Cache County Council Workshop Meeting – 06-09-2026

It's now 03:30. We are excusing, both council members, Dave Erickson and Mark Hurd. They're coming after they are able to wrap up a few things that that they have at work. And our chair, Sandy Goodlander, is not going to make it to today. So thank you very much for coming and joining us in our workshop, of the, council, the Cache County Council and the Cache Open Space Advisory Committee. And, we welcome, this chance that we have to speak a little bit, in more informally and, hear some of the projects and and the vetting that we've been able to, receive from you and an update on the program. So I think I'm going to turn the time over to Chris who's the chair of the COSAC, and you've got some information for us. I do. Thank you. So thank you.

Okay. Great. And so exactly right, councilwoman. I noticed in going through my notes and stuff that it's been eleven months since we got together last, so So it seems like an appropriate time to just kinda touch on on the program, let you know about, some of the things we've been working on, but hopefully spend, the bulk of our time talking about things we feel like we need some guidance from the council on, in particular. And so I'll do a brief overview, and and then partway through my overview, I'm gonna ask if Seneca can come up and show you some of the GIS work associated with some of these projects that's been completed by staff. It's a pretty amazing tool that we just brought forth and so I'm excited to show you about that. And then we'll spend the remainder of the time, thank you, on the kind of the questions we have for you guys. I've also invited Jeremy Christiansen with UDAF here, as well as Gabe Murray with Bear River Land Conservancy. Some of the discussion may involve questions that we have for organizations like them. You may want to give them a couple of minutes to chime in on our conversation, that sort of thing. I do think most, because we have an hour. Right? We wanna leave I wanna leave plenty of time for, some discussion. And then I'm also not expecting that you're gonna have answers necessarily today, especially without having the full counsel here, to some of our questions. So I'm assuming, you might provide feedback or guidance at a later date. It's totally up to you guys, though. K? Does that sound okay? Yeah. Alright. Let's see. This way, it's the wheel. Right? Okay. Okay. So, the, the COSAC exists because in November 2022, the citizens were offered an opportunity to vote on an open space bond, which they approved at that time. So we're coming up on the four year anniversary in a few more months later this fall, since the residents voted on the bond. In general, we here's a quick overview of the COSAC, really. Formed by ordinance in February 2023, You appointed the members, the initial members of COSAC in April 2023. We had our first meeting in June 2023. Our current membership is made up of seven voting members, two ex officio members, and those who could attend today are here with me, and you can see the list there. I think you guys know most most of our committee. And we meet generally on the first Monday of each month. And if we need to, we also meet on the third. And lately, we've been meeting twice, sometimes three times a month, because we've had a number of site visits on projects that have come in on applications lately. So over that time frame, so that's about thirty months, if you will, We've had over 52 meetings, and we started receiving applications in January 2024. K? Oops. Sorry. Backwards. Okay. And this is just a graphic that kinda shows our process. In general, if someone's interested, they can come to one of our meetings and have a conversation with us in a pre application type of arrangement. And we'll we'll give anyone time if they would like to talk about a potential project. They have a chance to ask questions. We give them guidance. And if they choose, they can submit an application. So our application process is broken down into two rounds. The first round is get to know you and, know about your project, go and do a site visit, and score the project. And then we if if the COSAC recommends approval, we bring that to the council, and then there's a first round approval process. Then the second round is when the landowner, and if they're working with other partners, does their due diligence and they come back to us with a price, and an, a an arrangement, if you will, for the program. And then if, it proceeds forward with approval from COSAC, we would bring that also to the council. So that's, in a nutshell, that is the two step process. We try to really make it quite easy. And so in our open space funding application, we're just looking for some basic information, contact information. Are you willing to enter an agreement with the county? Is the is your property does it have clear title? What are the past and present and future uses of the property? And then, in particular here, what benefits will the public receive from this? Is it something that protects a scenic vista or a gateway? Does it have important wildlife habitat or waterways, floodplains, wetlands, wildlife habitat, those kinds of things. We also ask landlords if they're willing to allow for public access, especially if, you know, according to our trails master plan, if there's a trail adjacent to or through the property, are they willing to allow for that public access? And then we ask them if they're working with other partner organizations. And, we get a variety, and I'll talk about the overall applications that we we've received today. But then once somebody for an open space funding submits their application, the COSAC will arrange a site visit with them. We will, go out and, evaluate the project on the ground. Staff prepares a detailed report telling us about the particulars of the project. And we come back, we score it, and then we meet and decide if we recommend that it move on to the next round. Similarly, we have a a a process for trail funding projects. So this is securing easements for potential trail projects. The application process is very similar. All the criteria is slightly different, as you can imagine. And the scoring, it's a similar program, but of course, we're evaluating different aspects, like trail connectivity, funding, is it part of a master plan, so on and so forth. Do you have willing landowners? Those kinds of things. Okay. So this is a a a slide I'll I'll spend a little bit of time on because this kinda just tells you what's been happening over the last, two and a half years since since we started receiving applications. So, we've had 20 potential projects come before COSAC, and they represent over 2,000 acres of land, private land in the county. County. 19 of those projects are open space projects and one of them was a trail project, trail easement project. So of those 20 potential and and and, of course, we we don't do a lot of advertising and marketing and that sort of thing. Although, we did do a recent mailer out to our some of the gateway landowners, which which we received great feedback on, as far as applications go. We don't do a lot of marketing. So these are willing landowners who have heard about the program or or spoken with our agency partners or organization partners and have brought projects into us. So of those 20 so far, 12 have actually submitted applications. 11 were open space and one trail projects. Of those 12 so far, because some are still, in the process, if you will, nine projects have received round one approval and two projects have received round two approval with fixed dollar amounts associated with them. And so, the bond funds, that those two projects so far represent is 1,800,000, as you can see there, for 344 acres. Now, the total bond project is, the bond amount is $20,000,000. And, the council has also, as you are aware, done a couple of projects of fee title, acquisitions where you've purchased the properties. And so that, last bullet there represents what the council has done, for their portion of the, of the bond monies so far. 5,900,000 and just over a thousand acres acquired as part of those projects. I didn't include any of the matching funds and those kinds of things, but on the COSAC funded projects, so far the projects that have received the approvals, they generally are partnered with other funding sources as part of their request or their application. Okay? So the amount of money that they're asking for us is gonna be a portion of the total project amount. And we've the COSAC has, for those projects allocated between 2530% of the project funds. And so we've been able to leverage, six 70 to 75%, of those projects.

