Cache County Council Regular Meeting – 10-28-2025

Good. Okay. I'd like to call to order this council meeting today on Tuesday, 10/28/2025. We have our opening, which will be conducted by council member Mark Hurd.

Thank you, madam chairwoman. So I'd like to just share a brief thought. It's a quote by Roger Lee. No particular context for why I chose to share it other than I think it's just good kind of good general perspective to carry. So life is full of surprises. When your day is wonderful, cherish it. When it becomes difficult, stay strong. There are no guarantees on how many days we have left, so be grateful for each and every one of them. Dark, be brave when life gets tough. Be hopeful because anything can happen tomorrow. And to that, I would just add and I think for us to be able to live in a country where we have the freedom of speech and the opportunity to express our will and intent. And also for us to be able to participate in local government and for the privilege and honor it is for us as council members to serve and conduct a business of the day. And with that, I would also like to include a prayer. Our father in heaven, we are grateful for the opportunity we have to gather for for the Cache County Council meeting this evening and to, conduct the business for the items on the agenda. And we pray for thy presence to be here with us in in thought and in action that we will have clarity to the things that we have contemplated and and reviewed as the agenda items were presented and made available to us to prepare to understand. We're grateful for the service of those who make the business of the people of Cache County possible, and we're grateful for the opportunity we have to play a role in that. We pray for a blessing to be upon those in our community who are ill and afflicted and experiencing trying times and that thy hand might be made visible in their lives, that they may know thy love for them. We're grateful, Father, for the opportunity we have to live here, and we're grateful for the abundance that thou has blessed us with. And we say this in the name of thy son, Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.

Thank you, Mark. So yeah.

Oh. The flag.

Oh, it's right there. It's switched. Flag's out of place, but if you wouldn't mind, please join me in the pledge of allegiance.

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.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mark. We'd like to acknowledge the absence of the council chair, Sandy Goodlander. She's not able to attend this evening. I would accept a motion to approve this evening's agenda. So moved. I seconded it. Any further discussion? Okay. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Was unanimous. Continuing on, I will accept a motion to approve the minutes from the 10/14/2025 meeting.

So moved.

Second. Second that. Yeah. K.

We'll accept Keegan's motion and this mark. I seconded that. All of any further discussion on that motion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. I will abstain. I was not here at the meeting. So, we have all in favor except for my abstention. Okay. Moving on, to item number five on the agenda, we'll have the report from the county executive, mister Daines. Short report. The

number of things are ongoing. We're going to be discussing a couple of them in our executive session later today. We'll report that the COG process has has run very well again this year. Very pleased with how those turned out, and we have our set of priority, which will be coming to the council shortly. I have item on the agenda, the tentative budget presentation, and I'll talk about that then. Thank you.

Thank you. Also an appointment? We do have an appointment, for for our In our packet. In our packet from the executive.

Yes. I have made a motion to appoint Angie as our temporary development service. Development services director. Okay. Retroactive to February 2025.

Thank you. Making that official. Thank you. Thank you very much. We now can vote on the our consent for that appointment. We have a motion.

I would move that we support that.

K. Second. Second by Keegan. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That was unanimous. Thank you. Next on our agenda, we go to item number six, and we'll give the time to JD Gunnell as the Cache County Utah State University extension director to hear the end of year report. You've you've brought a big crowd. Thank you. They're not here for me. I'm here. Oh, okay. It's exciting.

Make them wish they were here for you. So We do all weekend. Did you guys get rid of these in the packet? Yeah. We did. Thank you.

Every time you speak in church, they're all there.

That's just to see what I'll say. I just have a quick slideshow of seven or eight slides to kind of highlight to the council and to the audience of the impacts of Utah State University Extension and some of our Return on investment if you will for the county support that we receive. For the benefit of those that are here that do not know much about USU extension. Our roots go clear back to Abraham Lincoln and the land grant university system that has made the the Utah that has made The United States such a beacon of growth in agriculture and and science. We have over a hundred years of experience and background here in the county specifically so with that being said I'll go through each of our program areas very quickly so you can get on to the agenda that you're here to hear about more than me but. First of all, I'm JD Gunnell. I am a horticulturalist with Utah State University. We have five university faculty in our office and if you guys wouldn't mind stand up as our Cache County team, just so people know that you're here as well as the staff that actually do most of the work. So I get to be the mouthpiece tonight, but these people really do all the work. I as part of my role with the university as a horticulturist, I help am basically a consultant with the landscape industry, the nurseries, and homeowners to help them be successful in their growing endeavors. I I teach the master gardener program. It's a fourteen week course we had over 50. Professional students homeowners that took the course this year and they donated over fifteen hundred hours into community outreach. We have a community garden that we've developed in Logan and also another one in Nibley so that people can garden if they live in apartments or condos. So that's a really fun thing that I get to do is is to play in the dirt. Next slide will highlight Justin Clausen is our agricultural agent. He works with farmers and ranchers. He brings a lot of technology to the forefront for agriculture. One of his highlights is he does a lot of drone activities with the growers. His drone is many thousands of dollars. It has a thermal camera on it. And one of the highlights this last fall is he was able to to help four or five ranchers go and find their cattle in the mountains and use those those technologies so the your interest didn't have to. We're also this year with the bird few bird flu, our dairies have been struck really hard. So Justin's been working really hard and working with these biohazard signs and and educating the the farms on how to better have clean product. Next slide, we have a very full staffed four h or youth development team. Elise Jensen, Courtney Freeze and Dylan Waldron is new to our office. They each take turns with livestock horse programming and then generic just youth development. We have over 70 chartered clubs in the Valley. We have the largest dog program in the state and you can see by numbers. These are some of our. Education nights and workshops that they train for the livestock and we'll talk about the county fair that we help support and some of the youth that help do those things one of the highlights with the horse program is they were able to have a service project where the four h youth were able to reach out to a special needs 5013 and have 20 special needs individuals come up close with the kids. They were the educators and touch and be around horses and the benefits that those provide. Home and community, botulism is a real thing with canning and and all the things that come with home preservation. Jenna Dykeman is a nutritionist on staff and she you can see the number she she teaches 67 nutrition, health and wellness presentations this year 13 of the. On top of that of preservation and and wellness workshops. She's also a specialist in diabetes has written a publication that's available to the public and has taught eight diabetes workshops. She's also expanded her reach. We all work with volunteers, which will highlight at the end, but she had six volunteers that helped her teach a lot of these canning classes this year and she also goes into the senior centers and helps work with that population and and hire him. One of the highlights is she offered a weekly fitness class to help with mobility of of some of the more mature clientele that we offer offer help to. Tim Katie is in our office as well. He is a a a wealth of knowledge and experience. He's actually we wanted to congratulate him in public today for receiving the public hero award from the health department. He won't admit this out loud, but he has saved dozens of lives through his Narcan trainings and opioid work. He's also come in contact with the warming center at the Saint John's Episcopal Church. He's helped be a crucial, cog in that wheel. They double their numbers each year that they've been in in practice from November to through March, they offer a safe warm place for homeless or unhoused population to to be in a safe location. The the most wonderful thing I've been in three different counties in Utah and worked through extension for twenty years. But Cache County, even though it's my home, I'm a little biased, it is hands down the best county fair offered in the state. And it is because the county council has fully embraced that as a community outreach program. You can see some of our numbers. Our indoor exhibits, we had nearly 600 horticulture and floriculture exhibits, as well as nearly a thousand four h indoor exhibits. You can see for junior livestock, we had over $1,300,000 in our junior livestock sale. Of that six fifty six animals sold, which was amazing. These kids $3,000,000

for just six fifty six animals? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Lucky kids. Yes. They're very well supported in the community. And then you can see the rest of the numbers with the different exhibits. And it's it's one of the highlights of the of the year for Cache County and and USU Extension. And then I just wanted to end with this, return on investment. We receive funding from the county. Our our faculty are paid through Utah State. We are professors, but we don't have to teach on campus. We teach the community but because of that the county offers us the 288,000 this last year and that pays for our office space our staff support and some travel to get around the county. But with that we're able to leverage those funds and go out and get grant dollars donations to help with our community outreach. And you can see by numbers, we bring in a seven to one ratio that helps our community be the best that it can be. That along with university interns that we each get to help with our programs. So with that, I'm happily answer any questions or divert to the people that will actually know.

