Cache Open Space Advisory Committee Meeting – 03-02-2026

Okay. Welcome everybody to the March 2, COSAC meeting. And, we appreciate you being here look forward to working our way through our agenda today. Any edits to that agenda that you're aware of? We're good on that? Good to hear it. K. Did everybody have a chance to look at the minutes? Any Questions or concerns? I didn't see anything. So in both cases, without objection, we'll approve the agenda and the minutes from the 01/05/2026 meeting. K. Thanks. Alright. Item number three, pre application. Is that

something you'll give us a presentation on, Angie or Lisa? I think Kurt was Or Kurt. Okay. Great. Were you going to give them any information on that pre application that you requested?

On the application,

You know, it has 18.8 18.18 acres, which is the gravel pit there in Sardine Canyon. What we've agreed to is to purchase that and the purchase is supposed to close on the eighteenth of this month. We're waiting for some documentation back from UDOT and haven't received it yet. That's not unusual for them. And so our plan is to proceed no matter what, but they'll we have been in contact with them, and they have confirmed that the sales are go. So any questions on that?

Are you so the plan is to use bond funds for that. Bond funds for that. Is that right, Kirk?

You guys, I didn't know I was gonna have to do this, but the answer to that is yes. K. That's what we're here to talk to you about to make sure that that that's something that it's part of that whole thing and makes sense for us to have, and we wanna make sure that you approve of us using those funds for that purpose.

Okay.

So were you looking for any kind of action from us on this today or just to give make make sure we're aware of that the county is moving forward with this?

We prefer that you that you give us the permission to do it because we're gonna go ahead and purchase it because we need it. If we have to use county funds and then get reimbursed by that by the open space funds, fine. But that's not how we plan on doing. We're hoping to be able to use that. George, do you wanna chime in here?

The rest of this project had been purchased with open space money. Yes. And so this is a little piece. It's it's kind of in the throat of access. Our primary access is the existing access. And the only way to get from the existing access to the bulk of our property, if you look at this, is is through this area. Yeah. So we we think it's a necessary acquisition to the rest of the property. We've negotiated a $160,000

It's a $160,000.

$160,000 to purchase the 18 acres. I see. It it seemed like a a great deal. That does sound like a great deal. But the process of using open space money requires your consent. So because the state want to move quickly and we really don't wanna put this up for public bid or or public interference, we'd like to have permission to go ahead. Okay. If your process requires additional time for you to approve something like this, we can go ahead and use, county money. But then we would ask you to buy it from us and just simply add it to the existing property up there. Okay.

We had hoped that there would be access there, but there UDOT, who owns it, reminds us that that's a federal highway. Yeah. And they weren't encouraging that we'd be able to get any access onto that road. You mean like a tram traverse through there or turn into there? Yeah. Actually turn into there off the highway. So they're they're not gonna give us highway access.

At least they're saying that it would be a lot of work. We stand in their shoes with respect to access versus the federal government. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it to me, it's pretty obvious we'd like to add it to that portfolio up there. And I think that in addition to the point you made, which is making sure we have connectivity between our parcels, right, through this parcel, there's also the issue of just protecting the scenery all along the highway, immediately adjacent to the highway. I see that. It's pretty important here. So committee members, do you have questions?

Does it does it connect? It it joins right onto your property.

Nobody in between. Yeah. If you can take it with us. If you if you can back out a little bit further, Angie, all of the property there to the north, except that box that belongs to Wellsville is a property that we've acquired. Cache County. And if you look, it looks like you could go east of that red, but that's actually a very steep cliff. So you can't go east of that. And those other tracks, there is a right of way between them. Expand it a little bit, Angie. Yeah, there is a right of way, but that's that roadway is a private roadway. Yeah. So not not that one. It's the one that's east of that edge. You put the arrow No. No. It's Up here. Sorry. Thank you. That's a private right of way, and we we don't have use. So if if you look at our property, there's this little small corridor between what is called the MGT MGT property and the state of Utah, we would be having to try and get our people through that neck. And we think this is a far better choice to have this property. The likely hood is we'll come onto our property where the current entry is, put a parking lot, may also put something like a restroom or something with the parking lot, and then then have trails that go from there up. That's that's how we think the property will be managed.

