2022.01.26 TC MTG AGENDA & MINUTES
Town of Leeds
Town Council Meeting for
Wednesday, January 26, 2022
Regular Meeting 7 PM
- Call to Order/Roll Call:
Mayor Hoster called to order the regular meeting of the Leeds Town Council at 7 PM on Wednesday, January 26, 2022. This was an in-person meeting with an electronic option.
ROLL CALL: | ||||
Present | Absent | |||
MAYOR: BILL HOSTER | x |
| ||
COUNCILMEMBER: DANIELLE STIRLING |
| x | ||
COUNCILMEMBER: RON CUNDICK | x |
| ||
COUNCILMEMBER: STEPHEN WILSON | x |
| ||
COUNCILMEMBER: LORRIE HUNSAKER | x |
|
2. Pledge of Allegiance:
3. Declaration of Abstentions or Conflicts: None
4. Approval of Consent Agenda
a. Tonight’s Agenda
b. Meeting Minutes of 1/12/2022
Councilmember Hunsaker moved to approve tonight’s agenda and meeting minutes of January 12, 2022. 2nd by Councilmember Cundick. Motion passed in a Roll Call Vote.
ROLL CALL VOTE: | ||||||||
Yea | Nay | Abstain | Absent | |||||
MAYOR: Bill HOSTER | x | |||||||
COUNCILMEMBER: DANIELLE STIRLING | x | |||||||
COUNCILMEMBER: RON CUNDICK | x | |||||||
COUNCILMEMBER: STEPHEN WILSON | x | |||||||
COUNCILMEMBER: LORRIE HUNSAKER | x |
5. Citizen Comments:
6. Announcements:
a. Dog & Cat Vaccinations at Town Hall, Saturday, January 29, 2022, from 1-3 pm
b. Dog License renewal deadline, Monday, January 31, 2022
c. Filling position of Bookkeeper
d. Bids to update Leedstown.org website and Codification process
e. Intention to seek RFPs regarding construction of a pickle ball court at the town park
Mayor Hoster: We also have intentions to seek RFPs. Regarding construction of pickleball courts. These have been surfaced for construction in the park right behind the town hall. We have had a couple of contractors observe the area give us some preliminary assessments of which have been that we could put three courts, they’re taking out the basketball court and the volleyball court and then going one more over at this point we have asked them to kind of break down some of the bids, it seems far more appropriate to piecemeal this out and maybe just start with two. We are looking at obtaining bids, then taking information to Town Council to then vote on and determined further action if need be.
7. Public Hearing: None
8. Action Items:
a. Election of Mayor Pro Tem
Mayor Hoster: We have the following action item which will be the election of our Mayor Pro Tem. I now open the floor to nominations.
Councilmember Cundick: I nominate Steve Wilson.
Mayor Hoster: I will second that. Are there any other nominations?
Councilmember Hunsaker: I already knew where this was going. So, go for it.
Mayor Hoster: Very good. If that ceases the nominations by default, we will be electing Steve Wilson as the Mayor Pro Tem.
9. Discussion Items:
a. Sunrise Engineering and PDS General Plan and Master Transportation Plan Updates
- Provide an Update on the Project
- Review the Town’s Survey Feedback and Provide a Last Opportunity for the Town to Provide Feedback
- Discuss the Project’s Next Steps Going Forward
Christian Bennett: Good evening council members. My name is Christian Bennett, and I am a civil engineer for Sunrise Engineering. My involvement throughout this process has been project manager. We are working with Planning and Development Services, Bruce Parker, and he is doing the General Plan update process. Before we get started, I want to say the thank you to the Council members and Mayor Hoster and the Town of Leeds for providing us this opportunity to work with you through this General Plan update process, we really appreciate the opportunity. As we go through the presentation, I had divided into three subsections just starting with a little quick background about General Plan documents themselves. A general plan document is a guiding Land use document for the town that provides long term direction and support for future land use decisions. It also provides directions for changes to zones, plat maps, conditional use permits annexations, and new development and everything in between. There should be a synergy between the general plan document and the town’s zoning. Our ultimate goal as we go through this process is to provide you with a general plan document that you can use for years to come to help you with your future zoning decisions. I am a civil engineer and not a planner. So, if there are any questions that I do not know the answer to I will take a note of them and have Bruce get back to you on anything that I am not able to provide a clear solution for. As of now, we have conducted a town wide survey, we have sent out physical mailings, and we have also provided an online portal where you can fill that survey out online as well. And we have taken those surveys. We have also sent out notifications to interested stakeholders to provide them an update that we are going through this process with a Town of Leeds, if they have any input, now would be the time to provide it. We could take that information into account as we go through this general plan update. We have also worked with the town to identify a steering committee, and we have met with them twice through a kickoff meeting. We have also had a follow up meeting with them as we have gone through the survey results and provided a quick overview and discussion with the steering committee as well. We have also worked with PDS they conducted a techno pool assessment an overview of the survey results. In tonight’s meeting, I will just do a quick overview of those results. And also, if there is anything else that you would like to say, this is also an opportunity to provide any feedback you have as well. So, based on the survey results that we received, there were a total of 105 surveys that were completed and submitted. 