Cache Open Space Advisory Committee 10-06-2025

Hi, everybody. Welcome to the October 6 COSAC meeting. For your attendance today. Any updates or changes to the agenda, Angie? No. Anybody have a chance to review the minutes that were distributed? Any issues or concerns anybody saw? I didn't see anything. Mhmm. K. So without objection, then we'll adopt the agenda and the minutes from the agenda for today in the minutes from September 22. And then, we'll jump right into item number three, the pre application. So with the Utah Agricultural Land Trust, Angie, was there anything you wanted to prep us with on this, or should we just have the proponent come on in? Yeah. I'll just have

Deborah and Debbie come.

Great. Thanks for being here again.

I don't know. Do I need this? Thank you so much for having me. Again, my name is Debbie Van Noy, and I'm with Utah Agricultural Land Trust. I am a founder and board member of the Land Trust. Can we go to Yeah. Yeah. I got new tech here. So Okay. That's just fine. And I I noticed that you probably have the materials that that will be up on the screen. We've got Vivian Christiansen and her son, Zane, and daughter, Jennifer, here. They are owners of the Christiansen Farm in Cove, just north of Richmond. We can go forward. Yeah. And 334 acres of of farmland, wheat, barley, corn, and alfalfa, Fourth generation family farm, so it it is a generational property here in in Northern Utah. 225 head of beef cattle. I I don't need to read it all. I think there are a couple of points I wanna make though. This is 11 parcels, making up this 334 acres. And if you look to the east of the highway, the green and the purple are their parcels. Just above that is a black, looks like a pivot area, and then the beige above that. That is, Hendrick's family, and they are planning as well to protect their property. So that is gonna be quite a large, area of land that will be protected, with conservation easements should all go well and the NRCS comes in with funding, Leray McAllister comes in, and then of course, we're able to persuade cash open space advisory committee that this is a valuable property to consider for protection. Leeray McAllister, board of directors were at the property on Friday. That's always a good sign. We think that there's a very strong chance that the application, with Leeray McAllister will be accepted. So with that said, we feel confident that that funding is going to come in in for the easement. The family has expressed concern as to whether or not trails would be expected, because this is a working farm. I did indicate to them that there is an attractive feature from the standpoint of the Richmond recreational area bordering a small portion on the western side of the property. If you could go forward two, I guess. Yeah. Two more. One more. I this is that showing that area where the star is. The the baseball field is just west of that. So I don't know what the future would be for the consideration of that. I have not indicated to them that that's a requirement of the cash open space committee. I know that trails are attractive, but also, you know, view sheds and this is the one that provides that in in spades. So Yeah. I mean, and and and we can,

maybe not necessarily today, but pull up the Cash County Trails Master Plan, which shows where the county envisions trails going. Many times, they're simply along the roads and highways, that sort of thing. I don't see that this project has other features necessarily running through it that folks might have been contemplating the trails. But once we do that, we'll be able to see if there was anything envisioned here at all. Right. And we can do more research,

if we're invited to come in with a formal application.

From from what I recall, I I also don't believe that I think the only and that's a working rail that goes through the property.

Mhmm.

Yeah. I don't think there's anything on the master plan in this particular Yeah. Unless it's along the county road or something. Yeah. And, like, along the county road, it'd probably be on their easement anyway.

On the West Side? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And they were open to it along the river, but I yeah. I think that's a little bit over there.

If I'm not mistaken, we had some of the Hendricks family maybe came into a a COSAC meeting one time I believe so. Talk to us a little bit about the possibility and that sort of thing. So that'd be great to see them apply. I think you certainly don't have to wait for us or or an invitation to to apply. You can go right ahead, and and what'll happen is staff will prepare a report and will look at things like the trail or master plan Okay. Those kinds of things and and prepare a brief report about the proposal and everything, and then you're on your way

through our process. So Okay. Well, we'll get that going quick. Sounds like you've already applied to Leroy McAllister? Oh, yes. And Oh, yes. NRCS? NRCS application went in late fall, '24, and Leroy McAllister went in, August 31. And they they worked very quickly and brought the board out to see two properties on Friday. Yeah. That's great. But you haven't heard back? No. Haven't heard back yet.

Sure.

So something that I don't know I think is neat about the property. Okay. On the north side is High Creek. I see. So that drainage comes. Okay. We kind of bought up against some property right there. Not a ton of room for development. Yep. And then along the whole west side of our property is the Cut River Okay. Drainage area. So a ton of space there that's on the Knellfold Hole. So pretty much from the Cub River to that road that goes down towards Cap so

11600.

11600 there that goes down to Caspers, Cut River to the highway. It's just a big chunk there all the way over to the high creek drainage that would be

pretty much Sorry. Could you just state your name? Our person taking the minutes will go off on you. Zane Christensen. Thank you.

And then with the Cub Rivers or the Richmond City Sports Complex there, a lot of people coming down there. I have a good visual for people to see the open space.

And just finally, our our request will come in at 525,000 from cash open space. And I think that really presents a great value and a a quite a leverage, with NRC coming in at a sizable amount and Leroy McAllister coming in at at at that same level.

How much is the, landowner?

Donating back? Uh-huh. No. These numbers are not hard yet. We have not had an official appraisal. So these are all kind of estimates at this point, about 1,400,000.0.

And the the cash portion would be what do you think roughly the percentage would be for the total project?

