people come next week meeting when it’s presented and flushed out. Yeah, I gotta see how much I can lose my game.
Well, most of my adult life, I do not love the dark skies ordinance, but I would absolutely be in favor of dedicating $20,000 towards dark skies compliance if If it was specifically for. Picture to picture and a receipt to change people’s lights. Along with that, I 100% support. Casting that net wide and sending a letter out to everyone that says this is a program we will be initiating a postcard or whatever the smaller amount was going to be pointed to. Dark skies ordinance brings hundreds of tourists into our area. And I hate it, but, man people love that thing. So it’s I think Mike back to the Abe’s point, though we have $3000 to consider at the next meeting. Yeah, we’ll talk about the bigger number later, but I know that in the budget is 3K. So OK, future thoughts. All right, any other discussion any other discussion on this one? And I guess Commissioner Hedin, you will bring this forward at the next meeting. Yes, I don’t work on some changes. Yeah, yeah, I’ll see what I mean. It’s a start. I have one comment on that way. Under six of them, we run on the boat with all of the Colorado River Authority people. All they were trying to do is take pictures of the stars. I mean, we’re on the river because, of course, it’s dark. There wasn’t a lot of traffic. And but they’re like, I hate this. I can’t take pictures because then it wants to make it look like daytime. But, you know, they were all trying to take pictures. It’s all people mention. I show hundreds of people every single night that you can look up, see the Milky Way in our area. And people attend year after year for that thing. And I hate that Main Street isn’t blindingly lit at all times. But this is a future conversation. All right, thank you. So if we’re done, then we’ll move on to the next one. A special events discussion. And Melody, would you handle this?
So this was originally supposed to be a workshop, so it’ll basically be that tonight. We’d like to talk about it, make some changes. There’s a red line in here with Jenny Beth’s recommendations, which I really liked. So I had them add it. So I asked even to put them into a red line. And then Mike has some comments here. And I’m going to let him go ahead and start off the conversation with his comments in there. And that way he can explain to them. Thank you, Commissioner. Just so you guys know, Angie’s online as well. And Angie’s online, but we don’t have Jenny Beth. No, no. OK. I have started the conversation. The meeting’s still going. I don’t know what this is like. We can still hear. Everything’s still going. Everybody’s still on YouTube.
My quick spiel was here. I’m going to read through here. Definition of a special event per our county website. If you want that, you can look it up. But it lists exemptions, non-commercial, non-competitive family, friends, or youth events such as weddings, family reunions, dances, parties, or garage sales with less than 250 daily total attendance and 50 motor vehicles, conferences, trainings, lectures, sporting events, or similar held events in a permitted permanent facility consistent with the facility’s occupancy and design standards. Community events owned or sponsored by resolution by the Grand County at Grand County-owned facilities. To add to the list of section 8.16.040 exemptions, a special event shall not include, again, a non-commercial, non-competitive family events or youth events such as weddings, family reunions, dances, parties, or garage sales with less than 500 daily total attendance or 65 motor vehicles. Mike, do you want to? Okay. Why don’t we go ahead? Is it just so what you’re, I was just a little confused. So you’re kind of saying you want to replace those numbers in the current exemptions with what you were just reading. Is that, is that? I do believe. Okay, didn’t we vote? Because that was helping the vehicle amounts and the people amount. It’s already in there. It’s a hundred motor vehicles, not 65. So your language, maybe you had an old one. Well, we, I thought we said. 65, we compromised on a 65. I thought we, I thought we, we did do that. I clearly remember having a lot of back and forth. Yeah. Okay. Even if we did, or when we did, it’s not on the county website, which event hosts are looking at. So that needs to get fixed. Absolutely. But it’s already a non-com, or A, already exists. B, conferences, trainings, lectures, sporting events or similar events held in a permanent, permanent facility consistent with the facility’s occupancy and design standards. Community events owned or sponsored by resolution by the county, county-owned facility. The one I was looking to add, and this will continue with conversations with Steven Stoss’s office here, is special events held at county facilities as defined in section 8.16.030, which are organized and approved by the facilities director. And which do not require the closure of public rights of way outside the facility’s property. So the explanation of that would be just alignment with existing policy. And again, I know that contained events, contained events were always, were always a contentious item with OSTA in its sense. But it’s really hard to, as an event promoter, to walk the line of, I have a 10-year permit from BLM outside of, outside of OSTA’s facility. And I, it’s a hard alignment process with a one-year, a one-year approval process of applying for that 10-year permit from a BLM to align with the county’s year-to-year non, or not looking at it as an exemption, alignment with existing policy.
