All right, I will call this Grand County Commission meeting to order is September 2, 2025 at 4 PM.
Those present, Commissioner Hedin, Commissioner Hadler, Commissioner McCurdy, Commissioner McGann, Commissioner Martinez, Commissioner McCandless, and myself, Commissioner Winfield.
And elected officials, our county attorney and Mr. Woytek, with our administrator also.
So with that, 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.
All right, we will start this meeting off with citizens to be heard.
We will start in the chamber and wait for Mr. Quinn to get back to see if we have anybody online.
Do we have anybody that would like to start us off tonight?
Mr. Gross, please step forward now by yourself.
I’m here, so I assume at the podium.
That’s totally fine, sir.
First, I want to apologize.
I saw a bunch of you chewing when I came in, and if I had thought to bring it, if you were hungry, I would have been happy to bring you some snacks.
I had a bunch left over.
So I have two questions.
I realize that you can’t answer them.
It’s for me to be heard, not for you to respond, but you all have my email, so feel free.
Why are we proposing to spend $1,000 for the euphemistically named Public Lands Council, the case for private use of public lands, often contrary to the public’s interest?
That’s my first question.
Second question is, why is the Grand County Commission proposing to replace or remove the interim Planning and Zoning Administrator who does an outstanding job with someone less qualified for just the short term?
I’d like to have an answer to both those questions.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Anybody else?
Yes, sir.
I’m sorry, ma’am.
I’ll get you next.
It was barely a tie.
My name is Dave Plosper, and most of you probably know what I’m here to speak about.
I’m aware that the county has no jurisdiction, really, at this point, over the Cane Creek Project and what’s now Echo Canyon.
But I wanted to fill you in on some of what I’ve learned and the research I’ve done recently, and I just want the community to know what’s going on from what I’ve learned.
So the first thing is they’ve recorded a plant recently in the last couple of months for a subdivision plant out there.
It’s practically 11 acres, 14 parcels, three of which have already been sold.
It’s in the floodplain on a portion of the area that’s already been filled.
And as you all know, probably too, the developers, their water rights are being challenged in Cork.
And so if they do lose their water rights, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to complete the project or leave a single home.
So to me, it seems a little odd that they’re selling parcels where people may want to build a home in the future in a floodplain when culinary water and wastewater services may never be available.
The second thing is, as you all know, back in June of this year, the Lieutenant Governor’s Office approved Echo Canyon based on a development plan provided by the developers.
And if you look at the subdivision plant, compared to the 11 acres on the development plan that was approved by the Lieutenant Governor’s Office, it’s entirely different.
And so to me, that suggests that they’re maybe going to be able to build whatever they want.
And I checked with the Lieutenant Governor’s Office on this, and they confirmed that nobody’s going to be watching what they do, comparing it to what was approved.
So they could essentially build whatever they want, it sounds like.
So, you know, as far as the speculative work case, I mean, I could see high rise hotels and condominium buildings going up in the floodplain.
They have actually set their height limit, building height limit to 80 feet for Echo Canyon, which is 35 feet higher than the county’s 45 feet.
So that’s basically what I wanted to share.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Yes, ma’am.
That’s the chart, Grand County, Spanish Valley, Grand County.
Thanks for the opportunity to be here tonight.
I want to say that I support Cristin Hofheim continuing as Planning and Zoning Administrator until a permanent administrator is hired.
There’s why.
U.S. County Commissioners will be making a critical administrative decision in the next few weeks to approve or deny a conditional use permit for Moab City to place a very large water tank at the four-way stop at Spanish Valley, Spanish Valley Drive, Spanish Trail Road.
The idea was originally the brainstorm 10 years ago of Rebecca Davidson, who was the city administrator at that time.
So, so far, there’s nothing posted about the project on the county website, although signs state that a public hearing will be held September 8th for the Planning Commission and September 16th for the County Commission.
So you’ll be making a critical administrative decision very soon on that.
Ms. Hofheim has been doing an excellent job in a difficult situation.
She has the experience and legal and institutional knowledge to help you all make a solid legal decision that follows state and county codes.
I’m assuming that planning, even understaffed as it is, has complied with Section 9 of the Grand County Land Use Code.
First being, prior to filling a conditional use permit application, the applicant, which would be Moab City, shall meet with the zoning administrator or his or her designated agent.
Secondly, the zoning administrator shall distribute the completed conditional use application to seven different people or departments, and that’s spelled out in the code.
So I hope that’s happened.
Next, Grand County Planning and Commission should determine if there are reasonably anticipated detrimental effects of the proposed use and established conditions to mitigate these effects.
These detrimental effects can include the effect on the environment, compatibility with the surrounding area, minimizing infrastructure impacts.
It needs to be consistent with the Land Use Code and General Plan.
So you’ll also need to factor in the requirements of Senate Bill 110 that requires Grand County to integrate a water use and preservation element into its general plan.
Therefore, zoning changes and conditional use permits should be tied to water demand and conservation.
The water to fill the tank is 2.
million gallons, and it will come from the Glen Canyon Aquifer.
So your decision will set a precedent for conditional uses in the county.
Your decision will be a statement on your views about how the county should look and develop.
And your decision will be your legacy on what this everlasting decision is to be.
And I believe that the information and support from staff like Ms. Hofheim will serve us all well.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Do we have anyone else in the chambers?
Yes, sir.
Hello.
I wrote this out so I wouldn’t get off on tangents.
My name is Michael Wolfe.
I’ve been a resident of Grand County for almost 20 years, also having lived in San Juan County for as far back as 40 years.
I’m a retired archaeologist, river guide, having worked in the private tourism industry, energy sector, and also various federal land managing agencies.
I’ve been around for a while and I’ve seen the various boom and bust cycles in our local economy.
I know each of you are concerned with our local economy, which is highly dependent on ongoing tourism.
I’ll start out on a positive note and thank the county for maintaining our geyser pass road to the winter parking trailhead.
Yay.
Many new folks are coming to recreate in our mountains in the winter, which is a good thing.
When I start looking at all the sub departments that fall under the umbrella of the Grand County Commission, I am blown away by all the various things you commissioners are responsible for looking over, while ensuring that tax revenue is well spent and keeping in mind the needs of our citizens.
You have a huge responsibility.
Anyway, the reason I’m here commenting today is I’m starting to be very concerned with recent actions by the council and have been forced to pay more attention to commission meetings.
I wish I didn’t have to spend so much time watching over you guys, but things jump out to me that just don’t seem right.
To start with, in recent months, this new council has been treating employees and citizen volunteers to committees, has not been treating employees and citizen volunteers to committees with respect and gratitude they deserve.
The recent agenda item that aims to remove Cristin Hofheim from her acting role as interim zoning administrator begs questions of why.
No reason has been given.
Everyone who works with her in this challenging role has nothing but good praise for her professionalism and work ethic.
So why are certain commissioners trying to remove her when very soon there will be a process to hire in a new person in a permanent position for the job?
She was not given the professional courtesy or notification of this proposed action of replacing her.
This is not the way to treat people, nor is it in line with normal county procedures.
It’s hard to see why you’re trying to get rid of her.
This also happened with other county employees.
Seems like certain members of the council have a history of running off good employees, especially women.
All I can guess is that this is due to personal reasons or vendettas against a person or if you don’t like their friends.
I’m starting to see a pattern here.
That is if certain commissioners feel threatened or don’t like someone who doesn’t agree with their personal agenda, they just try to get someone, get rid of someone.
This is childish.
Tourism is down a bit right now.
Many factors determine what…
Oh, I’m almost done.
Tourism is down now and there’s a lot of reasons for that.
But I think the commission should look at the federal government and what’s going on in Washington.
Because those executive orders are having huge impacts on Grand County residents, such as defunding our public land agency, Social Security, causing people to file injunctions.
And ICE is already in Farmington and Durango.
It’s a matter of time.
They’re going to come here.
What will you do when half the restaurant, motel employees are all hauled off?
People are very scared right now.
It’s not right.
So instead of being concerned about pissing off Mike Lee, you need to piss him off.
You need to write letters to our Utah representatives in Washington and let them know to push back.
There you go.
Thank you, sir.
Do we have anybody else in the chambers?
Anybody online, Quinn?
All right.
Seeing none, we will move on to a presentation by Larson’s regarding our 2024 independent audits, external audit of Grand County.
Do you want me to mic?
At one word, you can sit here because these overhead pickups are actually better than the stick.
OK.
I know you guys had a long meeting, so I won’t take a long time.
I just wanted to get me for the whole thing.
I’ll just mention we’ve already met with the finance committee and kind of went in detail over the financial statements in our audit and how it all ended up.
So I just wanted to just express our opinions, what we’re giving opinions on, what we’re not giving opinions on, and then any findings related to our audit work.
If you have a hard copy, we’re going to start with a bound copy.
We’ll just start with page one.
This is our audit opinion, audit report, always the first document in your financial statements.
And the first section is our opinion on the financial statements.
This is the scope of what our primarily what our audit is, is on your financial statements.
In the second paragraph, it outlines our opinion.
It’s an unmodified or unqualified opinion.
I know it doesn’t use those two words, but if I read that paragraph, it’s kind of very accounting geek talk.
It doesn’t really make a lot of sense to a lot of people, so we just say unmodified or unqualified.
That’s a clean opinion.
The third paragraph just outlines the component units that we did not audit.
So because we did not audit them, we’re not giving an opinion on their financial statements.
Their own auditors are giving those opinions.
And so we have to get those financial statements with the auditor’s report so we can then rely on those other auditors.
There’s information that we have to get from those other auditors to make sure that they’re performing their audit in accordance with government auditing standards and generally accepted auditing practices.
So you can see the percentages there of component units and what they make and the percents they make of the discreetly presented component units.
And then also Thompson Special Service District and the transportation districts were not audited.
They received agreed upon procedures or they had to turn in a financial survey.
However, their balances are so immaterial to the discreet component units that we scope those out of our opinion.
The sections that do not fall under our opinion immediately following the audit report is a section called the management’s discussion analysis.
Immediately following the notes of the financial statements, there’s a section called required supplementary information.
Those two sections are required to be with the financial statements, but the Governmental Accounting Standards Board do not consider them part of the basic financial statements.
Therefore, they don’t fall under our opinion.
So they’re considered unaudited sections.
However, all of the financial information in there ties back to the financial statements.
If you don’t like getting down in the weeds of the numbers and doing financial analysis and things like that, if you want to see more comparative data, then a good place to read is the management’s discussion analysis.
If you’re used to looking at private company financial statements, a lot of times they’ll have comparative years.
So they’ll present the current year and then they present the first immediate preceding year.
The way governmental financial statements are set up, because you’re dealing with a number of funds, there’s not enough room to do comparative statements.
That’s why we have the management’s discussion analysis.
So that’s where you find the comparative data for the prior period.
And then supplementary information, which would be the non-bank fund details.
And then your single audit, that’s considered supplementary information.
That always follows the opinion on the financial statements.
All right, so now we’re going to flip to the back.
We’re going to flip to page 79.
Next report that we’re required to issue just outlines if we perform your audit in accordance with governmental auditing standards.
Part of that test that those requirements state that we have to look at your internal controls, A, to make sure you have controls in place, and B, that they’re actually functioning the way they should.
If we find material weaknesses or significant deficiencies, we have to identify them as part of this report.
However, we found none, so we’re going to move on to the next report, page 81.
So this report is required by the state auditor.
So there are certain aspects of Utah State code that he requires.
They require us to look at, I guess I should say a sheet now, each year.
Sometimes they’re similar, sometimes they change.
We wait for the compliance guy to come out each year to make sure that we know what we need to test.
Our opinion is an unmodified or unqualified opinion, and that is on your compliance as well as the control over the compliance.
So the difference being we have to make sure that, A, you’re in compliance with all those sections you can see outlined there.
B, that you have the controls in place to make sure that you maintain that compliance.
So it’s two different parts of that opinion.
The caveat to this opinion is it’s not an opinion on the entirety of Utah State code.
It’s very specific to the outlined areas, and it’s also not a legal opinion.
We’re not attorneys, and it’s frustrating to me that a lot of people refer to the compliance guide as the legal compliance guide.
It’s not, we’re not attorneys, we’re not legal, we’re not getting a legal opinion.
That’s why you have an attorney.
So just with that caveat, it’s also an unmodified or unqualified opinion.
There were a couple of small findings that we’ll talk about.
But first, let’s turn to page 83.
This report is required by the federal government.
If you spent $750,000 more in federal funding during the period, you’re required to have a separate single audit.
A lot of people know it by the Uniform Guidance.
It used to be called OMB 133.
What we’re looking at here is your compliance with any federal grants.
So every grant that you receive comes with its own conditions and compliance requirements.
It could be what’s allowable, what’s not allowable.
It could be the period of time that you have to spend that money.
If you’re purchasing equipment, are you tracking that equipment?
Because if you sell that, it becomes program income.
So each grant, we have to look up what the compliance requirements are.
And we’re also looking at your controls, once again, over that compliance to make sure that you have the controls in place to make sure that noncompliance doesn’t happen.
That’s also an unmodified or an unqualified opinion.
You want to look at page 85.
Those are all the federal awards that you spent during the period.
That may not be all the grants that you received, but that’s the money that you spent.
So the single audit is driven by the money you spend, not necessarily by the money that you received.
Let’s see, so page 87.
So this also gets submitted to the federal government.
And this is kind of a summary of both the financial statement audit as well as the single audit.
The first section relates primarily to your financial statement audit.
There were no material weaknesses identified, no significant deficiencies, and no areas of noncompliance that were required to report.
The federal single audit, there were no material weaknesses, no significant deficiencies, and no audit findings that were required to be disclosed.
And the major program that we tested this year was the airport improvement program.
And you can see on the schedule of award, that was the majority of the federal money that you spent.
So that became almost by default the major program this year.
And then that last line, everybody kind of gets hung up on whether or not you qualify to be low-risk or not low-risk.
If you’re not low-risk, it doesn’t mean you’re high-risk.
That statement right there tells us it kind of drives our audit.
We’d have to test more if you’re not low-risk.
How you become low-risk is to have timely filed audits in the previous two years, and no federal award findings and no material weakness findings on your financial statement audit.
So that’s how you become low-risk.
And the county is in a low-risk situation currently.
All right, so a couple of the findings.
We review these with the finance committee as well.
The first one was budgetary compliance.
There were a few departments in the general fund as well as a few funds that were out of compliance.
Just for your information, inside the general fund, state code requires that each department itself maintains budget integrity.
And then every other fund outside the general fund has to be within budget in the entirety.
So it kind of breaks it down farther inside your general fund because you have so many departments.
Every other fund has to be by fund.
Not a huge concern.
We see budget findings all the time.
Our recommendation is not only Gabe’s office, but you as a commission group should be getting reports on a monthly or quarterly basis that has the actual results and the budget next to it.
So you can kind of see, okay, these are the areas where we’re getting close to running over budget.
Do we need to make some adjustments, take some money from here to move it here to maintain your budget integrity?
Or do you need to amend the budget?
And that should be done throughout the year.
I’m not saying open a public meeting and amend your budget every month.
That would be horrendous and a headache for you guys.
Black and white says you can’t spend a dollar unless you budget it for us.
Reality is most people are going to probably go over in a department and they’re under in another department.
So at the end of the year, they’re going to amend the budget and make sure that everything’s in line.
What we’re concerned with is those budget amendments take place.
And so at the end of the period, you’re within the budgeted appropriations.
The next one, the next finding is the deficit fund balance.
The Debt Service Billing Authority fund actually went into a deficit position this year.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing to have a deficit.
That happens.
What state code requires is that you eradicate that deficit by either 5% of the revenue that that fund generates or in the entirety.
So what we expect to see is in your subsequent budget.
So the 2025 budget, if you amend that, you need to put a line item in there to either reduce it by 5% of the revenue or eradicate that deficit.
You can just show a line item called deficit reduction.
And then when that translates into actual.
Numbers in your actual books.
If you have budget integrity within that fund, that will translate into a net income, which would decrease that balance or get rid of it.
Any questions for me?
Shorter than before.
Anybody?
I don’t have anything.
I think we took care of all that.
Yeah, and I should have reported that we went over this at length in the audit committee report meeting and that you had done a very good job already.
This is really for the public.
If you’ve got anything you want to weigh in.
I just wanted to say for the public’s sake, too, if they’re interested in the budgetary compliance findings.
I did my best to take care to provide as much detail as possible on the management response section just to fully explain.
I’m not here to make excuses, but just to explain what happened just so it’s just well understood.
I will tell, tell the commission that gave responses to the findings are probably the most thorough responses that we’ve ever had from any of our clients.
So, we appreciate that.
We appreciate that.
Gabe took it seriously.
And then he gave a thorough and honest response.
And we also appreciate meeting with the finance committee.
I think it went very well this year.
I think having you guys review the audit financial statements, or at least the financial statements.
That’s a big help to us.
There’s, you know, and then having Karen involved.
I think she has good information and the way she wanted things forwarded.
Because ultimately, they’re your financial statements and we want them to be presented the way that you guys want to present.
So, thanks.
Yep.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Thanks, John.
Thanks for traveling.
All right.
We will move on to the Grand Center and Loretta Eastwood.
Glad to have you.
Please bear with me.
I’m not a good OT person.
My name is Loretta.
Most people call me Loretta.