If COSAC is five and twenty five, did you say? Look. The the conservation easement value we're estimating at 5,000,000. Okay. That's 10%. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

I I don't recall what we have, proved on the on the Harris, but I think that that's a good benchmark for this particular one too. So that would be,

do do you have that, Angie, by any chance? What was it? I don't, but I think your memory is correct. It was about 10%. I think you did actually apply a percentage. Yeah.

No. That's not.

Great.

And good visibility. You were talking about good visibility from the highway back into this. Yeah. Some of it's on the Who who is currently farming it? We are. You are? Yep. K. So so a lot of times we get, someone else's farming. Just an LLC property. I have

five boys, five sons k. That are or three sons and two son-in-laws. And then there are children.

This is a family that's dedicated to agriculture. They've been in agriculture for years, and they they work the land, and they hope to continue

along with their posterity. So Yeah. Do you do you farm anyone else's land as well?

We rent, Hendricks there and then Sharon Nelson.

K. And then we own It it just helps to understand that, you know, you're the ones doing because it because a lot of times, it ends up yeah. Like like, one set of farmers is doing a lot of lot of additional land. So So mother's I don't know. Mother's getting older,

something that she'd like to see. She'd like to see this land never developed ever and continue doing the farming forever.

Well, in in fact, that's a requirement for NRCS

perpetual and Sure. I have my grandsons that are hoping for the same thing.

It's great. It's a great project, highly visible, both sides of the highway. You know, what what not to like, really. Yeah.

I did for later in the meeting, I put together the gateway from Idaho to Richmond, and this is one of the properties that come up in that mix. So

Fantastic.

So we're we're nestled kinda right in between Cherry Creek and Honey Creek. So two, waterways if that Hendricks land trip yet, like, there'd be good chunk of land in between those two. I know for, wildlife perspective and a lot of perspectives in between there just to keep that space open. Definitely.

It's a fantastic project.

For my own limited brainpower, can you estimate for me the mileage from eleven six hundred North to the top of your property? Just as an estimate.

Ran over a mile. Yeah. Okay. So not the whole thing's not feasible, but you're over half of well, you're about a half a mile of of visible right on the edge of the highway there. Great. And then down to the west, that whole area to the west, there what's that? Would that be a mile or about approximately? The whole so down the whole south side is about a mile, and then you see about a half a mile along the east? Casper's ice cream.

And gee, can you go back one slide? Just to the overall one. Landis, sorry to put you on the spot, but Before you got here The question was The one before that. The colored one. Yeah. The colored one. There's that Any idea trails up in this part of Richmond? That's 110115 North. What is it? 11 600 foot. Trails

as of right there. Most of the public trails are a couple of miles east of all of left field.

Alright. Talking I'm I'm asking them about future future trails. Probably along roads, though, most of them. Along roads.

Yeah. When if if I recall, there may be one along the Lower Richmond Road, but it would be on the road, not, like,

not through Yeah. Not through your property. Here's a thought I do have. So there's that big peak area, and then there's a yellow,

parcel in between it. Straight west of that yellow parcel is something they call

parcel is something they call Caspers Pond, and individuals go there all the time. There's a green hayfield just to the west, continuing west of that yellow parcel. People are always walking along the whole bottom of that green parcel. I mean, if it was part of the deal, we like, I don't know. Potentially, there could be a trail all along the bottom up along that north side all along the edge of High Creek would be just an absolutely beautiful, stunning trail.

And I just wanted to clarify, trails are not a requirement for an application. It would it would potentially score higher if there were access. And it sounds like there's at least some interest in providing access to the public for a trail. If there were a trail at any point in the future, you'd have to clarify that in the application so that we

It wouldn't be our first point, but if if it was like I say, there are a lot of people that come on the West Side. We run that green field there on the west of the property. Yeah. And there is a big there's a trail along the whole west portion I mentioned that. That people go around Casper Pond with.

So we're we're familiar with the Harris's property out to the west of you guys. And the the county has a and Richmond City has a a trail recommended along the Cub River through there and that's part of their project is You know, again, because it's on the plan and they were And it's on the edge of their property. So they were okay with trail access through there. So we'll see we'll see what the master plan shows and

Cross that bridge, do you want me? And the just to an ice cream would be a key to the trail available.

Hill. Right, Reagan, because of the the little shop there. You have public coming into that property. That could be kind of an interesting idea. Sure. Yeah.

Joining with the Christiansen property.

Where where's the baseball complex again? Can you point to it on Go down, please. In the bottom.

Just down here in this far corner, you see You can go down. Taking circles and weird landmarks that it's right there. Right?

There it is. There. Yeah.

Okay.

I've got the I've got the trails map master plan here, and it looks like it goes along lower the Lower Richmond Road. Along the road is one of them.

I think their property is in here. Right? Yeah. To the east of this. This is their property. Yeah. Right. Right there at this piece. Mhmm. It's half wetland, so it looks like

So it looks like That's on the east side of the highway there. Mhmm. That's the most Right. Right there. And it it looks like it's It's got, like, a Cub River and the, yeah, the little linkage to Casper's, it looks like. Yeah.

It's got cherry curd in there too.