63.8% of those were online surveys and 36.2% of those were mailed in or dropped off at the town hall. The age of the respondents 65 and older there was 33.7% of the surveys that were submitted between the ages of 51 and 64 was just under 36%. Between 36 and 50 was about 21% and younger than 35 and count income just about 9% of the surveys that were submitted 3% of the resident or these submissions were unsure if they were within or outside of the Leeds town boundaries. 6% were outside of the town boundaries and 90% of them were within town boundaries. So, one of the questions that we included in the survey was the top reasons for residing or operating a business and Leeds. Based on the feedback that we received from the town. Residents of Leeds enjoy the small town in rural feel. They love the views of Pine Mountain the physical terrain around Leeds, and the clear view of the night sky. They enjoy the access to the public lands for outdoor and recreational opportunities. They like the quiet and quaint feel of Leeds town, they either it is their hometown, or they have family that live here. They enjoy the low-density housing with the large lots and ample open space. They do enjoy that is an agricultural and welcomes animals. There is a friendly sense of community among the residents, and there’s lack of traffic could cause congestion throughout the town of Leeds. And furthermore, they enjoy that they are close to shopping but not necessarily in the metropolitan feel, so they get to have the feeling of a small community while also being in close to shopping opportunities. They also like the lack of HOA fees and or subdivisions. On the contrary, the most disliked quality of Leeds that we received is that there is a lack of cohesiveness amongst neighbors on how to maintain properties. There is a lack of ordinance enforcement while trying to preserve the rights of property owners. Some residents feel that there’s too fast of growth in and around the town.
Clerk: We have a request from a Zoom applicant for you to slow down.
Christian Bennett: Yes, of course. Forgive me. There is a lot of information here. Leeds could do better cleaning up the appearance of Main Street and the properties along Main Street. There have also been some suggestions about planting more trees, maintaining the sidewalks, providing more sidewalks and also improving the pedestrian transportation with bike lanes. There is also a lot of feedback about enforcement of ordinances as well. One of the last items was in the survey was what could make Leeds a better place to live or operate a business. Many residents would like to maintain the local private water Company LDWA, and not make an agreement with the water conservancy. So, protection of water is a significant concern for the residents. Many residents want to maintain that small town feel also controlling growth and keeping it slow while keeping the town self-sufficient and quaint. As mentioned previously, another issue that was mentioned in this section of the survey was to address the storm drainage and additional water management needs for the town of Leeds. Also, to provide more community celebrations and functions, even though that is something that the town does well already. Create incentives or other resources for businesses to stay here so that way there is less turnover. And also, with the planting of trees. They want to improve the beautification of common areas providing recreational facilities such as pickleball courts behind Town Hall.
One of the other aspects that was part of the survey was providing housing for all ages and based on the results that we received 8.6% of the residents were undecided. 58.1% agree with providing housing for all ages and 33.3% were against providing housing for all ages. As Leeds moves forward with the population and growth, some of the issues that we believe that the town will face, based on the results we received, will be trying to keep that small town atmosphere in the middle of this housing and population boom while keeping up with the infrastructure needs as the town grows. And also, some fear that there may not be enough water supply as the town continues to grow. And then also there is that issue with the sewer. Many residents are concerned about sewer as well, and then also alleviating the traffic along Main Street.