I work at the Grand Center.
This year, I thought for my presentation, I would kind of go over some of the resources and attainment and stuff like that that we provide for our aging population.
Wait, do you want to share your screen or are we not enough?
Okay, what did I do?
Next slide, Sharon.
Am I sharing?
Getting close.
I’m on the wrong screen.
No.
This is my co-chairs.
There we go.
Now, let’s do that.
Now, let’s go back.
Which card did you go to?
I should open this.
There we go.
So, we have what we call Coffee and Tea to student because we can make great programs for education.
We have had some great organizations that have collaborated with us in helping the seniors.
This is the first year we have networked with the Utah Legal Services, Utah Legal Aid, and they have come down twice this year.
They have done a presentation, and then they’ve had one-on-one consultations with our seniors that needed legal advice.
VA benefits came down and helped with some of the seniors who had served, and those wives or widows of some of the seniors had served.
Most of the ladies did not know they were entitled to those benefits through the VA.
The information they imparted was invaluable to some of our seniors.
Raven with Alzheimer’s Association has been down several times.
Raven helps start a caregiver support group for those caring for husbands, wives, and friends with dementia.
Raven also comes down regularly and does classes on dementia.
We have teamed up with Southeastern Utah Health Department to have presentations on heart health.
They even handed out blood pressure cuffs to some of them, those who needed them.
They’ve also talked about suicide prevention, which is a real thing among the senior population.
The Yellow Dot Program and Vial for Life.
The health department also does a flu clinic in October, and that’s open to the public.
More regional hospitals, nutritionists, and a VISTA volunteer have each given presentations about nutrition.
The police department has been in to talk about safety, and they have also answered questions.
Wes Smith with Utah Assistive Technology has been down, and they presented what they can offer.
These are just a few of the resources that we’ve done.
We also have a loan bank at the senior center.
I don’t know if everybody is aware of that.
But we have wheelchairs, walkers, other durable medical equipment that has been donated to the center and then loaned out to people.
Sometimes just for a weekend, sometimes for months.
We also have a lot of briefs, both men and women.
And they get donated, and then they’re given out to those in our community that need them.
We hosted the Wabasawbe’s Annual Community Thanksgiving.
This is the first time I’d ever worked this event, and I was amazed at the number of seniors who took advantage of the gathering socialization.
We have a boat on the set.
As we came into the holiday season, the activities kicked into high gear.
The seniors helped decorate trees at the senior center throughout the building.
They also helped with our second annual float in the library.
It is so much fun to see our home delivery driver, Jenny’s, ideas and talents come alive and into a great float.
She’s already got the next one planned.
So we enjoyed either our second or third annual cookie exchange.
A group of our seniors entertained at the care center in the Blackbridge senior housing with Christmas carols.
Talking about music and entertainment, we were privileged to be the recipient of a concert through our music fest, The Sopranos.
Deanna Braywick from the New York Metropolitan Opera and Amy Owens from the Santa Fe Opera.
These were two lovely ladies, and their music was just so beautiful it brought tears to people’s eyes.
It was one of the few times that I can remember that the seniors were silent, and they just enjoyed the music.
Our Christmas wish tree was a great success.
It is fun to see the recipients joy at their gifts.
We also had a lovely Christmas team.
We had the English crackers.
That was a lot of fun.
And our Christmas dinner was another great success.
Bryce from Wabasawi was playing the saxophone.
The food and fun atmosphere was exceptional.
The New Year brought another great concert group sponsored by the Bard Music Fest.
The fun group of four young gentlemen called W4.
It’s a chamber ensemble.
We have been so lucky to be recipients of more music fest generosity.
They gave 20 free tickets out to seniors for at least four or five concerts last year.
This year they gave 30 free tickets for each, for all five concerts.
So it was great fun.
Our Council of Unaging Chair, Karen Ferry, works with Bard Music Fest, and she’s our liaison, so she gets us lots of stuff.
She’s also a great advocate for senior housing in the community, which is so much needed.
Other talents who have shared their love of music with us are our own Ginger Clark.
She is such a treasure.
John Holland, Mike Duncan, Dave Arneson, and his son-in-law have all dropped in to play a few times this year.
The Flurry Dogs played our Trillicooker.
Each year the first graders come and sing for Valentine’s Day.
And also their Valley Roosters to their music.
They’re the best band back there.
We worked with CERDA and Aging Services out of Price to purchase a new handicap accessible van.
Thank you all for your help in this matter.
The Area Agency of Aging in Price offers so much help with our nutrition program, our socialization, and other programs for our homebound seniors.
Now we come to food and its importance in our life.
We have our third annual Trillicooker.
We have some great cooks at the Senior Center.
They have also contributed to a soup symposium and a pie social.
Numerous picnics and potlucks, some at parks, some in seniors’ backyards.
There is always great fun.
We are really getting into our teas, my favorite, with a Christmas tea and a Mother’s Day tea, and we hope to do a fall tea.
Chris has been very active, and Chris is the facility coordinator, in exploring different days.
I didn’t know there were different days, but she found Red Lickfish Day, Pie Day, Beer Float Day, Bubble Gum Day, and the seniors seemed to really enjoy that.
This year, we also did a pet contest, and we had some really great entries.
Though it seemed like cats were our biggest category.
Moab Senior Games has also worked with us and sponsored a trip to Hole in the Rock with a great lunch served by Spitfire Grill.
Moab Senior Games Cookout and Cornhole Tournament was so much fun last year, and we have one planned for the end of this month.
We try and have a monthly crafting, and have some artists that utilize the crafting twice a week.
Some of our seniors also had a craft fair, just for the seniors at lunch.
Other resources we have is the Senior Health Insurance Program, where we offer help with Medicare Part D, which is your drug plan.
Some Medicaid, not very good at it, but I’m learning, and some cost-sharing programs.
We do yearly trainings to keep us up with the changes in Medicare.
We also try and keep our seniors aware of new scams.
And this year, I think we worked together with Adult Protective Services that I can never remember.
We’ve worked on several cases together, and we have one right now that we’re working on, so it’s been really great to have them as a resource.
We do have some future trips planned.
I planned a trip to Heber, and a ride on the Heber Creeper in October.
The Avalon Theater in Grand Junction for a Cirque Musica holiday wonderland show.
We put our Santa Fe trip off until spring.
And we also offered McAnulthy shopping trips to Grand Junction, which were well attended.
I am very proud of the Senior Center and its staff.
The work we do with our seniors and our community are of great value.
Thank you for your continued support.
Can I answer any questions?
We appreciate all you do over there, Yorty, for sure.
It’s not an easy job.
Anybody?
Questions?
Thank you.
Comments, right?
We really appreciate all you do down there.
Thank you very much.
Thanks a lot, Yorty.
Thanks, Quinn.
Okay, the next one will be the Children’s Justice Center.
Andrea Noyes.
Yordy, you’re a tough act to follow.
You do such a good job over there, girlfriend.
Keep it up.
I also might need some technical assistance.
Can you guys see that?
Not yet.
Okay, I really might need technical assistance.
You’re done.
Good luck.
Yorty’s the worst.
Let’s go to its own tab.
Drag that tab out so it looks like it’s on.
There you go.
Slide show.
Now go back to…
Right there.
So now…
Yeah.
Okay, thank you.
You guys for having me here tonight to present on behalf of the Children’s Justice Center.
I know you’ve seen me a lot, so I will try to keep this quick.
Our mission is to protect the children, support families, collaborate with partners, promote healing, advocate for justice, and strengthen our community.
If you hear me refer to we, it’s just easier for me.
I am a clue of one.
So at the Children’s Justice Center this year, we’ve increased our caseload by 58.62% of the number of kiddos that we’ve seen just from January until August.
As you can recall from my last year presenting, when I took over in 2023, we had already increased the number of kiddos that we’ve seen from 2023 to 2024 by 50%.
This is in addition to that.
So we’ve seen an additional 58.62% of kiddos.
Primarily, we’re seeing child sexual assault, followed by child endangerment, child physical abuse, domestic violence, and human trafficking.
And because of your support, we were able to meet this increased need and also receive a higher allocation from the state for the 2026 fiscal year.
Some wins that we’ve had at the legislative level this year is number one, SB 24.
This passed unanimously and was signed into law in March of 2025.
This is a huge win because it’s a law in the state of Utah against child torture.
If you can believe we’ve never actually had a law against child torture in the state of Utah, this not only covers that, but it provides a mandated 10-year prison sentence and inclusion in the offender registry.
This is really important because if our kiddos are abused or tortured, let’s say at age three, prior to this SB 24 passing, the recommended sentencing for an offender, for a first-time offender, was actually probation.
So they would go right back into the home of the child that they had tortured.
Now with a 10-year prison mandate, let’s say if the child was tortured at age seven, the caregiver won’t return to the child until the child’s 17, which gives that child a standing chance to stand up against their perpetrator.
So this was a really successful win for us this year.
Another successful win was SB 41.
This bill was defeated, which was exactly what we wanted.
It’s a really big deal because it would have made Utah’s sex offender registry easier to navigate for offenders.
By stopping it, we avoided making our state more attractive to sexual predators.
Some community engagement that we did this year is I held an open house featuring Dr. Fernando Rivero.
He’s an expert in human trafficking, and we utilized this opportunity to increase community knowledge around human trafficking.
We’re not only seeing this statewide, but we’re also seeing it here locally.
We held a really fun event called Chop the Walk, where we would just raise community awareness about child abuse and open dialogue regarding some of the issues our communities face.
We participated in Youth Voices Speak Out.
This is a powerful event that highlights students, and it requires them to do research about mental health projects.
It’s a powerful way for us to get connected and involved with the high school and junior highs.
I brought in experts, Rachel Jensen.
She spent the last 35 years training sex offenders under polygraph, or treating sex offenders under polygraph.
She helped educate the community about what we really need to look for when it comes to perpetration in our youth and how better to keep them protected.
I also funded and helped organize community awareness by bringing in Prevent Child Abuse Utah to HMK.
By bringing them in, they taught body safety lessons to all of our students at HMK.
Also, in June of this year, I had the opportunity to travel to Washington, D.C., and advocate on a federal level.
One of the opportunities I had is I was able to meet with Senator Curtis, Representative Malloy, Representative Owens, Representative Kennedy, and Senator Lee’s staff about the Crime Victims Stabilization Act.
This is a bill that temporarily takes leftover False Claim Act dollars.
These are non-taxable funds, but it takes these funds and replenishes the Crime Victims Funds.
The Crime Victims Fund is really important because those funds help our victims if they’ve incurred medical debt or they need to seek out therapy.
Those funds help pay so that they can be on a path to healing and resistance.
We spoke to Congress about that.
We also spoke with Congress about the Victims of Child Abuse Act.
We’ve previously been funded at a $41 million level federally.
We asked for funding to increase to the $50 million level.
We spent a lot of time just thanking Congress for their support of the work that we do at the Children’s Justice Centers.
Some of our system improvements that we’ve done is Grand County was one of the first two CJCs in the state to sign on to military MOUs.
Our military MOUs provide enhanced service to our military families.
I worked with community partners to create Grand County’s first ever sexual assault response team manuals.
This helps streamline our services and make sure that our survivors of sexual assault receive consistent care.
We’ve enhanced our collaboration by working with DCFS and law enforcement to review all incoming cases.
We have a weekly meeting where we meet together to make sure that every case that has been sent into law enforcement or DCFS is being seen through the center.
This can account for some of our increases in our numbers that we’re seeing through the CJC.
I’ve also been working on my master’s in social work, maintaining a 4.0 GPA to ensure that I’m providing our community with the highest level of service possible.
With deepest gratitude to the County Commission and thanks to the state and our wonderful community, we’re thrilled to have secured a new forever home for the Children’s Justice Center to better serve our community’s children.
I’m also grateful to share that I was able to secure an additional $70,000 from the state to cover the necessary remodels of the new CJC.
I was able to secure three different bids, and of the three bids, M2 came in the lowest at $72,000.
This covers costs of things like ADA bathroom replacement and the necessary upgrades in the medical center to make the new building a working building.
The state came in with $70,000, and then to complete the remodels, the small remaining costs can be covered with our nonprofit Friends of the Grand County funds.
So there doesn’t have to be any additional ask from the citizens of Grand County.
I’ve also secured a grant in the amount of $87,500 to build out a mental health program for our first responders.
Serving kiddos in really abusive situations can be incredibly difficult.
And it’s really important to take care of the people that are taking care of them.
And so I built out a mental health program, and we brought in professionals to help support these people that are doing this difficult work.
This mental health program not only supports our MBT, but it supports their family, and to ensure that they’re all well and taken care of.
So I’m really excited about this program.
And this year I was named the chair of the 7th District Victims’ Rights Committee.
As chair, I help ensure that we have collaboration across all 7th districts.
We look out for the rights of our victims and ensure that we’re meeting state statutory mandates, and making sure that their voices are heard, and that when they interface with the justice system, they’re getting the best experience possible.
I was also named the vice chair for the Utah CJC Standing Board.
I’ll serve in this role for the next two years, and then I’ll move into the chair position for the following two years.
And so I appreciate your confidence in me, because it’s elevating our voice at the state level.
And I just want to finish off by touching on our friends at the CJC, which is our nonprofit.
And we live because of you, our community.
We have been so overwhelmed in the best way by the love and support this amazing community continues to show.
Because you show up, we get to keep showing up for the youth who need it most.
Let’s see if I can get this playing.
If not, that’s okay.
It was just a showcase of some of the work that friends of the CJC has been doing.
And then I just want to follow up, if I can get this to come through, is thank you to commissioners for believing in this work and believing in me.
Your support has made me.
I think you’re good to go.
Bill, if you want to say we’re back.
All right, so we’re back.
We had some technical difficulties there.
We apologize for all that and the time is 4.53. We lost about two or three minutes there and we apologize to those that are Zooming in or those watching on YouTube.
And we will go back to Andrea and if folks have any comments or questions, I would like to ask one question.
When will you know on the increase in funding that you requested from 41 to 50 million?
I’m not sure on that.
That was just put in this, we’ll know the next legislative session but I won’t know definitively what that will look like.
Okay, thank you and congratulations on hard work and that 4.0. That’s due to hard work.
Anybody else?
Mike?
I was going to call it out earlier or later but to call it out now, thank you for working so hard and getting that extra $70,000 on top of the previous grants too.
Keep up the work.
Did you cover the Friends board’s fundraiser as well?
I got to everyone except for the one that’s happening this weekend.
Have a kickball tournament this weekend if you guys want to play.
Sign your team up by Wednesday and it’s going to be fun.
It’s a double elimination tournament and all the proceeds go to the Friends of CJC which directly supports our mission at CJC.
And what time and where is that?
It’ll start at 9 p.m. at the ball field or 9 a.m. at the ball field.
You want to say thank you to the city, I believe.
Did they waive the fee?
Yes, huge thank you to the city and Jay over there has been helping us put everything together.
Very good, thank you.
Sorry for the technical difficulties right in the middle of your report.
And the next thing on our agenda shows a public hearing which we will hold off until after 6 o’clock and so we can then move on here with our general business action items.
The first one we’ll start off with is whether or not any commission members have disclosures or conflicts with any agenda item that we have posted today.
Doesn’t look like it.
Nothing.
And then just for the public’s information, we have moved the commission reports to the end of the meeting later today and if we were running long we would probably just allow the public to read those.
They are all entered in.
We’ve each sent in our reports and Dana has uploaded those so just to be less of a time restraint on those that are here participating and watching while we move that further down the item.
And so I will move into the approval of the consensus agenda items up here maybe.
Okay, so I do not have the payment of bills showing up here.
There’s a bills report.
All right, now we can go.
All right, the consent agenda item approval of the meeting minutes for August 5th and 19th, 2025 and ratification of the payment of bills.
The total bills amount to $1,212,056.06. Total payroll of
$296,441.23 with a grand total of $1,508,497.29. And then we have the ratification of grant
application for the rural county grant, governor’s office of economic opportunity,
acceptance of the $70,000 from the state of Utah, which was just mentioned for the CJC renovation,
ratification of contract extension with the USGS salinity loading study, which is ongoing.
And then the approval of emergency mutual aid interlocal cooperation agreement and the appointment to the housing authority board for two midterm vacancies.
Approval of a $10,000 grant fiscal year 26 WRI grant number 7352, cooperative agreement between Utah department of natural resources, wildlife and grand county weeds.
And the final one is the contract for Moab’s old growth forest video sand flats recreation area.
Yes, Jacques.
Move to accept the consent agenda as presented.
Motion by commissioner HHadler, second by commissioner McCurdy.
All in favor.
Motion passes unanimously and we move on then to the approval of the Moab tourism advisory board bylaws.
And I believe everybody should have seen the red line version of that through their email and uploaded as well.
This was from the HB456 that came on up here.
We made some changes to the bylaws.
It went to the travel council, Moab travel advisory board, and they made a couple of changes as well.
I think they changed a is to a there and corrected a couple of things where the chamber had been listed as a liaison further down in and they’re back up here for approval.
Commissioner McCurdy.
I move to approve the Moab tourism advisory board bylaws as presented.
Motion by commissioner McCandless, second by commissioner McCurdy.
Any discussion on this?
No, just a comment.
It’s just really helpful if we can get the red line version into the gate.
I mean, we’ve received it after Jacques requested it, but it’s really important these bylaws that we have the red line version.