Yeah. Curd for my curd. So a couple of things to highlight would be, like, if, if you can see the property from the trail, even if the trail's not on your land, that's interesting. Right? The people are not, like, just going through a dense, area. So I would highlight that the wetlands, you know, wetlands is on our let's see. How's it worded here? Valley gateways, scenic vistas, wildlife habitat, water waterways, trails, and unique. So highlighting the the waterways that, go through there, and then the visibility from the gateway. Can you show me can I do you have it pulled up, your map, or

I do? I'll find out. You know, I'll get that for you, Jane. Yeah.

Yeah. It's just, it's on, I looked up Richmond, master plan. Okay. And I if if I'm right, it's to what you said, it borders on the on the side there where you're talking about. And, you know, if those people get to enjoy your property from even if it's not on your property, that's, on both I think your flank may be on both sides.

So So in my mind, as a single member of of the committee, the property would score higher even if you didn't grant access to to your property. If it's adjoining someplace where a trail could be built, it would score highly in a couple different areas for me.

And I I say ditto to that.

And just one more question. On the purple map, the the map that has the big pinkish purple, the biggest chunk, the 155 acre piece, I'm assuming I don't know this area very well, and I'd like to go out and see it. Is that is that Cherry Creek at the very top piece? High Creek. High Creek.

Okay. So High Creek's on the crosses the highway, comes down across the whole That's right in the north. Yes. Border of our property. Okay. And then another there's another piece that's, across the road, so to the south of us. And then there's Cherry Creek right there. And I I mean, I think if we could get the ball rolling in this area, I think, potentially, you could even get those neighbors to jump on. Sharon Nelson to jump on board. The She boards Cherry Creek. Right? She boards Cherry Creek. So it'd be amazing if you could get Cherry Creek to Heidrick.

Who owns who own is that a water is that owned by the state, the waterway right there above you?

No. Todd Davis owns that and is actually he's got a subdivision. He's starting to just directly That's right. North of us.

But it's the creek's you know? Dry Can Dry Canyon Development? Yeah. K. It's right there.

He's cut. Uh-huh.

Okay. Now you've got some development pressure on the sides of the

property. Yep. K.

Five block just north of us and then across the street, he's got a Eight block. Size gold sack that he's putting in as well.

Is that the anything else you wanna tell us about the Christiansen's?

Nope. I think we've covered it. Yep. Great.

Thank you, Deborah. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. We appreciate it. Do we usually get the application before we go on-site? Or Yes. Usually, that's part of the phase one app. So as soon as you make an application, staff will prepare a report, and we'll work with you guys to schedule a site visit. So we can all go out there and see it, and then we'll come back and score it.

Sounds great. We'll get that in very soon within the next ten days probably. Okay. I'd like to move on to Champion Farms in Clarkston. You can just go forward, please. 242 acres of wheat and safflower. Predominant crop is safflower used for high end seed production for bird seed. Not for the oils, but for but for bird seed, which is sold worldwide. Turns out that Cache Valley has an ideal climate for the production of this crop. And Christian Robston has been growing it for for several years. Fourth generation family farm. This property is owned by Christian and Jamie Robston. They're here if you have any questions for them directly. Again, also applications in with NRCS. I went in last fall and Leeray McAllister on a, August 31. And they were also, the subject of a site visit by the Leeray McAllister board on Friday, another good sign. So we're we're hopeful as well for the for a champion farms. This is a dry farming operation. They are these are noncontiguous parcels. You can see the acreage on each one of them. The will consider bringing in 80 additional acres in the coming years, and we are seeking $200,000 to round out the funding for this property. So, again, we have hopes for NRCS funding coming in, Leroy McAllister at 200, and then cash open space at 200 if that would would would be acceptable. Beautiful area. Clarkston, if you go forward, please. It's a site for lots of cycling and, I don't know that many Utahns can appreciate the beauty of this area. You can go forward further. This is Christian in the flower fields in July when they're ready to harvest. Just a tremendous, tremendous area. Clarkson's a wonderful community. It's very pristine and peaceful and tranquil in this area. I did not know the beauty that abounds in the Clarkston area. And we will visit every summer during the safflower harvest. It's a really beautiful area. And we're hopeful that we can protect the land. And this is gonna be a perfect example. If you go back to the parcels, it just takes one or two to get something rolling in a community for land protection. As we're able to protect champion farms, we really feel confident that other landowners who feel as the Raabstons do about their agricultural heritage will come on board. So then you're going to see, you know, more activity and more, scale within the within these areas. So

Questions from committee members? What access we got?

This is right off Highway 142.

Christian, can you speak? The the Christian graphs in here, the the smaller parcel that you're seeing up there is probably about a half mile from the

What is the percentage that your that 200 would represent?

Probably about 14%, I think.

Yeah. K. Other questions?

Actually, I'm wrong on that. Probably more like 8%.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you can clarify all that Yeah. Sure. Of your application. I'm looking at the valuations on the on the two of them and where they're located and stuff and just the the 200 and the 500 relative to the size. It's a 119 total acres on this on the one out in Trenton.

242.

242. 242. 242. Okay. So there's a total listed on the one. There wasn't a total on that one, so I was going by that. Okay. Alright. That that clarifies that for me. Thank you.

Anything else you guys wanted to add? Or Well, it it is just along with your program, I'm I'm seeing that you're wanting bigger chunks of land, you know, connect your parcels and things like that.

My business partner was talking to me the other day, and he's got a

Sure. There's opportunities for to be able to connect these parcels into a large parcel.