So Would you say that is 75% of the value of the East Yes, sir. Correct.

Correct. Okay. Any questions so far?

I do have a question. So you have 20 potential projects have come, which have resulted in 12 applications.

Yeah. So the remaining eight have come to the just conversation phase of Three applications. Yeah. Yep. And and And I'll I'll talk about this in a couple of minutes, but most of those are small parcel projects, so less than 50 acres. And then Six out of eight of those are small small parcel projects, and they have, I would say, a unique set of challenges. Mhmm. And we'll kinda touch on that in a Okay. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions so far? So if you don't mind, what I'd like to do is turn a few minutes over to Seneca, if that works for you, Seneca, and have her come up and kind of walk us through some of the GIS mapping so that, because we're just, these are words.

It's fun to see maps, and I think the maps tell a story that I'd like to highlight as well. Also, the graphics have been really good. Are all of the pictures from projects that we've received are cool? Or the pictures, I guess, not graphics, but pictures have been cool. Yes. Yes. All those pictures are a project. And Justin has gotten those with his drone? The ones from a drone. Yes. Cool. Except for

there is a a more that's until his drone crashed.

RIP. To the shop. RIP drone. Oh, okay. Good. I can come back. Oh, Oh, I just have a question.

Yes, ma'am. Did you say that the county pays 25% of the funding?

Say that again?

How much of that funding comes from the county? Is that a 100% or a portion?

Those dollar amounts are county funding. The actual project values are much higher than that. So for the 1,800,000, if you will, that has or COSAC projects, That 1,800,000 represents 25 to 30% of the value. So you can imagine that the the total value of those two projects is in the neighborhood of 6 to $7,000,000. But the funding comes outside of the county part of it. Correct. So those projects in particular, and I can touch on that as well, have received other federal and state funding as well as landowner donation. Thank you. You bet.