So we understand what’s being changed and the citizens understand what’s being changed.
Yeah, I think everybody up here is very well aware of that.
It’s simply a mistake somewhere along the line and we will do better.
That’d be great.
Yes, Jacques.
Yeah, and I just wanted to expand on what Brian said.
So basically where this is making the board go from seven to nine, that’s including that city position as well as another at-large position.
No, it would not be another at-large.
It would be another TRT or TRC collecting there.
Oh yeah, and then the chamber would stay as a voting member as well.
All right, any further discussion?
Seeing none, I’ll call for a vote.
Those in favor?
Passes unanimously and we will move on to approval of the airport board bylaws with Mr. Gleason, the airport director.
When, Phil, do we have the red line version of that somewhere?
Now we do.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah, you all have that?
Okay.
So it’s just a proposal to make sure that our FBO has a spot on the airport board.
The FBO, as most of you know, is the company that does all of its business on the airport.
They provide fuel, they provide aircraft repair.
An FBO on an airfield, I often say, that is your airport.
When people come to an airport and they like it or they don’t like it, they don’t know who I am or what I’m doing to keep the airport the way it is.
They interact with the FBO.
It’s the front leading face.
They have the most to gain or lose by decisions that we make.
So the other two airports that I have been the director of, we’ve always made sure that the FBO has a spot on that board, if nothing else, so they can hear what’s going on because it impacts them more than it impacts just about anyone else.
So if that was our proposal was to make those changes so that we have an FBO board seat, it’s not going to be a long term.
It would be one year in the event that we ever have more than one FBO, which happens from time to time.
I don’t think it’ll happen here right soon.
But if we do have more than one, then every year it would rotate to another.
Yes.
You don’t have a question?
No, I thought you did.
No worries.
No worries.
Yes, Mike.
Go ahead with the question.
Two seconds here.
I move to approve the amended airport board bylaws as presented.
Motion by Commissioner McCurdy.
Do I have a second?
Okay.
Sorry.
Seconded by Commissioner Martinez.
All right.
We will open it up for discussion if there is any.
And you’re Steve, is that correct?
Oh, sorry.
Yeah.
You’re okay.
No, I haven’t met you before.
Let me do the next item right after this.
I had planned to introduce myself.
I can do it now.
No, it’s okay.
It’s okay.
So I’m introduced.
Yeah, I’m Trish.
Nice to meet you as well.
And several of you I have not met yet.
So just some clarity on this.
The other airports you’ve worked for, you said it was common to have an FBO and always as a voting member or non-voting member?
Voting member.
Okay.
But there are times when they will be, when they will abstain.
Okay.
This is going to be my question.
There are certain items where they would need to abstain and we would ask them to abstain.
That would be when there’s a conflict.
Okay.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yeah.
That was my initial thought.
Like it seems like there’d be some conflicts involved.
Yeah.
And there can be.
And those come up.
In which case they would abstain.
Okay.
I appreciate that.
Just on number three membership, the Roman numeral number five.
So it’s five voting, five and then in parentheses, four voting members.
And I imagine that changed.
It was probably five voting members and it’s moving to four so that we can have one voting member for the CNY for the FBO.
Is that correct?
You’d have to look at the number five on the, on these bylaws, Steve, and it’s a, should have been a typo.
Yeah.
We can correct it in parentheses, but they did not correct the written number.
So we need to have that correct.
We can correct that, that those should be the same.
Yes.
I just want to be clarified.
So sorry.
I didn’t catch that.
Can I amend my motion?
I’m sure it’s after to accept the type corrected typo.
The five that’s for him before that.
Thank you.
Cora.
You’re fine with the second on the end again.
Okay.
All right. Any further discussion?
For the public, FBO stands… for base operator.
Fixed-Base Operator. I’m not sure that’s going to clarify it anymore for those that aren’t familiar with airports, but as I said, they are the ones who provide most of the services to the flying public.
Right.
And for the public that currently is Red Tail Air at Canyonlands airport.
Yeah.
And they, they really are our face out there.
They meet the anybody from a single engine to a jet.
They provide fuel onsite out there.
Sometimes they pump the fuel into them.
And sometimes they do it.
Folks will do a self-serve out there, but these people are our representatives.
They usually meet if you’re parking a long ways away with a, what are they a little electric golf cart type thing and give people rights in and out.
And they’ll tug aircraft, the hangers and they’ll start them.
They’re the ones that hold the insurance to do that kind of work.
But yes, Jacques.
I just had a quick question pertains to, so it’s going to four at large members.
Are we, is one of those terms up now or how are we sliding in the…
Okay, great.
We had a resignation.
Just, just a reminder for—and commissioner Hedin brought this up—
Anybody that’s out there that’s on these boards, they have an obligation to go through read the conflict of interest waiver, sign that off.
If they run into questions, they can talk to me in the, in the capacity of the County attorney to walk them through that.
They have their own attorney I’m assuming, but they just can comply with any of the things that sort of normal, normal restricted conflicts.
Those come up pretty frequent.
So the best, best course of practice come out ahead of it, acknowledge it, disclose it.
And that’ll be really, really helpful for them.
And it happens to everybody on every single board or somebody that they would theoretically have a conflict with.
So it’s very normal and we can just handle it and they can get the forms online or through the HR office.
And when we have the representative that’s going to do this, we’ll make sure that they go through that.
And then I would imagine also that Jessica is probably on top of this, but any board member, commissioner, we all have to go through our open training.
And so just making sure that they, yeah, they do that online, open training, and then they provide that I believe to our HR department.
Okay.
Yeah.
Let’s keep record of that.
All right.
There’s no further discussion.
I’ll and we will move on to the request for local funding for the taxiway F paving project at the Moab regional airport.
And we will allow Mr. Gleason to introduce himself this time.
Okay.
I’m also going to bring some backup that most of you probably recognize as a former director here.
So I hate to do this and it’s going to be silly, but I think better when I’m standing.
So I’m going to stand up.
That’s good.
So my name is Steve Gleason.
I am the new airport director of Canyonlands Airport.
I’m very proud to be that.
I was very excited when that job opened up because I love Utah and I’ve always loved Moab.
Just a little bit about my background.
I started my career in economic development in Provo city.
I love doing that.
I was there for about five years.
I wrote a memo saying, I thought our airport was the most underused economic engine in the city.
Within two weeks, the mayor had assigned me to become the airport director.
So that’s how I wound up in airports.
Prior to that, I knew nothing about them.
So there was a steep learning curve.
When I got to Provo, it had less traffic than we have here.
It was smaller, I would say, in usage that we are here.
And I had this grandiose goal to bring commercial service there and to build a terminal because Provo was my hometown.
So I put a ton of effort into it that took 25 years.
But Provo is now, I was able to build two terminals.
I was able to get Provo’s airport to be self-sufficient for the first time.
I retired from Provo and then I went to rent in Washington where I worked for two years and we were able to double the revenue that rent in Washington was taking in.
I say this so that you’ll understand that my philosophy of all of this is I’m trying to be your subject matter expert.
So I’m here to make recommendations of what I believe we should do if we want the airport to become the economic engine that it can be for this community.
And with that said, we’ll move into what we’re recommending now.
If I can share my screen.
And then for those of you that don’t know, we’ve also got Judd Hill here who is with Lochner, who is our engineer of records for the airport.
And he is providing support and backup for Mr. Gleason.
Yes, hopefully I can make this work to perfection.
Okay, so again, I do better standing so I’m going to stand up.
So what we are asking for here is $666,902.53 to build a taxi lane that is unable to be funded by the FAA and yet is part of our master plan and is a place that we are going to have to build eventually.
Airports thrive on pavement, on tarmac.
If you don’t have pavement, asphalt, then it is impossible for anybody to build a hangar.
Somebody’s going to build a hangar and come out and start their aircraft on dirt and it chews up your aircraft, right?
So asphalt is extremely important on an airport and we have an opportunity here to piggyback on a project that is being funded by the FAA and get another taxi lane built when we can do it significantly cheaper.
Can you go to that next one?
Okay, so just to let everybody know where we are, if you can take a look at this, and I’m just going to show it to you that are in here, but Judd’s going to show it as well.
So the terminal is about right here and currently our only paved surfaces.
Would it be better if it was on the other side?
Yeah, maybe so.
Okay, I’ll go to the other side.
You can just turn that whole thing our way.
So maybe like, so if we zoom in.
The terminal is right here and our current taxiway system ends at this point.
So we’re proposing the FAA is going to build the U, if you can show them that, Judd, is going to build that U-shaped taxiway.
We have AIP funding, airport improvement grant funding for that project.
Now, while we’ve got our, let’s go to the next one now that we’ve shown them where we’re at.
Okay, so this is that U-shape up close.
This portion right here is the part that is funded by the FAA and it’s under construction as we speak.
This portion here is not AIP eligible because it does not meet, it just doesn’t meet the criteria to be AIP eligible.
So it would have to be funded locally.
Okay, so the cost of building this section right here is $666,902.
Our plan, our ask is that we get that money from the capital improvement budget of, or it is the capital improvement budget, right, that’s what it’s called.
I want to make sure I get the names right.
The capital improvement budget of Grand County that they would basically, in my opinion, loan that to us.
So we would take the $666,000, we would build this, and then we have a proposal that I’ve also done at both the other airports on how we can reimburse that and pay that back.
Now, as all of you know, airport money that is made at the airport must stay at the airport, except in the case that we are paying back a loan.
So what we did in Provo, what I’m proposing we do here, is we created a one-time fee per linear foot of taxiway or pavement that someone is using.
So all we did was take the cost of this project, divide it by the linear footage we have to lease out, and came up with a number of, I forget the exact, $221.40 per linear foot.
So if somebody wanted to build a hangar, and I think it’s on the next slide.
Yeah.
So, yeah, that’s not what I thought, but okay, that’s okay.
We’ll stay this.
So if somebody wanted to build a hangar, they would have to pay that upfront fee, it would be in their lease, a one-time fee of $221.40 per linear foot of taxiway that they are on.
We did this in Provo with the idea that it would be repaid, and by the way, there the cost was $2,500 per linear foot.
We did this with the idea that we would pay back the loan that we took from a private entity within 10 years.
Turns out we were able to pay that back in 10 days, because the demand was really high.
And we’ll get into in a minute how high the demand is here.
But I also want you to know how much it will cost us if we choose not to do it this year.
And even if we just waited one year and did it next year, as you can see on this slide, the extra amount would be $388,000 more.
That is because of mobilization.
That is because of re-engineering.
Right now, while we can piggyback on this FAA project, we can just get it done for a lot less.
And our master plan and our growth patterns all demonstrate that we are going to need to build this eventually, and it will never be cheaper to build it than it is right now while we can piggyback.
Okay, what do we got next?
You want to go back to the diagram?
Yeah, go back.
No, just go back to this one, because I know that one.
Sorry.
Yeah, because I forgot to emphasize.
So somebody building a 100 by 100 hangar, which is a big hangar in Moab, but there are many, and there’s demand for them.
They would be paying $26,568 for their linear footage that they are using, that one-time fee.
And it sounds like a ton of money, but these hangars cost half a million dollars.
So folded into that, it’s not quite as much.
A 40 by 40 hangar, significantly less, $13,240.
So it’s commiserate with how big the hangar is and how much money is being put into the hangar.
All right, that’s our idea.
So now let’s go to the other one.
Okay, just to give you an idea of how important it is that we utilize the airport.
This study was done by UDOT, and they did it for every airport in the state, but this is old.
It was done in 2018.
And it says what the airport contributes to the economy.
All right, and that’s the whole economy, not just Grand County, that’s Moab, that’s Green River, that’s everyone who benefits from the airport.
But the annual economic impact of having our airport just as it is, and it’s actually gone up since then, it would be almost $46 million a year being put into the economy because we have an airport.
We can look at that and attribute a little less than half of that to the fact that we have commercial service.
We have airline service, which contributes significantly.
But the other half of that is because we have general aviation.
So general aviation also contributes greatly, because when somebody builds a hangar, they use that hangar.
They fly in here, they bring people with them.
And that contributes to the economy as well in many, many different ways.
Did I forget anything?
Unless you wanted the specifics, if you want to talk about base air ground.
Oh yeah, we’re going to talk about demand.
So our master plan goes out for 20 years, and they make predictions, pretty high predictions of what they think will happen.
And they predicted that in 2044, our base that aircraft would be 53 based aircraft.
And right now our based aircraft is 56.
So we are 20 years ahead of schedule, because the demand has grown.
And we are running out of tie-down space.
We don’t have any pavement to build a hangar on.
None.
This will be the first, the one project we’re proposing will be the first time we’ve had pavement to build a hangar on in a long, long time, probably since Judd was here.
So this will give us the opportunity to get some of those airplanes and hangars, stimulate that economy, stimulate that growth.
So that’s what we’re asking.
We’re asking that we can get this money to build this while it’s the cheapest.
And then we have a plan to pay it back as hangars are built.
How many?
I’d like to just add some information real quick, and then I’ll call on you to go around.
But the current problem that we have at the airport is a lot of people fly in here in their jets.
They drop their passengers off and they leave.
They don’t buy fuel.
They don’t spend any time here picking up on the services that our FBO provides.
And that’s because they don’t have anywhere to pull them in out of the sand and the sun.
And so there is a huge need.
And that’s what this taxiway extension is going to provide for us.
And so I thought I’d just give that.
Also, Bill, you want to let them know that next year we’ve also got an AIP project to strengthen our ramp and expand our ramps and hold jets.
Because right now the weight of certain jets, we don’t have the ability to hold.
So all of this comes together.
Okay, I think that’s right.
So Mary, go ahead and then I’ll go.
Yes, please.
Yes.
So how I’m looking at the draft here.
So it’s the second.
The center one.
Yeah, some in the front.
And are those rectangles or squares or those?
Those would be hangars.
That’s where we would have potential hangars.
So it’s like a smaller hangar and then a larger hangar?
Or would that be a smaller or a larger?
It can be either.
We’ve just given sort of an example of what could be there.
You could put a big hangar next to a small hangar.
That happens all the time.
It’s who wants to build, when they want to build, and what they want to build.
So then we lease out the ground.
They build the hangar that they need for their use.
So yeah, you’ll have some large ones.
Okay, so that’s just kind of an example to show what we can do.
And how many people are interested already?
Do we have people that are already interested in buying?
We have three people right now that are waiting to start building until we get some pavement.
So you’ll see those hangars under construction pretty quickly.
And it’s been my experience that once the ball gets rolling and people see that I’m not holding them up and we’re allowing them to build, it starts to roll pretty quickly.
Are they thinking larger or smaller hangars?
I would think that along the U, we would probably be looking at the larger hangars.
And then along the part in the middle that we’re proposing to build, that would be the location where the smaller hangars would probably work better because that taxi lane will be narrower.
So we want to make sure that we use the larger taxi lane to be able to get those jets and those King Airs and those larger aircraft.
So Trish, and then I’ll go.
Can I finish my question?
Yeah, go ahead.
So those on the bottom taxiway.
Yeah, you go on.
So are those hangars that will be accessed, will hangars be accessed from that taxiway as well or is that?
No, they don’t.
They are accessed from the ramp coming down this direction and this is a wide taxiway and we see big hangars there.
This one right here is ready to be built.
They’re just waiting for me for us to get them to go.
Trish and then Mike.
So I’m going to make a proposal and thank you.
That was an excellent presentation and I’m excited to have you in place.
There was almost nothing in the packet including the fiscal impact and this is a pretty major expenditure for us.
So my recommendation is we postpone this item until the next meeting.
Let me just finish and the reason being is under the auspices of transparency, we should put a fiscal impact in there.
There was none and I think there was a little misconception when I read it.
I mean there was nothing in there.
So you had a great presentation which I would recommend that proposal be in the packet.
So I was kind of under this like oh it’s going to be funded by the FAA and we’ll get it reimbursed or something.
I had no idea that it was purely coming out of our coffers.
So my recommendation is we postpone this and make sure that the citizens have all the information because we’ve made two other large expenditures in this realm this year and we’ve beat the horse beyond it.
Pickleball court we beat it and beat it.
So that you know people know what kind of expenditures.
I certainly understand the concern.
All right I’m going to go to Mike but there is a time constraint here and so even though it’s a recommendation we appreciate that we will want to be moving forward with this tonight.
So it’s really the— again the agenda in the agenda packet.
Well then the agenda packet is incomplete and it’s it’s it goes against our ideals of transparency.
Mike and then I can I go to Jacques, thank you.
Who’s going?
Mike yes please.
I haven’t ever heard a department want to pay us back to in that fashion.
So that was good.
I would have liked to know in the fiscal budget the fiscal impact also.
I see the benefits and see where money would come back.
I understand that.
Yeah but I also have a hard time talking to my constituents.
Yeah.
In the sense that a lot of what I hear directly to me— “Mike you can fix it.”
I’m one of seven here, but my constituents can’t reach Salt Lake on a — can’t reach Salt Lake still daily or—
Yeah right now we’re under contract with certain airline.
I definitely understand that.
We don’t want to get too far into the weeds there but that contract is coming up and I am very very committed to making sure we reconnect Salt Lake.
Okay now that hits my points but yeah I don’t know.
Have you gone over with Gabe?