So those were the results, just a quick overview of the results that we received from the town. If there are any other items that the town would like to provide. We will have a little bit of time after the presentation. But as we move forward in this process, we are in the culinary stages right now. But the next steps are that our planner Bruce Parker would like to start conducting stakeholder interviews for important stakeholders in the process. They also like to begin illustrating a future land use map and documenting a land use policy. And then once that is complete, we would like to have a presentation with the planning commission in the city council to go over what Bruce has put together, and either received feedback from you or approval to move forward. And then once we have that land use element finalized, that is what we are going to use to guide the transportation element of the general plan.
Mayor Hoster: Who are the stakeholders that you are referencing Bruce is going to be speaking with? Are they not just the residents and the businesses associated with Leeds? Are there others outside of Leeds?
Christian Bennett: There are Leeds specific stakeholders and I have a list of an agency resource list that we have reached out to if you would like a copy of that. So, some of those include LDWA, the BLM, Washington County Sheriff, UDOT. We have already notified them that we are going through this process. But if there are stakeholders that want to have an interview to provide specific feedback, then we are going to provide them the opportunity to do so. Perfect. That is all I have. Thank you for your time this evening. And if there is any questions or comments, we would love to hear.
Councilmember Wilson: The concern that was generated was sewers. Are people concerned about sewers coming in or not coming in? Do people want sewers to come in or not?
Christian Bennett: I believe people do not want sewer to come in. I believe there was a septic density report that was conducted a while back. And that also raised very, some flags for sewer for the town. Are there any other questions?
Darryl Lewis: I think you did a wonderful job of compiling this. And there is a wealth of information here. My question is, when does this this that you just presented? When does this become available so that we could have it going forward? We are citizens who have to pass judgment on all of this, these people have to do the work, but we have to pass judgment on it. Okay. Will that be available? Is it available now?
Christian Bennett: We can work with the Town on maybe publishing that on the website once we have a finalized draft. And maybe we can make that available to the Town that way. You can see the compiled summarized survey results. Is that something that the town would be interested in providing on the website?
Mayor Hoster: I have no problem with that. It would probably take us probably about 30 days to get everything scanned in and, and up and on safely.
Darryl Lewis: Is there any way we can start from this point? So, we are not coming in halfway down the road?
Mayor Hoster: Let me let me give you an answer within the next day or two. After I have had a chance to review it. Make sure there is not anything confidential on there. Are there any other further questions for Christian? Thank you so much for attending.
b. Main Street Storm Water Update
Mayor Hoster: Karl is not here, is he? We did have one other discussion item, which was the flood water runoff project that has been in process, I can give a little bit of an update as to this point. The town has been working with UDOT with regard to sharing some of the financial responsibility to relieve some of the flood damage or flood water that can damage a lot of the homes along Main Street. I have walked that, that whole process with them. And we do have one engineer who has been leading the project that was invited tonight. I am not sure why he is not here. But his update to me on the phone, just this last week was that they are still working on trying to get facilitated numbers for running three different diversions from Main Street to the west, which will then shoot out south and go down into the Sullivan fields and then go into a marsh that is down in that area. So, to our understanding that is that is far less expensive and far more effective of a plan, and they are trying to get some, some numbers finalized for us at this point. It does affect some properties that are along that end road out Valley with regard to culverts, and how those culverts will be enhanced, to be able to accept the water that will be coming in from the Main Street diversion. That is as far as we are aware of any modifications that have been presented so far. They are trying to get financial impact on those. So that was that was the extent of the of the stormwater update.
Councilmember Hunsaker: Has the proposal been completely changed for going Center to Valley? We are not doing sidewalks or any drainage work along Main Street, now? There are not two bids coming in.
Mayor Hoster: They do have the one bid from raising the sidewalks. Karl had a preliminary on it that he was supposed to discuss with us. The comparison to moving it down to Valley was about a third. That was his comment.
Councilmember Wilson: Do you know Mayor if he had contacted Sullivans yet? Was that approved?
Mayor Hoster: Yes, I was in that meeting, and they have preliminarily agreed to move forward with further discussion. I do not want to put a final say on what, because they have Counsel when they read the final proposal. Any other questions on these discussion items?
10. Citizen Comments: No action may be taken on a matter raised under this agenda item. (Three minutes per person).
Julianne Bruley: I recently had a conversation with a gal who was visiting the Catholic cemetery. She made a comment that there was a couple of crosses that are either broken or soon to be broke. And I was wondering about the protocol of the maintenance, or citizen participation to make repairs to those. That was one of my questions. I have another one. I do not know if you have an answer. Regarding this one.