Okay. So Chris asked us to kind of help organize and visualize these projects. We felt like it was a lot to throw at people because we felt like maybe not everyone's understood this process. So we did create a story map, is what we call it. We kinda walk people through what's happening. So it's just got a little bit about what it is, and then we break it down. So these are all the preliminary applications. And then it goes to, like, first round, what that means, what's happening. It has the score sheet if they wanna know what that looks like. These are the ones in the first round. Then we have the second round. Any of these, if you click on them, it has all the dates, when things are passed, all the resolutions, and, any money, so what they've donated, what they've got from different funding sources, their score, and then also is attached to those resolutions and whatever they've turned in as their package. So you can see all that together. It also talks about the ones that the county bought, a little bit of information about that, how that happened. Talk about the trails and the trail scoring sheet so people can just kind of walk you through it slowly. The graphic of how it all works. And then we have a map where all of them are together, and you can zoom in and see existing conservation systems also. And they also have attachment of whatever those conditions are, whatever the use is, how it was done. We have the completed projects. We can see the press release and say, okay. We bought it. What can we do with it? Can we go access it? How would all that happen? What does the money look like? We have the funding total, so that's what has been spent from the coffers. We have what's been promised in round two, so it's gone through planning resolution of that round two

So what that shows right there is, we've documented at least 17,000 acres of existing conservation easements, so that predates the county's program. And so, of course, as we add to that total number, that number will increase. But there's there's been, you know, well over twenty five years of conservation easement and conservation programs for projects in Cache County. And so we know there's a land land ownership. Land owners, many landowners in in Cache County that are interested in this type of program. Can you click on back back on the map so we can just kind of pan around a little bit. Please? Yes. And so yeah. Just maybe zoom in a little bit. And once we start to see They've been approved. They've got a bunch of different funding Zoom out just a little bit just so that folks can see. Yeah. I think what's helpful to know, those those light blue polygons are all existing easements. Some of them are owned by Pacific Corp, for example, or Division of Wildlife Resources or but most of them are are private landowners. And so this is great because we like to build on those where we can. And so knowing knowing where other conservation easement projects are located.

Adjacent to those. Yeah. Yeah.

So a great tool that we have now, so thank you, Seneca. Appreciate that. Okay. Back to where we left off. So that's kind of an overview of the current projects. This is gonna be hard to read. This is kind of a detailed table of those 12 projects that that have made it that far in the in the process and that sort of thing. So, this is not really readable, so I won't spend any time on it. But we have the details if we Here here's the, kind of, the the key slide for my presentation today. And these these are items that we're looking for county council guidance on, and, there's I've kinda grouped them into three categories. What's the county's role in open space projects? What are small or are there any really small parcel funding opportunities for the program? And then, the question of green belt rollback tax. And so digging in a little bit more, this is how I would phrase each of these. And so under the county's role in open space projects, you know, right now, you're at level one, that first level, fund funding only. Right? You're you're you've you've purchased, you've acquired, a couple of properties. But outside of that, I'm focused on kind of the COSAC role in in funding. And does the county just wanna be involved in funding these projects, being a partner, that sort of thing? Or do you want to go a step further and have staff help facilitate some of these projects? Let's say, if there's not a partner available, but the county really likes the project and wants to see it move forward. How do we make that happen? Do we hire out those services? Do we try to have in house staff provide those due diligence, if you will, tasks, those kinds of things. That that's an option. Some programs have that level of involvement. And then the third level of involvement is the county want to be an easement holder. And so what that means is once you take on that responsibility, then that means in perpetuity, you're going to have those investments in monitoring and protecting the easement itself. And so do you wanna go to that level? So and and your answer may be no to all of us. We're happy to stay at at level one, but I think we're gonna have projects that are gonna get stalled if we if they don't fit into a different category. So something to think about. As far as the small parcel funding opportunities, as earlier, we've got seven projects so far that are six of those are in the pre application phase. One of those we approved for round one funding, but it was unique as it's along one of our gateway areas at the mouth of Sardine Canyon. The rest of them are within communities. They generally are parcels of land that are within North Logan or Smithfield or that sort of thing or Hyde Park. And, they're not gonna attract other funding sources likely. So should we, say no to all of those projects or is there some value there worth looking at that we should consider pursuing. I think the the risk there is if we're not gonna find other funding sources, either that difference in what you may spend on a a a project that's attracting other funding sources is gonna have to be made up by additional funding or larger landowner donation or both, obviously. But you They're gonna have a higher value if they're located in North Logan. Expensive on a priority. Commercial. Yeah. Basis Yeah. Kind of thing. So but the you you know, and and not every one of those is gonna be worthy, you know, of your support. But but some may be. And I think we're we've we're starting to see enough of those. Like, we wanna know from, I think, the council how interested you are in in looking at those. Because I think we can continue to process them and bring them to you, the format of funding and that sort of thing and, potential easement holder, so on and so forth, may be different than what we've been doing. And then is there a role for the green belt rollback taxes for small parcel projects or something like that, is a question we have for you guys and worth worth exploring. And then okay. In detail, the last section there, green belt rollback tax, Is is there a role for COSAC in project selection, for example? The council, of course, can choose to look at and accept applications or pursue projects outside of COSAC, obviously, for for Greenbelt Roback tax funding. You could also funnel those projects through our application process. Do you can can and then therefore, if if if you want us to participate, can we use that as a source to fund projects? Or even if you don't want us to participate, is that there's a there's a potential for a project that comes through our door that we're really interested in, that scores high, but somehow can't get that bigger federal funding, for example. Say, there's an, the NRCS is gonna value farmland that's prime farmland irrigated. We have a lot of great dry land farm projects, so they're not gonna attract that federal funding or less likely to attract that federal funding. So in that case, can green belt rollback tax be added to the bond funds, you know, for a bigger combined total amount? So I'm just sort of throwing out scenarios that I can see happening or coming now that we've had this program and we've we've seen 20 projects come through the the door? And then, lastly, if you choose to, use the green belt rollback tax funding mechanism, what are the funding scenarios that that may make sense? Are those projects that we're still gonna try to leverage with other funding sources, or are those projects we're gonna say, this project is great. It's small, and it's important. And we're gonna spend a 100% on that particular project.