Thank you for all your work with the dog program. I have some relatives that work with that, and they love showing their dogs and that is an excellent program. So thank you. It is.

Anything else?

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. K. The next item moving on with our moving on, we have the budget presentation by the executive. We'll give the time to the executive, and then the auditor will be joining you. Pardon me? The auditor will be joining you for this. Well, I think

it it could be pretty simple what we're going to do. Okay. Britney, what what we're handing out is a summary of the budget. All of these are Excel spreadsheets, and you will receive, the same time an electronic copy of that. The spreadsheet have to do with the general fund. This handout is includes all the different funds and the different going back and forth. The Excel spreadsheets are given to you in Excel so that you can work with the spreadsheets, understand them, and adjust them, and so on. My suggestion to you is download them when they come electronically, and then work on your downloaded copy. Just to kinda give you an overview of what we're doing, the the budget for this year is $70,000,000 roughly. The budget in our general fund for next year is 65 and a half million. So the budget we're giving you is a seven and a half percent reduction from this year's overall budget. While we've done that, we've also been able to to give the employees of the general county a standard COLA increase of between three and four percent. We've also increased the compensation in the public safety area approximately 10% over the last year or year and a half. So while we're reducing the budget, we're also increasing and keeping up with the compensation of our employees and officers. As as I present this budget to you, when you look at it closely, you'll see there's very little adjustment in the public safety arena. And frankly, that's gonna take more study and more time to really get into that area of the budget, which represents about 50% of our budget. We made the decision to concentrate on the portion that was not public safety because we thought it would be easier to deal with that and then deal with public safety as we go on. And then submitting this budget to you, I would tell you that there's there's some areas that need further study. We are going to be working on the budget all year long to try and kind of a rolling process of getting all of the different areas thoroughly reviewed. We have not done that review at the in the public safety area. We've simply taken what the sheriff recommended and passed that through to you. And we would recommend that you approve the budget as presented. I would also indicate that we're looking at the maintenance and grounds area and whether we can consolidate some of those efforts into a single one rather than have different maintenance crews in different facilities. We're continuing to look at the senior center, but I have to tell you that I've looked at that. I'm more and more comfortable with our expenditures there. There is an issue there also of double taxation, which we're going to look at. But, I don't really have any recommendation for changes in that area, and you'll see that

in

your

budget.

Do you have any any questions? I realize it's just been presented to you. If you have any questions, I'd be happy address those questions. But I would suggest you study it, and we'll we'll be giving you more materials over the next three or four weeks.

Thank you. I do have a question Thank you. Mister Danes. In getting the revenue, could you clarify what rate you used on the property tax?

I I used the property tax that you had given us Okay. Which is set for the truth in taxation hearing. Two weeks. And when that comes, we're we're gonna be prepared to discuss that in more depth. I believe that's the November 18, isn't it? Mhmm. We we've scheduled an open discussion beginning at 02:00 that day, and we're going to welcome the citizens. They've all received a letter from my office asking anyone who would like to know more about their property taxes to come at that point. I think we showed you a little bit of what we were going to propose to people that they look at. There's a lot of misunderstandings about property taxes, how they're computed, and how they work. And we'll we'll get into that in that hearing, Catherine. So this $65,000,000 revenue is based on that. Yes. Thank you. And I probably ought to just say we've we've got about $2.72.00 dollars in reductions Mhmm. In this budget at present if all of our recommendations were followed. That's really out of half of the budget because the other half is public safety. And as I told you, we've not made any request for any reductions in fire or the sheriff's office. So, essentially, out of the one side of the budget, we've been able to pull about seven to 9% out of that side of the budget. But, you're gonna have to look at those recommendations and decide which ones you want to accept. As a result of our work, we're still going to have to draw from our reserves to make this budget. But where we started with about a million $3.41. And I'm confident that as we go through the year, we will be able to reduce that further. Again, the council makes those decisions and we're we're gonna serve up recommendations to you and you may take some of them and others you may decide to discard. That's how the process is supposed to work. You are the decision maker. My office doesn't make the decisions. But we're going to serve up enough recommendations for you to discuss and to decide which ones you want to take. But I'm real happy to support the department heads who have gone through their budget and cut them. With virtually no exceptions, the department heads have joined in making these department. The department heads have looked at it, worked with us, and I think these budgets represent their recommendations to you as well. And so great credit should go to them. I'd also like to give credit to Matt, Matt Funk, and Amy who have been with us as we've gone through each department, And I'm gonna make some recommendations to you as time goes along about some some ways we might set up a committee to interface with the budget periodically. I don't know that we wanna deal with that. I think I'd like to get the budget done and then come back and make some recommendations as to the financial practices that we engage in as a county. Mister Funk, and miss Amy Adams.

Adams.

Adams. We're double with names. Anyway Can we go through? There we go. The four of us have met with every department and gone through what with each of them. And I really I'm impressed with your department heads and their willingness to confront the financial situation and get it under control.

Thank you. Any Keegan? Yeah. I I had a few. So one of them was answered, the the 1.3 on the fund balance. Question on that, what's the remaining balance? And that might be a question for Matt Funk. I think For Britney? Balance? Yeah. I think it was around thirty when we talked last. I don't remember the number.

23.

The the general fund tax. Please.

That cloud number is right now about 22,000,000. Okay. It was 23. Thank you.

Another question is in your letter that went out to for the property tax notice, you mentioned three items. You addressed one of them here, which is the senior center. In your letter, you mentioned the county library. Yes. So how is that reflected in this budget? And you also mentioned

With edit, you'll see a zero in that line. K.

And then you also mentioned the the potential staff reductions would be a component. Is that reflected in here as well?

There there's some other areas, Keegan, that we're gonna be looking at very closely as well. We've identified a number of other areas that we're gonna be addressing. But some of those require us to spend some time and plan and find an alternative way of providing those services. And so some of that will occur over the next quarter or two quarters.

Last question. If we were to prove this as is, it's an 18% rate that you're

using? Well, there is a great misunderstanding about that. Let me just want me to spend a minute or two and talk about that tonight? Please. Go ahead. Okay. There are significant misunderstandings about property tax. It is incredibly complex. Both Matt and I come from relatively sophisticated private enterprises, and we look at the way property tax is computed and assessed and collected. And I have never seen anything as complex as that. And it is frequently misunderstood. One of the things that causes a misunderstanding is there is an overlay of requirements that you have to do things in a certain way, and it's almost a burden to try and explain how things actually operate as opposed to what you say. For example, last year, the council, put forward a proposal that they would increase property taxes by 20%. Misunderstanding number one, this body only has control of approximately 17% of the property taxes. So when you talk about an increase, it's only that portion of the say of the property tax that this body controls. We collect for everybody, but we only have that portion. So that's one misunderstanding. The second misunderstanding has to do with what the percentage increase is. The percentage increase we are required to advertise makes a presumption that there are no new buildings that will occur, and there is no reappraisals that will occur. When you factor those in, the property tax ends up being very different. So last year, not this year, but last year, it was a 20% was advertised. So you're thinking my property taxes are going up 20%. No. What really they're saying is that 17% of your tax, they're going up 20%. That's what it was. When they had the hearing, they reduced that from 20% to 12%. So it was only 12% to 7%. But when you got through with new properties and added appraisals, the increase was more like four to 5%. So that's actually what the increase was last year, but it started out being advertised at 20%. I need the charts and a bunch of additional information to explain this, but the long and short of it is, most of the time we all misunderstand property tax. I confess that I've never thoroughly understood property taxes until the last month and a half when I dug in them and tried to figure out how to explain them to you. We're gonna do a good job of that in a couple of weeks on the November 18, two or three weeks, I guess. We're gonna have some charge. We're gonna have a bunch of people here to explain that, but we are planning on having an increase. We anticipate it will be like most year, but when you're reading it down to looking at what the property tax increase is, it's more around four or 5% of the 17% that the county receives.