Have you gone over with Stephen Stock’s office here on contractual payment backs or paying the rent due or—
Well what I’ve talked to them about is we simply put it into the lease as a one-time payment.
Okay.
So you write it into any portion of the lease as an amended portion of the lease and it simply says the linear footage up front impact fee for this hangar will be this much and then they write you a check for that before the lease can even be signed.
Then that goes directly back to repaying this.
Now I know the pickleball court was probably very tough but I don’t think they…
Apples to oranges is what I see there.
Yeah.
In all seriousness what would be the timeline of this?
Well and we can’t we can’t tell for sure.
We know that there’s three hangars ready to be built now so that’s going to be some revenue coming right back in.
Sorry to cut in.
If you ask would it be written in that repay within 10 years?
My ask would be to give us 10 years to repay this.
Okay.
And I would hope as happened in Provo that once that ball started rolling we would get it repaid a lot quicker.
Okay.
All right.
That’s my question.
Jacques— thank you.
First off I agree I definitely wish that had more information in the packet.
I was totally caught off guard as far as the financial impact goes too and I don’t understand why that wasn’t in there.
I can sum some of that up to the fact that I’m brand new here.
I can also sum some of the fact that we’re coming here not as early as we maybe should have because you know I’ve been here two months and just evaluated how we how we could even try and get this done.
So I’ve just been trying to work to make sure we can get it done.
I’m still learning process and procedure.
So sorry.
I don’t think that’s on you Steve.
I want to make sure it’s all there.
But a few other things yeah as far as the impact fees I will I mean we should account for inflation with those right?
Of course.
Yeah right.
Okay and then is there—
Hold on but we don’t have to because we will have already expended the money but we can.
We can add a CPI adjustment.
Sure because that money will be worth less in 10 years than it is today.
We can add a CPI adjustment to that account.
Right.
Okay and then as far as the hangers go like I just I just did super quick math and you’d have to sell 48 hangers 48 of the 40 by 40 hangers right to pay back the loan amount or 24 the 100 by 100.
Is there—?
At the current amount we did we did the linear footage right and we tried to keep that impact fee as low as possible so we did it at build out.
We could increase that linear footage amount and potentially pay it back sooner but I want to make sure that we are not…
All right one thing I believe is just because the government can charge something doesn’t mean they should.
So just trying to keep those those fees as low as possible.
But yes we would we would pay it back at build out which I would hope would happen within 10 years.
So we’re hoping to get those.
It is, there’s no guarantee of that.
So yeah would you…
But every hanger we build does contribute as we showed in the in the other slide does contribute to the economy and and the general area.
I understand the value.
Good.
But…okay.
Anything else.
Anybody else.
Mary.
I just wanted to follow up is that I have an incredible amount of respect for Judd because I was fortunate enough to be able to work with him when he was the manager at Airport.
He had this huge large change in our airport and it was very costly and a very painful at times experience for all of us.
So I have a lot of I’ve got the airport to be successful.
I see it as an economic driver but I am just really taken aback that we didn’t know until right now today what the fiscal impact was going to be when that’s a big decision to make on the spur of the moment.
And then now to hear if it was timely as I’m hearing right now.
Yeah.
Then it being timely it seems also that the information should have been given to us in a much more timely fashion than what we’ve received.
And I’m not putting I’m not blaming you but I’m just concerned that it fell between the cracks.
It fell down and it’s put me in an odd and comfortable position.
Let me speak to that just a little bit.
When we when I first found out that we could build F that’s what it’s called Taxiway Foxtrot.
When I found out we could do that and piggyback on this AIP project— I knew that the county was not exactly overflowing with revenue at the time.
Right.
So it was a tough ask.
So I went I looked for other ways to possibly fund it.
Those, those did not happen.
And when I when I went to Mark and Quinn they were, they said that it would be it might be easier and cleaner rather than involving a third party to do the same thing from the county.
So I went at it from a different perspective.
So by the time I got around to this perspective— which I do believe is the right way to do it, it is a better way to do it than to involve a third party—
When I got around to this part I got the information out there as quick as I could.
I’m sorry if I didn’t get you enough information that I will do way better next time.
All right.
Brian and then we’ll go from that.
Anyone else first.
Yeah.
And then my second.
Perfect.
Yeah.
Can you explain to me a little bit about the timeline and why the why the crunch on the timeline.
OK.
All right.
You’re trying to run this concurrently.
When does the project start.
It started, right?
In fact, they wanted me to have told them and made this decision about two weeks ago.
But I knew we couldn’t do that.
The reason is they have mobilization fees.
They have mobilization issues.
They have to secure more people to come do it.
They’ve only got 60 days to complete the whole project.
I’ve offered to give them more time because we are coming at this a little bit later.
But it’s because of the contractor.
If we can’t give them a good a good heads up or heads down then they cannot plan for it.
So we’re just trying to save us the three hundred and eighty eight thousand more that it will cost us in the future.
Now the whole goal here is to get hangers there so that we’re selling fuel so that we have more people more activity at the airport.
This is this is an investment that we make in order to move the airport closer to a self-sufficiency which is my goal.
One more question.
If I just finish up.
And then so.
So this project has already started.
This would have to happen—
Yeah it would happen soon.
We’ve got to tell them go or not go.
OK.
And this is one of your first first actual acts as being a director.
Yeah.
So this is this is probably one of the more would you would you say this is one of the more important projects that we have the opportunity for right now at the airport.
Yeah.
And I wish it had come when I was here for three years and kind of understood the lay of the land a little better.
But it didn’t.
It came when I was here for a month.
So you know we’re trying to put it together the best we can.
I’d like to go ahead and make a motion I’d like to approve the funding for six hundred and sixty six thousand five hundred and ninety nine hundred and two hundred fifty three cents and fifty three cents as a from capital improvements or the paving of taxiway.
All right.
Motion by Commissioner Martinez second by Commissioner McCurdy.
Further discussion.
Mike did you have a question.
Has the repayment contract, has that been worked out?
What do we have.
We don’t have that drafted yet.
OK.
But it would be drafted upon or before receiving funding.
I mean standardly.
Yeah I can I can I can draw up a lease and have Mr. Stocks look it over.
It’s a pretty simple addition to our standard lease just in the in the front of it.
Jacques please.
And then Melodie.
I’m going to I’m going to abstain from this.
I generally support the airport.
I actually have a business that kind of depends on the airport.
I totally see the value there.
I’m honestly horrified that we didn’t get any more information on here.
I think I think somebody knew how much this would cost.
And the fact that we’re just going to write off almost seven hundred thousand dollars without half an hour discussion and no prior information about it with the financial crisis that we’re in right now is to me disturbing and mind blowing.
But I’m not going to vote against it.
I’ll abstain.
Sure.
I’m going to go to Melodie.
First I’m going to weigh in here.
I’ll take the responsibility that we didn’t make sure that this was in the packet.
I am the liaison to that airport board and we can continue to make in references that this falls on somebody’s shoulder.
I’m glad to take that on my shoulder although there were three of us at the agenda review and nobody brought it up or questioned it when it went through agenda review.
There was also multiple staff people that were involved in this and I’m certainly not blaming it on any one person.
I’m more than glad to take the responsibility.
I think that Steve’s done an awesome job and that we have to move this forward and we can continue to try and keep making political points here like we’re gaining something by bringing this financial thing up.
When I sat through two years of you guys spending money up here at this on this dais like there were you know I mean we didn’t even vote for the budget that you put out last year.
We can go on and on and on about financial things going on behind our back or intentional misuse or all kinds of things.
I’m saying simply let’s do something for the good of the community here and abstaining I would recommend that you vote for it.
I think that’s the better thing to do ethically but I’ll go to Melodie and then Mary.
You’ve had several options.
I’m not going to go on with this debate going around here.
I have a right to speak
but we don’t have enough right to keep interrupting.
I have one point I want.
Each person has spoken and Melodie is up.
So I just want to make sure that that to Jacques point that we do put in that possible inflation in there because of the payment.
You know it takes 10 years to pay it back.
We can add that in there.
So I think Steve will make sure that goes.
Yeah and all of our leases we’re just in the process of going through all of our leases.
We’re looking for ways to find revenue anywhere we can.
We’re going to implement PFCs for the first time.
That’s never been done here which both Judd and I kind of are shocked.
That’s a passenger facility charge which the FAA allows us to charge per ticket.
So we’re going to implement those.
We’re going to put CPI adjustments on every lease that goes in and we’re meter and charge for water.
So we’re looking for ways to make sure that that this airport gets as close to self-sufficient as we possibly can.
But one of the ways we do that is we have to invest in pavement because we cannot bring more people in if we don’t have that.
And each one of the I mean each one of those hangers is bringing money into our economy.
Absolutely.
And I don’t want to see the charge go astronomical to those.
I mean we could make money on this obviously but I don’t think that’s the right way.
Which is what they ended up doing in Provo.
We made we made a lot.
But it was a different situation.
Those were corporate hangers.
Those were people with G650 jets.
It was you know I just don’t want to do that to the people that work here.
All right I’ll go to Trish, Mary and then Mike.
It would be my third time so I have to wait for everyone’s second.
Thank you.
Normally you just get the one and today you get three.
Again Steve I want to reiterate I thought I think your proposal’s excellent.
I appreciate it.
I am going to vote against it simply really under the auspices of being transparent to our communities.
And to Bill I kind of want to I want to speak to well first the agenda review team.
I thank you for taking responsibility but I do think it was the whole team.
You know we have two items where there was no red line version.
I don’t know what bylaws you’re changing.
I can’t parse that out unless I have a red line version.
So I’m gonna you know and then this having no fiscal impacts which we’ve actually had multiple — Mel and I’ve talked about this today —
We’ve had multiple items in the past with no fiscal impact.
So it’s really important you know that we have those agendas as complete as possible.
And I know that’s difficult.
I know it’s like herding cats sometimes but this was an excellent proposal that should have been in that agenda and the fiscal impact should have been there.
So I’m going to vote against it because of that.
And then the last thing I want to say is: it’s not political, Bill.
I mean I hate to tell you we are politicians.
So you keep using that term and we’re politicians.
This is — this isn’t politics.
I’m not going to run for County commission again.
I’m making that statement so everybody’s clear.
I’m in for three and a half more years and then I’m tapping out and I’ve done my public service.
So it’s not political.
I think that the community has the right to have a complete agenda and understand the impacts.
That that’s what I’m saying.
So this isn’t political.
It’s just you know— and again thank you.
It’s an excellent proposal.
I know it’s a good thing for the airport.
I’m voting against it because of the manner that it was brought to us. Which our agenda review team should know better.
All right I’m going to go to Mr. Tyner over here administrator before I go to Mike and then Mary.
I’ll just be real quick.
I will try my best to ensure along with our office that every piece of the information that is needed is in those packets.
From this point forward I will pay particular attention to that.
There was I assure you there was nothing done purposefully on our behalf but we will work to ensure that you don’t have that issue in the future.
Thanks Mark.
Yeah if I make a proposal again which I hope I do I’ll make sure that I spell it out really early.
This one was this one was a little bit quick.
We had to get going on it.
Mike and then Mary and then Melodie.
Never do I love seeing 700 grand spent on a whim.
Nor do I.
Thank you for having a payment plan, a sales pitch plan there kind of to the airport.
I really take that my constituents would really want to continue to see work out there but you’ve heard my words.
I cannot drive these home enough.
I hear it weekly right now.
I was daily now it’s down to weekly but those larger contracts or commercial contracts really hit my constituents hit my district hard.
A lot of our medical care in our district goes to Salt Lake and can’t easily attend some of their trips and so I just wanted that heard.
I understand that.
I think some of your constituents might also be people that are out there building those hangars and working on some of those things.
So there are jobs that get created by doing this type of construction that is helpful.
Also the reason that we’re going with the capital improvement fund is because it’s a fund that is that’s what it’s for.
I mean it’s not like they can take that revenue and do something else with it.
It’s there for capital improvements.
So if there is sufficient amount in there I think you’re going to spend it on a capital improvement somewhere.
I’m recommending because I’m only the airport expert.
Other people know other things.
I’m recommending that we do this with that with that with some of that capital improvement money because you’re going to make a capital improvement somewhere and the best in my opinion best investment you can make is in your airport.
When and if done I would love to see it.
I would love to see it done.
I would love to come out and look at it hands-on.
Come out anytime any of you call me anytime.
I’m happy to talk to you about it.
Mary and then Melodie.
I already apologized to Trish and Jacques when I came in because I was on the agenda review and I made an assumption that when I saw no fiscal impact well then I assumed it was going to be similar to what we’re so often dealing with when we’re dealing in the airport route.
So it’s a loan but we get it paid back and it’s an FAA.
I went along the thing that this it was going to be similar to things in the past and we don’t see the written agenda summary at the agenda review.
Right so and I apologize I made some assumptions of my own and so I apologize there was not more information in that.
I’ll make sure there is next time.
As I said procedurally some places do things differently.
They don’t always want the numbers on the front.
I’m going to vote for this because I’m not going to cut my nose off to spite my face.
I don’t want to spend a hundred thousand dollars to get something I could get for sixty.
Right.
Six hundred and I think and I agree that the airport forever has been a driving force for our economy and our group.
I just think it needs to be… we as a commission make sure that our agendas are done in a way that’s transparent.
All right.
I will just make one reference.
I believe groundwater and sewer now their impact fee is up to about thirteen thousand five hundred dollars plus or minus to build a house.
I don’t think this is out of reason and I think most of these hangar owners will more be more than willing to do that to be able to get their airplanes inside.
But with that I’ll call for a vote.
Those in favor.
Those against.
And those abstaining.
All right.
We have that passes with one against and one abstaining.
Commissioner Hedin against and commissioner Hedin abstaining.
We’ll move on to the next.
Thank you for your time and see you on the next one.
Okay.
Approval where we ask for approval of the independent contract agreement with GPP consulting for internal auditing services and this went through the audit committee earlier where we approved the hiring of GPP and this fiscal although I’m not totally certain Mark you might have to help me with this.
I believe this is going into next year’s budget was my understanding.
This is it.
This is not a fiscal hit on this year’s budget and it will be included in next year’s budget.
So this is just an approval of the contract with GPP analytics and authorizes the start of their work which I believe is just putting together the contract.
Is that correct?
At this point for the internal auditor work.
They’re not starting any actual work this year.
They were going to start.
There was that email this morning from Julian that outlined a more specific timeline.
I didn’t see anything from Julian.
But we’re not where this has no fiscal impact this year.
GPP is going to start this work next year.
They prefer to start in January and I’m not sure where we want to go from there.
This I don’t even believe this required the vote at this point.
No, because they’re not approving anything.
They are going to start work next year.
That’ll be something that you all will have to look at in the budget.
Okay that was that’s why I was feeling a little nervous.
I feel like this is backward.
Like it feels like we have to go through the budgeting process and approve the budget before we could start.
If if we were going to start contracts.
Excuse me.
Don’t mean to step on your toes there.
If we were going to start this year we had found money in other budgets.
Julian came back from GPP and recommended that we start next year.
That was after it was already gone through the.
So I guess you—
Okay.
Okay.
So I guess—
So we didn’t….
What are, what’s the purpose?
Basically a discussion and we’re moving on.
Okay.
Um I just want to make.
Well I think Julian’s great.
Being on the audit committee and I met him and I think he’s going to do quality work for us.
But I also want to make the point that this is considerably more than we spent on internal audit.
And previously we’ve spent under 10,000 a year on an internal auditor.
Is that right Bill?
Yes.
Okay.
It is.
I think that we’re um seeing a considerable expansion.
And looking into finances that that we never did in the past.
They’re also auditing us to a standard that we’ve never seen in the past either.
We simply had a CPA who looked at our books and gave us a report out of it.
And this is a government— I forget the acronym for the standards, Mark.
And I apologize but we are getting a consulting firm here that is meeting a standard that we haven’t in my history of county.
So on the internal audit.
So that’s all this one really is the discussion.
We can move on to the next one if anybody else wants to weigh in on this one.
Otherwise…
Oh so it’s kind of moot point at this… is what we’re saying?
Yeah.
Okay great.
It’ll come up actually next in the budget committee.
Okay.
Remember how many hours it was for?
120 or?
No it was more than that.
It was 240 hours.
240 hours.
Okay.
All right the next one is another one of mine.
And this was one that was recommended that we consider at the last meeting.
I know that there has been quite a bit of back and forth regarding public lands and protecting public lands.
And this just allows us to join a group that represents many different entities but starts out representing, representing grazing and access to our public lands.
And so this does have a fiscal impact to it.
The membership would be a thousand dollars and this gives us an opportunity to join in with a much larger group that works all the way back at a federal level to keep our access open on public lands.
And so I’m not sure where we start here, Trish or Mike.
I’ll start with Trish given she’s…
So I have, but I have been very concise.
So Bill mentioned this represents many interests and that’s not correct.
This is a national organization that represents cattle and sheep producers who pull 22,000 federal grazing permits across across the western United States.
This is a national organization.
They do have a Utah branch.
It is a 501c6 non-profit which promotes common business interests so not a 501c3.
I can kind of get into this idea that basically we’re sponsoring a 501c6 and I just want to make it clear that Grand County I looked it up in 2024 we have 94 non-profits within this county.
A lot so if we start kind of parsing out spending monies to all the non-profits that we want to support it’s going to have a large fiscal impact.