When BLMs, if they don’t close the roadway or impact the, impact people on the roadway, I don’t want to — and the facility, be it OSTA, be it the Grand Center, be it anything, If they have an open timeline, I think that the facilities director should be able to make that call just as good as, I mean, I don’t have the mastery that Angie has at OSTA. I don’t have what the Grand Center’s mastery of the facilities of the Grand Center that the director has. I wouldn’t want my politics to be the deciding factor, especially when BLM already decided 10 years in advance that they have a 10-year running permit on an event. Be it a run event, be it a paint rocks event. I mean, this is unbiased on that. A couple of things. I know the county attorney wants to- Please, we’re trying to schedule time to talk. I’d like to just make the comment that Dana has volunteered to speak to anything regarding Jenna Beth’s portion of this. If we would like her to join us, she said she would. Okay. So you’ve got a proposed changes by Commissioner McCurdy. You’ve got that document, right? And then item D, it says special votes held at county facilities. And then it says, which were organized and approved by the facilities director do not require the closure of public right-of-ways, right? I’m going to be there. Is that meaning as an anchor location or are you meaning that are wholly contained? Because the big- Anchor location. Okay. Then you probably would need to specify on D, it would probably need to say like special events with an anchor location at, then you’re going to have to define anchor location at the county facilities. I think that’s critical. Then the next question, and again, this is why we’re in the discussion phase. The next question is, do you, are you limiting or are you going to classify events that have like a BLM permit? Like those that have BLM permits that are going to go out on those. And you say, hey, this is a different class than the ones that are going to go out and ride on Slick Rock versus the ones that are going to go right on the county’s. Is there a differentiation between any of those? If the answer is no, I wouldn’t put a differentiation between any of those. So then it’s just merely if they have an anchor location at the, at OSTA. And again, my brain’s doing state scenario. So what does that tell? Does that mean that they have, you know, a conference there? Does that mean that they have dinner there? Does that mean, because what, if I’m an evil, you know, event holder, then I just say, I’ll pay the deposit. I’ll be there for one minute. And now I can have a special event in Grant County. So we want to work, we want to make sure and work through like, so that the evil special event creator doesn’t just book a small room in OSTA and have a thousand person UTP route. Not that they would do that, but that’s, those are some of the things to flesh out. Okay, I’m going to go to Jacques and then Trish. Thank you. Yeah, Stephen did actually clarify one of my questions. So I just want to get an input. So Jenny Beth’s portion, when I read through that it’s literally just changing timelines. Is that correct? Okay. And I’m in favor of that. Okay. That’s, that’s cool. Yeah. No, I don’t. Yeah, I think so too. So then all Jenny, but put them in the red line. That part’s done. Thank you. So the next one, I was a little confused about because yeah, there’s exceptions. So basically, literally the only new thing here is D. Is that correct? Otherwise, it’s all stuff that’s been passed is Mike said, it might not be on the website. So that’s just a matter of somebody getting the proper information on the website, right? I think. Okay. And then, and then Stephen did clarify some of that. But I also think that’s the anchor location, even if it’s not an evil event holder, if it could be a massive event, they have BLM permits, but they’re still going to be using public roads. They’re going to be using Grand County infrastructure. There’s going to be using public safety. They’re going to be using things that are in the public domain that could far exceed the scope of simply having an event at OSTA and spending time on roads that BLM deems appropriate. So that I’m much less comfortable with. I’m fine with Jenny Beth’s section. I think that’s cool. I think getting the information on the website is cool. As it reads, I’m not in favor of D, I don’t think, but I could be honorable to new changes. So Trish and then Melodie. I think I’m going in the same direction and Angie, you know that I love you and all that you do out there. But I guess I think about