There was funding for study. We have because we're adding this, because there have been a few other discussions going on and that we would either have had to postpone that and work through it. We've we've instructed them just to hold off on that money. We'll reapply for it when we're ready to actually have the study done. Yeah. That's great.

So if we add it, then this could be incorporated into the study. You could envision possible trails going across this property even if we didn't have access through this before. Or or actually putting the parking lot where this property is.

Trails from that area.

Yeah. You don't anticipate any gravel removal or anything? No.

No. It would be it would be just part of the project. Yeah. Just part of the project. It's Okay. The necessary completion point.

I wanna clarify your question.

Because it was a gravel pit It's not really a it is a depression in there. Kind of have to do some contouring to make it work. Okay. That's what I was asking about. Yeah. Who else don't want? How do you foresee, like, the future of this whole

region in there as a county owned and maintained recreation place? Yes. Great. So the the county trails people would be working on kind of some development there and planning, I I would suppose, Landis.

Yeah. It's, if you wanna step back and a longer look, this is a really a beautiful piece of property. And while we don't own the peak, this is the access to get on top of the wellsfills and and go all the way north on the wellsfills to Petersborough. And the county owns another entry in where the Yank family has a set of homes up that way. So we're going to be able to park here and hike all the way along the Wellsville and come down in Petersborough to another parking area so that you could go either direction on the top of the Wellsville. I don't know if anybody else has been on the top of the Wellsville. That is absolutely stunning walk and hike, and we now got public property on either end of it next to forest service property. So it's but this this little piece, it's kind of essential to complete the plan.

Do do I understand too that that there is a a thought for a study to be done on how to actually use this area where you could there might be some trails through this area itself. Yes. Yes. But I think we not only wanna look at at that, we wanna look at the study also including this gigantic,

I guess, 12 mile long Yeah. Traverse. Lane. There are some things happening with the private owners there, and we kinda want those to crystallize before we before we have and the money to have a study done. Because the study will presume that well, for example, we were adding this property. So it it changes what we would be doing with the study. And there's there's still some movement in the private parties that want to do development there.

We also believe that this body ought to be involved in the decisions that we make about the uses and the study that's done. Of your money. Yeah. Of your money.

I just have one other question, and and this would possibly muddy muddy the waters. I don't know what the long term plan with the Smithfield property is, but when you look at that, it it looks like it need it would be great to have a, someone being the the steward of that property the way it is. Has there been any thought of maybe trading DWR at the state for this property? And like I said, that might muddy the waters and not something we wanna get into, but you could see DWR, they own a bunch of these Foothill things for for wildlife, but we have it. If it was in DWR, it would still be open space.

Well, this this is DOT.

Yeah. Okay. And and you it's hard to cross those two. K. I just wanted to throw that out there. Yeah. We we would love to get it for nothing. Yeah. K. And we do have an executive session on the on the schedule afterwards because there

are some some of those sorts of issues in the Okay. Discussion. Alright. Any other questions?

Yeah. Other questions?

So so I have a question of you. How quickly can you approve this and give us authorization to use the money?

What is the process?

Right. So what what I would say is this is an unusual project. This is a council executive led

application, if you will. Which? Udot or the whole thing? What's that? Which? You the Udot piece or the whole thing? Yeah. The Udot piece. Okay. Yeah. Well, certainly the whole thing, but but after the fact the fact We've got that midstream. Yeah. And we're just completing it. And so Yeah. We weren't aware of how much involvement you had or didn't have. Yeah. And that and that's okay. We so what I would say is that

it's it's unique. So I don't know that the standard process where it's a private land owner who submits an application and it's two rounds of approval and council approval and that sort of thing really would be an effective way to handle this.

I think it's possible for you to waive your rules and just approve this. We just as soon get a check from you when we do the clause and the

The the council will write the checks, but we we can certainly give our blessing, I would think.

Can't we just I don't know. But can't we just make a motion to skip the normal process and have a vote right now? I think that's what we'll do, and I wanted to check and see if there's other questions or comments or Well, just one other comment I have from a trails perspective is that it's gonna be very interesting and very exciting. You know, a lot of the land on the Wellsvilles, the proper Wellsvilles are is is wilderness area. You know, it's a it's a very special protected piece of land. So I've never interfaced with, the forest service, you know, and when it comes to proposing a trail to connect the trail that already exists on top of the wells fills and comes down Rattlesnake Gulch to this piece, which if we could get on that ridge sooner and connect right over to the trail, wow, that could be incredible. It might be challenging,

but it's a great vision and a great dream. Yeah. That's what we want to try and do. Yeah. This is one that would be one of the premier trails in the whole state of Utah, maybe in the whole Inter Mountain West to put people up there. You look down on eagles when you're on that. Yeah.

