Cache County Fire District Board of Trustees Meeting -- 08-06-2026

Yeah. We're missing Dave Erickson. Dave and Larry. And Larry. Yep. Dave. Speak of the devils. And Larry. Bang bang. Two devils. The devils. Here they are. Two devils. Devils.

I found you wandering in the parking lot.

Are you?

Well, sorry. I have to give you the broken one.

That's

okay. Okay. Welcome. We are going to call a meeting to order at 08/06/2026, the Cache County Fire District Board of Trustees meeting. Gonna have our discussion today without taking any action as we are still collecting all of the applications. So, first of all, we have invited the legal counsel, Mark Anderson, to join us today who is he is joining us virtually. Thanks for joining us today. Don't know which way to look to the owl, maybe, to to address you, but thank you for joining us today. And if we could please hear from you. Now if you could introduce yourself and and, please tell us what you've been reviewing, since you've been contracted.

It's a pleasure to be with you. I'm not sure how much of an introduction is necessary. I understand that you've seen my bio. I have been practicing law exactly as long as let's put it this way. George Daves and I have been lawyers for an equal number of years, and neither of us want to disclose how many. But, I graduated from Utah State University in 1971, with a degree in agricultural economics, minor in business administration. I got my master of science degree in agricultural economics from Utah State and my Juris Doctor degree from the University of Utah. I have been representing special districts in the state of Utah since 1978, which I guess does you could do a little math to figure out about how long that means I've been a lawyer, because I've been a lawyer longer than that. And I'm general counsel to the Utah Association of Special Districts and have been for a very long time and also represent a number of individual districts throughout the state of Utah.

Excellent. Thank you.

If anybody has questions, I'm more than happy to respond to them. Mark, I think it'd be

interesting to tell them where you have relocated. And I know that you relocated just because you wanted to help Cache County.

Absolutely. Up about two blocks away from the LDS Temple. Alright. So I guess I can claim to be a Logan native, but in reality, I was raised on a farm just west of Tremonton. I am now a resident of Nibley, Utah and have been for about probably two or three months now. So, I am a Cache Valley resident. And, so I've kind of returned to my roots in a way.

I I should just add, Mark is a distinguished attorney. He's a partner at a major Salt Lake law firm, has always represented districts and district issues from, I guess, water boards to fire boards to special improvement districts for sidewalks and whatever all over the state. He's a recognized expert in this area.

Well, excellent. And welcome to Nibley on behalf of of, I'll say it. On behalf of Nibley, welcome to

Nibley. Thank you.

At the last county council meeting, the executive mister Deans, gave the council some of your findings that you had reviewed. Would you please, give that to this group now, the findings that you've had in in, your deep dive that you've done in studying, the organization and what the this board has done in in since

inception. K. You're in a rather unique situation in that as I understand the facts, and I'm come Lincoln. But as I understand the facts, this particular district was more or less dormant for, I was gonna say, a number of years, but I think it's more a number of decades. And it is or has been revitalized and basically put back on an active path. And there have been a few stumbles, I think, along the way. Not anybody's fault or responsibility, but it it is unique. It is unusual to have a district that was organized when this district was organized, but then in effect, reorganized after years of that activity. And George and I have, along with Kirk Webb, another barrier for high grade unit. I have met a few times and have discussed the situation. I've reviewed documents. And what we're trying to do is make the district as bulletproof as possible. One of the recommendations that we came up with is that as out of an abundance of precaution, going through a legitimate appointment or reappointment process, to make sure that the board is duly and lawfully constituted and that if anybody were to try to challenge that, they would not have a strong case. I'm also redoing your bylaws. Eric, I don't see any need to go into, you know, the the weeds because you will see the end product. But we're modifying, streamlining, updating the bylaws as well. And I think you're also aware that we're in the process we've got a lot of different wheels moving at the same time, but we're in the process of a boundary adjustment whereby an unincorporated area of Cache County that is, I guess, just over the ridge from the Powder Mountain development and is inaccessible to fire protection vehicles from Cache County unless, of course, you wanna drive around the long way and approaching from the south, which You know, if the house is on fire and you have to do that, of course, there are no houses there yet. But, you know, the house is gonna be centered before you get there. And so the concept was to do a boundary adjustment so that the Weber Fire District, which does have direct access or will have direct access through Powder Mountain, for it to take over the service of that area, and that can be accomplished through a boundary adjustment procedure. I've provided an outline of the steps and the the basic documents that can be utilized to do that. I've conducted dozens of them throughout the state, not just with fire districts, but with all kinds of districts, water districts, sewer districts, etcetera. And the idea being to enable that area to receive the fire protection service should the need arise in an effective manner. The net result is and once that's completed, then it will go through your board. But once that's completed, the Weber Fire District would have jurisdiction over the area, and the area would be withdrawn from the Cache Fire District, which means that you wouldn't be collecting any property taxes. The fire district wouldn't be collecting any property taxes for the area. But frankly, without this change that we're talking about, I think it's unlikely that development could occur there. And once development does occur there, the school district, the county, other taxing entities, in the county will directly benefit, and the Cache Fire District District will directly benefit in not being responsible for fire protection that would just be prohibitively expensive should anything ever really happen there. George, have I said enough? Have I missed something? Have I said too much? I think so. I think you heard I think I think so as a response to my last question, but I said too much. Okay.