Chris, on on using green belt rollouts Yes. Do you capitalize it, make projections of what you're gonna have, and then capitalize it to create an amount of money in that category?

Great question. I I don't know. I think and and that might be a question that Jeremy could answer since he's going all over the state and talking to counties and how they wanna use that tax. So maybe that's a better question for him to answer. Because at this point, I say whatever you however you wanna organize it is okay with me. But do you have thoughts? I I

like you said, we've been going around and and talking to a bunch of different counties and trying to understand how they are planning to utilize the rollback taxes. And as you could kinda guess, they're all over the place on how they want to do it. And I think How much does it amount to how much cash flow a year do we get out of

Varies. Last year was, what, seven? What did Craig tell us? I mean, it's it varies depending on how much Right. But We've we've done a look back. I know.

I think I wanna say over the last ten years or something like that. And the average was a million dollars, so some some years has been more I think last year, Craig told us, was 700 something thousand. Okay. So It's a significant amount. Money.

What do we do with the money now?

COSAC.

It's new legislation that is passed. Required? I don't know if it's shall or May. May. I don't know the verbiage of the do you It is it is required that the counties take a 100%

of the rollback taxes collected, and they maintain those in a separate account at the county for land conservation type projects.

Jeremy, do you mind? I'm sorry. We are informal, but do you mind coming to the microphone Not at all. Just so that we can make sure that everyone that may be viewing remotely can hear you? Of course.

So House Bill two thirty seven was passed two sessions ago. The session before that, they had passed some amendments to the rollback taxes where a portion went to was to be set aside for these types of projects. And then two sessions ago, they passed house bill two thirty seven, which amended that to say a 100 of the rollback taxes will be set aside for land conservation. They kind of define it fairly broadly. The statute gives the county pretty wide discretion on how they interpret that. Land conservation. Exactly. And so it talks about conservation easements, but it also talks about similar methods for protecting land, and they just kinda leave it open at that. And so other counties are interpreting that in different ways, but that money gets set aside at the county. It it hopefully gets spent at the county, but there is a mechanism that after ten years, any money that is collected that is unspent would then get directed to the Leeray and Callister fund to be spent anywhere in the state. But as the program manager for Leeray and Callister, our desire is that we would never see a dollar of that. We want to help empower the counties to be able to spend that locally on projects because we have a source of matching funds that we would love to be able to leverage with those county rollback taxes for these types of projects. So we would very much like to to help spend, you know, help the county spend those dollars locally. What's your well, what's your funds availability that you have typically in the Leeray McAllister fund? So the fund's been around since the late nineties. We never had a permanent appropriation until about four years ago when we received a million dollars a year, and that's for the entire state, which is Not much. Not much. Yeah. And then just last session, we actually took a 15% haircut. So now we're at $850,000 a year for our statewide, which again highlights the importance of figuring out how to put these other matching funding sources into play. Okay. So when you see what I'm saying, it's

represents Correct. That represents about 5% of our tax price. How I mean, are we in the top five in the

So just to make sure I'm interpreting that correctly, the the Leeran Callister Fund is just an appropriation from the general fund at the state. It doesn't come Yeah. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about this this rollback. Yes. We must be near the top of it. I would think so. Yeah. I would think so. We don't have a real clear accounting statewide yet because this is new, and the counties have not don't have a standardized way to account for and report. So we don't have a real clear picture across the state. But I would I would wager that that you guys are up there in one of the top, you know, collecting

counties. They're sitting on how you view Well, exactly. Right?