Yeah. I I think we're always looking for opportunities to leverage, you know, projects and and connect to existing easement space or in this case, maybe pioneering some easements in a new area. And so

He borders me on all of these properties.

Questions or comments from folks?

May I ask Christian, that thousand acres, is that within

that that area? It basically connects the the parcel looks like an L with the 85 acre parcel. It's basically everything.

Yeah.

10. Okay. So it connects the upper left and the lower right. That's right. That's That's pretty impressive. That's interesting. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Thanks for mentioning that, Christian. Yeah.

And I I mean, just as a heads up, I do think this one's gonna be just a little bit tougher and that it's, the isolation, the non continuous, just to kind of have a sense. It'll be interesting what Lee Ray or McAllister does and how they look at it. Right. Right. For us.

Absolutely. Yeah.

I look forward to your application. So

We will bring an application in for both of them. I think that, there's there's value to both. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Especially especially with, the Godfrey property. Am I correct? Yeah. Yeah. Coming in with a thousand acres in that area. Yep. I urge you to visit the area in July. Kendra, you know Ridden my bike out there in July. How beautiful it is. And I've never smelled safflower ready to harvest, but it's a unique fragrance and quite a beautiful area. I really believe that this whole area that we're talking about, Clarkston and then going up into the Cove area, the public that doesn't even participate in agriculture will be so enriched by by seeing these places. And I I see, it being a real attractive pull for for visitors to to Cache County to have these areas protected. Yeah.

Your your other project, where does that stand?

You had an you had three projects that you had talked about last time. I'm gonna be bringing pre applications in for those three Hyde Park projects Okay. Next month. Okay. Yeah. And they're they're really heavily, oriented towards trail opportunities. K. I mean, smaller lots, but they're they they sit right on the Hyde Park trail plan.

Yeah. Great. That's great to hear. Yeah. Anything else for us, Deborah?

That's it. I really appreciate your time and your interest. Well, we do too. Yeah. We appreciate

the families and your interest in the program and your interest in preserving your land. So thank you for making the effort. Hopefully, it won't be too painful from

from us anyway. Can I let me just add one more thing? Sure. I I just we have a massive irrigation well well, two that are, like, contingent on the property.

So and I don't Yeah. Yeah. That's that's important. East or west side? So

Excellent. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Deborah.

Okay. Our next agenda item is updates from committee members. And I'm gonna just for folks' information, I asked staff to help me with some acreages or to query the GIS and tell us how much easements.

Oh oh, yeah. They're existing. Yeah.

And this is the data that we got. Send a couple more over there, Brent,

please.

These are existing

These were existing queried from the GIS, and I think it it's pretty good, I suspect or guess, that maybe there's some newer ones that aren't on the list necessarily. Gabe?

Cold ice I don't see cold water on here. Wasn't cold water going under easement? It is not currently under easement. It's an active project. Active project. Yeah. How big they own 20 something thousand acres. That could how much of that were they looking at easement on? Pretty significant amount. So it could double this amount? It potentially could. Did you catch that? Where's that located? It's located in the mountains above Hiram.

F-four 40. Paradise,

Hiram Paradise above there. F-four 40 kind of Watsmith Fork above. Yeah. If I I put together the largest land owners as a master sheet, which wasn't for this discussion, but, and the largest landowner in the county, once you after federal is cold water at 21546, and that doesn't include their their d parcel. D D is the same. Right? Is that right, Gabe? There's about another 10,000 under, d Inc. They were the family that owned Dee's

So, Gabe, I would appreciate when you have a chance to just look at this and see if any of the newer easements in the last two, three years or whatever happened to be on this list?

Yeah. So I would say the last three easements that we've closed are closed. But yeah.

That I was thinking too. And which which are those?

So that would be the West Canyon Ranch Eastman, that would be the Evans Ranch Eastman, and that would be

the Schist Eastman. How how big are those?

25 acres, little over a 50, and almost 3,000.

Great. And so yeah. This shows approximately just shy of 16,000 acres, it sounds like, with the ones that Gabe's familiar with that Probably rounded up to 20. So Or maybe in the neighborhood including 20 existing. Yeah. Which is great. So just just a picture. Right? Just to paint a picture for everyone. This is where we're at. This is none of these projects are funded by Cash Academy at this point. So it'll be interesting to understand how these existing easements play into, you know, applications for funding and stuff like that. So just another piece of the story. Mhmm.

Conservation easements? Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Is the current easements on this property?

In the county. Okay. Through 2022, I would say. Yep.

Oh, this list goes? Yes. Oh, okay.

Most of them are private with no NRCS on?

They may they a lot of them have NRCS funding. So just just FYI again. I think it's part of part of the puzzle and part of our work understanding sort of where we're starting. Okay. Who would like to chat about any updates? Eric, sounds very good. Been busy. Doing some things. What can you share with us? Yeah. I've got a master

list. First of all, I've got the largest landowners, which is very interesting to see. I I just that was helpful, particularly as I looked at some of these gateways because some of the times the gateway holder held a whole lot more land, and it's much more interesting when you look at their total acreage.