Chair, could I add a couple comments to that, since we're on the topic? Yes. So another thing to mention, I think, is that for most of us, our primary residence is taxed at 55% of the assessed value. So that's another factor. So if your home is worth about 450,000, your actual taxable value is closer to $2.50. So in addition to what Executive Dain says, if your house is worth $4.50, you might think, oh, 10% tax. That means my taxes are gonna be, you know, 4,500. In actuality, it's 17% of that, and if they go up, it's 10% of that 17, like he said. And furthermore, I think the other misunderstanding that's worth clearing up, is that it's not a linear increase. It's the way the mill levy works is we set the budget, and then the taxes cover the percentage of increase of that. So it's not like if your equity goes up by $50,000, you're automatically taxed on that 50. In fact, you might not be taxed at all, which is what's happened over the last several years. So the the actual percentage, if you weigh it, is is Has been reduced. So this is maybe an opportunity for me to state my desires in the future on the council as a new council member is, I think we should look at increasing it incrementally yearly, two, three, four percent in order to keep up with inflation and the cola, to pay for wages, to pay for things that are because it's sustainable and it's predictable, and then we don't find ourselves in a situation where we have to present a 20% tax that actually becomes a 12, that actually becomes a four, and it's super confusing.

So It It is confusing, and it will continue to be confusing. And we're going to try and make an effort to explain it.

If any other questions for the executive?

Just to confirm on this document that the numbers out to the side of the office listed, is that the reduction in head count proposal? So this would be reduced? No. No.

Okay. That that just You explain that? Charge for the auditor. There's two parts for the clerk. That doesn't have anything to do with head counts. Is there is there a number on the proposed head count overall in the budget? Buried in the budget. In terms of there's a budget for full time employees and so on. It is within that. K.

Thank you. One point

Go ahead. I will mention that in some publications recently in the valley, it mentioned that our tax increase would be 10, and now we're talking differently than that. So citizens need to be aware of what was reported before was incorrect, and we are talking a maximum of 18. But as we work with that, then we'll decide where we're at. So

And just to put to give an example, if your house was worth $4.50, your taxable value would be $2.50. So your your actual if if we did the full 18%, it Your tax would go up to $342.51, or it would increase by $52.25, if we did the full amount. So that's, those are the dollar values you're talking. So when we talk about, and I'll bring up the library that has, would I think the line item last year was 230,000 for the annual operating expenditure. 230,000 represents a percentage of 65,000. That represents a percentage of your property tax 65,000,000. To the tune of about Yeah, 65,000,000, sorry. To the tune of about $2 is what that line item would represent in your tax increase. So as as we as we consider these and as the citizens consider what they value as a service, I think it's important to put into context what the actual increase would be. So then you know what you're getting for your money. Because, ultimately, me as a representative, I want to hear what people want and what they value as a service. If they don't value it, let's reduce the taxes. If they do value it and don't mind paying the taxes, let's include it. I don't have an agenda. I genuinely wanna hear what people value.

So So I'm gonna review the timeline that we have for the budget now, and and those that know the statute can help me, if I get anything wrong. I'm looking at Matt in the back of the room. So now we receive the budget from the executive. Now it's our budget. And we have weeks, months two months approximately, hopefully, not quite two months, two months to digest the budget and to accept the recommendations or not that the executive has given us. Over that course of time, we will have a series of public hearings. So we are setting one tonight to have a discussion and input on the future of the the Cache County Library, which is going to be if if we set that tonight, it will be held on November 4. We have another hearing that is going to be set for truth in taxation, which would be November 18, and that is, for the potential tax increase. After that, we have between November 18 and sometime before the end of the year, we have two meetings scheduled after the November 18 date to adopt the budget. And that's when we as a council, take the budget and and adopt it, given these guidelines or not. So that is our timeline that that we follow to get the budget adopted by the end of the year.

What day is the workshop?

The workshop is set for November 18 starting at two 2PM. We're gonna have Before the truth in taxation. Yeah. Yeah. An open house style for people to come in and and learn about, the intentions. So everything right? Thank you, Matt. K. Do you have any other questions for the executive while we're on this item?

I appreciate the format that you've sent it in. I like how everything's listed in general, and then if you've got break down sheets Mhmm. Which then correlate with every one of those, which really it's it's it's a lot easier to follow. Very actually, very easy to follow. So

we appreciate that. Matt and, Brittany credit for working on that and helping us get that that form so that you can use it. It it's interactive. If you change the budget in the department, it should kick it back onto that opening sheet. The cover sheet here. And ultimately, if you kick anything back on, it'll show that we have to take more money out of reserve to cover it. As I said, it it didn't it it is based upon the revenue predicted on property taxes is received.

Mhmm. So

that is that is built into this budget. And there's a built in estimate of what sales tax would be. So we tried to make some predictions about those things. Obviously, we don't know exactly what our assessed value is until next May. We don't know how much sale tax is gonna be collected. So there are those things. That's why we need a reserve account, and we need to keep it substantial. The tax that you're talking about setting. This fall is what you pay, not this year, but the following year. So that's that's one of the problems of budgeting is we're trying to forecast these things and budget forward, but but we actually are paying taxes in arrears to our budget. That's why we need a substantial reserve account.

Okay. We will accept the budget from the executive by ordinance. Right?

I would I don't think we have a set ordinance. Okay. I would move that we accept the tentative budget presented by the county executive at this time. Second.

K. Thank you. And do we have any further discussion on this? K. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye. Any opposed?

That's unanimous. Thank you. Now it's ours. Thank you. Okay. Moving on with our agenda this evening. We're going to set the public hearings. No. Excuse me. We have public here we're setting public hearings. So moving on to agenda item seven a, we're going to set a public hearing for November 4 at 05:30. If anybody would like to make the following motions.

Madam Chair, I'd make a motion that we set the public hearings for ordinance twenty twenty five dash forty mountain minor springs rezone. And the a discussion and input on the future of the Cache County Library for November 4 at 05:30PM here at this building.

Second.

K. Thank you, Mark. And second by

Dave. Any other discussion on this? I'll just say, to make it explicit for the people who might be here to comment on the library, this what we're about to vote on is to set the public hearing for that, which is not tonight. That would be the date that was just suggested by Mark for the fourth. So I think after we vote on this, we should give maybe people the opportunity

to be dismissed if they don't wanna stick around for the remainder. Thank you. Thank you. Although I'd love to have everyone around. You're welcome to stay for our entire meeting. Thank you, Keegan, for pointing that. We cannot discuss an item without having it on our agenda, so we're publishing this for our following meeting, which we can then discuss this item for the following meeting. So thank you. We'll go ahead and vote on the motion on to set the public the the public hearings aforementioned. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Party. It is unanimous. K. I'll accept a motion for item seven b.

I will make a motion that we reschedule the public hearing for November 4 at 05:30PM for ordinance twenty twenty five dash 34, Cass County water use and preservation element.

Second. Second. K. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Go ahead and take a second. Thank you.

I don't know. Maybe so. I sent that board. Your board. Yeah. And and hopefully, you don't control everything. Every board you're on does. Hopefully, get it correct.

No. You have to submit a plan to the state. That's what Brandon Bell was working on for a water. It's just something to the state that shows it, which is far different than what we're talking about on Thursday.

I won't be here on Thursday, by the way. Sorry. Of course not. Of course not. I Andrew said that I have a pretty good record of attendance, so I I'm allowed to miss every now and especially when it's a extra meeting. Yeah. True.

Okay. Well, thank you for those that we'll go ahead and continue with our meetings. We do have, some, public hearings that we need to continue. Go ahead and start with our public hearing for ordinance twenty twenty five dash 35. This is the Honey Solar Stone Project LLC code amendment. I will go ahead and and give the time to Angie to give some background on this. Thank you, Angie. Yes.