So what this organization does it simply when I looked at like what you could do to support them it said just add your voice to our ongoing efforts right and so to me I am more than willing to add my voice to their efforts and supporting public land grazers and that’s and I’ll get to that but that’s kind of where I think we should go.
I did speak to the chair of our conservation district because I really think it should be our conservation district that should if they want to sponsor this organization I think it would fall more into their purview.
She didn’t really mention being interested in that but I said can you give me a number of actual public land grazers in Grand County and she said there’s about 10.
I would say there’s probably five that actually live and have grazing rights in the county.
So what I mean by that for example is in the Cisco desert, we’ve got the Jensen’s grazing cattle out on the Cisco but they’re living in Emery County right. So we’ve got to have both… you know I can think of D Taylor, not even Buzz Bates is grazing anymore, so it’s a very small amount of people that this applies to.
I’ve looked at their sponsorship because that is what you guys are asking for and it’s really major it’s either companies or major University of Wyoming right Department of Ag.
So really major entities there’s actually no counties no municipalities shown as sponsors even though their board of directors in Utah Tammy Pearson is a county commissioner from Beaver County but Beaver County is not a sponsor and you think if you have somebody that’s on their board of directors you know Beaver County has way more grazers than we have that they would be sponsoring this.
So my proposal and I think I’ve and anyways I just I think it’s I’m
more than happy to you know support grazers but I do think this is a very small sliver of who
we should be representing regarding public lands right which Access Fund, Friends of Indian Creek
I mean there’s just endless organizations that utilize public lands that if we’re going to
parse this one out we probably should now start doling money out to all these various nonprofits
that have their own interests on public lands.
So that being said I’m going to make a motion
that we and I’m not sure how to do this because there’s not a letter attached
I would just say— state that we let me kind of go back here— we add our voice
in supporting the ongoing efforts of the Utah Public Lands Council but we do not become a
sponsoring member of Utah Public Lands Council with the fiscal risk you know with the fiscal
impact that it would mean for the county.
Second.
Motion by Commissioner Hedin, second by Commissioner McGann.
Mike you’re up.
Two-fold here advocating one of the statements made in their letter and
that was included in the packet advocating for resource management strategies that prioritize
local stewardship by promoting policies that balance economic opportunity resource conservation
and recreational access while protecting grazing rights preserving water resources
and ensuring long-term sustainability for both public and state lands and that entirely has my
buy-in.
I was going to make a motion just the same so I’d like to make a secondary motion or what is that called?
Substitute motion.
I’d love to uh back to the end of summary.
I move to approve the joining of the Public Lands Council and pay the associated invoice for sponsorship member of one thousand dollars.
Second.
Substitute motion by Commissioner McCurdy seconded by Commissioner Martinez and it looks like we’ve got Mike are you sending?
I’ll go with us next round.
Okay back to me.
Jacques, and then we will go…
Those are great words you read Mike but when the rubber hits the road it’s a it’s a sheep and cattle organization.
It’s grazing.
Grazing is so such a small part of the overall public lands picture in Grand County.
I sat behind a desk at a busy bike shop on Main Street and the almost all the only complaint that I heard about our trails where there’s too many cows on them that people were running through but I told people that’s but we can’t say that’s that’s traditional right?
It’s not it’s just dealing with it.
It doesn’t bother me that much.
I sold some fenders out of it but I’m not gonna support it.
Cattle and grazing organization to the tune of a thousand dollars and we can’t even write letters supporting public lands for other purposes.
I honestly think you’re trolling us, Bill.
That’s what I think.
You think what?
I think you’re trolling Trish and myself.
Interesting.
Trish up to you and then Mike and then we’ll go to Mary.
So I just want to reiterate oh sorry you did say it.
So when you go to their websites the first thing that it says, Mike, is it’s a national organization that represents cattle and sheep producers who hold 22,000 federal grazing permits across the western United States.
First thing it says.
So I think they’re very clear about what their agenda is and again I support that agenda and I’m more than happy to write letters for it.
I think we’re getting we’re getting into a slippery slope if we go we’re going to send a thousand bucks to this organization that’s you know stewards of public lands so then where do we where do we where where is that line drawn?
There’s so many organizations that do something for our public lands in this community.
There’s so many.
Friends of Indian Creek one of the one of the 501c3s that I started.
Can we give them a thousand bucks?
I guess I’ll put that on the agenda for next time.
No I will.
So I just I again I think a letter of support and stating that again that we want to add our voice to their efforts.
I’m more than happy to do that and any of the proposals I made in the past were simply letters.
They weren’t fiscal obligations and once again I’m going to bring up that we keep stating that we’re in a fiscal crisis and yet it really doesn’t seem like it because we keep spending money out of budget.
So Mary and then Brian and then Mike.
Okay I’ll keep in track don’t worry.
Thank you.
I do find it interesting that other commissioners that are already in it are not…they’re not sponsoring, their county isn’t sponsoring.
I find that interesting and then we’re going to turn around and sponsor it because you know for a 501c6, which this is is, we have…there are lots of organizations in this town that are non-profits that do a great deal to help us such as Rubicon.
I mean I you know they come into our community once or twice a year and spend much lots of time helping us deal with mitigation.
You know and I support them.
I support them monthly.
I give them a donation monthly but we and we have other non-profits that help our homeless that we have more homeless than we have grazers and we’re not we’re not donating anything to help our homeless.
I just I think we’re going to start sponsoring non-profits.
I mean I know we have a process where they apply and then it’s decided during budget season and so you know I just think it’s interesting that we’re wanting to support this non-profit and yet it’s a non-profit that supports and helps so few people in our county where there are non-profits that support our county such as team Rubicon that we aren’t sponsoring.
So I don’t see them reasonably want to sponsor it.
Brian.
Yeah thanks.
Now I’ve seen a lot of help that this commission has given to to non-profits and maybe not maybe not just a fiscal but but helping them out with legislation helping them out with all types of ways but I have not seen too much from this commission as helping out any type of our agricultural.
Frank push them on through.
That’s not true.
Not that I’ve seen in fact that’s something I wanted to chat with you about.
Yeah I’ve got something I’ve got.
Let’s go to the quorum please.
Yeah thank you but I do think that that that our
ranchers are underrepresented you know I mean that that that was one of the founding you know
industries here in Grand County and it’s slowly slipping away and I think this is a good chance
to go ahead and and just even if it’s a thousand dollars right just to make sure that those people
know that that Grand County still has their back and that we still want to look out for them right
and then we want to make sure that their interests are represented because I mean how
much time have I did I spend on on e-bikes I mean I’m not an e-bike rider right but I spent all that
time right on on trying to help out the e-bike industry right I think this is a small this is
a small token right here to be put in towards towards the ranching industry that does play
a big part here in Grand County.
Mike and then I’m gonna wrap it up.
I understand.
Just ahead in this just ahead in this agenda we’re looking to donate or to put three thousand towards the Dark Skies Compliance Initiative and I remember having an understanding with Friends of Arches and Canyonlands to administer Dark Skies.
I really love supporting ranchers, cattlemen, grazing rights, multiple and the stated multiple uses that that organization came from.
There’s no hidden malice with this there’s no… if we can join for join and put our
voice to it and it costs a thousand bucks I love doing so and in that if you have a list of if you
have a list of non-profits that need a thousand bucks you can put them forward too. We’re all
commissioners we can put it on the agenda like we we have that capability. If it gets voted
through or voted down, you have that capability as a commissioner.
Melodie.
Well I just wanted to bring out there’s other levels of membership I don’t know if anybody’s I know Mike’s motion was a thousand dollars but there’s a five hundred dollar and there’s a $250 one as well so I don’t know if that’s something people can get.
I’ll let mine stand.
I’ll let my stand.
All right I’m going to call for a vote on this vote in the paper.
Those opposed and those abstaining.
I’m going to abstain and may I may I speak to that really quick.
We that I speak for with two against and one abstaining.
Commissioner Hedin abstaining.
Commissioner HHadler and Commissioner McGann against. That’s very brief.
Very brief thank you.
And I am highly supportive of ag.
My father had at one point a thousand head of cattle so and I currently have horses and pigs and every sheep and you name it.
I think that this was the wrong way to go about it.
Again I think a letter of letter of support would have sufficed and by the way Brian I am bringing an ag protection ordinance.
I have this my flyer.
I’ve been working on that with PNZ and and I do think that will do more for our ag hope community than so I do work very hard with the conservation districts.
I do a lot.
I’m working on it.
Let’s move on to the next agenda.
I want to make it clear that I am a commissioner and I can speak and I know you want to keep our statements brief but you do not control how long a commissioner can speak.
We’ve got decorum and you’re outside of that so thank you and let’s move on to the next item.
Thank you.
Okay we will start with citizens to be heard and then we move into we have a public hearing that we need to open before we go back to our agenda items here.
So citizens to be heard do we have anybody new in the commission chambers that would like to speak?
It doesn’t look like it.
Do we have anybody online?
All right six o’clock citizens to be heard which was actually at 6.06. No one has a desire and we will then move on to our public hearing that we need to open and Miss Hofhein is here to help us with that.
So this is a free zone for 4.1 acres at 4329 Sunny Acres Lane, parcel number 235-9.
It is currently zoned rural residential.
They are asking for LLR [Large Lot Residential].
It is currently a four lot subdivision.
They would like it to be six.
Planning commission forwarded a unanimous recommendation of approval on this.
This is also being recommended for approval by staff.
Public hearing requirements have been met.
It was posted for 10 days for both planning commission and county commission.
It was opened tonight and both Wednesday of 5.
Staff has found it compatible with the general plan and a future lane use map.
I’m Aaron Holland.
I work with Seth Engineering.
He had a subdivision with four lots but with the infrastructure needs that it’s going to take to service it, it basically didn’t make sense to do it with the four lots.
So he’s looking to basically get a couple more lots in that and that requires an upfront.
I think you want to add to that.
I’ll just be brief.
I’m the property owner and one of the main reasons for this rezoning application is just to try to help out the employee housing area.
Several employees that just can’t afford larger lots and that type of housing.
So it’s an attempt just to try to help out employees.
I’m not a land developer.
I just have this property that makes sense to rezone it a little bit smaller so we can make it more affordable for employees.
One thing I would like to say additionally is the applicant’s narrative might say SLR [Small Lot Residential].
I believe originally.
After discussions with staff, we decided to go for LLR.
So I’m sorry if that was confusing.
Staff report only speaks to LLR.
Just the narrative was something a little different.
All right.
And this is just to open a public hearing so we can.
Don’t we get to ask questions?
You do get to ask questions.
I’m just reminding everybody that public as well that this will be open through I believe Wednesday five o’clock next week.
And so at that point why anybody that is weighed in by those will be taken into the record also.
There will not be a vote tonight.
Simply a discussion around this.
And I will start with Trish and go to Mike.
No, Todd, I appreciate you speaking to.
Because that was the question that I wrote.
Why did you want this rezoned?
So I appreciate you speaking to that right off and kind of going through that.
And I appreciate you clarifying.
Because I do think there was quite a few citizens there at the planning commission thinking it was going to small lot residential.
So I appreciate that you’re moving it to large lot.
So I think that’s quite palatable to that portion of the valley.
So thank you.
Okay.
Question, Mike?
All right.
Anybody else?
All right, folks.
Public hearing will be open and it will be on the next commission meeting agenda for a vote.
Thank you.
I appreciate your time.
And we will go back to our regular items.
And I believe that the next one is formalizing the subcommittee for the trail ambassador non-profit creation backslash future.
Commissioner Hadler and Commissioner McCandless.
Do you want to go, Melodie?
Go ahead.
You can go ahead.
Okay.
Yeah.
So we discussed this at the workshop at the last commission meeting.
And we discussed that this is basically to provide an on ramp to a non-profit or another organization to take over the trail ambassador program from GCATT.
We’ve had two meetings already.
Melodie and I have been present at both those meetings as well as the folks named in the agenda.
And they are the current people running that.
They are essential to that as well.
I think that Melodie and I should continue to be the commissioners working on that.
And I had an idea, we had an idea that the third position, originally Trish had thrown her name forward.
And I appreciate that.
Brian attended the meeting today, which was nice.
But it looks like we’re going to be going forward.
This is super timely.
We don’t have much time to get this off the ground.
And it looks like we’re going to have frequent meetings.
So I think that we might be best served if we kind of had a revolving door third commissioner at those meetings.
So that everyone kind of gets an opportunity to weigh in and to help out with this.
And also to get a better idea of some of the things that we’re working on, maybe help figure out some solutions.
So that’s kind of my proposal, but I’d love to have a discussion.
Melodie, do you want to add anything to that before we open it up?
No, I think it’s good.
I think that if that way we can invite those that either have pertinent information or set the time and another commission that’s available can come.
But that way we can just continue to just keep it going and not try to correlate times for everybody.
There’s a lot of people that are going to these meetings and just belong.
So I’m in favor of that.
Yes, I gotcha.
I’d like to make a motion.
I move to formalize the committee for the Trail Ambassador non-profit creation slash future with commissioners HHadler and McCandless.
And as stated, open position for third upon availability: other county staff, elected officials, attorney stocks, com admin, Maddie, Kaitlin, Anna, Tyson, and a representative from the Southeast Utah Health Department.
Second.
Motion by Commissioner McCurdy, second Commissioner Hadler.
Further discussion?
Oh, sorry.
Did that encompass what it meant for that revolving third door, Mr. Stocks?
I think the intent is clear.
If you want to put two commissioners on with the idea that there’s an ability to have a third person join, I think it’s normalized enough.
It’s obvious intent of what you guys want to do.
All right.
Commissioner Hedin.
Just a question for you two.
Like, how will you administer that?
Will you put out just like, hey, we’ve got this meeting who can come and kind of first come first serve?
What are you guys’ thoughts on that?
The way I see it, like today, for example, Brian had been working on something and I think his, what he’d been working on was relevant to the conversation.
So I believe, I think Maddie actually reached out to you.
Is that right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I think having, you know, when Maddie’s the one who’s putting the agendas together for these, and if there is something specific that’s, that’s, that a specific commissioner might be most helpful with, or it’s under their kind of, you know, something that they’d be most interested in, I think then it would be appropriate for that commissioner to be invited.
Otherwise, I foresee, you know, if it’s, if it’s kind of all the same, then just having someone come to at least one meeting would be really helpful to just kind of get an idea about where everything’s going.
Yeah.
Or you can just share the note.
I mean, the notes, because Maddie’s been really great about updating the notes.
And I think if, if, I mean, I’d be happy to share with the commission and that way you guys can start, stay updated with what is happening as well.
And I, you know, I think people would like to go, but it was like, you know, yesterday or whatever, I was kind of had it on my schedule and then Brian was going, which was great.
I just didn’t want to have a quorum.
Right.
So I just think we need to make sure we put it out if Maddie’s putting it out, but we do delineate.
And I’m happy to be the person who I can reach out to other commissioners.
I texted Brian real quick this morning, just to make sure he was going to make sure we didn’t have a quorum.
I’m happy to fill that role to make sure that we don’t exceed three commissioners too.
Just a question in formalizing this, do we, do we need to mention that we have Attorney stocks, the Comm admin, Maddie Kelton, Anna, Tyson, and a representative from the health department— that all should be in the motion or should we put it in there?
I know that it was, but is, is, is there, is there an advantage to doing that rather than just having like the rest of our subcommittees, which is just, you know, and then invite people as needed.
You can invite staff as needed.
I mean, listing everybody, you have your control and permission for the folks here.
Otherwise you’re getting into the day… day-to-day operations of County.
You really don’t have any control over the health department.
So, I mean, we can encourage those folks to come, but just because we put them on a subcommittee doesn’t mean they’re going to come.
So should we amend his motion slightly to just, yeah, that’s what I was wondering your commissioners.
If you want to name myself, if you want to name Mark, that’s all appropriate.
And with the scope, you can invite other people the public, but again, at the end of the day, the goal behind the sub committee is to provide a recommendation and to kind of address this issue in a more fuller view, and then bring that information back to the commission on the third rotating commissioner.
I don’t know how in-depth you guys, in-depth you guys want to work on the issue.
I hate to be, you know, the bearer of bad news, but it’s going to another meeting.
And I don’t know how much you guys are going to fight each other to go to that third spot to go to this meeting.
I will share my notes if you get, if it becomes really contentious, but it was an hour and 40 minute meeting.
You’re supposed to be there for an hour.
I think it’s good and productive, but I don’t know how much that’s going to become an issue.
So I just put that out there.
Mike and then Mary.
I’d like to amend my motion.
I move to formalize the, formalize the committee for the trail ambassador, non-profit creation slash future with commissioners Hadler, McAnlis and attorney stocks and com admin with a third commissioner to join upon invitation or invitation.
It’s over and you seconded, right?
And yeah, you’re fine with that again.
All right.
Sorry, I didn’t know.
Technically we do have an amended motion.
So you voted the amended motion.
Then you vote on the original motion.
Eventually we’re doing it by the book.
Just have a quick question.
Sure.
Mary.
Now I know when we started the trail ambassador program that the Southeastern Utah health department was part of the original.
So I think we’re expecting to be part of this process.
Maybe, maybe it might be a good idea for Jacques to give like the elevator pitch of where we’re at with everything.
Just a brief, brief overview of who’s involved in what the philosophical ideas and maybe I’ll just, yeah, may I?