the repercussions too. Like I know that some of the discussions we’ve had in the past is just like purely equestrian events that are totally held at OSTA and those kinds of things I think I’m fine with. But when we talk about, you know, and I’m not picking on the motorized, but the reality is when you have a thousand UTVs, it does reverberate through the entire Valley. And there are impacts outside of OSTA. So I guess I’m a little more reticent to do something like that. And I do appreciate the context that you put it in because I didn’t really think about it in that manner, but it could go in that direction. So I do think we need to think outside the box, like what are the what ifs and the repercussions of those what ifs and the impacts to the community. So maybe we can kind of work on that a little bit if you’re down with that. But I can. Oh, that’s why I really wanted a workshop. Yeah. And I got thrown to the side. Yeah. Okay. So this is a workshop. You know, we’re going to be here until it gets done because I would like to put this as a vote. I would like to have this as an ordinance to vote on next meeting. So we can move along with this. And I want it done right. I don’t want to rush it. But so we did swap it, but it’s going to be talked about. Anyways, here’s my thing that I have. The preauthorized list, which we call the legacy list. I don’t I have a list of those items, but it doesn’t really give me the parameters around it. And I don’t see anything in the ordinance that’s listed in here that talks about like, what are the parameters around the legacy list? And then how often do we update that? I mean, I would love to see all the Mad Moose ones. She has one, two, three, four, five, six total half marathon is on the legacy list. But all I think all six of those should just go on there. She has 10 year BLM. I mean, they’re all running events. They’ve been happening for nine years, 19 years, 11 years, 15 years and 12 years. I mean, I just think that she’s definitely they have definitely earned that spot on that legacy list. So I don’t know when we update that, but I would like to see that happen and kind of have a little bit more clarity around that just because I don’t know. When we when we look at those and I think that that 18 month that the red line that we talked about the 18 month needs to be for OSTA as well for any event. I mean, it needs to be OSTA events and people can’t book out OSTA two years in advance. So the 18 month that would be changing right now from 12 to 18 is going to be across the board. And I’d like to see a deposit. What are deposit structures? So there must be some kind of deposit structure so that we don’t have people just booking it and then backing out. So there’s a you know, when you book it, you have a non-refundable fee, number one, and then and then there’ll be different levels of like the sooner you back it, you know, whatever. I mean, maybe there’s a you pay two thousands non-refundable. But if you if you cancel within a certain amount of time, then you get. And I don’t know what the fees are, even are for renting OSTA. But, you know, if it’s $10,000 rent OSTA, then you pay, you know, $5,000 fee when you book it. And if you cancel within those first, you know, the two thousand of it is non-refundable period, you know, because if you’re going to do an event, you need to be serious about it and not be taking the time from some other event, you know. So that’s something. And then. I think that we need one calendar for sure. I don’t necessarily know that we leave it only to Angie. I think that it’s really important for Angie and Jenna Beth to work hand in hand with these. I think it’s super important that they both need to be involved and they and anyways, one calendar so that. Somebody could call out to Angie and ask if it was available and she would know and so would Jenna Beth know. I mean, either way, because people contacting both.
Then I’ll still let’s see. I know that we have marketing money that comes from MTAB and that there’s grants that they give out and they haven’t given those out yet this year. And they have a subcommittee that’s working on those. But, you know, maybe we need to have some kind of application period in the fourth quarter and it’s due by January 1st. And that way all that can go to the MTAB board so that they can plan their marketing grant out accordingly. And so that’s I don’t necessarily know if that goes into this ordinance, but it’d be a piece. And I think that might be all of my thoughts on.
I’m going to go to the county attorney, then Brad and then Mike. OK.