Mayor Hoster: Why do not we go ahead with this one.
Councilmember Hunsaker: Have you spoken to your husband?
Julianne Bruley: Yes. I have a volunteer if that is the proper protocol.
Councilmember Hunsaker: We have the crosses that are there. I would go out with him and just see if those are mendable. Does he think he can do that? If we need additional supplies, then we would have to bring that through Town Council approval to get additional supplies you may need. Have him call me and we will get on out there and see get so we can get it done.
Mayor Hoster: There is a full force effort to try and organize all of that right now by Councilwoman Hunsaker. It has been a valiant effort to try and go back through all of the history on that, but the repairs are definitely of priority for us. So, thank you for that. Okay. And your second question.
Julianne Bruley: My next question is there is a lot of new development growth outside the annexed area that rumors of coming mainly down here in from Anderson junction. This growth will have effects and maybe some adverse effects to our town of Leeds. These developments should be subject to assessments, conditions improvements. Is the town of Leeds coordinating with the Washington County Planning Commission to assess impacts to the town of Leeds and its infrastructure, namely traffic lights, noise studies? Again, I know some most of our roads are UDOT. But as these big encroachments come even if there is an on ramp there, I do not know what percentage but there I would think twenty thirty, forty, fifty percent of the people that are camping there are going to be using our streets and so forth. So, is the town of Leeds working with the Washington County Planning Commission to get some monies?
Mayor Hoster: Great question. I will go ahead and address that. Thank you, Julie. That was a great question that we are going to be somewhat involved with Washington County. Some of it, they do not care, to be quite honest with you, they are, they are moving forward with these particular cities. And those developments are a part of what they are doing. Now we are in touch with Washington County with regard to some of the grant monies that are available for our roads, we also are discussing with them some of the negative impacts that might affect our water, other utility access. Those conversations are in place right now to try and discuss, but they are also in place with every Mayor in the in the county right now. It is almost a weekly discussion. We are trying to assess; it is all one connected. resource. When we get 4000 homes that go into Tocqueville, which is what how many they have slotted to go right now. They are pulling from the reservoir up there, and also another pump, it is pulling from the water that LDWA has access to as well. We are really trying to be aggressive in standing up for Leeds and its existing resources. The residents of Leeds, and this is a this is a very intense conversation. We are involving LDWA in those conversations. The other components that you brought up with regard to how the county is working with us with the impacts, again, it is something that they are not particularly concerned with, and I am referring to areas that are like, with the police and with the fire, and all of those things. It is they are not adjusting any of those things with us. Did you have any other components of the impact that you had?
Julianne Bruley: I just want to thank you, Mayor and Town Council members for your tireless efforts.
Mayor Hoster: Appreciate that. Any other questions?
Ralph Rohr: I would like to address. Again, the subject of sewers and provide just a little background. People have major concern about this, because sewers came up in the context of developers wanting them to expand their developments. Hance they were going to be forced upon the rest of us, for the sake of developers. As you heard from the gentleman from Sunrise. I think that I hear from the town I could not hear everything said that well was most people would like to maintain the small-town atmosphere. Certainly, the developers are going wild and some of the communities around us. The consensus here seems to be that we would like to maintain small town atmosphere. So, I think that is the background and why people are suspicious of sewers coming in, not to mention the fact that it would be enormously expensive capital expenditures and monthly expenditures over what people currently experience. I think that the septic systems are working well throughout our community, and I have not heard any complaints and not the usual things that people complain about on septic systems. So, I just wanted to address that background and put it into context. Thank you.
Mark Rosenthal comment from Zoom: I suggest the town also include Angels Springs, as they provide culinary water to a portion of the town.
Mayor Hoster: As a stakeholder. Okay. Thank you, Mark. We had another comment out here.