Just to kind of throw out what we’ve done so far.
We’ve had a meeting between the commissioners, GCATT with everybody from GCATT representatives and trail ambassadors.
The health department’s been in the room at the meetings.
We’ve had CNHA at the meeting as well as Friends of Arches.
It’s been a warm conversation about the future of the program, where it’s going to go.
If it’s going into nonprofit, we’re packaging that up, what that looks like assets, what financial needs it will have.
All of that is right now at the very early stages of the conversation.
I’m there to kind of help give ideas on how best to move it along.
There’s not been a solid number established of, of how much this county is willing to give or how much it will be.
It’s very, very early in its beginning stages, but there is a lot of conversation.
There’s a lot of support and interest of where the program goes.
But we’re really so early in the infancy stages of it, that a lot of the decisions haven’t been made.
We’re trying to get things moving quickly though, so that by budget time, we have an idea of what, what it is that’s being requested.
I’m trying to stay vague enough that any of the things that the entities have said, I don’t find them.
I’m not trying to put them in a bad spot, but that’s a general.
I think that’s a great synopsis.
Thank you.
I bet that that makes it somewhat.
Okay.
So then if there’s no further discussion, we’ll vote on Mike’s amended motion seconded by job to amend the motion to amend the motion.
We’re voting to amend the motion.
Correct.
First.
All right.
Those in favor of amending the motion passes unanimously.
Now we will vote on the amended motion.
Correct.
The amended motion by again, commissioner McCurdy and commissioner Hadler.
All those in favor.
Passes unanimously.
We move on to the mid-year vacancy appointment of liaison to Moab—
I skipped one, my apologies.
Thank you.
Appointment liaison to the Moab Area Community Land Trust board.
This is a new position.
Commissioner McCandless is bringing that to us.
Well, they just were here last meeting and asked for liaison appointments.
So I had Dana put it on the agenda for this, this meeting.
So that’s all.
Commissioner Martinez.
I move to approve the appointment of commissioner McCandless as liaison to the MACLT board motion by commissioner Martinez second by commissioner McCurdy.
Yep.
Further discussion.
Yes.
Mike, if you ever, if you ever need a fill in, I’m usually free during that timeframe.
So let me know.
Further discussion.
All right.
Seeing none.
I call for a vote.
All those in favor.
Passes unanimously.
We now move on to the number 11 that I tried to jump to.
I just really quick.
How often are those meetings?
Melodie?
I think it wasn’t on the agenda.
Once a month.
And I did talk to Kaitlin last week and they had mentioned that it’s actually during our commission meetings right now.
And so they’re going to move it.
Regardless of who the commissioner was gonna be and they also going to add to their bylaws and they’re going to have kind of a information packet for what the liaison was going to be so that this is new for them as well.
So they’re just in the process of making sure that they have all of their ducks in a row.
But I know that they want to invite the city to the conversation as well.
So have it be on the same page.
And yeah, it’s once a month.
We get it.
I don’t have to speak over anyone.
We get a heads up.
They invite the housing subcommittee too.
So we know when their meetings are going out.
So we all get to see it.
But if you need, I mean, you have me, Brian and Trish on that also.
So we get to see when those meetings are.
All right.
The next one is the midyear vacancy appointment of the liaison to Moab Chamber of Commerce.
That one has Commissioner Martinez leaving the chamber for the P&Z appointment.
And we are in the process of appointing a replacement to the Chamber of Commerce.
Brian.
Approve Commissioner McCandless to fill the liaison vacancy.
Motion by Commissioner Martinez, second by Commissioner McCurdy to appoint Commissioner McCandless to that position.
Mike?
Sometimes I conflict.
Sometimes I have open but if you ever need a spot filled, you let me know.
It goes meeting to meeting on that one.
Okay.
Yeah.
It conflicts sometimes on agenda review depending on the month that has the five months or not.
I also very much enjoy Chamber.
I was on it for four years.
So I’d be happy to pick up also.
All right.
Further discussion?
Seeing none, I’ll call for a vote.
All those in favor?
Passes.
Six with one absent Commissioner Hedin being gone.
Now move on to the resolution authorizing the filing of the cross appeals for the 2025 centrally assessed properties.
Bernie Starks.
So this is the continuation of the appeals from Mid-America Pipeline.
We’ve discussed this a number of times.
The reason why we cross appeal what may appeal is to protect our best legal argument without going into details about what those are.
That’s what it is.
It’s put in your packet as a resolution.
And additionally, we’ll have an update on that later tonight.
If you have additional questions, I can answer those now, but I probably encourage us to save any.
And if there are substantive questions, then we can put it to the end of the agenda, go to closed session for the litigation issue and then come back out.
But it’s up to you folks on how you want to proceed.
All right, Mike.
I move to approve the resolution authorizing the filing of cross appeals for 2025 centrally assessed properties.
Motion by Commissioner McCurdy, second Commissioner McCandless.
Further discussion?
Seeing none, I’ll call for a vote.
All in favor of the resolution?
Passes unanimously.
We move on to the ordinance for the Enbridge franchise agreement.
Again, with Mr. Stocks.
This was a, this was, it’s got my name on it.
It’s an older franchise agreement.
The county’s been doing repetitively for many years, Quinn’s not in the room.
The only change that they had on this document was reducing the amount that we were paid from $500 to $50.
And now they’ve replaced it back up to the $500.
I’ve been, it’s been indicated to me that this is something that we’ve consistently signed this franchise agreement with Dominion Energy or now they’re called it Enbridge.
I defer to Comm-admin, but it’s not really my puppy,
It’s got my name on it though.
And I was present in that meeting as well.
I believe Mark was there and this really just gives them access to all of their gas pipelines.
They keep this in place so that they can work on those during an emergency or even regular scheduled additions that they have going on.
Yes, McCurdy.
I move to approve the ordinance with Enbridge, with Enbridge for the franchise agreement.
Motion, Commissioner McCurdy.
Second, Commissioner Hadler.
Further discussion?
Seeing none, I’ll call for a vote.
All in favor?
Passes unanimously.
Thank you.
We go on to number 14, the ordinance amending the special events policy.
This is Commissioner McCurdy and Commissioner McCandless.
So I mostly wanted to change this to 18 months and that would be the cutoff so there would not be.
So there is still a few changes in this that I did read before the weekend.
And so I have some changes on the red line I’d still like to propose.
And that is if we go to the high impact events we talked about.
So the intent to apply, let’s see on our packet page 11, page 11 is the high impact events.
And so the intent to apply must be submitted at least six months, but no more than 18 months is the change that I’d like to see.
But with that change, I didn’t go back and do all the math on all of the quarters.
And so they only went back three months.
So where it was quarter one events, which are January through March 31st would be the first Monday of the July, but it’s changed to April that actually I think needs to go back to back another three months to like January.
So that because if they’re going to put their intent to apply in 18 months and we want to be able to approve those within that longer time frame.
And so I’m thinking that so yes, the first Monday, so we need to go back three more months from all these, not what’s on the actual packet.
So they’ve already gone back three months, but they need to go back three months.
That would be the only change on that just to give, then we’d be giving them at least a year to, that’d be 12, that’s still only 12 months.
And so I’m curious if you want to go back even further, any comments on that?
And that’s really it, except for that down below, it does say if it goes page 12, it says that maybe it’s right in there, but it says, oh no, that the application may request commission consideration at a quarterly review earlier than the designated review.
And I think that we need to take that out.
So where it would just be, you are coming to your meeting or, and, or, I mean, if you put in what, nine months, if you put one in nine months and you’ll fit in that, that’s that, but we’re not going over 18 months.
But that would take it out as well.
But after I was going to request commission, I take consideration out of quarterly review earlier than the designated view date provided above.
I need to make sure that these dates match.
And that’s what I have not done.
I did not read this in advance.
I just looked at it.
I was like, oh, good.
It’s changed.
And then when I really started diving into it, it’s not all the way correct.
…
Should we postpone it?
I think we can just make the changes because we just need to make them back.
So instead of being April, it needs to be January on quarter one events and then on quarter two events, let’s see.
So commission review date meeting in April.
Not to cut in, not while you do that math real quick.
This is following along with our special events coordinator, Jenny Beth’s position.
Some of her requests to, like Commissioner McCandless said, set a cap.
They can’t apply before this.
And as long as they fall within the application period, we can look at it, but it.
It’s the best of both worlds as far as I could see.
You just want to direct in the motion that—
Yeah, direct in the motion that the event that the quarter event we review correlates with that 18 month time frame and let them do the figuring. And then also on that B, take the applicants may request commission IT consideration and a quarterly review earlier than the designated review provided above to take, take that out and make adjustments to the table that’s located and make adjustments to the table below, which will match the wording about that.
Your motion.
That is my motion.
All right.
Motion by Commissioner McCandless, seconded Commissioner Hedin and Jacques—
I know you’ve been waiting.
Yeah, no, I appreciate all that.
The only thing I only have a concern about events that might that you just have to consider your event further out than some like, like, are we.
Are we handicapping like an event organizer who might want to do an event sooner than that, but now they have to wait until the next year to present their event that far in advance, whereas previously they might have only had a little bit of time to present.
And they, they missed the, they missed the deadline for their, they’d still be able to present it.
So if you, if you put in, if you want to do an event like this year in December, you could still put it in.
Cause I think it’s a, it’s a 60 day on high impact.
They have to have it in 60 days prior to the event.
Okay.
So you could still do it in that short timeframe, but we’re giving Pete event, those high impact events, a longer timeframe to go out and advertise.
So the window is just good.
It doesn’t, it doesn’t cut it down.
No, it doesn’t cut it down, not cutting it down.
So they can still come in a short time and get an event, but it’s just so that, you know, a lot of people will go to an event and want to, “man, I had a great time” and they want to re-sign up for next year, but they’re not even getting approval to have next year.
And so this allows them.
So if we got to 18 months, it allows events to continue.
And also with this change, we’re going to put on next agenda, Jenny Beth and Dana are going to go through the events that would fall into this and notify them that they can cut, they’re going to come up a little earlier so that they can get their customer service.
Yeah, that was just a question.
So maybe, maybe instead, and commissioner McGann I think just said this, maybe have a new range.
So put your deadline because that’s what the document contains now, which are deadlines, but whatever your deadline is, and then say that they may apply up to 18, 18 months prior.
So whenever you want that in last, put it on there for your item pack, whatever date that is, and say they can apply up to 18 months prior.
Does that encompass the safety that it has to be 60 days accessible?
I don’t know.
I don’t know where you’re setting.
I don’t know what you’re, where you guys are setting or deadline, where, where your end point is, but wherever that is, they can apply to 18 months prior.
So how, how far in advance do you want it at a minimum for high impact event?
Is that 60 days, 90 days?
The same as it was before, right?
Right.
You’re giving, we’re giving the maximum.
Well, we want, we also, we want the minimum 18 months from, so that’s what, that’s for you guys to decide.
Maybe save that question.
Where is your actual deadline?
How, how many days in advance of the event do you want them to apply for a high impact event?
Minimum of 60 days, maximum of one year.
Perfect.
So you’ll want to put that last date in for your quarter one, quarter two, quarter three, quarter four, and then put 18 months prior to that date.
That’s your range.
That’s right.
Doing a range rather.
I see what he’s, yeah, you’re doing a range.
So amend motion?
Can I ask a question real quick?
Sure.
Oh, I have a little key that missed out and that’s the review date.
Yeah.
Right.
And so that, I think that’s something that we need to go because this is basically a contract.
You say you have to come in on this range right here and that we will give you an answer by this date right here.
So where, where does that fall in?
Yeah.
Right.
I mean, just because we say that the intent to apply is 18 months, I mean, you could have the commission sit on that for nine months and these people could move on.
Where do I, when do I find out about my, when do I find out about my.
Yeah.
So it has a commissioners update.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it’s, you know, our portion is timeline to apply, but there needs to be, I think somewhere in there on a timeline of when they will be reviewed.
Yeah.
So right now it says that quarter one events.
So it was January 1st to March 31st.
So that would be the first Monday of—
Does that stick?
— January.
That would be the first Monday of.
It’s like almost in a year and a half.
It’s a year and a half away, but then it does have a commission review date, the second commission meeting in April.
So they have to have them by the first commission meeting of whatever that month is, which is not going to be April, but then…
Table two lays out all your deadlines.
If you go to table two.
That’s just the deadlines for.
Commission action.
That’s separate.
Yeah.
That’s, that’s what we’re, we’re causing action.
Is there, is there any event right now where there’s an applicant holder that wants to
apply right this second?
Yes.
That they, that they’re out 18 months before their event right now?
Because if there isn’t, we could put all these changes in there, throw the range in there,
work on it a little bit more
so it’s clear and coherent.
Because I, because I range is a good idea, but we just want to make sure that we’re reviewing them with sufficient amount of time
that makes sense.
Yeah.
You basically, you have your early window.
I think that the standard window.
There are events probably that are going to be expensive enough, but they’ll want that earlier review.
And then you’ve got last minute circuses that come in.
That will want that, that short review.
So, I don’t know if there’s, if there’s one really, you know, chomping at the bit to be considered out of, out of order, maybe.
You know, we, we consider that.
We want just a deadline, maybe on the, the review period.
You want to say 60 days.
Well, again, you want to tie it, you want to tie your review.
From that event date, because we don’t want for any bad to have to review.
You know, 15 different application periods.
And you guys don’t want to either because you guys want to have a batch of events that are going to happen on a particular weekend or event.
One option is just let them apply.
They will show that they’re very on it and that they will be in for X amount of time, but that doesn’t give them any guarantee that their event will be green lit.
So maybe I’m happy to do whatever I can suggest that language, but again, it doesn’t clean up, clean it up on the backend for Jenny.
When she’s going to be reviewing these without making adjustments, say your table to deadline that applies to the commission.
Okay.
So do you think you could have that all wrapped up for language and everything by next meeting?
Sure.
And we can combine it.
We can combine it with whatever legacy changes that Jenny Beth’s making.
I think that makes it a lot cleaner.
Yeah.
As long as you guys are all fine with that.
Is she making legacy changes on that legacy list?
I’m…you had mentioned that she was coming to the legacy.
That was going to have to be another conversation because we never— we didn’t get it done.
I was just clarifying the legacy information from you.
We don’t actually have an ordinance for legacy or a resolution for legacy.
We just had this legacy list that’s sitting out there, but it doesn’t have to be adhered to by any commission because it’s never been set by an ordinance.
So I was thinking that we need to do that as well, but not today.
Yeah.
That’s an “as well.”
It needs to be a set up actual thing because it’s just kind of an ad hoc.
Oh, we’re going to.
These are legacy events.
Yeah.
And where you guys draw the line is, I mean, you guys could draw the line where you’d like and whether it’s going to be based on a particular policy of like one motorized event, one hiking event.
You know, you could set it up that way.
That might be pretty difficult.
And instead of what we had last time.
And I remember Mr. Clapper was really involved in it on where he wanted to draw the line.
But I can’t remember.
We had different on that chart with different parts of it we talked about.
But there isn’t an easy way to put a hard, fast, bright line rule that would apply across the board.
They’re pretty easy to put in,
adding events on that list.
Sure.
Adding events are easy.
But I don’t know that you can create a policy unless it’s like X amount of years for them to automatically transition into a legacy event.
Well, I think we needed a meaning that we review them.
Yeah, meaning that we review them on an annual basis or every three years or something like that.
You know, on that legacy stuff.
But it’s a different conversation than this here.
I mean, if you want to codify it, that could be the same mechanism.
Well, to complete that and to complete this, I think it’ll take some time for work.
I mean, I think we could vote on this.
We’re just changing all of these dates back three months from the red line that’s already there.
Would be our deadlines and our…
So on each one of those, it would be first Monday in April.
It was July.
It needs to be now redlined to April and go back to January.
And then you guys, do you still want the commission to review the high impact on the first Monday of the month based on the event quarter?
That only gives them at best a 90 day notice.
Or do you want to have…
Because that’s what we’ll say right now is when you guys review that.
So even if we just change when you guys receive that application, it doesn’t change when you guys do the review.
No, we’re changing the review as well.
Okay.
Yeah.
That’s like, that’s a change to it.
We’re changing the review time so they have more time to approve it.
Yeah, Trish and then Mike.
I think we got to put this off till the next meeting.
I don’t think it’s quite ready.
Yeah, so let’s fully bank it and bring it back.
Is that okay?
Mike.
Fully bank it two weeks.
That’s just fine.
I’d like to encompass some of the deadline changes or some of the review day changes.
And some of what Commissioner Martinez said too into this along with get a fully redone and run it past our special events coordinator and have her and I want some input from her too.
But I think that two weeks is not going to cause a problem.
For I have on my list three active event applications right now and that’s what I was trying to rush through.
But I don’t think this will get in the way of it.
Commissioner Martinez.
So just going back to that review, what if we had it to where we reviewed each of the applicants every quarter, right?
So every quarter we review all the applicants.
So if you’re in on that 18 month, right?
We review all of the applicants whether it’s short-term or long-term that quarter.
Second quarter, we have a set date.
We review all of the applicants whether you’re, as long as you’re within that window, right?
And you intend to apply as in, then on that date, we review the applicants.
Just a suggestion, I’m not trying to go it’s the way I’m wondering.
And this is your guys decision.