But I'll Some of those on your list already have easements on them too, actually. Cold Coldwater's in process. Monument Holdings

is the number two. I don't know who that is. Green Canyon? Yeah. Four Mile Ranch is another big one. Dee's Inc is is cold water. Yeah. Green Canyon does. KW Spring Creek Ranch was a is a large one, and a gentle landholder. So those are just some of the biggest landowners. And when you look at that, they like, the largest landowners are pretty significant in in what they hold. So I I went and I did the gateways and came up with some counts. I'll tell so the Sardine Sardine Canyon has 11 owners that I think all should be notified. The South Valley entrance, that's coming from Sardine Canyon. I I did a combination of what you see from the valley along with along the freeway that would block if they if if they put a neighborhood or a big commercial building there. There's 34 owners in that set. Again, staying with larger land owners, not small parcels. Valley View is very, very, very fragmented. The most fragmented entry of the and I went along the highway and then expanded it, as you come around the turn to, into the valley, kind of a fan type, look. And I've got 36 landowners over 20 acres. So, you know, a much and I think that that one would be hard to get something really attractive, unfortunately, that oh by the way, I only went to the, to Benson Marina there. Okay. Is where I went to. Yeah. Not Benson Marina. Sorry. Cutler Marsh Right. To where the water starts. Yeah. So everything that way is what I was looking at in a in a van. So that's again, that's 36. That's that'd be a big part of a a mailer, and a lot of those wouldn't be very interesting if they did come in because they're just a long narrow strip of, you know, 30 acres. But I thought that one was interesting. Then I did Idaho to Richmond, and there's 15 acres of plus 20. 15? Sorry. 15 land owners of plus 20 acres.

How far did you go from that?

I did the ones that bordered, The ones that that had 20 acres that were bordering. Yeah. But then my list, I went and I queried like, if you look at the list, I added the total acreage that they all own, so I can also tell you you how many acres they own once you get past that frontage thing. And there are some significant landowners out there. I'll I'll just I know some of you act know names better than some of us, but CWA Land Holdings, they had $3,387 against their against the highway and 972 total. So it's a very significant landowner. The Glade Lovett, Living Trust, Olson Family Trust, Double L Ranch, and Hobbs were just some of those names. I the one thing I didn't do Christensen? Yeah. Vivian Christensen is on the list. Yeah. Yeah. As you get down further. And Hendrix is on the list. Yeah. So those are names are on the list. As you're closer to Idaho, you really do not see the east the west side of the highway because of the railroad tracks there. But I did include it. But I think that one would be a little bit tough to say that's that's Valley. The gateway on the West Side. On the West Side, it's not. And that may be we may want to clean that up before sending it out if you have no, no view really of it. Yeah. It it is. I did do Richmond to Smithfield because I thought that to me, that's still part of the gateway. It's still part of the fill. Yeah. It doesn't fill, let's say, yeah. It doesn't need to be on there. Number one, as far as frontage right there is Dave Erickson. We happen to know Dave? Beautiful on both sides of the road. Any on both sides. Yeah. So 249 acres when I combine not just what's there, but what's on below beyond that. Utah State has some land, Corbett Trust, J and M Land Holdings, Gary Hanson. Now one thing that you that I did in addition because I was out that way is one of the best views in the valley is as you're driving that and you're looking out over the valley. Because you're elevated. Because you're elevated. And I put together the biggest landholders there.

Where is this at?

As you're going from Richmond to Smithfield Oh, okay. We get a we get this massive view of the valley. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Did you shoot on a poolside sort of thing?

I'd have to go back and look.

There's a break here, they all again. They all went up to the highway on both sides. They all went up to the highway on both sides. They all went up to the highway on both sides. They all went up to the highway on both sides. They all went up to the highway on both sides. They all went up to the highway on both sides. They all went up to the highway on both sides. They all went up to the highway on both sides. They all went up to the highway on both sides. They all went up to the highway on both sides. They all went up to the highway on both sides. They all went up to the highway.

They all side know how that divides up. It's pretty easy to key it in and and find that. Twenty twenty seven hundred acres in the valley. Just a couple of names, right, Atkin, JW Rich, yeah, the Rich family comes up a couple of time. Hedron, the Erickson's, Ballard, L L Ranch. So and a couple of these are 644 acres, eleven sixty four when you put the total thing together, 436. So those are some sizable pieces, that are potential to be able to. So I don't know, to me that kinda goes under

this It could be gateway or it could be,

yeah, scenic business as far as, like

Eric, Eric, how many names did that add? Smithfield to Richmond?

Smithfield to Richmond. First of all, if you just go along the highway, you pick up about 18 names. And then if you go into the valley, there's some duplicate there, but you'd you'd probably pick up, like, five more names.

That would add.

So, I mean, we're like, total that we're asking for in terms of mailers is, like, 200 max mailers and probably less than that.

One thing on that. We talked about it. It it's a little trickier to define the gateway coming from the North because the Idaho border or the Utah border is not Okay. You don't know when you've crossed. It's not

special. Yeah. And

so you get you have to go further south almost to see the moment of the valley, and

that's why you went further there. It would be interesting to get a traffic channel on that highway coming in the

Yeah. There's more development pressure there potential

Yeah. Compared to the state line area. I can say the the the corridor between Richmond and Smithfield, we've had a number of Projects coming to the planning commission, wanting to do the grapple pit and tear down half the and everything like that. So it's been There is there is pressure amount of pressure in that area. On someone's seen it. They're all in space.

Lost. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's if if I'm reading the committee right, coming down is actually quite interesting.