Patrick Collins: Good evening, Mayor, and community council members. I came prepared to talk about pickleball. So, it is a favorite sport of my wife, and myself. We have been playing it for probably about four or five years. Before that, we used to like to play tennis together. My wife’s pretty good. And she is pretty good with anything with a racket. As we have gotten older Pickleball has become more of our favorite sport. We were introduced to it a few years ago, in the community that we lived in previously, which is maybe a little bigger than this, but actually has less money from commercial businesses. Think they had, you know, one or two businesses in town, but they had a population of probably about 5000 people. There was a group of, of empty nesters, people that would meet once a month and have dinner. And they decided that they would fund the building of pickleball courts in our community. And so, they did, and they built some really nice courts. They have a town park, and there was an area that they were using for collecting branches and things like that. And then they would have it mulched and there was a big fire, and all that burned. They decided maybe it is safer to have pickleball courts. So that land was donated, and they built four pickleball courts. They were fenced, they had gates that could be closed, and there were also seats. My wife, and I particularly enjoy it if we are with another couple. So, doubles are the preferable way to play pickleball. I just wanted to show you this is a racket; we actually have six rackets. We started out with wooden rackets. And we graduated to these are a little bit pricey, probably about $75 for this racket. And in case you have ever seen a pickleball ball, there is two kinds, there is this yellow one, and then there is an orange one that is a little bit smaller, but it bounces harder. Anyways, we have friends that come from Logan, every year, and they live in Green Valley. So, we will go there and play on their courts. Also, we go to Sullivan Park. We will play there upon occasion. There are other pickleball courts, not too far away, but still a distance. And I do not know how many people in Leeds played pickleball. I have asked some people, some of my neighbors and they do not they are not familiar with it. But we were not familiar with it a few years ago. And now we love it. And one of the things you can do even when all the pickleball courts are full, and people are playing as you can actually rotate into games, and people will let you do that. So, we will wait. Two people will come out and then for example, my wife and I would go in we would play a game we probably lose and then we would come out and another couple would come in and then play that and challenge that couple that just won. It is a great time to talk to your neighbors and to laugh to make fun of each other. Occasionally, if my wife is on the other side for some reason the ball goes down and it hits her, but it does not hurt her. Anyways. But we have a great time. I would certainly appreciate having pickleball courts here. I know that I have talked to my wife, and she is willing to contribute if necessary. Perhaps there would be others in the community that are willing to contribute if finances are needed. You know, just let me know. Okay.
Daryl Lewis: You are new on the on the board, Mayor and welcome and all of that. But I would like to get Silver Reef Road put back on the resurfacing agenda. It was to have been resurfaced, I think two years ago, we did all of our area. And Silver Reef Road was the last one to be resurfaced, and then COVID hit, and it just kind of got pushed off onto the side. The road just continued to get deteriorated. And I would sure like to see it back on the agenda for resurfacing.
Mayor Hoster: Thank you for that, Daryl. Just an update on that. There are some options, we are currently pursuing bids for the chip seal, we in the past had been able to coattail on to Hurricane with their contractor, which we were just denied from their contractor, and so we have to go out individually, which is going to be very expensive. In the meantime, the infrastructure bill that was passed has been extended through the end of January I have reached out to Ron Whitehead with the Washington County grant division, and they are going to be redoing the bridge at the end of Oak Grove. That is being slotted. We anticipate that to occur, but we are also going to see if there are monies that can be contributed into the repair or replacement of Silver Reef Road because it does sustain a substantial amount of tourist traffic going to the Dixie National Forest. That has been the purpose. So, thank you for your comments on that. And hopefully that has been insightful. Are there any other questions or comments?
Ken Hadley, I just want to thank everyone that participated in a Wreaths across America. I am not sure how much donation we have submitted, but are we still in the hole for that? Well, I like to thank everybody that did participate in that. And we will be doing it again next year. Going to start doing a little better job with the two pioneer cemeteries. Hopefully, we will have a flag at each one of them. We will be working on that. Also, I have talked to a few people who would like to
have a Christmas Village next year. Just putting that forward if anybody else is interested and would like to get that started for next year.
Mayor Hoster: You’re volunteering to lead that committee, are you? Mr. Hadley? You are an awesome attribute. I cannot thank you enough for all you did for the Wreaths Across America project. It turned out wonderful. Thank you, sir. Very good. Ladies and gentlemen. I have to regress just a little bit. As I mentioned earlier, the engineer for the main street stormwater update was not here prior. He has arrived. Because it is on the agenda. I would like to circle back and allow him a few minutes to go ahead and proceed with that.
b. Main Street Storm Water Update
Karl Rasmussen: I have made the official concept plan.
We have a new council member. Hello, Ron. I know you. Welcome, then I know Stephen and there is Lorrie and where is?
Councilmember Wilson: Danielle is missing today.