We're going through the process that's required by statute to obtain applications for appointment to the fire board. So we're collecting those, presuming that we will have the council in a meeting in the latter part of August, I I will make recommendations for appointments to the county council. And at that point, we'll be in a position where the appointment process can be finalized and the board can then be legal moving forward. As you say, out of an abundance of caution, we decided to do that. So, we're we're underway in collecting those applications right now. It's still my intention that we would mostly or entirely use mayors for the public part given the status that we're in at this point. Appreciate your willingness to to help us. I'm sorry. It's urgent.

Were you going to say something, Mark?

I was I and I apologize for interrupting. I was just going to comment that by state law of the county council is the appointing authority, and the county council can appoint elected representatives to board. I apologize for that. I didn't put it on vibrating. If the county council if the mayor's applied and if the county council, for any reason it deems appropriate, wants to appoint those mayors to the fire district board, they can absolutely do that. In fact, I know of a number of boards of special districts throughout the state where most, if not all, of the appointed representatives to the boards are elected officials. There's no prohibition against it. On the other hand, there's no statutory requirement that it be the central we pursue our improvement district in Weber County, and also a little bit of Davis County is a good example. It has a 15 member board. All 15 members of that board are mayors, city council members, or in one case, county commissioner Gage Crowe. So I would anticipate that if the well, not anticipate. I know for a fact that if the county council sees merit in elected mayors being on this board, they absolutely can appoint elected mayors to court.

Thank you.

Larry. Thank you, Catherine. Mark, Larry from Nibley. Glad to hear from you today. Welcome to Cache Valley. Thank you. I'm not foreshadowing what I want or certainly not what any member on this current board might desire for their own service. But do we need to make an application? Yes. Then? Absolutely. Okay. So will

someone help us? I think I have an application from you already, Larry. And I have one from Steve. And I have I think I have one from all the mayors who are here today. So we have completed that step. Okay. I I think I'm still lacking one from Lewiston and maybe one more from the North. Oh, I I think we we are looking for one from Hyde Park, and there's been a changeover. Is that I don't know if the changeover is complete yet. Is it? August 13. August 13. So I anticipate we'll see that application shortly thereafter.

Okay. And And the county council can appoint to anybody who didn't let's apply.

And and by the way, I've I I have additional applications in hand too. I have the mayor, but I also have some additional applicants as well. I'm collecting them. I'll give them to the county council Perfect. When we were ready to move forward. Thank you.

Now is the time for anybody on the board to ask questions of of mister Anderson, if there's any further questions.

He's he's working on our bylaws. When we when we get reappointed that we have a legal board, we'll have a bunch of questions for him about the bylaws and so forth. But he's he's working on those right now.

Are we throwing out our previous bylaws altogether then? No. He's starting with them and and adapting them.

There is there is some correction that's needed in them.

Mark, can we go online and see those, or are they available online?

The edited bylaws aren't ready yet. Once they're ready, they can certainly be provided. I I probably wouldn't suggest posting them online, but they can certainly be forwarded electronically to all of you.

We'll get them to you as soon as we have them, Dave. We're not even sure we're on the board yet. Yeah. Mhmm.

Once they've been approved by the board, they absolutely should be online. But as drafts, I would recommend against it because somebody might think, oh, those are their bylaws. And, no, they're not yet. Not till you approve.

Mark, this is Aaron Rudy. I'm Smithfield mayor. I just question, and I do appreciate the abundance of caution. Can you kind of fill us in as to what that was there anything in particular that flagged that or made it

start over? Just just The the appointment procedure, for example, is laid out in the bylaws isn't consistent with the requirements of the Utah code. There are some things I'll I'll tell you what. I I think rather than, you know, drilling in, it will probably make okay. Would it be helpful if I provided a red line comparison so you can see the changes? You'll see a lot of red. What color are we gonna have now? Yeah. We're

hey, Buad. Mark, in the case of mayor Rudy, he won't he's an individual who was elected to be the Smithfield mayor. And as a result of his election, he was placed on the board, but he was not appointed by the county council. So his I mean, I'm I'm gonna recommend that you be appointed, but but that is an example of the kind of problem that we have. Just curious. So Same same thing with mayor Miller is is we assumed incorrectly that your election officially made you members of the fire board where that's not the case. They have to be appointed by the county council.

Larry.