And and total conservation, I would say too.

I mean, that's I mean, if you're getting a million dollars a year, capitalize that's another that almost doubles our open space money. We could we put 20,000,000 in.

That's right.

And can we use it to pay the open space bar?

to be kind of a closed loop. You know, this opportunity comes because, like you said, farm ground is being developed, taken out of farming that creates this funding, which then was intended to go back and be invested in farmland protection permanent, but not wanting to hamstring the counties unnecessarily. The statute does give some some discretion, so it it's not quite that specific in the statute. But

Jeremy, I'm gonna rely on you for the first three bullet points there. Yeah. As you've traveled and and I don't know if there are similar programs throughout the state. Have you seen best practices

regarding those? So in anticipating meeting with with Cash and with my experience in in the COSAC program, I think cash is probably one of the more further along counties, you know, you've passed the open space bond, you have this whole process stood up, you guys have gained some experience and expertise in putting these projects together. And so I think for you guys to integrate some of the, rollback tax spending into this existing framework makes a lot of sense. And that's kinda what I would anticipate seeing. It doesn't make sense to me to say, well, let's stand up a whole duplicative process over here for Green Belt, and then we've got this for COSAC. That being said, you know, the county doesn't necessarily have to say we have to spend all of our rollback tax money on COSAC projects. I think the county could take a broader look at what types of projects they wanna spend, but they would say, hey. This is meant to be kind of a closed loop, you know, and that gets to do we project and capitalize how much we're gonna spend and we say a portion of that needs to go to agricultural projects and then a portion can be discretionary for other types of projects.

My question is Mhmm. And it it we can buy more vistas on cheap land Right. Expensive land. True. The other thing I wonder is, does

from remaining as open space because at some point, it's gonna get sold for

development or some other beneficial use. Arlene, is is instead of selling civil land to a developer, we come in with COSAC funds and buy civil land. Potentially. Yeah. Potentially. Yeah. There there's no one of the problems with civil is they're gonna want us to get five feet idle, which wouldn't give us much Right. Bang for our dollars. Right. And then saddles the county with all the

requirements of owning and stewarding that land if you own it in fee versus with an easement, the land stays in private ownership, stays on the tax rolls as as privately owned, but the the county now has a, use restriction interest that they've purchased or paid for that they can enforce in perpetuity to make sure that it's used in the way that it was intended to.

One of the things about the Green Belt is when we put COSAC money on it, we pretty much

Correct. Long term. Correct. Yeah. And so, I mean, I think for the county, it makes a lot of sense to look at this not just as a conservation tool, but also kind of a long term land use planning tool because like you said, it stabilizes things and so, you know, okay, this area, we're not gonna have to spend a whole bunch of money to put new utilities and new services out to because that areas we know is gonna be maintained as agriculture. So I think it is useful.

Flip side of that, mister executive, the reason you're getting rollback taxes is now that farm ground is giving you tax revenue because it's out of that part. So Yeah. There's two sides to it. Exactly.

And that's where we're really trying to look for those opportunity zones of, you know, areas that are not so far gone where they're completely hemmed in by development, but areas where if we go in now and invest, we can kind of change the the pattern or or

The reality in our own valley now is there is no virtually no land that is for sale and is agricultural value. Right.

Exactly. Exactly.

It's not there anymore. So

What? I'll buy it.

For sale at Ag Value? At Ag Value?

But I'm only selling it to my kids. Oh. There you go. Limited buyer pool.

And that's where the easements, play another role in the long term agricultural viability because once you extinguish the development pressure, you've taken away the main driver of value in the market, so then those properties can then change hands at a later date at the ag value. And then you've got an opportunity for a young farmer who wants to start in the business, and they've actually got a piece of property that they could buy and pay off the note by farming, which is not the case with a single piece of real estate anywhere in the state at this point in time. So

I have a question regarding the federal funding.