To Smithfield. To Smithfield. Yeah. Yes. If it only adds 20 names

yeah. Yeah. I mean, it could be 40 event. But it also sounds like maybe I go and I look at what you can actually see from the highway. You actually see the east side from the highway as you enter the enter into the county Mhmm. For a while Yep. There are more than you see the other. And then you then it flips and you have a great view

Irrigation Company.

Who's buying them? You only divide it so much. Oh, yeah. That But Vivian wants it. It's not developed.

Right. That's why she she couldn't out of Richmond.

This is where we have a willing landowner.

Oh, yeah.

And yeah.

Okay. What other

so so I think I think with with that, what it would be is as far as the county council, we've got, 200 name. What I was hoping is that the parcel I could feed back in, I was with on the phone with, Carrie GIS. I just wanted to feed it back in and highlight all of the parcels so it give a sense for what these parcels are, and there isn't a way to feed, like, the 200 parcel numbers back in You have to do it. One by one. So I I we could generally tell like, outline the areas that

I think that would be really helpful. I mean, the the council and probably my certainly myself and other committee members would probably love to see. Capital. Let let let me do that on a on a,

like, if I did on a, like, a county wide map and just highlight it, but there would be some specifications. These are twenty twenty acre plus Yeah. Or that they're they are and I I do think, we ought to always and I didn't really do it as much on the north end because there's not as much blockage, but at some point there will be blockage. We might set aside a 300 acres down below that you can but then, you know, then there's five car dealerships that come up along the frontage. So Great. Let's see. Anything else from Eric or anybody? Updates.

Claire. On that, we drafted revised the draft of a letter that could go out. I sent I gave you all a copy of that. This is kind of a combination of actually, a year ago, I asked, hey. I just draw the first draft, and it did. And then we humanized it. Yeah. Incorporated some things that were on the letter sent out by the private group. There's some things that they said that were okay. There were some things that we didn't wanna repeat. They put a dollar value on what might be available, like, what, 2,000 to 13,000 an acre. We thought that was not wise to put that in because we don't know. Yeah. And and it didn't mention matching funds or anything, so we left that open. But I like this idea that Eric suggested that we give a couple examples of projects that have been funded so they could see that this is really happening. Yeah. And they could have an idea of just examples. This is not written as a promise or anything, but just to inform them of what's going on out there. So, like I say, it's a draft. I'm sure many people will mark it up before it gets sent out, but take it as a starting place. Great. One change I made from the letter that went out by the private group was, this, I think, is much less of a sales pitch of the concept of open space. And it starts out by appealing to the landowner's personal interest in what happens to their property. And, well, here's a possible solution. Here's one solution. So that's the first opening sentence there and tries to keep that a little more neutral tone all the way through. Being informative and not trying to oversell the idea, but to be a a resource for them. So that was the intention there.

The the first sentence does make it a little to be, if we could maybe say you're you're in a gateway and Vista area or something, we are writing to form you that your property along South Highway 89, that might be a little bit harder for me to parse out from my dataset. So maybe if we make that just a little more broad than than that, that would be that'd be one. Yeah. I I thought

it might be different for each of the areas there, but we could make one

your property along a valley gateway or something like that. Yeah. But it'd be we I the data the data is such that I could say, like, we could say, the south the or the to Cache Valley or something like that. I I do have it broken down like that. But, like, whether it's on the highway or you can see it. I mean, some of them are,

you know, more by Nibley, but Off the highway. Yeah. Okay. But they're visual. But but they're sort of identified to the south entrance to the valley. Yep. I got it. I got it. I got it. Entrance. Yep. Yeah. No. Anything like that. And I don't know any committee members welcome to mark it up, and and it will go to the council, and they'll do their own thing. So For for the

example, I do have Furman's. We approved $10,008.69 per acre, and then I've got the other numbers for and it's a total of 30,000 over 30,000 dollars per acre just plus the tax benefits. And

I wasn't sure what numbers we should put in there. Should it be total or per acre, but I think some parameters.

Well, per acre, they could per acre per acre, they have the ability to extrapolate. That's Like, I would I would say find a place to find. Is it is it necessary to include numbers? Like I'd rather say,

you know, if it's the Elkhorn Ranch, you know, located in Nibley or whatever between Logan, Millville, and Nibley and this many acres and Yeah. Leverage funding from NRCS and leaving McAllister, etcetera, etcetera. NRCS. Rather than giving I

yeah. I I agree. Here here's what I'm trying to do. I Allison well, the citizen group sent something out, and it didn't show the multiple at all. So Showed dollars per acre. That's what we started with. So Yeah. And that's where we ended up. I even thought that counseling that no one missed a part that said a multitude or two to three times that if you have NRCS, money or not, and they did not put that in the letter. Therefore people have this low number on their mind and they're not, and it's probably just a batch of the people, but councilman Gunnell and a couple of those in that area may have need kind of a update on what the potential actually is. And when I put that if we added, Harris's to it, which is a much lower number, there might be a more of a range there that people don't get expectation. But these are objective numbers, not subjective. It's not

Yeah. But that's kind of an idea. Just an example. Yeah. We could mention too that there are already from Chris' list 20 properties In Cash County with these ones. And here are a couple examples. Whatever information you're comfortable with. Part of our thought, like Eric said, is we kind of wanted to get the figures that were in the last letter out of their mind.

Okay. So there was a previous letter that was sent out. It was a citizen group.

Yeah.