So, yes. Angie Zutterquist, interim director. Thank you for the reappointment tonight. So this proposed ordinance was initiated by the applicant, roughly eighteen months ago is probably when we started conversations. And as you may recall, we had a workshop, last July to, kinda go over the topic of large scale solar, for the county, because there's currently not a, that use type, in our county code. So the initial proposal, by the applicant was to add a new use type for commercial solar and battery storage, and allow it as a conditional use in the agricultural zone and rural residential zones. As you know, conditional uses are administrative and, would have been approved as long as they met the requirements. So that ordinance, proposal was presented to Planning Commission and staff was given direction to, work with the applicant to create a more robust ordinance. Since then, staff has been working with the applicant and Planning Commission to draft an ordinance that addresses different, sizes of solar facilities with standards for each. So again the initial proposal is just for one type of facility, but this ordinance amendment, before you, propose this five different types. So we have small scale solar, community solar, commercial solar, battery storage, and concentrated solar. So I'll just quickly go through the different use types. Small scale solar, as you can see here, with the definition, is meant for, one to five acre, properties. Uses photovoltaic panels to generate electricity primarily for on-site use, some limited off-site use, or in a distributed, generation program. One of the reasons for adopting this small scale solar, was to perhaps help, farmers utilize, areas on their land where the pivot was not, being used and so they could generate that electricity, for their agricultural uses. So this one does require a conditional use permit in the agricultural a 10 zone and the commercial and industrial zone.

You can go to the next one.

The next one, and we're kind of going from least intense to most intense, is community solar. It would be allowed on properties with five to 20 acres, and it would generate electricity primarily for off-site uses, including service to multiple customers, participation in net metering, or community solar programs. As with the one before, this would also require conditional use permit in the Agricultural, Commercial, or Industrial Zones. This one, again, going up a level, is commercial solar. It would be on anything more than 20 acres. It was primarily would generate electricity for cell and for off-site use. This one requires a CUP only in the industrial zone would it be allowed. There was some discussion about allowing it with the public infrastructure overlay, instead of industrial. But ultimately, the planning commission felt like the public infrastructure overlay zone did not adequately address private utility infrastructure and that these types of large scale solar, with their impacts and the long period of time that they're in operation, it would be more of an industrial use type. And so excuse me. It would only be allowed, in the industrial zone with approval of a CUP. I had our GIS department do some quick calculations today. Currently, there's about 690 acres in industrial zoned properties in an incorporated county, eight of which are over 20 acres. So and now those include Pepperidge Farm, the Cash Junction area where there's a large parcel that's never been developed, and then Edge Excavation along 10th West and some of the JBS properties near Hiram. So any future proposed facility would require a rezone, which is decision, and you would see that before they could advance with the conditional use permit. The one caveat, however, with requiring the industrial zone, is that if a rezone were approved, it does open up that property to all uses in the industrial zone. So that would include manufacturing, commercial animals, shelters, storage and warehousing, sexually oriented businesses, crematoriums, and private airports. So when you are reviewing those rezone requests, keep in mind that's not limited to just the solar or the purported intent of a solar farm, but, it could allow for all these other uses as well with the approved conditional use permit. The next use type that was proposed is battery storage. So this is a facility with one or more, electrochemical energy storage devices that would collect, store, and discharge electricity generated from the on-site solar energy system. So this cannot be a standalone use. It would have to be with small scale solar, community solar, but, it would probably primarily be associated with the commercial solar developments. And that requires again a CEP in the industrial zone. The last use type that was proposed to add is called concentrated solar. That is a facility that uses mirrors, lenses or similar technology to concentrate sunlight onto a small area to produce heat, which is then used to generate electricity for off-site distribution or cell. In addition to solar, concentrators on this type of use, there would be thermal receivers, heat transfer systems, power power generation equipment such as, steam turbines or heat engines. And this use was added just to provide clarity that it is a prohibited use and not will not be allowed in any zone in the county. So as you can see there, kind of in the gray, hard to see, but it is an n across the board for so it would not be allowed anywhere in the county. In addition to these types of uses, the ordinance amendment also includes definitions related to the new uses as well as creating chapter seventeen twelve entitled Commercial Solar and Battery Storage, that creates development standards and regulations for commercial solar facilities and battery storage facilities. That includes, you know, height regulation, setbacks, and regulations on visual appearance. In your packet, I just wanted to point out that seventeen twelve thirty, the schedule of uses, has an old reference to the public infrastructure overlay zone, but that has been updated to reflect the industrial. In that chapter, there's also requirements for the middle of a master plan with any application, as well as a requirement for a restoration plan and agreement which would have a financial guarantee to restore the property once the facility was done operating. As mentioned the planning commissions had this on their monthly agenda for most of the year discussing it and tweaking it getting it to a place they like. A public hearing was held on August 7 and the county council approve the ordinance in this form on their September 4 meeting with a vote of five to one. If you have any questions, I'm here to answer the nontechnical ones. The applicant is here, to answer any maybe technical questions you have or provide additional feedback.

Angie, I have a question. The the commercial Mhmm. Has a the minimum required is 20 acres. Is there a maximum size?

No. And, the proposal that the applicant initially came forward to the county with, I believe was hundreds of acres, maybe a thousand or more. So it's a very large scale. But there is no maximum that was created as part of this ordinance.

Do we have a statement from the nay vote from the planning commission, their reasoning?

As I recall, the nay was they just didn't think that this was the type of use that they wanted to see in the county.

All he was saying was imagine 601,000 acres of a solar place being in the valley.

So The aesthetic of that? Yes. Mhmm. I did bring some pictures of examples of the applicant.

Council members have looked at that because that really does add some things inside the county that we haven't seen, and that's part of what the concern was. So because like you said, it can go to a there's no maximum. It keeps going going.

Yeah.

I mean, do you guys feel like you have a good handle on this? Because I'm just We're doing the public hearing today. I know. So yeah. Okay. So Okay.

So for the public hearing, we have basic instructions. Oh, yeah. For those that are going to participate, we just want to make sure that we have some guidelines. Please come and step up to the microphone when it's your turn, and you have to state your name and the city which you reside in. Please limit your comments to two minutes, and keep your comments respectful. And please avoid repeating points that have already been made by previous speakers. So Go ahead, miss. Can we go ahead and open the Yeah. Open the public meeting for comment. So with those instructions, anybody who'd like to speak, please step.

Hi. My name is Cole Stalker. I'm with, the company in Eldrene Power that has put this forward. I just wanted to make myself available for any questions on your end. I think this document's really good that we've worked on. I think it really addresses a lot of the concerns we've gotten over the last eighteen months or so. It gives the valley or the county a lot of flexibility moving forward. I don't think we'll be the last project, whether it be solar or battery that comes in front of you guys. And so I think this gives you a lot flexibility in the future on how to permit these projects and regulate them. I think it's really necessary to have, even if you don't want solar, it's gonna just keep coming. So this will continue to probably be an issue, I'm I'm assuming. On the aesthetics, I think there's quite a bit of fear mongering in the news about the aesthetics of these things. I think there's some language in there that really gives the county some flexibility on how that looks, and maybe some sort of view guards on the sides and these kind of things that overall send it to the facility. So I I don't think it's as scary as it sounds. And then there's obviously the restoration element. I see this as a form of land conservation. You know, instead of storage units or subdivisions, this is something that's gonna be torn down in forty years and go back to fields. And so not only do the farmers get to to benefit from that on that land and they're getting a stable income in from it instead of crops that are going up and down. But in the future, this thing will be torn down and restored to fields. And so I I find that to be a benefit. From a distance, we we do a Glen Glare study and things like this. From a distance, this looks like a body of water or a tilled field. It's it's not super bright and flamboyant. You're not gonna see it from 10 miles out and be like, oh my gosh, the valley, you know, the valley's ruined. And I think that's why we wanted to put in that the the mirror facility would not be a use in this area. I know there was another concern about maybe the soil being ruined for farming and that we're gonna essentially salt the earth, and that's not the case. We we try to plant native vegetation and maintain it. We have an 0 And M Building. There will be people that are maintaining that, making sure there's no fire risk and those kind of things. So, yeah, at that, I'll I'll take any questions you guys have otherwise.

Yeah. I have a couple. If someone wanted to see something similar, would the one out in Promontory be comparable?

I haven't been out to that one, so I don't know if that would be, like, an accurate representation of ours. Our company really works closely with the counties and the and the communities that we're in to make sure that it's a win win situation and that there's, you know especially with fire prevention, native vegetation, those kind of things. We try to make it look like it fits.

Okay. Next question is just the precedent for which zones are allowing this and the recommendations there. I imagine there's a precedent for that and other counties or areas have used this. Is this modeled after something similar?