Yeah. I I think also this piggybacks on on something we've already given our blessing to, as opposed to it just unifies a piece of property. Yeah.

So

Other thoughts, comments? Kurt, remind us one more time. It was one 161,000

even. One sixty even. Yeah. K. We'll have a we will have closing costs to the tune because they won't pay for the title insurance, and we really need to have to the tune because they won't pay for the title insurance, and we really need to have that on that. And so you'll have incidental cost on top of that to tune of maybe a couple thousand dollars. K.

Great. So I I think what we would do is someone would need to make a motion that we waive our rules and approve make a recommendation of approval to the county council for purchase of the subject property up to I don't know if you wanna say a specific number, that sort of thing. You're welcome to do that. Way to do it, if you would.

I I would move that we approve the or I move that we recommend to the council the That we waive our rules first. Waive waive our rules. Yep. And I'm not sure how rules are rule we have a process. Right? Waive our waive our rules, if that and that we recommend to the council to approve the spending of a 100 up to a $175,000 for the 18.18 18.18 acres.

I second it. K. Any further comments or discussion? K. Okay. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for bringing it to us, and it is a great project, so that's pretty exciting. Okay. Sorry to put you on the spot there, Kurt. That that was Hopefully, it was helpful. It was a really good discussion. Okay. Our next item on the agenda is a pre application from the Polson family.

Yes. I'm representing the Polson family. We live on the West Side in Petersburg. This farm is a century farm. It used to be 430 acres. Siblings got together before they started passing away. We had they lost one. And so our share of that is like 160 some odd acres. And Nancy and I talking we're just talking the other day about we're worried about what future generations are going to do with that ground. You don't make money farming. But it's been farmed since it was established like in 1894. And there's a family cemetery on it. I have a daughter in there. There's just a lot of history and a lot of good people there. And so we're just looking for a means to kind of lock it up so that it can't be encroached upon. If you pull up our our slides there, we've got, developments on the West of us and to the East of us. And I constantly get mailers and and email stuff from people saying they like to buy it. And that's not our purpose. We just want to keep it open. And so I don't know if this is a means to do it, but that's why we're that's why I'm here.

Great. And, so it looked I I looked at the parcels roughly a 174 acres, all all three of them together. K. Immediately adjacent to the highway there, both sides of the highway. I'm gonna click on them.

There's one. That's the one. That's where the center care is. That's 54 acres and there's homes all around. And then farther to the west. Oh, yeah. There's one. Excuse me. Here's there. That one there. And that borders Highway 30. And then there's one a little bit further to the west right there. Got it. And that's it there. And that's up on the peak. We call it the peak. That's where So you can see it from the highway? Oh, yes. Okay. Oh, yes. That's where all the the radio towers are at, if you ever drive through there. We own the east half of that. And just to let you know, the Petersburg Partners, they own the west side of that little beat there. They're trying to sell it for a moment. And so I would really like to just you know, I don't want to see it in homes, and neither would Nancy's forefathers. So that's what we're after. Great.

Have you talked to any other land conservation organizations about helping you out with your application or anything like that?

I came over to the county just asking questions. Who does this sort of thing? Right. And then I was suggested, you know, suggested come see you guys. No. I haven't. Okay. Are there others? And do you want me to go that route? Well,

it typically, they can help you out with all the paperwork, and they can also act on your behalf to investigate or secure other funding sources. Mhmm. Right? So most projects that we fund are a partnership of funding organizations, and so the counties pays a portion Mhmm. Of a conservation easement. And oftentimes, there's other funding from the NRCS or, the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food through the Leeray McAllister Fund. So So there's other potential funding sources that some applicants will work with a local land conservation organization to pull that information together. You're certainly welcome to do all of that yourself

as the landowner. You don't have to get assistance from those organizations, but you may find them them I'm not afraid of it. Yeah. Yeah. We have some acreage up in in just South of Big Piney. Anybody aware of Big Piney area? We have almost 400 acres here. We're gonna put into a agricultural wall. It's called the Wyoming Stock Growers Land Trust. Yep. So I'm going through that right now. K. So I'm kinda training. Yes. I'm kinda learning. So we do have to have some help with that up there. Very similar. I really think I could probably do this. It's not the largest of a project.