Have we seen that it's becoming less available? What's the trend with the current administration? So, we've kinda been through the ringer over the last year or two as you can imagine. There's a lot of uncertainty. There's still a lot of uncertainty. But it seems kind of like if you can follow the shells around, you know, a lot of that money that was put into programs like the Inflation Reduction Act and things like that under the previous administration have been pulled back, but then have been kind of promised into back into these conservation programs, like the agricultural conservation easement program and the regional conservation partnership programs through NRCS. So it seems like that money should still be available, but a lot of what has happened also is that they've pulled back the control over those funds from the state level staff and decision makers and back to the national level. And so it's a little bit more of kind of a black box where we just don't know what's gonna be coming. And so, you know, like, recently, they did an announcement for funding for the state, and they actually had less applications than they kind of anticipated. So they had to, you know, release another pot of of money which they're considering now. So So it's just kinda been a little uncertain.

Because we have two pending, if I remember. And, Chris, we have one with the USDA in the North. Right? That that was a matching funds. Yeah. The Harris. And then we have the South. That one is the NRCS.

Milkhorn, that one received all of its funding, and they're working through due diligence now. Okay. And it's you know, I'm in the in the

schedule Chris, I'm sorry. Can you stand to the mic? I'm sorry. Sorry. We're trying to just make sure that anybody

For Elkhorn in the in the overall graphic of the from beginning to end, I wanna say it's near the end, but I can't say how long that's gonna be. Jinx, I mean Because they get held up on little technical things and then That's right. Five different people have to sign it. You know, when you when you bring in partners on project, then everybody gets a chance to review and approve. And everybody's gonna want things a little bit different. And that includes the county. Right? You're a partner. NRCS, the state, they all wanna have their 2¢ worth on the project and we'll get to sign off on it. It just makes things take longer.

But but they've been the main federally, that's been the biggest hiccup in Stolen. Right? Because I think there's some efficiency with all the others. Yeah. We've been trying to Yeah. Reduce red tape and But I that that has been the hiccup and the push, you know, next next next. Yeah. The deadlines go on and on. But it's interesting how they've not only just affected these kind of projects, but, you know, there's participations in a whole bunch of other projects that have been promised, and and they've just pushed them out to where there's been a lot of other people lose opportunities to, you know, for to extend dollars within this state because of promised participation that just hasn't come. Yeah. So

I have a comment. Yeah. Reagan. They won't fly unless the county gets in the game a long ways. Fans will never come in there and take 20 acres in North Logan, Utah. And the value problem,

if the family isn't willing to Will you turn on your microphone? Just Okay. Maybe? Yeah. Perfect.

Thanks. The the families, I think, have to realize in order to get those some of those values of North Logan Yeah. The family's gotta step forward and the county. I don't think you'll see. That's the only way you're gonna get 20 acres in North Logan. Yeah. You're not gonna get it through NRCS. And and when you get NRCS involved, that's 50% of the funding, but it hasn't showed up.

And it'll never I say it'll never show up in North Logan, Utah. And do you think that North Logan I mean, just as an example, North Logan would have any interest in in participating as a municipality

focus on that and participation. Yeah. Yeah. Depending on the parcel and where it fits in the city. Right.

Alternatively, they could say that is not what we want. You know, we have plans for that area. Yeah. So you could it could get pushed back. Mostly, it's families

who have had that property two or three generations, elderly people. A legacy. If they don't get it before they die, the kids will have it on the market the next day. Yeah. They want a legacy.

Yeah. But if you ask all the residents, you know, in that area, of course, they would love to. They love looking at 20 acres of property. They do. They do. Now, that's that's one kind of small parcel example. Another kind of example is similar to the one that we'll be talking about tonight, where it's it's only five acres. Right? It's really small, but it happens to a butt, county owned property. And, it's also part of, a trail corridor, has a lot of, other values, non farmland values, for example. And so That was going to be How do we make those work? My input there

is that there I believe that there will be significantly important smaller parcels that will present to the council from time to time. That one in particular, I scored a little bit higher because it does about county owned land, and I know that it's a priority of the state. And Landis is all over this with the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. For continuation of the trail. Yeah. And that's gonna happen with small parcels that may not score in an overwhelmingly highway, may not be involved with agriculture or wetlands, but it's a it's a very important connectivity piece. And I hope that we can I I know there's part of our scoring process too where we can add extra points for those these types of reasons? So we've figured that out in our scoring. Do you have the verbiage of the

bond? Yeah. It's on that first slide. Let me flip to it. Does it does mention trails?