More fun thoughts on my life. The second that you guys make any changes to make an exception by utilizing OSTA, you increase the value of having your event at OSTA substantially. So a thought for looking at fee schedules or anything else, if you can purchase, basically, if you get your foot in at OSTA, you’re going to have a golden ticket to having an event. So it’s going to make those that desire to be out at OSTA on certain weekends. You probably it would probably behoove the county to consider adjusting your fee schedules based on that. So just a thought. All right. Quinn wanted to play too. Sorry, I didn’t know. I just want to say the grants program, and I think I’ve talked to Brian about this, but we need to fix that because it’s too late in the year it needs to be how the application process in the fall. And I would like MTown to kind of run this to the level that they’re able or willing because we do those and they end up being reimbursement grants, which is a it’s not a best practice. It’s a poor process. So I’d like to see the application happen in the fall and be awarded in January for the upcoming year. And then we just cut those checks as they come. Just food for thought. So I’m going to go, Brian, I see Angie— I see you, Angie. Okay, go ahead, Angie. And then we’ll go Brian, Mike. Can you hear us, Angie? Yeah, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yeah, please go ahead. First, I want to start with saying I completely agree with Quinn. It’s a huge disadvantage for the event holders with the way it’s set up right now because they really need the money beforehand. So that would what Quinn said is spot on. If we could get that change, that would be a huge benefit for those event holders. And if Jenny Beth and myself could be a part of that, that would be awesome because we’re the ones that are working hand in hand with the event holders and we’re the ones who know who needs what. And I’ve been seeing that some events have been getting that repeatedly and it’s I don’t think being used appropriately, but those are just my thoughts on that. The other thing to what Commissioner McCandless was saying, OSTA already does have a lot of those things implemented. We do already have security deposits. In effect, it is non-refundable if events are canceled within 30 days before the event. There was a couple other items. As far as the calendar, it would be hard to have just one calendar just because OSTA is so complex with different things. But I would be, I’m totally apt to sharing a calendar. And then maybe like as events are booking and coming in, part of the application process is to like verify if the date’s like available with me, like going through the application. But as far as the two, only going out like 18 months, that would be a huge disadvantage for a lot of the events just because most of my events are legacy events. They’ve been going on for like decades.
So yeah, I don’t, I disagree with that. I think I would lose events if they lost that security of not knowing that they had their dates because a lot of those dates just roll over and they have those guaranteed dates.
Trying to think of what else, but that’s what I have for right now. Thank you. All right, Brian, then Mike. So yeah, I mean, my general thoughts is, and I don’t know what your calendar looks like, but what I see is we’re trying to, or I’d like to see, you know, us get more use out of the OSTA facilities, right? And what can we do to better the process so that we can bring more events inside there and keep those facilities moving a little bit more? A couple of things that I’ve noticed, you know, the one calendar, this idea, you know, a shared calendar, I think would work however it is. I’m not saying one person would have control over the other person. Definitely a shared calendar where you go, someone contacts you and you look on the calendar and you see four things happening and you go, oh, you might want to talk to Jenny Beth first. And same thing otherwise, you know, when Jenny Beth looks on her calendar, she goes, oh man, look what’s probably happening at OSTA. You better go contact them first before we know. So whatever it is, I do think that there’s a lot in the, you know, that could be accomplished just by communication between the two right there. Second, the idea of a deposit, you know, I mean, I saw this in the Mays District of Canyonlands and I thought it was one of their big misses is when they opened up the reservations to people out there and they never raised the deposit, right? I mean, like a severe deposit means that you’re serious about doing it. And I think that with something like this, that we need to have a deposit that matches, you know, the level of intent, right? For something like that. If I’m hosting a 5,000 person event, right? And the deposit’s $250 and it’s refundable up to 30 days, right? That’s the same thing like in the Mays. You know, you see people out there and they’ll book every single campsite because they don’t know where they want to go. And it’s only a $20 deposit, right? It’s not, the fee doesn’t match the level of intent that I think that they need to be putting in there. The second thing is, is this, the way that the calendars kind of line up. So, and I might need a little bit of education on this. So if I wanted to book an event, I called you up and I said, I want to book for August of 2026. Could I make a reservation for that?
Um, you’re- August 27th. Yeah, could I, how far in advance can I make my reservations at OSTED? Yeah, yeah, you could do that. Cause I could tell you right now, like what everything’s looking like as far as repeat events. Yeah. Like I know when Jeep Safari is. I know when Cruise Moab is. I know when all those repeat events are. So I know what weekends are available. But what I’m saying is, is so I could make that event. Yeah, you couldn’t go ahead and apply for a high impact, a high impact, a permit to go out there until even under this new one, under 18 months. So I don’t, you should be allowing anything that’s not legacy, right? At high impacts to be out there because that’s just the way to game the system, right? I could go ahead and say, oh yeah, great. I already got my OSTED permit. Right. Or I already have my OSTED reservation. And now anybody who calls you is going to say, or anybody who calls Jenny Beth, well look, sorry, OSTED is already taken right now, right? And that event might not even get, that event might not get passed, right? It just blocked everybody else out from coming. So I would think that we’d want to have our, whatever our window is for approving events to be the same as our window for making advanced reservations. Something, somewhere similar on that.