Karl Rasmussen: She is probably in Alaska. That is all right. So, what is going on is, it would have been nice to have it on the screen there, I can explain it to everyone. If you look at this map that I have for you, at the very top, I showed the Sullivan property that is down south and the very south end Valley. If you see a nice red polyline, it is about the thickness of a fingernail, but you can see it on the map, it goes from the south end by where the drainage, that is the historic drainage, for Leeds proper. It goes to the north and pretty much goes through that pasture of the Sullivans and goes up to the trailer park. That is how the ground flows naturally. If there was a big deluge, it can go that way. But there are some roads that are built up that would just contain water and it would sit there. The main purpose of this project is to take water that is coming down Main Street, the rule of thumb especially here in southern Utah, is when you get those downpours, you got a street that’s more than a thousand feet long. If water cannot get into a storm drain, or channel, or to a basin somewhere then you better look at those types of features. Especially as a town board. If you have a future subdivision coming and they are proposing streets with burrowed ditches and they just do not propose any pipes are an avenue for this water to go; beware, because it will create problems. Go out to Apple Valley and you will know what I am talking about. They have dug these big deep ditches, but they have even done that wrong. They just needed to contain their water with some storm drain systems. With some more pipes and get rid of it. When they get it to the washes and into detention basins to slow the flow then it will not erode the roadway. What they are dealing with is a bunch of erosion out there on the roads they have. What we are trying to do on Main Street, I know I just kind of went on a tangent there, but on Main Street it is paved. Right? We got curb and gutter. But we got these sidewalks that I was calling roller coasters on Main Street. Those low roller coasters, as the water is heading down and it hits a driveway, it will jump the driveway and go into fill sidewalks and against people’s walls and into their yards. They eventually go over against their house and if the door of their houses too low it is going to go into the house. Mostly it goes around the houses and then it heads down behind people’s yards and down to Valley Road. Eventually there is some places it ponds there just because of your old sets up and there’s people that have some like that. If you go down by Mulberry and look at some of those lots that are just north of Mulberry to the Northwest of Valley Road where We looked at it the other day, that is where that water will sit and stay there. There are some pipes that people have put in there and there is a little storm drainpipe. It varies from 24 inches to 18 inches, some places we do not know what they have done, because it is just buried, right. We do not know what size it is. It is funny that some driveways are 24 inches up at the head. and as you go down further, some pipes are smaller. So technically, when you deal with storm drainage, the further downstream you go, the bigger the pipes we need. So that is just a rule of thumb. So, we met with the Sullivans just before Christmas. I got an email; I think it was December. I did not want to hit reply to all and then include you in it until the today, but I did just this evening, send that email out with this map. And I told them that this is the official opening of discussion with the family. I know we have met on site to go over this scenario and look at getting easements or right of ways to convey all that water from Center Street, clear up to here (points at map) even up the street even further where the current goes. We try to take 60% of that flow, dump it in a double box a big box and send it down a 24-inch pipe which would go down Center Street. Water would be collected here. And then it would go down toward Valley. And then it would head down towards Sullivan’s fields. We collect it here. (Points at map)There is a little monument there, and there are gas lines When we design this, we’ve already known where gas is and there is an irrigation line. Once the Sullivans sign the right of ways, there is no sense getting design done, because that is time wasted. If we cannot get the right of ways through here for a ditch to convey the water down to this drainage; so, what we need to do is get that first. Once that is obtained it is only going to take a matter of two weeks to finish the design. I have already got sheets prepared; I have this concept sheet which would turn into a site plan, but I even have some initial pipe design going Clear down to Mulberry right now. When we talked to Sullivan’s, I think at the end we decided hey, and the city owns right of way down off the slope in the road. Why not look at putting a ditch here. Getting the water down to here and then we just got to put a pipe underneath the road on Foothill Road. Then, we can get it in a ditch that we build the right along the fence line on the east side of the fence line. Anyway, when we met with the Sullivans they even mentioned looking at that. It is not even; it is a road that everyone uses but the city right of way goes clear down here into the field from the old Old Town plats. The old original plats there goes clear down into these fields. Anyway, as we go work out the easements and what they want, what the city wants, we are going to open up the discussion. I do not want to say what they want right now. We know what they want, but I want to let them spell out what they want as part of the agreement with the city to make this all happen; and then vice versa. I will tell them what we need and what we want.
Councilmember Hunsaker: What is the price difference between including the sidewalks like we had on the original plan?