It does. Trails is one of the seven Uses. Right? I do I thought so. Yeah. Yeah. So that was presented to the taxpayers when they voted for it. Okay. And that's this is my personal background, so that's why I'm This is not so interested. A quote, but it's pretty close. Purchasing land, conservation easements, and other interests in land from rolling land, desert, and orchard. Protect scenic vistas, preserve open lands, near valley gateways, add trails, and trail connectivity, maintain our culture, waterways, and wildlife habitat. So yeah. Yeah. That's all within the

Yeah. That would Some of these could be a nice park in the city.

I was just gonna say that some of those properties, they get landlocked. Mhmm. Yeah. A piece of, like, 20 acres is landlocked. We'll now have a good piece of equipment in there to work that ground. And so then, that's the other consideration is once you have a island within a a sea of houses, how do I get large equipment in to operate that? And that's one of the things I get hit with a lot. It's like, do you know somebody has a how how do I get this bailed? How do I get this cut? Well, how do I bring a 30 foot Yeah. For 20 acres is really hard too. So you gotta be careful of what it's not gonna be ag anymore. It's gonna be vistas and other things that you're gonna be protecting on those small acreages because there's no return for the family to be sitting on that.

Yeah. So Those are challenges. I will say that I think we'll have our third project for round two funding come in pretty soon. Jeremy, let me know about that, the Silva project, which is the one over in Trenton, received the NRCS funding. And so Jeremy's working on the Leeray McAllister funding portion of it, but that'll be coming to us for a round two approval, I think, in the near future.

I think to make this observation, well, I I'm not critical of the entitled purchases we've made. Our dollars don't go very far when we do Yeah. And if if we can find larger tracks to buy development rights off those lands, we'll get a bigger bang out of our dollars. Mhmm. I I think that for a number of reasons, our wells built project makes a lot of sense because it's also a network into trails and things like that with virtually no ag value up there. It's it's

somehow meshing in with their properties. Yeah. Those two are really good showcase pieces for what we can do, but timing meant we had to do in a certain way that may not have been the most financially

appeasing way, but it got the job done. It

I know we've had that conversation, George. I'm I'm a big fan of if we can, on those projects, put an easement on them and turn around them and sell them. Not not necessarily both of them, but

the Shoop property in particular. I wanna pitch something else to you, Chris. I really feel like we need to improve our trail systems in the valley. I go to other places to visit, like Sun Valley. Yes. And one of the real attractions of going to Sun Valley is the trail network they have up there. Yes. It it's just phenomenal, and their mountains are kinda puny compared to ours. We we have three quarters of this county is mountain land. Yeah. And a fair fair amount of it is private too. And so we ought to focus on some of those things and take a look at where we might might get trails. And Sitla owns some parcels and has right of ways to those parcels that would help us with that connectivity in our mountain area. Mhmm. We ought to maybe be strategic in talking to Sedla about and that Sedla is should be receptive to an effort to sell us the land, forest prices that we can then use to tie into Trail Network that would really assist us in doing what we wanna do.

Correct? To secure trail easements, but not to build the trail. Yeah. We we still need partners for that. But yeah. Yep. And and the easement, frankly, is sometimes the hardest thing to secure or is the component that doesn't come with any kind of funding. Like, they'll pay for you to build the trail, but they won't pay for you to acquire the easement, for example. Yeah. But we could acquire the easement choosing this land. Correct. The Correct.

Correct. And we have local trails nonprofits

I I think yeah. Any of these that you wanna say, this is what we'd like you to do or or focus on and, maybe we work it out over the next, few months or something like that. But

You know, I think reaching out if you're getting small parcels within cities, I think reaching out to those municipalities, I think would be we know that they have funds too, and it would be interesting to see what their response is to. Because we can't be the sole provider of of funds for those. Yeah. So I think that would be useful to see to get their interest. Yeah. And well, it's not their interest. Say, if you want this, this is something we want. Your feedback. That maybe don't have

a Mhmm. A county wide Yeah. Significance.

Yeah. Yeah. K. So that's something I would say. Anything else that

Mhmm.

And it's seen from a distance. Deer fence. Right?

So you're gonna have a million dollars at your doorstep

in the next twelve months. I think no. I think the stuff that's coming in the most value is in the municipalities. Like, look at what's coming out of Nibley. That's, like, for a $100,000 an acre.