And I don’t know. And there might be, I don’t, what I don’t want to create is I don’t want to create a, something that’s going to create more restrictions. But I do see that as a problem right there is having two different windows right there. And then the other thing is, is I do think that there should be some sort of appeal process as well, right? And that I have not seen in there. There should be a way that, let’s say that I call in and I try to get this reservation and you’re like, well, I don’t know if it’s going to happen. There should be some sort of appeal process to where I think admin is brought in as the authority, or I don’t think it should come up to the level as the commission, but I do think that we should have some way to make sure that all things have been looked at before they come back up to us. If that makes any sense to everybody. Yes, I like that. Okay, Mike, you were next. I apologize. Some of you are more nefarious than myself in this discussion. Thank you for, or at least thinking in a nefarious path. I’m trying to take this all in to make this more streamlined for, again, for the need of a workshop. So I will be getting with Stephen’s docs and honestly, his office and taking that all in and trying to get this applied to our next meeting. But in the same sense, I really want to pose a non too nefarious question here. Angie gets Jeep Safari. Cheap safari is coming the end of April. Like all, or it’s rotated the end of April. They cancel. They cancel three months out. They paid the deposit. They take that hit. So be it. Why doesn’t Angie have the capability to turn to FJ or Toyota-thon and say Toyota-thon. Or Toyota-thon walks up to Angie and goes, we want to hold a 20,000 person event. We want to have the X amount of vehicles, same amount of vehicles the Jeep safari has. On your property, the same way as Jeep safari does. And not just go, yeah, the spot’s open. Why can’t Angie just pull that trigger? Hey, county attorney. So this is not exactly a workshop, but it’s a discussion. Folks have mentioned that maybe we’re going to see this next time ready to go and get voted on. And everything is what’s there and I don’t know it. Right. And if that’s going to be the case, I think it’d be really great if you guys, I know I don’t want to force the issue of having too much discussion on this, but if that’s something that’s going to come up about anchor locations and things like that, even if it’s not tonight, maybe you guys should try to communicate. Of course, you can’t predetermine the outcome of a meeting, but it would be great to have some progress and communicate so that you guys, when we roll around to the next meeting, it’s not all just an instant shock because that’s what’s going on. Unrelated in an email between us all? Okay. No, that’s the answer. You can talk with like when a commissioner creates a letter, it has input. And so when you’re thinking about these things to communicate with each other in non quorum functions and I don’t know what I’m worrying is, we’re going to show up next time. We’re going to have Mike’s idea of what it is and then we’re not going to have any work on it. So the idea of an anchor location, for example, you guys want to kind of go into it now? Or if I’m overstepping, you guys don’t want to do that. That’s fine. I’m just trying to flesh some of these details out sooner now rather than the night we vote on it. And then I have to frantically try to make some edits to the document. I don’t think we’re ready for a vote next meeting personally. I mean, maybe some of those, but not all of it. But we made some really good progress tonight. I think there’s some really good ideas. Okay.
Two seconds. I really worry specifically to this year. It’s already without the capability of the OSTA director or another County Facilities Director to fill vacancies. We’re losing money this year. We’re losing income this year. It hurts us even more. Hooray for the policy and for streamlining this. I hope it gets better next year, but we’re already losing money of not being able to fill. I see you there, Angie. Just let me go for a minute if you would. So then maybe the answer is that a couple of you work with the County Attorney. I could use him. And then this maybe could go on the next meeting if he feels comfortable and then it could be circulated. I mean, at least I would think people would nod or say.