And quite honestly, it had been mailed to me saying this is going out, and I didn't really overly look at it. And if I had, I would have been like Yeah. And that Because it says, there could be matching money from NRCS, but that doesn't give them and so councilman Gunnell told us when people see this no number, they're totally putting it out of their mind. Right. It said you could potentially get, like, $2,200

to $13,000 an acre. I don't know where they came up with the number. It doesn't include matching funds or anything. And Yeah. We wanted to get away from that and to Okay. Yeah. Somehow.

Yeah. So should we like, I'd like to digest this and maybe give some feedback. Should we try and provide feedback to

Claire and Eric on this in

the next little bit here? What's what's reasonable?

I I I think we gotta finalize it, what, by the next meeting at least. Right? For sure.

Yeah. If not sooner. So Yeah. Okay. What what would be would the next step be to bring a final version and maps and the landowner list to the next meeting? Is that that something that we can all say, yep. This is great. Let's get on that.

Council's agenda?

What would be helpful for the council? Yeah. What I would recommend is putting a slideshow together, identify the gateways, estimate how many,

you know, there's per gateway, total it at the end.

On a slide, put the an outline of what you're in what you'll include in the letter.

And then in the packet,

have a copy of the letter. You don't necessarily need to put that on your slide. And then the total cost. Just digest it as much as possible. Yeah. If the council can't bear the cost, then take, Donald and Ericsson off there. It's only 198 mailers.

Make it visual and Yeah.

We'll hand deliver the one to you.

Would it help to have some staff help on that to get it

it to a suitable format? Or I think it would take me as long to pass it to Okay. Staff as it is just to do it. Just do it. Yeah. K.

Yeah. I pictured, you know, Yeah.

By the way, the examples we're leaving off because they're outright purchases is Sardine and Yep. Smithfield. Right.

We don't wanna get that in. In. Are not conservation easement projects.

And also consider putting the total amount there is to give away

That is in here. That's a good suggestion.

It is in here as the 20,000,000. I don't know if you wanna say what's left versus what was originally approved. It's a different number now.

Well, and the number's going up. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Greenbelt. Greenbelt.

Yeah. Yep. How much is left for a year?

What come to know? How much is The previous executive was estimating up to a million dollars a year.

Okay.

Well, let me ask if there was any other updates from committee members on this stuff. I think that was hitting on a number of items. Did you have any updates for us, Keegan? No. K. Gabe, anything you wanna share with the committee?

I don't think so. No. K.

Elkhorn Ranch still in process, final stages of due diligence.

Middle stages of due diligence.

I guess I'll get a picture.

Did you get a copy of this or a couple extras here? So yeah. So where we're at

okay. So we we have a draft conservation easement deed now. I don't know if Chris has had the opportunity to pass that around to you. But we've negotiated that with the landowner, we've negotiated that with the Utah Department of Ag and Food, Bear River Land Conservancy and our legal counsel have reviewed that. And so that was passed to the county about a month ago. I know Keegan's been I know Keegan's been following up with the county attorney, who has some comments on it, so I'm hoping to get that back soon. So that'll be kind of the next step is getting that deed kind of finalized and then sent off to NRCS, for their review. So kind of in process, you want to try to get all the partners together and get everybody sign off before it goes to NRCS. Because if you play a back and forth game with NRCS, your timeline will start expanding beyond your control,

to put it mildly. Is the county a bottleneck right now? Currently, yes.

So we're working on that, but Keegan's been following up, which has been really helpful. So thank you. So we are pushing forward on that, and then we're also pushing forward on our grant agreement for that money that was allocated by the county council. So I was working with David Zuk on that prior to his retirement. I don't know if he ever signed it. I never got any notification, And so now I've been working with Keegan to try to push that grant agreement forward. Bear of Land Conservancy did put put together a full grant agreement for the county to be able to review and consider.

But that's the one that doesn't require the county to sign it, right? They're just getting there. No. So so the grant agreement would require

yeah. The the probably the Cache County Executive sign off. Exactly Yep. Yep. It'd be part of the bottleneck. So figuring that out, but that would require the easement deed will be held by Bear River Land Conservancy and the Utah Department of Ag and Food. And so we do not necessarily need the county's signature on that easement deed, but what we have agreed to is that the county would review that easement deed to make sure that it's in line with the open space program, and that all aspects of it were matching. So that's why we've passed that now. Okay.

I think I clarified that in my email too. There is an adviser role in this.

Yep. And then in terms of other due diligence items, we're actively working on the boundary. We've had some issues come up with that, so we're working through those. We're also had, finally got the environmental review back from NRCS. There were no major concerns, so it's a great step forward. We're also working on minerals due diligence as well. So try to bring all those pieces together and and continue to move the project forward. But so far, we've been able to hold on to our funding, so I'm excited about that, given all the challenges that various nonprofits have faced this year with federal funding.

Awesome. Anything new on the horizon?

We have two other projects that we're working on with other other federal agencies. We're pushing those forward. We'd love to be able to get to another project. We're just capacity limited. But, yeah, we have I'd say I have a landowner reach out to me every week. Somebody's interested in an easement, so I think I think the word is out there. I think people are interested, it's just a matter of putting the puzzle pieces together. I was encouraged to see Utah Agricultural Land Trust kind of helping bring projects. Each project is a lot of work, and so hopefully they can get one or two of those rolling, and they can kind of help bring those projects along. I think that would be a a good thing for everybody.