Karl Rasmussen: With the price of concrete going up since we got the grant and then we have the funding from UDOT, and with COVID and everything, concrete is almost doubled in price. It is maybe 70% more than what it used to be. When I did the initial estimates for that concrete, and even Pipe has gone up too. We do this 24-inch pipe there is a system out there that has this nitrile plastic, instead of making boxes out of concrete, there are these nitrile boxes. They are just polymer, almost big PVC pipes. Toquerville has some on the Westfield Road, Ivins is putting them in all over the place.
Mayor Hoster: What is the price difference?
Karl Rasmussen: We have $300,000 to spend. And it is going to take that in all piping, if we do pipe here, to do 300,000 and build the ditch. That is my initial estimate.
Mayor Hoster: And that versus raising office sidewalks.
Karl Rasmussen: Sidewalks, we are only going to get probably half of it done. We are really not going to know until we put this out for bid. And I do know, the. One contractor in the area I know that will bid it and there’s probably even two, I’d really like to see three or four bid it. I was hoping that pricing would go lower. I know the stock market’s been starting to do some correcting. I do not know what they have decided on interest rates and such. But I was hoping that with everyone catching up on product now and which sounds like they are not because grocery stores are having a hard time even filling their shelves with product. I just know that the price of this is gone up probably thirty to forty percent compared to what it was two years ago.
Mayor Hoster: The three directions of pipe that we have to put in are enough to pull off from Center Street North any of the water that has been causing everything south of that, so it has really taken out a significant portion of the water flow down that?
Karl Rasmussen: Who owns the historic house right here? Scott Hayes? Yeah. He is the one yeah, when we had that UDOT walkthrough with Tracy Monson, he is the one that pointed out how when that water hits Center Street there and hits that Valley gutter. Instead of keeping that at three percent it was, all of a sudden, they took that Valley gutter to 2%. So, what it does is it creates this hydraulic jump, and it backs up the water. You can see because of the sediment that it directly deposits right there on that street. It just deposits a bunch of sediment; it builds up, next storm it even builds up more. What it was doing was sending water. You can see where they put little dikes under the low street corner there from the house. They have had to build that up so that they do not keep getting flooded.
Mayor Hoster: On our preliminary proposal to the Sullivan family, do we have a draft for that document to be prepared?
Karl Rasmussen: No, I will have one. I just emailed that we are using this map to open up the official negotiations. One of their family members is an attorney. Do you get an email on your phone? If you could pull up that email, we can look up that person’s name. That was what they were waiting for is a good map. We got our mapping done showing where we are putting the boxes and how we are running the pipe. I put on here where we are wanting to do ditch and they might have it different. One of the things we talked about is they do not want a big deep ditch. They did not want it to erode and have issues with it.
Mayor Hoster: Tom Beach
Karl Rasmussen: He is the son in law. If you read down through there, there is the daughter of Craig Sullivan.
Mayor Hoster: Joni Wright, she is with Beach Law. Your draft to them as anticipated within the next week or two?
Karl Rasmussen: Oh Yeah. I will just put a note where it says legal description, because we are going to have that surveyed. I just want them to agree to the document. And then we will schedule a time to get the legal description for what needs to fit in there. Let us get the verbiage done with them. Then, if they say yes, let us get field work done.
Mayor Hoster: Then we can get that out for bid?
Karl Rasmussen: Oh yeah, with the help of Tracy Monson. We can get this thing bid out. So, someone can be working in May and June and get this done before we get Storms in July, August, and September.
Councilmember Hunsaker: I have a question. I am just trying to wrap my brain around this. Now, the damage to the sidewalks on Main Street, you are not going to be touch them with this, however, wasn’t the damage of the sidewalks caused by the incorrect engineering from UDOT on the last project? That is why they were willing to put money towards this. Because I am just thinking the residents not getting their sidewalks fixed and we still have the roller coaster.
Bill Hoster: I understand the funding was because of the water portion of Main Street is how we are getting a ration of the funding that is available to us. I do not believe it was in repair for any sidewalks. That is what I got from Tracy.
Karl Rasmussen: We have been in discussions from day one with UDOT. I first presented a report, and we put in there let us run a storm drain line down Main Street and run boxes every so often to pick up the water on the roads. They just read Main Street and they are like; we are not doing that. We do not want that. Then they said as we are driving that. Why don’t we just fix the sidewalks and then as we went to walk it to fix the sidewalks. We figured, well, here is the deal. To me it is a band aid approach because the best scenario was to get some pipes in the ground.