But I want to go to Angie first, Trish. She’s waiting. I just wanted to follow back up to Commissioner Martinez’s question as far as calling OSTA and booking the facility. Before anybody could just book the facility, there’s a bunch of questions that are asked. And especially if it’s somebody new that’s coming in. I always encourage a site visit and go through because there’s certain events that can’t happen on specific pieces of the property. Like a motocross race coming into the indoor arena. Yeah, that’s not going to happen. It’s just really bad for the soil. And motocross with equestrian, we’ve tried it before. It doesn’t work. It damages the facility way too much. And it doesn’t work. Now, the outdoor arena, yeah. We could probably do something like that out there. So there’s different parts of the property that could work for different things. So I always encourage the event producer to come to the facility and us walk through their event together and figure out what’s going to work best. But for somebody just to call up and say, hey, I want to do this event, that booking hardly ever happens. It’s usually a meeting, walk through, get a feel for them, get to know them, like raves, big parties like that. There’s dynamics. There’s things that are just I don’t have staffing for, policing, all kinds of fun stuff. So there’s just events that just don’t get to come in without logistics happening first. So I wanted to clarify that. Thank you. You first, and then Mel. I make a recommendation that maybe, and I’m not telling you guys what to do, but maybe Angie, Mike, and Steven do a rough draft and then send it out to us and allow us to make comments. And you guys can take those comments or not, do what you want. But it might help facilitate that final draft. You gave us a couple of days before you put it on the agenda. Are you guys down with something like that? Yeah, I’d like to help too. Our availability, I am. I know we’ve been- Allow us to be consistent. Yeah, Melody’s got that, yeah. So I’d like to help with that as well. And then Angie, so I don’t think that our list has your legacy list. So I think it’s important for you to get that to us. So I think those need to be, because you said it would hurt. And that is, we want those ones that have their spot to have their spot. But then outside of that, to be in that timeframe. So that everybody’s working on that same level, but we don’t want to lose our legacy ones. And then the other thing also is, I don’t want to have anything outside of that 18 months. Like we had people come in to have exceptions, like, oh, I’m outside of the timeline. I think we hold firm to that. We have legacy events that are in there. And then we have the 18 month cutoff and we do not allow anything outside of that. But those are just some of my comments. We can add them in there. So my, I’m sorry. I just want to real quick, my clarification. So my events that have been around for a long time that I am worried about those would be like my legacy events.
Okay. One legacy list. Okay, Mary. And then I think I’ll take Trisha’s suggestion. I’m just wondering, Mike said that he was concerned that there were certain ones that were happening this year that we’re going to be losing money. I mean, I wonder if for the immediate future, so we don’t just rush through things, not have them done really, completed in a really solid fashion where we’re not going to have to be going back and fixing it, is to just look at those situations where we are, that Angie, you know, I don’t know the exact thing that’s causing it, but Angie doesn’t have the choice or, you know, somehow it’s breaking down. For immediate or for quick, you know, for next meeting, maybe just look at that. Just look at that. So we fix that. So we’re not losing the money for the short term. And then have a really long, it’s still going to be really long, you know, taking another, a little more time to just make sure that it’s written in a way that we don’t have to come back later and go, you know, that there’s some time that we have time to digest it and look at it. That’s my suggestion. I think that’s a better way to do it than to try to hurry and get this done in two weeks. Let’s just look at the ones that we are concerned about. Angie, I’ll be getting with you ASAP. Okay.
And if you could get with Angie, get with Angie, draft it up. I don’t, I don’t know what’s there for, you know, I’m not looking for content. You guys set the content. I’ll tell you how somebody will make it not as great. And then I can point out those. I didn’t see some of the holes that you pointed out. So thank you. Yeah, and then you guys can circulate it for the commissioners. The difficulty is when we go through these ordinances and we set them up to make a change, if we get all the way to the point of making a change, and then we don’t have support from the commission or if we really want to make some last minute changes, it just gets really tricky.
With that, is it okay for, I’ll have Mark there too, but is it okay for me to talk to Angie about this? This is because this is, I’m not trying to direct staff, I’m trying to get information on the facility. That the commission has brought forward in a meeting, Every single commissioner knows exactly what you’re doing. This is a very appropriate way to communicate with staff. Okay.
Okay. Are we ready for a motion to go into closed session?
I am. I move to close the lease exchange purchase for sale of real property and pending or reasonable at the end of it. Second. All in favor? Aye. Passes unanimously. You guys are free. We’re going to make some pickleball events. Are you?
Meeting Summary
Meeting called to order at 4:30 PM with Chair Winfield announcing three agenda changes: postponing Randy’s Metal CUP to next meeting, pulling the Planning Administrator appointment, and proceeding with audit acceptance despite auditor’s scheduling conflict.