Yeah. Whatever. No. That's great. It's a it's a sizable project. It's in one of our gateway areas. Yeah. The that we got the mailer going out, and this

this we looked at this particular gateway, and this particular gateway, if you remember, is very, very fragmented. This is actually one of the biggest landowners in that gateway. There'll be a miller going out. The the council approved and and we put together. He'll be getting it because he's in, one of those areas. So

It's in the area we're interested in, in other words. Well, I feel like somehow we want to save them. So we're not fussy. And I'm not afraid to do the work. I know I need to have it appraised. I need you probably have to do a deed, search and everything on that. And I don't know if you require a mineral assessment. You have to have a geologist come in. Wyoming is doing that for us. It just depends on

if there's other funding sources and what they require. We specifically may not require that. So Okay. Yeah. And yeah. I can forward you the information for a couple of conservancies that we've been working with, so you can talk to them. Yeah. Just definitely.

So so the the next step for you, whether you work with a a conservation organization or not, is you can just fill out our round one application. Just ask some basic questions. It doesn't take a lot of time. It's meant to be very simple. It puts what you've already provided us in writing as a formal application, and we can take action on it. You could alternatively work with a conservation organization to prepare and submit an application on your behalf. So it's it's the first it the first step should be really simple. So and and, you know, you're you're welcome to put a value on what you're asking in round one, but it's not really until round two that we get down to brass tax and start talking about the dollar amounts that Mhmm. The committee is comfortable approving on a project they wanna help fund. So

Can I ask your recommendation? What's the best way for us? What's the most painless?

I think the most painless if but it'd be less less money for you would be, you could just submit an application to us. We're gonna give you what we would probably normally do to just if you're just simply interested in preserving it and not don't wanna go to the federal level, we could probably come up with a evaluation that we'd be willing. I don't know. Yeah. But we've we've typically funded 25% of the value of the easement.

Do you require that the landowner turn back 25% of the total acreage? Like, w the land the the trust people we're working up there. Like, the landowner donation? Yes. It's

Yeah. We don't we don't require it, but it it it's part of, I think, how we would recommend a project. No. I don't mind doing that. I think that's fair. I think I think every project has offered a landowner donation ranging from 15% to 75%. So

It improves the likelihood.

Yeah. Whatever. It improves the scoring, likelihood, and all of that. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We're we're obviously when as as an entity that helps recommend or the management of taxpayer funds, we we wanna leverage them and make them go as far as we can. And so bringing in other sources of funding is is the best way to do that. Mhmm. So Okay.

Just as an example on on some projects, the of the few that we've done, we've done, like, 25, the state may do 15%, and then federal government does 50%, and the land owner does 25. Now I just didn't I haven't added that up in my head, but that's roughly kind of a kind of the way it may may work. Okay.

Yeah. Plea we we encourage you to submit an application. So we'd love to Oh, we'd love to. Work work with you and see if we can come up with something to

make this happen. I do. Well, I'm not getting any younger, and I wanna get this done before.

I haven't I don't have a choice anymore. Great. Thank you. And time is of the essence. You know, these gateway parcels will score higher to us, and I'm counting up at least five Petersburg partners all over the place that Yes. May have a different aim than preservation. So,

yeah, we'd love to entertain this. Homes over there forever, and the thing that's stopping them was the water problem that the the Westside doesn't have water like these side does. And, gratefully, that the planning committee and and the the council has said no. They're 10 acre lots. They wanted to go too. They wanted 350 homes right behind us. Mhmm. And oh my goodness. So Yeah. I just wanna sew it up and so it's taken care of. And what it does, it means we still own it. We pay the taxes. Yep. All it has is an encumbrance on it saying you cannot build. You can't develop. Perfect. That's right. Perfect. And if the family decides to sell it, they have to sell it at agricultural price, and then the new owner does it tells them the same thing. That's right. That's all we can ask. One thing on the timeline,

we're we're seeing if you're working with the state of Utah Land Trust and some of the local, but when you enter the arena of USDA and go for that, say, 50% grant, the time we we just it stretches it out. Those who have applied, we're still waiting and you could be into a two or three year process. And you just it stretch it really stretches it out. In other words, if you want a a land trust or an easement on your property and you're willing to do it, it can be done in six months. But when you go for funding, it stretches it out.