I think this is closer to what was desired here. I know we built this based on other counties in the state and how that looks. I've seen it a lot of different ways, so but I think this is pretty standard for Utah.

Sorry. My last question is and this is, I guess, for the council as much as it is for you, do do you have situations where the local entity requires that a certain amount be of generated power be sold back to the the local utility? Like, in other words, is there a chance that 100% of this could go out of state?

I don't think so, because we're going on Pacific War Alliance. We don't have, like, advanced discussions with any utility or anything on how to sell the power. We have discussed with Logan City about potentially working with them on that, and they've shown some interest. And so that is what we'd like to do, is keep it in the immediate area, and it is going on the Pacific or lines that are already running through the state. As for, like, requiring it to be sent back, I mean, I've never seen that before. And it might be kind of a slippery slope for other industries, you know, that are coming to the valley, but I've never seen that before. So

I will just state your point is valid of the forty years, but if we rezone that to industrial, then we don't know what comes in forty years as we've rezoned that to industrial. So I mentioned that to the council to be aware of that because that does not have to stay agricultural. It can and there's my Some of my fear. It really opens up what's down the road that we're not aware of. So

I do have a question. You said that you your company prides itself on staying true to the local aesthetic. Do you have any projects that you could refer us to to to look at that that's reflected?

Yeah. I think I've sent them to maybe the the planning commission previously that I can make sure it gets to you. There's a few examples, especially back in the Midwest and, that that direction where they worked with, like, beef farmers and sheep farmers and cattle grazing, probably not cows. That would probably be a little bit dangerous, but sheep. Sheep can graze underneath them? Yes. Mhmm. Yep. Short sheep. Short sheep.

Make it shorter.

So, there there's quite a few examples of that. You know, there there could be some sort of community farming kind of thing. I've seen examples of all of all kinds on that, out there. Our company has a few, and I and I can pass those along so you guys can see them. Thank you.

I have a question. What initially wanted I agree. Brought you to Cache Valley to look at this?

Well, I'm from here, so that might have helped a company push it this direction. But the lines running through have capacity. Pacific Core Lines County is going to quite a bit of demand popping up in Utah for electricity, and it's just not being satiated quickly enough. And a lot of the power is not competitive from out of state. California is buying it up at really high prices. And so there's a lot of there's there's quite a big need for Utah to have its own generation, and I don't think we'd like to see more natural gas in the state and those kind of things, especially in the valley. And so that's what brought us this direction.

Okay. Thank you. Just an industry I didn't know would do well in Cache County. In your research, how many days can you generate electricity with solar here?

I would have to refer to our center we call it solar center center of excellence, which is kind of a strange name. But they have engineers that look at these things. We already have a year of data on that. There's specifically designed panels for Northern climates that are more efficient in areas like this. And so they've run the numbers and they think it'll be pretty productive here already. So we have done the study on that. Thanks. Another question. Here with the silicon cell paradigm. Forty years, you say they'll be done. What's going to be

keeping you from putting another round in for another forty years? Just body of people. K. Yep. And how are you disposing of them? You know, where do you these panels, where are you going to dispose them and how? And what kind of effect does it have on the environment?

The company's always looking at more and more ways to recycle the panels in different ways. I'm assuming forty years from now, it'll look a lot different than how we would do it now. But I I definitely can send along some information on how we would do it today. I can talk to some of our our O and M people if that's something that you guys would like to see.

Okay. K. Thank you for your time. Thanks.

We'll continue with the public hearing for anybody else that has comment.

Move to close the public hearing.

Second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you. Item two is the ordinance twenty twenty five dash 37, compensation of Cache County Executive Appointing Deputy Officials. So and Amy, are you prepared to speak to that? No? I don't have anything. Oh, okay. Unless you have questions. No. So this is in the packet, if you'll see, this is just for those that are appointed or not appointed or what's the other word I'm looking for? Appointed. So these are not any elected officials. These are just our appointees. They'll be like the deputy and department heads within the the county. So go ahead and open the public hearing for this ordinance as well with the same instructions.

Move to close the public hearing. Second.

All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Thank you. Ordinance twenty twenty five dash thirty eight, the auditor fee schedule adjustments. And mister Funk.

In your, packets, you have the, proposed updated fee schedules for, Cache County's unincorporated areas. Cache County government, contracts with waste management, and we bill, the users in the unincorporated areas of the county for their garbage pickup. Waste Management has recently increased their price or their cost to Cache County. And in reviewing this, we discovered that, they increased their cost last year as well and we didn't we didn't pick that up. So this fee schedule adjustment is an effort to merely bring our fees back into line with where they were historically in terms of the the passing on the cost of the our cost to the end user.

So basically, this will have to come before the council every year because there is a CPI increase embedded in the contract of waste management. Yes.

Looking GB.

And possibly more than more than once per year.

I'm sorry. What was your question? GB

one pickup. What's that? Green bin or something? Green or garbage. Green bin?

I don't have it in front of me. I apologize.

GB one pickup slash a week res

64 gallon, eighteen seventy eight. Yeah. That would be garbage? Garbage. Not great. Garbage. On the size. On the size. I noticed most of them are around 10%

increase. Mhmm. That yep. That's correct. And again, we're just passing on our cost exactly. One other thing I noticed after I submitted this to the council, it it came to my attention that, we don't charge a return check fee, and and we get a couple of those occasionally. And, we probably need to update our fee schedule to, to,

address that issue. So Yeah. We have a late fee, but we don't have a return Do not have a return check fee. Can they pay by credit card?

Yes. And is there a charge associated with credit card charge like others do? Yes. We pass on that cost. 3% or whatever. Whatever the merchant cost is.

Thanks for discovering it.

K. Any questions for Matt? Just to confirm, all the other fees remained as they were last year? All of the other fees,

remain the same. We are only changing, the garbage fees. We did find that there was one service that we had on our fee schedule that waste management no longer offers. I forget exactly which one it was. We removed that from our schedule. There are no other changes.

Thank you. The titling changed from clerk to auditor's office on these as well.

And I think, I changed it. Did we get that changed to 64? It used to say 60, gallon, bins. It's actually 64. So we updated that and we updated it from 90 gallons to 96, in an effort to be more precise.

How many liters is that?

Yeah. You got me.

K. Any other questions? Thanks, Matt. Appreciate it. K. Any comments? Is this a public hearing? This is a public hearing. Yeah. We're opening a public hearing for the auditor fee schedule adjustments.

Move to close the public hearing. Second?

Moved and seconded. All those in favor say? Aye. Thank you. Now we'll move to the County Attorney's Office fee schedule adjustments. Taylor.

Good evening. This is, you know, just one more piece of that effort of the county to pass on user costs to the end user. For many years, the county attorney's office has been providing discovery and materials to people, not been charging for that. The county has been eating the cost for that. Going forward, we'd like to pass those costs to the end user. I will note, however, that for our indigent defense defendants, these fees are not applicable to them. So those who have the ability to pay are the only ones who are going to be paying these fees. Further, if there are there are cases where if you do if someone was doesn't want to pay for a portable hard drive from the county, they can bring their own, but it has to be sealed in the package for cybersecurity reasons. So we make exceptions. If you can find a better deal on a terabyte drive, they can bring in, and we'll just load it onto the drive for them. But, again, this is just trying to pass on those costs to the end user, because going through our our budget, we're trying to save money and gather gather revenue as best we can. $25 today doesn't do very much, but it does take that much burden off the off the taxpayer, which, you know, it's interesting that a discovery fee of $25, doing a this thought experiment where you compare how many dollars each department cost each citizen. I've determined that for every citizen of Cache County, the entire county attorney's office cost $24.80 per person per year. So it's about $2 a month. To keep bad guys behind bars to keep the county honest to keep the county out of litigation when possible and I have also found that the county attorney's office per capita is less expensive and more efficient than every other county of the third class, including Weber County, which is a county of the second class. So we have a very efficient county and I'm sure that those numbers probably translate across many of the departments. We have an efficient government. We use our tax laws wisely, and this is an effort to gather more revenue to continue to do that efficiently.

Thank you. This you've x ed out a criminal case discharge. Is that no longer a fee that's assessed? Yes. That's correct. What is what is that?