Citizens to be Heard – First Session (3:02 – 18:43)
- (3:06 – 6:00) Charlotte Mates – Promoted upcoming Alzheimer’s awareness programs at Grand Center and advocated for assisted living facility in community
- (6:05 – 7:30) Scott Sully – Opposed conditional use permit for Randy’s Metal Shop, citing concerns about industrial activity in residential neighborhood
- (7:40 – 9:12) Shirley French – Voiced strong opposition to metal fabrication shop zoning change, expressing concerns about neighborhood compatibility
- (9:15 – 10:49) Samantha Derbyshire – Advocated for continued Trail Ambassador Program funding, highlighting 35,000+ user interactions and trail safety benefits
- (10:58 – 13:47) Robert O’Brien – Praised Cristin Hofhin’s work as Planning Administrator and urged commission to retain her in the role
- (13:51 – 15:25) Mary O’Brien – Questioned commissioners about lack of transparency in Planning Administrator replacement process
- (15:35 – 17:59) Ashley Norman – Requested noise ordinance amendment to allow protective dog barking for property and livestock protection
Presentations (18:43 – 58:33)
Moab Area Community Land Trust (18:43 – 34:12)
Comprehensive update on Arroyo Crossing development showing 96 completed homes with 300+ total units planned, representing $150M permanently affordable housing project using 100-year ground leases to maintain affordability in perpetuity.
IT Department Report (34:22 – 58:33)
Annual overview of technology improvements including cybersecurity upgrades, LiDAR flood mapping completion for Mill Creek, and plans to audit underutilized third-party software subscriptions for potential cost savings.
Weed Department Report (58:44 – 1:17:50)
Presentation on expanded operations through $375,000 Community Wildfire Defense Grant, new fuels reduction coordinator position, and fire prevention work in Mill Creek Corridor focusing on invasive species management.
Commission Business & Votes
Suicide Prevention Proclamation (2:00:04 – 2:10:46)
Proclaimed September 2025 as Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month with community events planned. PASSED 7-0.
Vina Subdivision Final Plat (2:11:10 – 2:13:04)
Approved final plat for 9-lot mixed-use subdivision at 1978 Plateau Drive in Moab. PASSED 6-0 (Martinez absent).
Appointing Second Planning Commission Liaison (2:13:32 – 2:17:59)
Appointed Commissioner Martinez as additional liaison to Planning Commission despite concerns about breaking with established January appointment procedures. PASSED 4-3, opposed: Hedin, Hadler, McGann.
Branding Agency Contract (2:17:59 – 2:27:50)
Awarded $750,000 branding strategy contract to Camp4 and Tourist after reviewing 36 proposals ranging from $88,000 to $2.2 million. PASSED 6-0 (McGann absent).
Tourism Director Search (2:27:50 – 2:33:02)
Selected Horizon Hospitality as search firm for new Tourism Director position at cost of $19,000-$31,000 with one-year placement guarantee. PASSED 7-0.
Housing Task Force Funding (2:33:02 – 2:50:07)
Approved $15,500 from affordable housing budget for comprehensive housing pipeline study to analyze supply, demand, and development trends across county. PASSED 7-0.
Public Lands Resolution (2:50:07 – 3:05:47)
Resolution supporting federal public lands management failed due to concerns it could negatively impact UMTRA project negotiations with federal delegates. FAILED 4-3. Opposed: McCurdy, Martinez, McCandless, Winfield.
Special Election Resolution (3:05:47 – 3:31:29)
Original Motion: Updated ballot language for November 4, 2025, special tax election clarifying Canyonlands Healthcare’s role as operator rather than owner of long-term care facility. PASSED 6-1. Opposed: Winfield.
Substitute Motion: Attempted to remove “provides resources for other critical healthcare needs” language from November ballot measure. FAILED 5-2. Opposed: Hedin, Hadler, McGann, Winfield, McCandless.
2024 Audit Acceptance (3:31:30 – 3:35:29)
Accepted annual financial audit and statements with subsequent event note regarding Trail Ambassador Program funding. PASSED 7-0.
Trail Grant Contract (3:35:29 – 3:43:30)
Approved $192,283 grant for non-motorized trail construction and maintenance projects. PASSED 7-0.
Discussion Items (3:43:30 – 4:29:58)
Dark Skies Program (3:43:30 – 3:56:07)
Discussion of financial support for lighting compliance incentive program through partnership with Friends of Arches and Canyonlands, with debate over administrative costs.
Special Events Ordinance (3:56:07 – 4:29:29)
Comprehensive workshop on streamlining event permitting process, including proposed exemptions for county facility events, deposit structures, timeline changes, and improved coordination between OSTA and county permitting.
Closed Session (4:29:29 – End)
Motion to enter closed session for real estate matters discussion. PASSED 7-0.
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