Councilmember Hunsaker: No, I am not saying what your doing is not a good thing. I am just saying that I thought that they were responsible for the sidewalk repair.
Karl Rasmussen: Here is what I am going to recommend. Let us get the water in a pipe. Tracy Monson/UDOT, they were amenable to going this scenario just because that’s where water used to go and there were ditches in town and that is how it used to go out and not go down in front and people’s yards here. Then as time goes on, you know some people could fix their sidewalks themselves. But as time goes on, UDOT always has these contingency funds. And I would just get with them and say let us work on half of the block or this block for a year and let us replace those sidewalks and get them done. The funding we got now is for this. Really it is politics game because you are dealing with their officials and everything. That mess there was brought on by their bad design. They lifted up the road and they did the right thing with the driveways, but they never did anything with the sidewalks other than tamp them down to existing ones. By the time we were walking and look at people have beautiful landscapes there then to raise these up some of them we are going have to replace those landscapes or work with the people.
Mayor Hoster: UDOT was not going to do that. They said they will put rocks there. That is all.
Karl Rasmussen: That is true.
Councilmember Hunsaker: Originally it was in kind. It just keeps changing but now it does all the people that you have talked to along Main Street. We were told the sidewalks were getting fixed. Now they are completely out, and Valley is covered. I am just wondering when they start calling, I just want to have an answer to give. UDOT caused the problem with the sidewalks. I just wanted to make that clear.
Karl Rasmussen: This is the third scenario now. The first scenario is we run on a pipe down Main Street.
Councilmember Hunsaker: Does Zack Sullivan know that that water is going to inundate his arena?
Karl Rasmussen: Oh, it is not going to inundate the arena. That would be a sad day, right? Here is the original drainage. It is flowing water right now, we went down and looked. There is a pipe right here. I do not know people’s names, so I am just pointing out where they live. There is a pipe there. There is a good amount of water that flows naturally out of this drainage. That is why this is all drain.
Mayor Hoster: On discussion with UDOT in being able to facilitate doing this and also consideration for the repair of the sidewalks. Can we facilitate that conversation with them?
Karl Rasmussen: Yes.
Mayor Hoster: If we can do that. I think that might help. And we will include Lorrie in those discussions to further see what options we have.
Karl Rasmussen: Are you over streets, Lorrie? Who is assigned over the street department?
Mayor Hoster: Planning Commission. Karl, thank you. This is really helpful. I think you summarized it incredibly well. And this graphic is phenomenal for us to get a vision.
Karl Rasmussen: I did a big map here and there is some extras if you need more. I emailed the clerk. What is your name? I am so bad with names. I just call you Clerk. I call him Mayor. Call you Councilmembers. I do know Ron.
Mayor Hoster: Aseneth is our Clerk.
Karl Rasmussen: That’s a unique name. Never heard that one. Okay. Anything else?
Councilmember Wilson: That four by four box right there. That would be sufficient to handle any water that came there.
Karl Rasmussen: Oh yes. A four-by-four box when you fill that thing it will all go into a 24.
Councilmember Hunsaker: Are there three boxes here?
Karl Rasmussen: No. This should be pulled up here. This should be pulled down there.
Mayor Hoster. Karl, Thank you. Does anyone have anymore questions. No.
11. Staff Reports:
Councilmember Hunsaker: I am working on the cemetery and trying to get the paperwork together. If we have anybody in town that has their documents for their plots, that would like to email those to me, that would be a beautiful thing. I have them and they are in there. But we just have some handwritten stuff that I would like to clarify by seeing actual documents and I will try and contact those families but if anybody has any paperwork pertaining to either the Catholic the Protestant or the main Leeds LDS cemetery, please feel free to give a holler. And then as Mr. Hadley was talking about, we have interest in having Country Christmas market where local artisans and baked goods are offered and displayed. We need to figure out a Christmas theme for local artisans to have it at the park maybe the weekend after Thanksgiving. So wanted to get a committee together to try and hash that out and see about doing that. So, anybody that is interested in that, give a holler. And that is all I have.
13. Adjournment: 8:05pm
Approved this Ninth Day of February 2022.
____________________________________________________________
Bill Hoster, Mayor
ATTEST:
_______________________________________________________________
Aseneth Steed, Clerk/Recorder
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Pinterest