Federal, the federal situation right now?

Oh, I would say ask me, ask me in five minutes, and I'll give you a different opinion. It it changes constantly. You know, I I get snippets from different people at different points in time, different levels of leadership. I would say it's always changing. But as far as I'm concerned, I think there will still be federal funding, at least from NRCS moving forward. How much, when, how, why? I I don't know. It's, it's it's been very turbulent this year to say the least. So but, yeah, I I think there is yeah. I I do think that NRCS will continue to provide funding. How much? I don't know.

Good.

K. Any more questions for Gabe? Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. Appreciate that. Yep. Okay. Anything else from committee members for now? It looks like I'm sorry. It looks like our next meeting's November 3.

Mhmm. Yeah. That's what I said. Does that work for

folks? Is that a good deadline for us to have a, maybe a draft presentation? Presentation. I'm happy to help with the presentation stuff, if that's helpful enough.

And just to let you know, council dates in November are a little different than typical. It'll be the first and the fourth. So Okay.

So we should should we try to get a spot right now for can you request one for the November?

Yeah. And I think Oh, is that after Thanksgiving? No. That would be before. So maybe they're doing the first and third for November. But I did just look at it today. That's the fourth thing. Extension meeting, I think.

This is for the council meeting.

Oh, third? Oh, I got it. Alright. Thank you. The third week or the third week? That's why it's like third week or third Our next COSAC meeting is on that. The fourth or the eighteenth.

You get a tentative on the fourth. We wanted to move it ahead.

Yeah. I'd be okay with that. We just wouldn't have a meeting before that.

Oh, for what?

For the fourth.

But we'd meet on the third. Right?

I would need to have that.

You have to have that.

Yeah. So we just we just work on it offline to get it tracked. Yes. Sure. Is that what you're saying, Chris? I think so. Not

just Maybe let's say it this way. If we wanna be on the council's meeting on the fourth, we'll need to have a presentation submitted to them a week before, which is the twenty eighth.

Okay. Here here's another advantage of that is I don't think you want a mailer going out in December. People's minds are much more likely to go in the trash in the month of December because Yeah. So the sooner we Yeah. Pull it together, the better. So if we were to approve it at the November, I think you'd hold the letter until January, which which may push things really late.

Any interest in interim meeting, you know, between our normal once a month? A workshop ish. Should we try to come together on the twentieth or something? I can do that. To push things along and have a draft that we can work through and and polish it up afterwards or something?

More of a let how far can we get? And but this is the only agenda item is what you're think like Yeah. Yeah. Unless

UALT has applications already in or something like that.

That'd be fun.

I mean, it works for me. If it gets us moving along quicker, I'm happy to do that. So Get past this? Just get some mailers out. We'll we'll have work through something with the council.

There's a quote about October 20 at at 03:30. Yeah.

Fourth is election day too. So if you wanna mail it out before then, anybody thinks it might be off, then I'll go to election with that.

Yeah. And the the earlier they're the better because then it's Black Friday mailers, then we won't wanna get in that way.

I don't think the the council will do any Black Friday open space specials.

Two for one. Two acres for one. Two acres for the price of one.

Good stuff. Where are you guys going? I was just gonna make sure. Landis, do you have any updates or Landis. News, Landis?

We still try to schedule meetings with landowners to the BST to finalize easements. So far, it's still promising.

And Logan's doing that independently. Okay. K.

Yeah. So things are still moving along slowly, but so far, I don't have any major concerns.

Great. That's great. One one observation when UALT was presenting on those different projects, you know, even though the the project out near Clarkston is, you know, maybe not ideal because it's not consolidated, it's not really highly visible or whatever. Our our investment in it was around $800

a do like gateway stuff. But with another million dollars coming in a year, that kinda changes the the way like, I kinda needed that little reminder that, hey, there's there is more flow, and I was worried, like, okay. If we spend it all out there, then nothing will you know? Yeah. The set that's got the pressure would would be hurt, but yeah. If if you kinda do both because there's a lot of flow, then 800 an acre is interesting to that point. Yeah. Yeah.

Did did Did the county council decide that that was their intent on rollback tax money was to add it to the existing bond funding and have that funding be available through this process?

It was implied.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how official it is, but yeah. I don't think it's official, but I think that's the intent. Okay. Great. That's good. I think we'll we'll find out more and hopefully

find ways to make it. I think we'll have to review the state legislature, but I I thought it had some specifications around what you can use it for outside of open spaces. I don't think there's Yeah. That's pretty A ton of options either. So I think it might be a decision by default. But Great.

And then I think it's whether it uses this committee or Right. But it was implied at one point that

we've got it set up. So Yeah. We already have a mechanism by which we review and evaluate those type of decisions.

It would be interesting to understand the timeline that they give on that and the timeline that they give on my understanding was six six or seven years from the time we passed this, and so we may, like,

you may wanna spend from one pot versus the other basically. Yeah. Yeah. They don't want you holding it. They start charging it. Taxes their interest on it.

Great. Anything else, committee members or others? K. So we'll sounds like, Angie, we'll we'll try and set up a a a interim meeting in two weeks. And

Just so you know, I will be out of the office that previous week. K. But, hopefully, we can just email any packet items or stuff. I'll get an agenda in the room reserved and all that.

Thank you. K. Alright. If that's it, we'll stand adjourned.