So when you have a a case with us and it gets discharged, there are cases, for example, where someone may get a misdemeanor and then a certain period of time will pass and they can get that expunged off their record or things like that, we no longer assess fees for them.

How is it determined if someone can't afford this? Is it in any kind of That's determined by the district court and that's determined based on their income. Okay.

So we don't make that determination. That's made by our district court judges. Thanks. K. Thank you. Thank you.

Go ahead and open the public hearing for the county attorney's office fee schedule adjustments. Don't all run at once.

Move to close the public hearing.

Second. And second. K. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you. Item eight on our agenda. We will now discuss, ordinance twenty twenty five dash 35, the honey Honey Solar Stone Project LLC code amendment.

I'd like to make a motion we move this down the line so that all of us become better informed and we get some pictures as what you requested from some of their projects. The proponent. Yeah. I really I mean, this was discussed heavily in planning and zoning. Property rights were discussed. Farmers who aren't making it can do that, and that's a property right. But at the same time, the volume of what and energy is gonna be a big thing in the future as well. It still is. So Yeah. You look at that. But I'm Is was there any discussion on limiting the size of acreage per project? It becomes very hard. That's like limiting the size of a farm.

Yeah. But this is something that

I agree. That's why I'm saying it we need to really think this out because the discussion was to put it over in Cass Junction area. If you're sitting in Logan and you wake up wake up one morning early and you see a bright light over there, depending on 600, 1,000 acres or whatever goes there, that's

Significant. Significant. So that's why I'm saying we need to get some comparisons and is my thought. So I'm just thinking that way. This item. Yes. I agree to continue. I don't think it requires a motion, though. No. We can just It's initial. It's initial. So we can just It's initial. Yeah. I I think I think we're all in agreement. We want more time on this. Also, this is a getting the conditional use permit is a legislative action, so it could have

a limit on it at that point. Right? I I do have one question. I'll go ahead and finish it out. I was just saying I do have one question. This will be for Angie. Why is it called the Honey Solar Stone Project LLC code amendment?

That was the name they gave it on their application when they submitted it. So their application? Yeah. The applicant,

so So they actually pushed the direction as to how this ordinance is to be written?

So it was initiated by their application because they wanted to project in the valley. But they're from what planning commission and the applicant and staff have worked on and presented to you today is very different than the initial application.

I guess with the name on it, it kinda it tells me that it is that it is driven. That ordinance is driven by one group. And in a sense, it was because they're the ones who initiated it by filing that application. Yeah. That's just to me, that's just a little bit wrong. Yeah. I would I understand the process, but I understand it ought to be it ought to just be very solar, you know, something solar.

I'd like to rename it too. You know?

However, just because if we're if we if we start doing something specific for every entity that comes along, and that's how we legislate, that that really worries me.

Yeah. And as the proponent stated, like, there's probably gonna be other solar projects that come before us, and we should develop county code that reflects what type of developments we want on what property that should have universal application. And it's nothing against the Honey Solar. Yeah. But it's just it's it's

I guess, the perception and how it's done, and I hope it hasn't been whatever you whatever you want, we'll put into an ordinance. That that worries me. So thanks, Angie.

So, Angie, just to clarify, maybe, make sure I'm correct Mhmm. But also clarify for those present. The co the the ordinance is presented to or this is presented to us in this way because we don't currently have a code in Cache County Right. Yeah. For a solar farm. And so the way this is presented gave us it was crafted in a way for us to more or less develop that code along the way instead of two things. One, flat out no because based on personal desire, but no code to back it. Or second, no conditions. Therefore, it could be built without input from the county. And so, I agree. I think we would like to look at it title differently. But regardless of what we do with this particular item, we should develop a solar farm code. And this is a great place to start from. So as long as as long as I'm understanding that correctly and that that's why this looks like a code in a application to apply to the code, it's because the code was written alongside, which is Is it the question. Does it mirror any other

counties,

their attempts for the code? Yeah. So they did look at a few different, jurisdictions. I thought I wrote it down somewhere, but, yeah. And then there's also, the American Planning Association has a guidebook on establishing solar ordinances. So that was part of informed part of this as well. But back to your point, because it's not in the code, we actually have a section of code that says if it's not in here, it's prohibited. So, they wouldn't just be able to go out Right. Out regulation. But it's it is best practice to have something in there so that we have, something that we can refer to. And our utility facility, codes, as Matt Phillips would probably tell you, they're very kind of explicit and not general. And so, you know, it talks about for some projects the diameter of a pipe, you know. So a project could either meet that or not meet So it's just, yeah, again, best practice to add this so we have something to say yes or no to.

Did this go through O and P?

No. Typically, our land use stuff just goes through planning commission, not O and P. Okay. So

gotcha. So going back to limiting the size, I guess that's something we could do with the CUP then.

Well, what will happen again is they'll have to for these larger facilities over 20 acres, they'd have to get a rezone.

And so that's your legislative component where you would decide on that. Where you could potentially limit the size

if if the planning commission Yeah. Actually, I think this process, doing the ordinance and establishing it, is probably the best place to limit.

I'm that's I don't know if I like leaving it open ended at 20 acres.

I don't like them. Yeah.

Well, that was that was part of the discussion if you look at some of these solar projects elsewhere. Mungus.

I mean, we don't have that much available. And you did point out that there there's not that many parcels in the unincorporated. But

Well, there could be. There could be. I think to your point, if it's zoned industrial, that opens a lot of possibilities.

That's the part I would like to address is what happens at the end of this. If it's rezoned, we've gotta have some sort of condition in places to what is permitted post is or which means, basically, we need to create another zone. Do that though. Well because once it's rezoned, it's rezoned. Right. So then the question that's why I'm saying another zone, meaning, we would have to have a zone specific for solar zones that sunsets with

the project. Proposal in the project.

That was briefly brought up to have a solar overlay, but wasn't pursued. So I remember

another ordinance that they we we attempted years ago Mhmm. That was to basically help it was help to help farmers and help you know, we start talking about, well, out on the corners of these pivots, you know, we'd like to maybe do these cluster, you know, cluster homes and and do a whole bunch, like, in one little area and everything. And and then we we started I don't know. To me, I think that was just opened up a hornet's nest that we have a hard time dealing with in all these little clustering and and setting up these RU fives, RU two you know, all the little areas within the county, and it just I don't know. I just worry about, again, accommodating, certain areas and say, oh, we can solars in those little corners and do those kind of things. I you don't know the ramifications. So what's behind all that down the road and how how that'll change?

Well, and the big issue comes that if you go a big size, that usually starts with an agricultural farm that is next to another agricultural farm. So then we throw an industrial zone in a farm area that really Tweaks what we've tried to do inside of the unincorporated part of the county. So all of these are valid issues. That's why I think we need to Continue.

Right. Let this one sit for a while and we think about it. Okay. You don't wanna create an unintended consequence where someone is building a solar farm to launder the land essentially to turn it into their ultimate goal. Something different. Yeah. I didn't think about that

different. Yeah.

I didn't think of it that way.

K. So Oh, sorry. Last comment I have is on this is I'm feeling bad. No one laughed at my sunset joke when I'm talking about solar farms.

Oh, that went over my head.

Sorry, Dave.

Okay. I was looking at the sunset when you said it.

Ordinance 2025 dash 30 seven, compensation of the Cache County Executive appointed deputy official depute appointed slash deputies. So this is in the packet. It outlines the pay that will be for the appointed end department heads. So Do you have any questions for

Link Just

yes. Included on there is still Can't even see. Is still a council member and council chair, which we're separated out. And and we can separate that out in the motion.

I I wrote part of this with Jairus. And if you look at the text in section one, it says, this part of code shall be changed to reflect only as it relates to nonelected officials. So if it was passed in its current form, it would not set the council member or the chair pay. That's where agenda nine item nine comes in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

My question was, if if I'm understanding this correctly, the, like, for example, the chief deputy executive range goes higher than what the executive salary is. And I think the attorney, maybe, was the same way. Is that that was noticed and deliberate?

Yes. That's that's possible. Yep. That's what our market values are looking like. And so, generally but that the high end of that range is generally when someone sit towards the end of their career. So this is reflecting the pay range of the the full career life of the employee.