Yeah. Our our process will be pretty quick. Yeah.

What's the difference in funding? I would like enough money to fence and put some fences around it. So we we have kids out there, and it's marked private and no trespassing, but it doesn't matter. And horse people you know, but fine, but they run right through our green fields still. Is is that is is there a comparison there? Is there a better way? Or is your is working with the county, is that adequate for us? Alright. We're trying to get rich. Right. I just want to have enough maybe to put fence up.

Yeah. We we it really just it really just depends. And and I think, you know, if if all you're looking for is 25% of the easement value, and you don't wanna make it any more complicated than that, I think we can help you out.

Very quickly, actually. Yeah.

Yes. The ones who have drug out in time is with the USDA and their and it's the big grant. It's where the money tree is, basically. And So you get more money, of course. Yeah. There's 75%,

you know. Yeah. Yeah. Is that

There there's easements that are placed in the country, United States, but landowners who just say, I want a a conservation easement, and it's done. They don't look for additional funding. Mhmm. And but the county has this funding. The state of Utah, some of that funding has been, committed in a six month period. But we got them stack of them waiting for USDA.

Okay.

I will take you more of your time. Thank you. Please reach out if you have more questions. We're happy to me the app and Mhmm.

I'll be happy. K.

Thanks. Thanks, Nick. Thanks for your interest. Thank you. We appreciate it. Okay. So the next item on our agenda is an executive session. So we will go into executive session. I'm assuming we'll just retire to the room in the back end. To vote, then you'll need to have Okay. To go into executive session. Okay. We also need to vote. Yeah. That's just k. Alright. So this will involve a discussion on the purchase, exchange, or lease of real property, or discuss potential development agreements, project proposals, or financing proposals. K. So we just need a motion to move into executive session.

I move that we move into executive session.

Okay. I'll second. Okay. So we have a motion second. Any further discussion or questions? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. We'll be back shortly.

Very nimbly. You get the chairs that stand in the corner.

Hey. Everybody left?

Oh, yeah.

You know this gentleman here? Well, he's built to And then there's a little pirate trailer. I've got two or three guys along the way. I still haven't seen any. Or nice. Or whatever.

Yeah.

So anyway

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I thought he at least show up once. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't work. Yeah. That's

right.

Okay. Committee. Our next item on the agenda was a status summary of spreadsheet discussion. And so I put this together. I think I don't know if Angie or Lisa, you guys were gonna pull up. Angie just mentioned to me, because I sent the the spreadsheet to her a few days ago. She made some updates to it, but I also concurrently made some updates. So we may have two different versions, but the one I handed out is is my version that's in front of you. And so what this is what I've been working on for a while now is to just try to compile all the projects that are utilizing bond funds into one spreadsheet or that have made application or that have come to our meeting like the Polson family did today for a pre application meeting. Okay? And so the the tape the table itself is is broken into three. You I have a couple extra copies if you guys wanna come grab one. So the spreadsheet's in three different sections. The first one is open space applications, then there's a trails applications section, and then there's a council slash executive projects section. And so that last section, you can see is where I have the Sherwood Hills, and then I I termed it the Smithfield BST Phase 2 property, but it's the Chute property that we were discussing previously. And I've tried to retroactively fill in the information. What's the so if we go if we go to the first section, the the open space applications, I try to show what the size is, when they initially made application or pre application, and then, what the status of either round one, round two, pre application, so on and so forth. And then if it's got to the point where they've actually started talking about dollars, there's the requested amount for bond funding. There's what we recommended. There's what was approved. If it's gone that far, there are there's a column there. You can see bond cost per acre, which is always fun and interesting. Right? So let's just take, for example, the Elkhorn Ranch at roughly $11,000 an acre, which I would argue is a pretty darn good deal for developable property. Mhmm. That's the bond funding for it. You can see some of the other amounts. That goes down to $2,600 an acre for the Harris property. Even if you skip down to the bottom and look at the Sherwood Hills or the, Shoop properties, you know, overall, pretty good values. Right? $8,500 an acre, even though these were outright purchases, or $3,400 an acre. I mean, there's nothing about these projects price wise that gives me pause. I mean, those are all good values, for bond funding, I think. So and then continuing on, if we know where the other funding is, there there's information there, whether it's NRCS or Leeray McAllister, landowner donation, etcetera, etcetera. Other funding sources, basic location information, if it's part of the COSAC application, what the scores were, that sort of thing. So So that's it in a nutshell. And then if you look at the different highlighted colors, the bright red ones is just information that I haven't been able to track down yet that I've asked for. And so as I get that information, we'll remove the red color from those boxes. There's only a few of them, primarily for the Harris Farms and the Elkhorn Ranch projects. The yellow highlighted ones, what I wanted to do with those is highlight the small parcel projects. You'll notice a lot of those only came into a pre application sort of level. Like, we haven't seen or heard from those folks beyond that, and which can mean a variety of things. Right? But it, you know, fundamentally, could mean their their project was not likely to receive a 100% bond funding from us. Right? They they needed to find, other funding sources, so on and so forth. You can see some of the values on a per acre basis for some of those projects, like nine, ten, and 11, you know, getting up there to $25,000 an acre kinda threshold for those small parcel projects. Secondarily, the reason I highlighted them yellow and because they're small projects is I wanna use this as a tool for showing the council that, you know, the this idea of using the green belt tax as a funding source might make the most sense for small parcel projects, where the landowner just wants to get something done relatively quickly. The project's not gonna attract other funding sources. It might come with large landowner donations associated with them. That kind of thing. So