And Sure. Yeah. Unless unless they come to our program with other funding secured Mhmm. Which then I'd say we maybe look at it differently. But, yeah, we can certainly do that. I think we're gonna see projects that you're you're likely to see projects that are only gonna be county funded. You know, it might be the right land owner who says, you know, I'm not in this for the cash, so I'm willing to give a bigger donation, but I I I don't wanna do it for nothing. I do want some something or I need something. And and, so there could be 100% county only funded projects, small or otherwise. Because, again, they're not gonna attract other funding, for example. Or even some of the ones that we've looked at that we're interested in, what if they don't get the other funding that we're hoping for? Do we step in with green belt rollback tax or something like that to make up the difference? And now all of a sudden, we are funding, you know, the lion's share of a project. I I think those scenarios are coming Yeah. If we don't already have them. And so you've gotta be prepared for that, I I think is is what I'm saying. And then, if there's a bigger role that you wanna play in the process as a potential easement holder, you know. So in those circumstances where we're doing most of the funding, right, and the landowner's donating rest, who rest, who's gonna hold the easement? Right? Right. So we might be able to partner with somebody even with without financial support who will hold the easement, possibly.

So And maybe that's more education that that I think we would need as a group to Yeah. Understand

all of that. If if my takeaway just from our conversation can be, you know, there there could be a unique project that doesn't fit the mold like we're seeing on most of them that we bring to you. And we're just going to have to provide a detailed overview. Here here's the project. Here's the funding. Here's the opportunity.

Here's why it's unique.

you know, the the law allows for local governments to hold easements too. So the city could choose to hold the easements. Right. Yeah. And receive the funding is is also an option. So there there are many different ways to secure open space, I think. And even in cities, a park could be a passive park. Right? Like a nature park with just trends and habitat.

Yeah. It's I draw on Nibali a lot. Sorry. It's Yeah. I'm Nibali. That park in Nibali, the we call it Firefly Park Yeah. You see people on it all day every day, and we only have I've run it a few times. I think it's a mile of boardwalk that's available, but it is constant use.

And that's that passive park don't have It could be projects like that. I Yeah. You know, we're we're seeing these great, nice, large farm ground type projects. And but I think we'll see more other type projects too going forward. So, we're just trying to think ahead and anticipate the different scenarios that could be that aren't don't fit the template that we've seen so far. Yeah. And trying to get to your I think you're saying that we're willing to entertain those. Yeah. Alright. Let's hear it. Good. And I think your idea of let's circle back on the green belt, you know, however whatever format you wanna pursue that in, just let me know, and I think we can bring in others

to

to facilitate that conversation.

Great. Great. I have a question for you. Yes, ma'am. Would you define the easements? What do you mean by that? Or the What is a conservation easement? Uh-huh.

So a conservation easement, there's probably other people in the room that can explain it better than than I can, but, basically, you're entering, an arrangement with the land owner to purchase their development rights. And in exchange for us purchasing those rights from them, they are required to put a conservation easement on the property, which restricts the development of that property.

So we're buying those to development, that's the only thing that's restricted? Or what about other restrictions? But we can define that. But but you don't have a general definition for easement when you talk about it? Because sounds like you talk about it on nearly every parcel.

Yeah. That's what this program is. It's a purchase of development rights program. And

But that was my question, if it's more than just development.

It can be more than just development, but that's typically what you're purchasing is you're taking the rights you're extinguishing the rights to develop that property into a subdivision or whatever. It's gonna stay farmland or wildlife habitat, whatever the case may be, in perpetuity. And, you get to decide the specifics. And You and the landowner. Yes. With participation.

Some land owners we've spoken with really don't want certain uses to happen with their easement. And so they can they can make a lot of those declarations and then the county would decide

perpetuity part is kinda dangerous too because, you know, mother nature alters land Sure. You know, with rivers and different things like that. So I don't know if I was a landowner. I'd I don't know if I'd like that.

It's not it's not for everybody. It's biggest. Right? It's really

it it's So does that have to be in perpetuity?

It does. It does. That's what I thought.

Okay. Well, we're gonna recess. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you to your state partners and nonprofit partners for being here and for being resources for us, and and and we appreciate all that you do on COSAC and the work that you do and the many meetings that you have. So as a council, we're gonna recess until our meeting starts at at 05:00. So we stand.