The only thing that makes it tricky is if you have an applicant that’s 18 months early, you were going to be judging them against whoever you’ve used the applications with simultaneously.
It does encourage people to apply much sooner and it benefits that.
The downside is you might not get the full breadth of the applications.
If you’re reviewing that, those early birds.
And that we’ll get the worm.
Into that.
So I think just to extrapolate on what Stephen was saying, you might have like a, say one type of event, let’s say a large motorized event on one weekend and then they get it.
And then that would discourage someone else from going for it at the same time.
Instead of looking at it immediately, right?
But then the first one might get approved and the second one might not even try because they know that it’s…
And the one, I’m not trying to become part of this, but the other thing to think about too, is I guess you can have multiple events on a weekend.
I think that does put additional strain on… and I keep thinking of events like, for one Jeep Safari, that’s it, the whole weekend.
But I just think when you want, when we do this, that what I talked to Quinn about was making sure Jenny Beth is aware because she has to talk with them to culminate all these applications at the same time.
And it’s gonna put a lot of strain on her to have to prep for all the reviews for different applications at different times on different quarters.
That’s fine.
I’m just considering her preference and it would be lovely to see if she wanted to attend one of these late night fun meets.
Yeah, I mean, I know that she’s been having stress.
Her email that she sent to us that was in the packet a while ago, when this was supposed to be a workshop, but it was that that is the issue.
She’s getting so much pushback because it does say that we can look at them earlier.
And so people are coming in and asking her and she has events that are already, like for example, we’ll just use some of the running races that are here all the time.
They already have all their applications in waiting there.
But yet then, because this other event has come in and said, I want mine to come early.
And that one comes early, even though those other ones are sitting there, that they should have been shown at the same time, which was the same date.
But they already had those in and they were obeying the rules.
And so by making this be no more than 18 months.
And then I really like the idea of whoever’s in at that 18 months.
So every three months that we review and they fall on those levels.
If you’re a six month or that put yours in or you’re an eight month or you’re all gonna get reviewed at that same time from when you put it in.
But yes, early bird does get the worm.
And a lot of our events to do year after year after year are gonna love the 18 months.
And then the others that are new newbies, they’re gonna kind of have to take the weekends that are left over.
One other discussion point or thought.
Do we care, like for those people to apply year after year, like we’re talking the marathons, Jeep Safari, OuterBike, whoever it is.
I think those eventually shift into that legacy.
And then your early applications, those are ones you’re like, you don’t know.
They’re a new dance partner essentially.
But we don’t know a lot about them.
So we’ll let them more than we will with the legacy events.
If we made the legacy events, does that fix this whole problem?
No, I don’t think so.
Because there’s people that don’t fit in that.
Like we have people that have been doing three to four year events, but I’m gonna be really ready to put them on the legacy list.
I’m just trying to avoid creating three different review periods,
One for legacy, one for early bird, one for last minute.
But I think that’s probably where it’s more trending.
Mike and then Brian.
Twofold.
This is a political statement.
This is huge to our economy.
We need to get this done.
To bring events in.
Bringing people here is what we’re about.
We need to have this meeting.
I’d like to have a discussion as soon as possible.
You tell me the dates.
Steven will come Friday.
I will come sit down on Friday mid morning.
I can do that.
We’ll do that.
Mark Tyner.
Yeah, hopefully Jenny Beth.
Can you get that information to Jenny Beth?
I would like to do this as soon as possible.
Second part of that.
I’d like to table this agenda item until the next meeting.
Or postpone until the next meeting.
Have we had a motion made on this?
I have a motion and a second.
Trish did
Trish did.
So.
Vote it down.
Do whatever you want.
Well, do we have to vote it down?
Yes, we do have to vote.
It’s a motion that’s been seconded.
and it’s before the body.
All right.
Easy.
Sure, Brian.
Good comment.
So, yeah, I mean, I do agree.
I like this idea of making it fair.
I think that the 18 months with review periods, right, makes it fair.
Whether you get in or doesn’t matter what your event is.
I think that anybody who gets their stuff in early should have the chance to get organized.
And probably a better event for us, right?
Somebody who’s going to be more organized, I think, is going to be a bit of a.
Yes, and then the 2nd off, just for Mike’s point that you mentioned, and I just want to put a little plug in.
This is we are going to be discussing special events grant at the next meeting.
And it looks like the subcommittee is going to be pushing for those grants to be in by January.
1st and they’re going to be baden and camp stories is going to be presenting on how we might be able to cast a little bit of a wider net for different events.
Yes.
So, and perfect.
Yes, Trish
He said, we’re politicians.
I’m just throwing it out.
I know.
We need to do this.
And I’ve waited a long time to make any statement…
Well, let’s go.
Thank you.
Yes.
All right.
So, all in favor of the motion that was presented earlier by Commissioner McCandless, seconded by Commissioner Hedin.
Oh, I’m sorry.
No, thumbs.
This is all right.
This is to say we’re for that.
That’s correct.
Okay.
Someone would need a vote against to come back here.
Hold on.
No, the motion was to accept the changes that are in here.
So, I just wanted to make sure I understood.
Okay.
All right.
So, all of those in favor of this motion that has been presented.
Those against.
It fails unanimously.
All right.
And we have had a request by Steve Evers to remove the cooperative agreement on the dark skies.
It came in an email, I believe, at the very beginning of this meeting.
And that came in, it looks like to the comm admin and myself.
So, that’s what he’s asking is that we just remove this item from today’s meeting.
So, with that being said, we will skip number 15 and move on to number 16 appointment of Interim Planning and Zoning Administrator. Commission Administration and the Commission Administration’s Office.
Chrissy Hofhein has been acting in this capacity along with several other roles.
Sean Yates, the County Engineer, is willing to assume this role and to assist in the operations of the Planning and Zoning Department.
Ms. Hoffheim has shouldered a lot of responsibility and a lot of work.
It’s been done and done a very good job of moving that department forward.
She has also indicated she is willing to continue to act in that capacity as far as helping with the building applications and moving the work forward as we go through a transitionary period.
We are awaiting a third party information for costs and things associated with that to know exactly what that transition is.
When we receive that information, we’ll bring that to the Commission.
Will that then need a vote when that comes to the Commission?
Then what would we be voting on?
Tonight, what you would be voting on is an Interim Zoning Administrator that Ms. Hofhein has been filling that role.
Again, the County Engineer, Sean Yates, has indicated he would be willing to serve in that capacity.
So that’s the only thing that you would be voting on tonight.
Okay.
Commissioner McCurdy and then Commissioner Hedin.
Twofold.
During this discussion, did we get an update?
I thought it was the end of last month.
We were supposed to get an update from the your Office on…?
On, yes, the process with Slavin is in draft form that we received today.
I want to be careful about draft forms at this point.
But we are very close to providing you a list of names through the consultant.
Thanks.
I’d like to make a motion,
I move to approve County Engineer, Sean Yates, to the Interim Zoning Administrator position.
A motion by Commissioner McCurdy.
Second by Commissioner Martinez.
We will open it up for discussion.
Commissioner Hedin and then Commissioner McCurdy and then Commissioner McGann.
And so I did ask for all of the comments that were made surrounding this, including from the last time that this was on the agenda, be included in the packet.
I asked multiple times.
And I never received a response.
And they’re not in the packet.
So my email is THedin@GrandCountyUtah.gov. I just feel like people don’t maybe know that.
I don’t know.
I keep sending out emails.
If you guys aren’t getting my emails, that’s concerning to me.
And I can talk to Matt about it.
But I think that those should have been in the packet.
And they weren’t.
I think I was able to fix issues because we kept within the agenda packet calling if the Director and the County Commission has no authority to remove the Planning and Zoning Director.
Just so you guys are clear, under Grand County Land Use Code 8.3, the Zoning Administrator is appointed by, directed by, and serves at the pleasure of the County Commission, not the Zoning and Planning and Zoning Director.
So just to make that very clear.
And that was not what was in the packet.
So I had some issues with that.
Here’s, I’m going to try, I’ll try to be very brief.
We have, we have— the Building Department is in complete disarray.
I’ve had contractors calling me now for a couple weeks.
They cannot get inspections.
And specifically, Bill knows this.
If you’re rolling on a house and you, let’s say, get the electrical in, you need it inspected right away so that you can move on to insulation and sheetrock and keep your workers working.
I literally had a contractor say that he, he said an electrical inspection was three weeks out.
And, and so I said, you need to start calling County Admin.
And I believe that he started doing that.
I went in and talked to Bill Hulse and he said that he’d been working with Bill Winfield in reorganizing that department and moving to contract services.
It’s not working.
And I’m using that as an example, because now we’re moving into having a Planning and Zoning Department that won’t be working.
We cannot continue to have departments disrupted by County Commissioners and become basically ineffective with fractured services.
This has a lot to do with our economy.
You know, I have a lot of friends that are contractors, a lot of friends that are contractors.
And they’re reaching out to me going, what is happening at the county?
And I would, I think, you know, questions that were asked by both myself and citizens are, why?
Why is this happening?
Who asked for this?
That was asked multiple times.
And we still have no, nobody can give the why and who requested this.
And I have asked, and I’m asking this, especially hearing from you, Mark, to say, yeah, we have a list from Slaven, we’re going to be rolling here.
Why would we not simply leave her in place to keep stability within that department until somebody is hired and she can assist in that transition?
To me, this is a really poor move, really poor move.
And then I want to make it clear that the fiscal impacts for hiring outside help from Horrocks is large.
I had Gabe pull the last invoice from me from June to July.
The average price per hour is $234 to $253 per hour to have people from Horrocks assisting.
It’s costing the county currently, but it’s going to cost us dearly to start shoving more work at Horrocks when we have a perfectly capable individual in place that can move those things forward.
And then lastly, I want to state that, and I appreciate, Mel, I talked to you about this today, and I really appreciate your input.
I think Chrissy was treated very poorly in this process.
The fact that she was not notified and she found out via an agenda item, when you have a longstanding employee that works, I can’t even tell you how hard she works.
Anytime I send a text, an email, and this will come from any planning commissioner too, doesn’t matter day or night, weekend or not, she answers.
And so I’m really disheartened at how we’re treating dedicated, dedicated, dedicated staff at this county level.
And it was a simple, somebody dropped the ball along the way and she should have been notified.
But the reality is it should never have happened.
It shouldn’t be happening.
It is, this is political and it’s too bad because it’s going to put a department in great jeopardy.
And I’m not picking on you, Sean, please take that.
This has nothing to do with you.
I believe in you.
But there, to me, it’s no, why would we rattle a cage that doesn’t need to be rattled?
And again, our building department is in trouble.
Our building department’s in trouble.
And just so you guys are aware of that, things are not happening effectively and efficiently with outside contractors.
So if we need to revisit that, we may need to revisit that.
But we have contractors calling me going, what is going on?
And she and me, which I’m fine with, but I wanted to pass that information.
These are hardworking individuals that are trying to make a living, very small crews in this community.
They can’t wait three weeks for an electrical inspection.
Can’t have it.
And so then to destabilize our planning and zoning department, I think it’s a really bad move.
And commissioners need to start staying out of these department’s business.
I don’t know how else to say.
Commissioner McCurdy, Commissioner McGann, Commissioner McCandless.
Yes.
Not only PNZ, I don’t know the proper wording, PNZTAL.
The application is coming to that.
Will you please notify us, PNZ1, PNZ2.
Yes.
Right below that.
As soon as…
I’d like that information if everyone else would like that.
What are you asking, Mike?
To see the applicants?
Yeah, I’d like to see who’s applying for TAL.
All right, Commissioner McGann.
I find this terribly upsetting.
I object to it on procedural, financial, and ethical reasons.
Procedurally, under our policies and procedures, the commission appoints a planning administrator.
That’s kind of what we’re doing tonight.
But at the same time, we’re, in a sense, replacing the planning department administrator.
If we all follow our own procedures, we can replace the zoning administrator, interpreting land use codes, but not the head of the planning department.
In, hopefully, a couple months or so, we will be replacing, finding a permanent planning director.
Right now, we have a person who is…
One person is doing the planning director’s job, the associating planner, and the planning one.
No matter how capable you are, when you get a new job, you have a learning curve.
It takes you a while to learn that job.
So why would we replace a person right now when we’re planning to create, hire a permanent person?
And then they have that learning curve, and they have to figure it out, and they have to do the job.
And then we turn around, and two, three months later, we do the same thing again.
And so things slow down because of the learning curve.
I think it is, you know, I think it’s…
And the reason the policies do not give the commission the authority to fire staff, rather, a commission administrator is hired by the commission administrator to handle the day-to-day operations of the county, including the hiring and firing of staff.
If a commission had the authority to fire members of the county staff, the staff’s feelings of job security would be destroyed because they would be adjusting to new administration every two years.
Plus, they would…
Would you choose to work for an organization where they may face the humiliation of being publicly let go of or removed from the position that they are holding?
This, in my opinion, this agenda item goes against our policies and procedures.
Secondly, I object to it because it’s going to be costly.
It costs $235 to $500 an hour to contract with Horrocks.
And it’s going to take them 40 hours a week to do work.
That’s a huge amount of money.
And finally, and most importantly, what is happening with this agenda item is unethical.
Our county, under this commission administrator’s leadership, has hit an all-time low.
They are creating a hostile, toxic work environment for all staff, but especially for the women working in this county.
There has been a minimum of eight capable women leave this county because of harassment from some of our commissioners.
Eight.
Four of them.
Mallory Nassau, Tammy Howard, Holland, Skye White, and Tara Cullen.
Yes, sir.
If the commission wants to go into closed session, I’d encourage it to go into closed session.
Mary, our county attorney is advising.
I would encourage my commissioners.
They are agents of the county, and they need to be cautious about the statements they make.
I won’t go any further, but I’ve had a number of people come to me.
These people have said they are happy to have their names used, but there are other people who have left and resigned because they feel they’ve been harassed.
I, myself, as a female commissioner, would have resigned last spring if I had been invited around as a Democrat rather than an independent or unaffiliated.
Why?
Because I’m tired.
I’m tired of the hostile environment.
I’m tired of having to hold my hand up and say I deserve to be spoken to in an appropriate manner.
I think we are moving into what we’re doing is hurting the county on so many levels, and it doesn’t look good.
I hope the county commission decides to do what is right and not vote in favor of this unethical agenda item.
Commissioner McCandless is next.
Commissioner Martinez, I think.
I know that Commissioner McCurdy would like to speak also.
I’d like to speak also, as well as Jacques.
So, when Chrissy was put in place as the Planning and Zoning Administrator, not Director, there was a vote.
At that time, we didn’t have anybody in any of those departments.
I think she’s done an amazing job.
She’s gone far and above the Planning and Zoning Administrator job and working in those Director positions, which no one, she’s not the Director.
She’s not hired as the Director, so we’re not demoting her as the Director.
That’s not to ask.
You know, there’s a lot of things that I wish have gone differently with Chrissy, and, you know, but she is just one in a long line of chaotic and high-level staff departure since November of 2020.
So, since 2020, numerous people have left the Planning and Zoning Department, creating chaos, and we’ve spent a lot of money on contractors and outsourcing work that would be unnecessary if we had an updated land use code.
And so, you know, Chrissy stated to colleagues, co-workers, administration, and the media that she’s overworked, stretched thin, and cannot focus on the important work of the land use code update and the RFP.
And, you know, she’s needed back in the Attorney’s Office.
We’ve had emails from the County Attorney’s Office.
So, based on those factors, you know, this is our plan to appoint Sean to manage the day-to-day and keep the office functioning as that administrator role until the new director is in place.
I’m going to stick to the plan to overhaul the land use code based on the amended 2030 general plan and get that done as fast as possible.
You know, we have CZB that did the future land use map.
We could continue with them for the land use code.
But we’ve got to move forward with this land use code, and it’s not happening right now with the way that our county zoning administration is.
And for that, you know, I think that those are the reasons we’re moving forward with this.
You know, I think Chrissy’s done a really good job.
She’s gone above and beyond the things that she is supposed to do in that position.
But I know that we need her back in the County Attorney’s Office.
Commissioner Martinez.
Um, yeah, no, I’ve worked with Chrissy for a couple of times.
We’ve worked on the HDHO, and I thought we’d work really well on that.
You know, I’ve worked with her on, we started off on the MFR 45, and we’ve had some heated discussions between the two of us as well.
But that has nothing to do with this.
I think that there’s, that has nothing to do with the shock.
The fact is, is that we do have Shawn Yates in that department right now, and that Chrissy is needed inside of Stephen’s office.
That’s her position, and that’s where she belongs.
I did talk to Mark, and while I’m very grateful that she took over that role, she was never assigned to the director role of the planning and zoning.
Right?
She took that on on her own, on her own.
So, saying that we’re removing her from a position that was never really offered to her, I don’t think is a fair statement that was made to me.
I do agree a lot with what Melodie said, you know, and it was, it was at that last planning and zoning meeting that I attended.
You know, and I did look into it.
The idea of updating this land use code is very important, and I’d like to see us try to make some strides to getting that done.
Not saying that I don’t still want to work on some other issues, right?
But I do think that this should be one of our number one priorities.
You know, I did not have anything to do with the general plan.
I didn’t write it, right?
I, you know, reviewed it, and then, you know, it’s fine.
I’m okay with everything that’s in there.
You know, I’ve reviewed the land use map that went in, the future land use map.