that's why And and those are worth the $100,000. The $100,000 to do go through a Bear River or something just doesn't make sense. Right. Right? Yeah. Right. So I think this is great. And I I you know, that really comes down to what are the desirable ones in the in the list that are special. Right? I think. In the yellow. Yeah. I wonder if we do a little more division here. I love I love these little pieces. I think this may be able to be chunked out to be like Harris and Harris and Elkhorn, for example, ones that go a little further along that that they're in a category by themselves.

Mhmm. Under At some point, they could be completed projects. Yeah.

Yeah. Or or Round one. Application round two projects Mhmm. Maybe in a separate area Mhmm. Just to because there's a lot of good stuff here, and I think it just help make it a little easier.

Once we've done everything we're going to do on them and Yeah. Yep. In somebody else's table. Yeah. This is really handy. I hope we'd have something like this ongoing, even beyond the purpose of the yellow

lines, just for our use. Yeah. That that's Yeah. How I got into it was I just wanted something to a tool to we we could track Yeah. Project applications

with. And so Also compare and remind and Yep. Show you know, this could be public that would help a new applicant to see what's gone before. And Absolutely. And I I I don't know why it couldn't be public. I think most of the information

Yeah. Well, everything's been public so far. Yeah.

The Yeah. The the title right in the middle, amount approved, is that approved by the council? Yes. So that Ultimately. Okay. Uh-huh.

Correct. Okay. So this is just kinda FYI,

and I'll just continue to update this. It can evolve into other form, certain formats too. I wish Keegan was was still here. I think it would be an interesting just to ask him what would be the what would be the step on Because I Yeah. Depending on how we really feel about Cooper on the Wellsville space, going back to Cooper if the green Belt money City and say, if we Let's do it. If we put gave you this money, are you interested in buying your your neighbor up? And then we have that entire pivot line. Wow. That's an idea. Yep.

It's a great idea.

So I'll I'll just plan to follow-up with with Keegan between now and our next meeting too to share this conversation with him.

I think, perhaps, George Daines as well. Yeah.

K. Thank you. This is great. My brain really appreciates this. You're

Well, mine too. Like, this has been bothering me, like so and and Angie, you briefly mentioned to me you had made some updates. Can you tell us what what just real quick, what updates maybe if I haven't already caught them?

Sorry. Camera's there's some of the red boxes where you Yeah. Missing. I think I did the Elsburg Ranch and got those resolutions on there. Okay.

Okay. Yeah. So a couple of those Some of the other ones I filled in between last Thursday when I sent this to you, and now were associated with the Sherwood Hills information and then the Champion Land Company. So I got those updated based on the minutes and going back. So okay. I'll keep keep moving this along. So item number seven on our agenda, comments or other business? Anybody have anything they wanna discuss?

When I just need a personal update. When are the mailers going out?