And that's that's the prerogative of their, for lack of better words, manager to determine that So there's a lot they can choose within that range. For example, like, executive Danes, there's criteria, though. Like, There is criteria. Yeah. Yes. Okay. But if someone is within that criteria, then it would be up to, for example, the executive to set the deputy

compensation? This also incorporates a merit type of increase, so pay for performance. So each of us that are appointed or and are on that list will be given a performance evaluation and then that the merit matrix will applied to that to determine what that increase will be. Since performance evaluations aren't done until or due to my office until the December, we don't have an exact amount of what that would be. So that is the pay range that you are looking at.

If there's any one specific that you are wondering about, I'd be happy to talk to you about that in my office. I just don't have that information Sure. On hand. Use, like, a one to four rubric or something when you do evaluations. Yeah. But one one amiss to that. It's not in the miss. If you're hiring somebody and they're coming to us with a lot of experience such as the chief deputy executive, and there sits that range. And if you're trying to compete for them,

the hiring committee could go to the upper end of that range. That's actually not true. We have a policy that is in our personal policy and procedures manual that only allows us to hire up to 95%. So basically, almost the midpoint of that range. So that would be the highest the highest that we would be able to bring someone in at. K.

And these were in your budget. Right, sir? Pardon me? These were in your budget. Right? Using these ranges? Ranges. That is correct.

Matt? Yes. They work. May I weigh in on on deputies and compensation? Yes. I would urge you to make the range larger on the lower side.

Delve into that a little bit deeper, will you? Pardon me? Delve into that a little deeper, will you?

I I think that we ought to have the ability to hire deputies at a lower rate. I I I understand the reason to have a higher limitation, but I don't see the reason to have a lower limitation on deputies.

Can I comment on that?

Yeah. Yes. Please.

So as we do our market surveys, these are the ranges that are coming out of the market surveys. Now as we've discussed in prior meetings, the deputies or an elected official could choose to not take that full amount. And with that, then we do have a process for them to to consider that as well.

Again, I feel like I need to have permission to comment. I don't know whether that's your practice that I need to get permission to comment or not. But

Leave that up to Catherine. Yeah. Yes. Prerogative of the chair. Is that correct? Yes. And yes. You can comment.

So do I push a button or raise my hand? Madam just say madam chair. Yeah. Madam chair. Just request permission from the chair. I've got some Tootsie Rolls here. You can throw if you want something. So Hey. I'll respond. Yes.

I think that you kinda have a mindset that the people that will fill these positions, and who they are. But the truth is, is there's a large proportion of the community that wants to serve in government and is not seeking it for compensation reasons. And I I think to constantly have the problem of, trying to say, well, that person has to be in that range or they're not qualified is is a misnomer in terms of public service. I think many people are willing to work in public service for a lower range. I'm not and I don't know why you would object to that. If you want to hire the person and the person wants to work for less, why wouldn't you accept that? I mean, what's what what basis would there be to insist that they have to be paid this much? I I don't see a reason for that.

I think that there's two people in this room that that applies to. Oh. The I mean, I think that, again, we're trying to attract professional individuals. And in order to attract professional individuals, this is a range in which they these are that they would expect to be paid and that we would expect to in order to attract them. Again, we're removing personalities. This is if you're expecting somebody to be an assistant CEO or assistant, then they're gonna be in that range of an organization of of nearly 400 employees and a budget of 70,000,000. So I I don't think these are that range is is off.

That's assistant to the regional manager. Assistant to the Yeah. The the but the the I'll comment on that. Because I was looking at the surveyor position, for example, and I happen to think it's a little bit low. Right? So I think there are times potentially to answer the executive's question where the hiring manager has control, I guess, to set what that minimum would be. And if it's too low, we might not get the caliber of candidate we want, or we might not fill the position. And there's not really a mechanism to increase what that minimum is. So I think there should be a range, and I I will also echo Amy's sentiments that someone could choose to not take the surplus. You know, T is a very real example. I think you said the executive should be at one twenty five, I think was the number you threw out. You would have the opportunity to lead by example, January 1, with a form from Amy, if you did want to do that, and I think other people could do that, and still have that option. It doesn't take that away. I did have a question about positions that are these are all full time, and they couldn't convert to part time? Correct. They're full time positions, and that would be their full time salary. So that wouldn't affect the minimum. For example, if executive dean says, you know, I just want a part time deputy, and this minimum doesn't justify that. Now I'm locked into a range where I can't do this minimum.

That That that would be considered maybe a different position, because this is advertised as a full time position. Okay. Thanks. Mhmm.

I mean, I understand the sentiment, but also I don't think that for the positions that are listed that those ranges are I don't think they're they're out of whack with

the market. You know, I think they are way out of whack compared to twenty years ago. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It is Look at what's changed. It is amazingly how things have changed. And to to get you know, to get the there is a huge competition out there for

Talent.

Yeah. For talent. And to get the people that are going to be governed or help in governing and and over taxpayer dollars. And I it is just crazy how to me, how high that they have gone. So and we have to value that accordingly. You if you don't want other concerns to to pop up with lack of professionalism. So

I'm I'm probably not ready to vote on this tonight, but I'd like to look into it a little more.

We can continue this. That's fine. Anyone wanna make a motion or we continue?

I'm fine. I'll continue.

Continue. K. Moving on to, ordinance twenty twenty five dash 38, the auditor fee schedule adjustment. This was the garbage

Garbage fee increase. Fee increase.

Actually, I would move to continue this one too, because we do have a new contract that was being negotiated by the executive board with waste management that may extend it to a five year contract. And so that needs to be looked at. So you should have got a copy of that.

The attorney's office will set up these were just the true costs that we're being billed at. Right now. Yes. But

we're gonna we you you can basically, it it might even change in a couple weeks type of deal. Oh, it's that is it that imminent?

It's that imminent. Then, yeah, maybe we'll wait. But

One thing I would point out is is as we delay on this, every every month we delay, we're we're costing thousands of dollars. Of our our money. I guess

we can go ahead with it if you want, but then

I know we'll have something like Yes. Real soon. I I wouldn't mind looking at it again in I I December if we have. Pricing on the true cost to the end consumer now and then revisiting it once we have new information.

Agree. I agree with you. That is better. There's no sense in

our our general fund Yeah. Subsidizing, I guess, as municipal fund, subsidizing the the users right now. So And as Matt said, this wasn't done last year,

so we need to bring it up to date. Right. Yeah. It's urgent, I think. Just so be prepared for another one. Yeah. Could I make a motion then to suspend the rules and pass ordinance twenty twenty five dash thirty eight, auditor feet schedule adjustment.

All second.

Second. Second by Got it. Barbara. Any further discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. It is unanimous. Thank you. Moving on to resolution

oh, excuse me. Ordinance initial that we He suspended rules. Sorry about that. Ordinance,

2025Dash39, the county attorney's office fee schedule adjustments.

I was I've seen this pretty straightforward on this one. I've moved this to spend the rules on the 2025 dash, 39 and pass pass that accordingly.

Second. K. Any further discussion?

I'd like to say that this essentially delineation of different parts of the discovery fee charging. That's pretty standard practice I saw in previous jobs, so I would definitely recommend that this be passed.

K. Thank you for your input. K. We'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. That's unanimous. K. Moving on to resolution twenty twenty five dash 40. This is, providing consent to allow Wellsville City to annex a portion of unincorporated county land, thereby creating an unincorporated peninsula within the county. Thank you, Angie. Yes.