And to say that I was involved with it, it was just that I came to an open house of it, right?
But I am willing to allow, to go with those things, not try to make changes to those, but to develop a land use code that will go ahead and support these two documents.
Because I think that that’s one of the reasons that we have such problems inside of that department, is that we don’t have, we don’t have the documents.
Everything has to come to us, right up at the commission level, because we’re making changes without the code.
So I’d like to see us go ahead and make that a priority, and start being able to move these types of things through.
You know, one of the suggestions I know that was at CEZ, was the company that went ahead and did our future land use map.
I think that we could investigate looking at them, and using them to basically finish up the job on this.
I was, I went back as well and started looking at this, and this has been a problem for a long time.
It’s been 15 years since we’ve had an overhaul on our land use code.
That’s a long time, right?
These things are supposed to be reviewed and redone, kept up with, and we haven’t kept up with what we need to do.
And, you know, to say and to blame all of these people that have left on a new commissioner, it’s not fair.
Not my circus, not my monkeys, right?
I didn’t come here and start just going ahead and laying people off, right?
This is a systemic problem that started way, way back, right?
And we need to go ahead and finish the job, so that that department can go ahead and, you know, start functioning the way that it’s supposed to function.
Mike, I think it was him before me, just to let you know.
Okay.
I’m coming on second right there.
I keep hearing people saying that we’re doing this because she’s overworked and the attorney’s office needs her again.
If that’s the case, and it might be the case, why don’t you just start with the conversation?
Like, what’s wrong with that?
Like, don’t you go to somebody and say, how do you feel about this?
You’re saying things have been reported to the press.
I mean, to me, that’s just courtesy.
It’s just everything.
Like, that’s the conversation you start with.
Instead, we’re kicking sand in her face in a public meeting.
That’s like, that’s unethical.
That’s crazy.
This is, we shouldn’t be here.
I mean, this is, we’re going to have another planning and zoning director in a couple of months.
I don’t know.
It just sits so poorly.
And the other thing, I just ask Sean, if you realize what a lightning rod this position is, Sean, because I do, I have faith in you too.
And you’re capable of doing a good job.
This is a tough position.
Good luck.
I think it’s me now.
And then Commissioner Hedin.
90% of this conversation, about both Sean, Chrissie, should have been held in closed session.
Speaking about policy, we should have went to closed session.
Thank you guys for sitting in.
Sorry, it’s during a public meeting.
We talk about personnel matters in closed session so it doesn’t intentionally hurt people.
Regardless of outcome, we put it in closed session.
That’s why they exist.
Commissioner Hedin.
Brian, thank you.
I am ecstatic to hear that you think the land use code it’s a priority now.
And unfortunately, you know, that was one of the things that we were going to do in the next couple of weeks is have a joint meeting because the planning commission was really starting to push back against things that were being pushed at them.
And they said, we really, they were like, timeout.
We really want to meet with the county commission and have an understanding of what are the priorities and how do we facilitate those priorities?
So again, another thing that I think, we should leave Chrissie in place and allow that meeting to happen.
So then we have a general like, okay, we can all confer on or collaborate on what we feel are priorities.
And I want to say, Brian, we have been working on it.
We had to update the general plan, which took, you know, quite a while.
We had to update the future land use map and the future land use plan.
So we have been in process.
And those are lengthy processes, a ton of public meetings.
You said you went to one of them.
You know, it’s a long process.
And the last piece of that was the land use code, right?
And that falls on us.
The last commission has been working on these other pieces.
It’s not like it sat wailing.
We’ve been working.
And so we’re the last piece to that.
And you both sat in that meeting and hopefully understood.
I think it was made really clear by multiple planning commissioners that it is a fractured document that is no longer working, right?
So you pull one thread and all of a sudden it’s like you come to this dead end.
And so I’m really happy to hear that that’s a priority to you.
Because it’s been a priority.
I’ve said that to both of you multiple times, like timeout, we need to get land use code updated, right?
And I agree.
I think we could work on a few small things.
We actually have some state mandate ordinance updates that we have to have done by the end of 25.
To me, that’s probably priority number one, trumping MFR 45, trumping all these other things.
We have state legislative mandates that have to get done.
That’s probably where we start there and then we do the trickle down.
And again, in a collaborative meeting, we can kind of like, we can parse that out.
What are our priorities?
But I would ask that we wait until minimum until we have that meeting so that we can collaborate with the two commissions.
We can come together.
And I’m not going to keep beating the other drums.
I just, I’m really thinking about the effectiveness, the efficiency of this department and as it relates to our community in general.
Melodie, then I’m going to wrap it up and call for a vote.
Didn’t we talk about in agenda review, putting that on next meeting as our workshop with planning and zoning.
We have, we don’t have anything set in stone.
We don’t have anything set in stone.
So how do we make that decision?
Sure, sure.
The best practice would be for the chairs to communicate about how they want to organize that, set up an agenda and then just pick a date that all seven of you guys can be at.
There’s two different ways to do it.
You could do it on a commission day.
You could do it on a planning commission day.
Both are, both are options.
We talked about doing it on a commission day, our next commission day.
Yeah, if you, if you don’t have, yeah.
We don’t have any other workshops on that day.
Well, I was saying that if we don’t have, we have people to put it on a commission day.
You’ve got com admin and, but you could do either one.
Best practice is going to talk to your, talk to your chairs.
On that.
I mean, just a question on that.
Go ahead, I’m sure, Brian.
Yeah.
So we do have an in-budget for this to be contracted out.
What’s this?
I’m sorry.
The land use code update.
The land use code update is what we’re talking about.
It is an in-budget and we do have a organization that has done a ton of planning.
We’ll probably be up to speed on this.
What would the policy be with, to just hire CB, CBZ.
CBZ.
CBZ.
Yeah, sorry.
To finish the, to finish the land use code.
Do we have to, do we have to suspend policy?
Well, either, either you’re going to put it out for a bid or you’re going to look for a basis to not have, if you’re looking for a sole source or something else, then you’ll have to go through the bid process.
Unless there’s an exception that applies.
And that would be, well, yeah.
I, I’ll speak to the budget for one.
And I know that’s a huge concern for some people.
And that’s a political statement in itself.
But there’s plenty of money left in the budget in this department for several reasons.
Could be because of people that have been fleeing the ship, so to speak for the last four plus years, six years back to November, 2020.
I asked for a list of all the people and there’s a dozen that have left since 2020.
And I know that we want to point out that it’s a terrible environment here for, employees under the current leadership.
But Commissioner Martinez made the statement and not my circus, not my monkey.
It was created by the previous leadership that found us in the position we’re in right now.
That leadership puts so much pressure on both of those departments over there to come into line and approve or disapprove or go with anything that they could possibly think to stop the Kane Creek development.
That pressure was put on.
We saw it affect multiple directors in that department that left.
And I’m not here to name them.
We need to go on to a closed session if we’re gonna do that.
I’m in total agreement with Mike that we need to quit airing our dirty laundry that should be in closed session here and step the level of professionalism up.
But this leadership problem has existed for six plus years.
And that means that it’s on some of your shoulders and you can keep pointing the finger.
But over a dozen employees in those two departments have left prior to my taking the chair this year.
The budget over there, I don’t know what kind of money there is that they have left over there.
But the fact that they haven’t had employees for the last eight months would suggest that we have enough to get through a little bit of time here with Horrocks until we make this change.
And that’s just the direction that I believe we need to go.
I’m in total agreement.
We need to get this land use code done and move forward.
We’ve got some other things.
We’ve got some small items that also need to be moved forward that the commission would like to see done on a rather quick basis.
The landscape ordinance is one of them.
We have people wasting water waiting for that one page ordinance to be pushed through.
We have people wasting water.
And then we have commissioners in here that are fighting a one page ordinance to be pushed through for political reasons.
And then on the other hand, we have all kinds of water meetings about how we want to stop development across the entire county based off of water.
So political, this is definitely political up here.
This has been political for a long time and it’ll probably continue to be so.
But the previous leadership has a track record that is dismal.
And what we’re trying to do is bring a little bit of calm and chaos back to this.
And that’s what we’re gonna do moving forward.
And sometimes it isn’t easy.
It’s not easy.
And that’s where we find ourselves.
I have nothing against Ms. Hofhein or the job she’s doing.
What I do wanna do is bring some direction and move forward in this county.
And that’s gonna take a little bit of effort on all of our parts to do so.
And as we have a motion on the table, I believe was a Commissioner McCurdy and seconded by Commissioner Martinez to change the interim zoning administrator position from Ms. Hofhein to Mr. Yates.
I will call for a vote on that.
All in favor.
Those opposed.
Motion passes four to three.
Commissioner Hedin, Commissioner Hadler, and Commissioner McGann against.
And we will move on to the next item.
Can we postpone this item?
Okay, what do we got here?
This item, I haven’t been able to get it to you guys to drop Commissioner Hadler and Mr. Winfield for you guys’ final approval.
So that’s a little bit hardy.
So I apologize for that delay.
All right, with that, we will then move on to what would be our regular commission reports here and elected official reports and the commission administrator report.
And I think with those all being in the patent in this packet for the public to go in and look at that we will skip this and move on to what I see is an update on the bypass progress.
And then we will go into closed session regarding pending or reasonably imminent litigation.
Yes, sir.
Mr. Yates, if you want to come up and help us out with that bypass, I know that you and I and multiple people have been involved in that, but we’ll help you with what parts that we have a part of as well.
Yeah, so just a little background on the bike path project back in 2018.
Grand County applied for a $10 million grant for a parking facility downtown Moab.
But there’s a public outcry that didn’t end up coming to fruition.
As a result, Grand County petitioned UDOT to retain some of those funds for some projects.
Three projects were recommended for that.
The one that is the apparent, one that UDOT went with and Grand County went with.
It’s a Spanish Valley multi-use bike path, multi-use path, not just for bikes, skateboards, strollers, whatever, to bridge back to transportation.
The limits of the project are from Mill Creek Drive to Pack Creek.
It’s a 10-foot wide path that is separated from the travel way by five feet.
We’re within a couple of weeks of having final plans on that.
Which allows the right-of-way acquisition agents to, I’m sorry.
No, right-of-way acquisition agents.
I already spoke to Mr. Stokes about this a little bit too.
In that conversation, if you need, it is very much my district.
I ran that district.
I did knock on 90% of those doors.
I would love to be that person to help you in that right-of-way acquisition if you need a commission.
So I think much of that’s already really unevident.
Five of the properties, only five of the properties are over a $10,000 valuation, which requires to go into an acquisition.
So I’m sure the public and your constituents in that district appreciate you doing the paperwork to kind of pave the way for that.
That’s really good.
I haven’t heard of anyone who’s been involved with the project.
I think it’s a great project.
It’s sad to see that the bottle wall may have to move or maybe be parts but taken out.
Perhaps we can tame that.
So the project budget, of course, costs of everything are going up.
It’s gone up 16% from 2024 estimate to 2025 estimate.
I think a big part of that is probably Jones and DeMille’s desire to be conservative in their estimate.
So when we get the plans and the specs here in the next couple of weeks, we’re going to take a closer look at those unit bid prices and see what might come in.
We’re hoping to be going out to advertisement approximately a year from now, which should yield some good bids, probably more bids given the fact that contractors do their planning six months to 12 months out in advance.
Let’s see what else we have here.
Environmental, it sounds like much of the environmental work’s been done up front from a public involvement standpoint, just by word of mouth.
This is a great active transportation community, variety of different types of transportation, bicycles and running, so forth.
We’re expecting that this would be completed by late 2027.
I don’t believe it’ll take more than four or five months to construct.
Let’s see what else.
That’s most of the stuff that I know, but just not a lot.
Jacques and then Trish.
Yeah, thanks.
Honestly, this is the most progress that we’ve seen since I’ve been involved, since I started this.
This is a long time coming, but I definitely appreciate this report.
It’s great.
And just to be clear, so that the project estimates to get us down to Pack Creek, which is basically Beeman, right?
Right, okay.
And then I know Bill sent out an email.
We do have a funding shortfall compared to the hotspot funding that we originally got from UDOT.
And I think we should make it a priority start looking for further funding for this project.
However, that looks, we have a great, our GCATT, our Grand County Transportation and Trails Department is really good at securing funding through various loans or grants, I mean, and otherwise.
So working with them, and we’ve had a working group here.
Bill and myself have been on it along with the previous engineer and the road head and Maddie at GCAT.
And I think getting those meetings going on a regular basis again and talking about continuing to secure funding would be essential.
And then also I would love to continue to look at pushing the path down from Beeman to the county line.
I think there’s gonna be a lot of people who, there’s a lot of housing coming on down in that part of the county as well.
And from previous conversations with folks in San Juan County, I think there’s an appetite to continue the path down there.
There’s neighborhoods coming on in San Juan County.
And I remember having a conversation with the administrator down there about eventually even pushing it down to the new Mud Springs Trail system.
I think that would benefit everyone in the community.
Thanks.
That would be fantastic, yeah.
So yeah, I will work with Maddie on additional funding sources.
We’ll know then the specific amount.
What I understand from Gabe is 2.7 million, which puts us at a 1.6 shortfall.
We do have $200,000 for a change order contingency in the project.
But I feel like the project has been estimated conservatively.
And if we can just go after some additional funding.
I don’t know if there’s been bike crashes out there where we could maybe get some safety funds.
There was.
There was, okay.
Just a couple of weeks ago.
Yeah, oh, okay.
Not to cut in.
It’s not good, I mean, but it’s another source of funding.
It’s more of a reactive program, these safety programs.
Commissioner Hedin and then.
You have to save the bottle wall.
You have to save the bottle wall.
You have to.
I know you have to.
We were brainstorming how we might do.
Right.
I was just looking at that today.
Like, that’s such a cool wall.
It’s just right there at the top of the hill.
You guys know what I’m talking about.
It’s my daughter in law made it.
It’s awesome.
It’s beautiful.
Yeah, across from Taylor’s, yeah.
Save it, save it, save it.
Right there by the Tendick’s, right?
Yes.
Mr. McCurdy.
Quick, in talking with that working group.
Also, are we not able to look to some of our TRT funds in the near future for trail creation?
Isn’t that one of?
I’m not…
I would have to defer.
Mr. Martinez or.
Moab Office of Tourism.
It would fall under the trails.
So it could fall under trails.
It could also fall under option sales tax as well, which is for multimodal transportation.
So those are two funds.
I don’t want to bother the mitigation.
And then I do have a question for Commissioner Winfield.
Is this the type of project that CIB would look to fund or help fund that funding of some sort?
They would look at it.
They typically like to look at infrastructure.
I’m not going to say that this isn’t infrastructure.
There is definitely a big portion of the storm drainage portion of this that is going to solve some problems for everybody from Arroyo crossing to the bottom of the hill that have been flooded for the last few years because of the runoff through Arroyo.
So there’s possibility and would certainly be worth bringing to the board for sure.
Or outdoor recreation grants.
Yes, the UDOT trail initiative that they did last year that’s funding the portion of the bike path up to Utah State Raptor as well as closing the gap.
If they’re going to continue with that program, I think that’s probably our best source.
And they might even fund it all the way down to the county line.
I mean, they funded that gap.
And what, Bill, was it $10 million or something like that?
Yeah, it was literally $10 million.
And then I think $2.5 came from UDOT.
Excuse me, $2.5 came from ORI and $10 million from UDOT for that project.
So $10 could probably get us pretty close to the county line anyway.
Yeah, I would think so.
It’s definitely worth asking.
It is also worth considering just because of the utilities that are involved on the project for that storm drain issue because that’s somewhat of a, I don’t want to say it’s a liability, the attorney’s not here, but there is an issue that we’re trying to resolve at the same time we build the bike path through there with storm water runoff.
It could be some economy of scale, do the roadway at the same time, the roadway drainage, separate the path.
Maybe even some other opportunities for funding.
Nice to have a topic we can all get behind.
Yeah.
I think that if we get this land acquisition out of the way is the big thing.
We get past that, why then some construction can actually start and that.
Don’t get everyone excited.
There’s nothing that we can do until that happens.
So yes, Trish.
Brian just left, but when I was on the GWISA board, I know that they’ve talked extensively about extending their irrigation lines.
And I think if we get to that close point, it might be good to collaborate with GWISA because if they could lay them underneath that path, right?
Anyways, just some collaboration with them just to see if that could be feasible anyways.
And I had mentioned that to Ben quite a long time ago.
So I think it’d be interesting just to reach out to GWISA and see where they’re at.
And they might be able to even like, you never know, kick in.
But I know they’re working with Jones and DeMille on that already because the storm drain had to be moved because their water line was in the way.
So I know that Jones is working with GWISA because of the utilities through there.
But it certainly doesn’t hurt to remind them that there’s possibilities if they have anything in the future.
And that was the time to do it.
Yeah, exactly.
This one’s a real easy, all hands on deck.
I mean, anything we could work towards we will.
We’re all in favor of this one politically.
Yes, very much so.
All right, we appreciate you hanging in there for that.
And I would say then that we are looking for a motion to go into closed session.
Motion.
Motion to go into closed session pending or reasonable imminent litigation.
All in favor, aye.
Aye.
Passes six with one absent.
Commissioner Martinez will be back.
All right, let’s take a.
Larry, it’s good to see you made it off that river.
Good to see you made it off the river.