They I got caught up in year end stuff, and they've been passed very, very recently, this morning, to Lisa. Lisa. Lisa.

So Great. That's exciting. To speak.

Yeah. It got caught up a little bit with some input. First of all first, it got caught up with Gabe having some input about some privacy as far as amounts that his client was approved for, just so that his client it's public information. But Yeah.

Yeah. So so for the committee's benefit, the the letter that we last reviewed with you highlighted called out specific projects. And so we tweaked the wording there to just be more generic and not call out a project applicant to we thought that was a reasonable request. Hopefully, you're okay with that. But just to not bring any further heartburn to applicants who may wanna be less bothered by the public than than others. So Yeah. But but the

the gist was all, like and that was the only verbiage that was changed is in that area.

Yep. So we made the examples more generic, if you will. But that was it. So sounds like those are going out imminently, which is great. And the Polson family is gonna be getting some

mailers from us, I think. Yes. Yep. They were on the list.

Anybody have anything else? Questions or comments, suggestions?

I you know, we didn't meet last month. Whatever happened with the the table idea at your

We didn't do a table. He actually did a presentation.

Oh, I guess that's worth mentioning. I I did prepare a presentation just talking about the Cossack project. Obviously, a lot of farmers and maybe some ranchers in the attendance, Cache County farmers and ranchers that were there mostly to hear agricultural updates and and that sort of thing. But we threw in a little session on what COSAC is and what we do and encourage people to make application if they're interested. I did have three or four people come up afterwards and tell us they would be interested. So

In fact, I should probably pull I had 47 surveys, count a 117 people. So there were comments in there about the open space, your presentation specifically. So maybe I ought to pull that and email it to everybody. The feedback would be great. So I mean, more or less, if they were Get somebody else to do this. No. They small a lot of the comments were that they appreciate finding out more information directly to producers.

So Great. They appreciated that.

I do think, you know I'm I'm anticipating we're gonna get this mailer out. Hopefully, we'll get some interest, but I think we also will want to start talking about this idea that we've discussed previously about having just a landowner workshop about Cossack. And so maybe we'll try to get something on the calendar for later this year to do that. I think, particularly,

if we gather who is who responds to the mailer, for example, we don't wanna put that burden on all on you. They could cut we could put together something on introducing them to that if we know who they are.

Right. Are there still feelers out on another board member?

Good question. You know? Any

Yeah. Actually, I got an email from the council's policy analyst about the is that my vacant position? So I think they're following up on that. Okay.

Apparently, as for George's comments, we need somebody that understands tax law. It wouldn't hurt. Yeah. Some guy in the finance side. One one thing that

Gabe has mentioned is a farmer has a hard time taking advantage of those. Really? Yes. It's wealthy landowners that really benefit from that particular Deduction. Deduction.

I mentioned to some of the landowners that if they do get an easement from USDA, that is considered a grant, and they'll get a $10.99 on that. They'll pay tax on some of that grant. It's not tax free.

Oh, you want they're paid on. Yes.

Is it ordinary income, or is it playing the capital gains on it? No. It's ordinary income.

To my knowledge. That was an interesting conversation I had with some land, conservancy people.

That's it the reason I got next to it is if you get a grant for irrigation equipment, for example, it's ordinary income.

Now your your your your contribution, though is the offset to that.

Not the complete offset, but it's an offset to that. Another thing I I visit with my tax accountant. He said if you get a conservation even from USDA, plan on an audit. You'll be audited. He's had audits on his customer base. It this there this just goes with the territory. So

Interesting.

Just try and give them the reality of what they're gonna put in their pocket, you know.

Sure. Okay. Anything else? Staff, anything regarding our next meeting you're aware of? Heads up or anything? K.

It it does sound like with a couple of these items that we'll we will have a meeting next month, doesn't it?

I think so.

Yeah. We'll see what it goes. There was one property owner who meant to be here tonight, but will probably be on pre op for Okay. Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. I wonder if that's the same person who talked to me after the presentation.

K. Well, that's nice. Yeah. That'd be great to make.

And with the mailer going out, maybe we'll have some other interest in adding to the list of three hour discussions next month. Landis, anything from you and your staff?

K.

Anything else from staff or otherwise? I think I will just give a reminder that all the conversations in our executive session are privileged and confidential. And with that, without objection, we'll adjourn. Thank you.