Yes. Angie Sutterquist. So this is an annexation request. Andrew's bringing up the presentation, near Wellsville. It's located West of Wellsville and then south and west of the elementary. A picture? Yeah, he's bringing it up. One second. It's a 45.76 acre piece that does have a separate parcel owned by the Wellsville Mendon Conservation District that cuts through it. If you wanna go through the next slide. So this is the vicinity map. You see the property is in the blue. The dark black outline is the wells current Wellsville city boundary. And then, the next slide, gives you a more detailed image of the subject property that is requesting annexation. Again, you can see that the it's Parcel 001 ending, and it has two parts to it because that Wellsville Canal, parcel goes through it. But those are the two, parts that are being annexed. It will create an unincorporated island I mean, excuse me, unincorporated peninsula with those three parcels below it. The Wellsville City boundary is immediately on the south side of those three. So that's the peninsula that will be created. So state law does require that, yeah, again, there's pointing to that. You can see the green is the also the Willesville City boundary that's being represented. So those three parcels will remain in unincorporated county. And then, again, state law requires that if an annexation is going to create an unincorporated island or peninsula, that the county council has to weigh in. Just one other item of note that very not straight green squiggly represents the the county road, which is being fully annexed as part of this as well. Okay. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Toward the the part of the property that's on the east side, after you can see where the green end lines green line ends, that is already a Wellsville City Road. So so just the green portion along the frontage of this property, that's the county road will also

be Does it continue farther west? It does. Yeah. So it's that will continue in

That will continue for county maintenance. Yeah. Because that's still unincorporated county to the west at this point. So yeah. This will represent the furthest west of the new Wells Ville boundary if the annexation is approved. So again, the possible actions are to agree to allow the annexation and create an unincorporated peninsula or disagree and protest. Wells Ville City is represented here along with the they have submitted written comment that they believe that this meets all of their annexation requirements for the city and so they are in support of the annexation. But again, because it's creating that unincorporated peninsula, we need to bring it to you to review.

That's all I have. Angie, question. Have you heard from any of those well, like, I don't know if they're all three or different, but to the south of them,

those other property owners who are gonna stay in the county, have they come back? I don't believe they were approached, and we don't require noticing. Well, yeah. We don't require noticing for annexation. So the clerk's office does do it, a noticing to affected entities, but not to adjacent property owners. We do. Oh, you do?

What I thought? Yes. So but we haven't heard from any of them. Your your area, right, is your I'm list I'm interested in hearing from the applicant in Wellsville City, if we can.

I wanna hear

from Wellsville City. I wanna hear from Wellsville City. Is there a Bailey here? Is there a what? Is there a Bailey here?

Yes, there it is. Mayor Bailey.

So Scott Wells. Wells was your manager. Those properties, my eyes aren't good enough to see it. 02 and 09 are are owned by one property owner. He's very aware this is happening, but we have we have a water pressure issue, and that's why he's not wanting to participate at this point. He's actually building on Property 02 and drilling a well. But he's just because of the water situation, he's wanting to move forward right now and Stayed on that. That's his option. But he doesn't own 11. That's a separate landowner then. Right? 11 is another property owner that has a home on it. He's already established. He's actually had conversation with the applicant as well, so they might have more insight there. Any more questions for Wellsville City?

I appreciate you being so willing to take the whole road.

Yeah. None of us have. We would love to have a conversation on roads and standards in the future.

I'd like to hear from the president. Plans or whatever.

I'm Jason Blackham. This is my wife, Sharla. Hi. We're both natives of Utah. We've been abroad a little bit. I've been in The United States Air Force, and I retired recently. We purchased this property ten thirteen years ago, fourteen years ago, and we've been managing it ever since. We've leased it for the most part to resident farmers in the area. And that's a dry farm above the canal, and it's irrigated below that that seven acre piece to the to the east. We purchased it with the intent to invest, and this is our our our retirement plan, basically. And we we know that the church is interested in purchasing. In fact, we've had them make an offer already for a stake center just to the to the west of the canal. Five and a half acres right there that they're they're proposing to build a stake center on. How many total acres do you have there? It's

47.

Forty seven? Forty five if you take out the canal.

Yeah. The canal. So what's what's the density or zoning that's in that area for Wellsville City right now? One acre. So

We do need to establish a well. Yep. Not a well, but a tank. We're gonna there's a proposal for a water tank. Is that because of the pressure?

Well, we just don't have water.

Yep. Up the road above to the west.

I can address the the property owner 0011. We've talked to the Barlows there. They're excited for us to develop, especially a road that will give them more access to their land. They're hoping to actually incorporate and or get become annexed and divide their land so that their children can build there too.

Okay. K. Thank you. Thanks. Well, if it's gonna be developed, it's better in the city.

Yep. We're in the city.

Something for a solar farm.

What? A solar farm.

Or an antenna in the shape of a tree.

I thought you said a soda farm. I'll be like, what? A solar farm. Yeah.

Hey. Any any more questions or discussion? I'll accept a motion.

I will suspend the rules and make a motion that we approve resolution reference resolution. Resolution twenty twenty five dash forty to allow Wellsville City to annex a portion of the unincorporated county land, thereby leaving and creating an unincorporated peninsula within the county.

Second. A second by Dick. K. We'll go ahead and vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. It's unanimous. Thank you. K.

If you have input on the stake center, tell me you want a big basketball court. Okay.

All sides. All sides.

All sides. And the thing outside so I can party there too.

So there's only three sizes of stake centers.

Okay. So moving on to item number nine or pending action. Yes. The compensation of the Cache County Council members. I know this has been on our agenda for some time.

Andrew, did you wanna address? I would just like to say that the chair said that she would prefer that this item be continued for another meeting for what she returns.

And I would agree now that we know what budget tentative budget at least looks like that can help inform us on this discussion. So I'd like to see it continued as well.

Okay.

Moving forward. We on our other business, we just have the fall conference. Andrew has or USAC, Andrew, who has reached has reached out to us. So anybody their plans have changed, please contact Andrew. We'll start with council member reports, and we'll start here with

Mark. Okay. Thanks. Just a couple things to report. The last week, there was a the presentations and the initial review for the Northern Region, Outdoor Recreation Initiative projects. So a grant by the state that, that I serve on on behalf of Cache County slash through the appointment of UAC to review projects of recent regional significance. There was great projects presented a couple in well, several in Cache Valley actually. And the ranking committee came up with some numbers, so there will be an announcement made fairly soon, but, no no final decision made yet. But, I would just like to thank Landis and Emily for their efforts and what they represented for Cache County. Yesterday and today, I was able to attend the Cache Summit, the economic development and community development some summit or seminar that happens every year here. And I was able to go to part of it. I I excused myself so I could go do my day job for today's most of today's effort. But the part that I was able to attend was was well presented. They had a a banquet and a and then workshops last evening, which was kind of a shift from usual way that this some of it had been conducted. Yeah. Holding the the workshops in the evening made room for tours, and there were several businesses and and the Bridgerland Technology College was also on the tour for people that participated. So the feedback I didn't I was not able to participate in the tour, but the feedback from people that I talked to there was they appreciated the opportunity to kinda see firsthand some of the entities in the valley they're familiar with, but not having been physically present to observe. So, and and they felt like the workshop was good. I can get you more detail on on the workshops I attended if you so desire. And then just by way of information, next week, the, Zero Gravity Summit, it will be held in the annual zero gravity summit. It will be held in Salt Lake, which is the state aerospace and defense conference on those two industries, and I will attend that.

Thank you. Mark.

Oh, mine's a lot shorter. I have no report right now.

I have nothing to report. Nolan.

For those who can, we've tried to set up the new water another water meeting that will be here Thursday at 6PM. Trying to work it. So we have some state legislators in here. And I think that's about all I have right now.

I, I attended the Cash Visitors Bureau meeting, and I have to recognize executive Danes for his efforts. He talked to the director there and explained that they're technically not a entity within the county necessarily, but they're using county resources and probably should compensate the county accordingly, looking for revenue. He simultaneously, I think, expressed gratitude for the efforts that are being made and the importance of the visitors bureau, and how crucial that is to our economy. And I think to be able to help someone feel valued, but also send them a bill and have that conversation go well is a master class in diplomacy. So I think I could learn from that, and I appreciate the efforts by George that are being made in that regard. And I think it'll it's a good pattern for the future.

Thank you. Barbara.

Just mentioned the USU parade and the America two fifty trailer. It went really well. It was kind of unorganized with on that parade, but we finally got in and we had a good time with it. Lot a lot of people,

and I enjoyed it. Thank you. You got a lot coming up.

Yeah. We do. That's great.

Okay. I will accept a motion to enter into executive session for

I would I would move go into executive session for strategy sessions to discuss pending or reasonably imminent litigation and for strategy sessions to discuss the purchase exchange or the lease of real property or to discuss a proposed development agreement, project proposal, or financial proposal.

I'll second. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. K. Thank you. Is this room adequate for everyone in in here?