Thank you, Catherine. Sorry. The term of a member of a board of trustees is four years that would be set up so that they're staggered so that you don't have, being you know, so you have approximately half of the board being reappointed or new members being appointed every other year. But there is nothing that ties that four year term to anyone's term as mayor. And so you could have someone who's appointed to the board of fire to the fire board because that person is a mayor. And then a couple of years later, they choose not to run for reelection and no longer the mayor, but they would still be technically on the board. Now that person could resign and then there would be a midterm vacancy and the county council could appoint a midterm vacancy replacement to fill out that term, and that could be the newly elected mayor. And that's frankly how I think this would probably work. But we have to follow state code. It doesn't matter what the bylaws say. If they contradict with the Utah code, the Utah code controls. And I think it's a lot less confusing and much more transparent if the Utah code and the bylaws are in sync, and that is the intention.

But it would remain contingent on someone voluntarily resigning from the board?

Unless we tweak the statute and now we are meeting further into the weeds and I intend to do this morning. But George and I have also discussed going to the legislature and getting a few tweaks to the statute. There is a provision in the improvement district act. Okay. I'm gonna back up three steps. Bear with me if you will. Under Utah law, there's what's called special service districts. A lot of people use the phrase special service district generically thinking that it applies to all of these service districts. In reality, it doesn't. There is a provision in the Utah constitution that authorizes the legislature to provide a mechanism by which special service districts may be organized. Title 17 d, as in dog chapter one of the Utah code, is the special service district act. Any county, any municipality can set up a special service district. A special service district is always ultimately under the control of the Korean county or municipality. The county or municipality can establish an administrative control board and delegate authority to the administrative control board, but they can also withdraw the delegated authority authority to get delegates such as the authority to tax. In Utah, there are a few I couldn't give you an exact number, but it's a little more than 400 special district and special service districts in the state of Utah. Approximately two thirds of them are special districts, and approximately one third or maybe a little less are special service districts. Special districts, unlike special service districts, are independent political subdivisions of the state of Utah not under the control of the creating county or municipality. There are about 11 different actually, I guess, 12 different types of independent special districts, one of which are fire protection districts. Your district is a fire protection district. It's got its own little hard code plus title 17, b as in boy, chapter one, which applies to every special district. And then in title 17 b chapter two a, there are the individual acts that just apply to a particular type of district. Most fire most districts that provide fire protection services in the state of Utah fall under one of three of these headings. They are special service districts. They are fire protection districts for their service areas. And you wouldn't wouldn't necessarily think the service area and fire district is the same thing, but there is a moratorium and has been for a long time prohibiting the creation of any new, quote, unquote, fire protection districts, which doesn't mean new districts can't be created to provide fire protection. But they are typically created as service areas rather than as, quote, unquote, fire protection districts. Now I suspect what I've done is probably confusing you, and that's not what I really want to do. But your district is an independent special district. The only control that the county has over your district is the ability to appoint board members. Now they can remove a board member for cons, but only for cons. And they can't withdraw authority because your authority doesn't come from the county. Your authority comes from the Utah code once you were originally when I say you, I mean the fire protection district. Once the district was created under Utah law, it is the Utah code that controls it. Not any county ordinance, but it is the Utah code. Your bylaws, which as I said before, need to be consistent with the Utah code. And now have I clarified or confused?

Clarified. Thank you.

Good. Claire.

I'd I'd like to go back to the request for red line, which I think is a Good. Larry. I'd I'd like to go back to the request for red line, which I think is a great request. I'd like to maybe sharpen that request a little bit. I'm interested in seeing the final proposal when it's ready and not before. So Okay. If that's that's my request. You can send it to whoever you want. But for me, I I I would like to see the proposal when it's ready for the board's consideration and and and and you all have worked your magic on it.

Understood. George,

I'd recommend that we distribute both the red lines and the claim

Yep. When when it's ready. With with thank you. When it's ready. Thank you.

K.

Any further questions we have?

So it is my understanding that we are appointing the person, not the place where they reside, not the the position that they hold. We are appointing the person. So when we take into consideration all of these application, we need to actually appoint the best people. Right?

Well, we need Yes. And and you don't appoint by title, you know, where you appoint the mayor such and such. Yes. You are appointing an individual who qualifies, and to qualify, you have to be a resident of the district and a registered voter within the district. Okay. And my next question is,

who is it that determines the tenure, the two or four year, or the number of years?

That that done in the part of the board. District is organized,

it's done by lot, typically. Okay. Sometimes in the creating

In other words, whoever's on there, they they pull out of a hat whether they're

two, four, two months. So k.

Thank you. Yeah. But they put like I said before, they need to be

keep some experience and expertise so it just kinda rolls forward.

K. If there's no further questions, thank you very much, mister Anderson for attending, and thank you for building our questions and explaining the the process that we're engaged in right now. I appreciate your time.

It's my pleasure, and I have an open phone policy. If any of you ever want to talk to me, you can get my phone number from George. You can get it online, and I'm more than happy to talk to you. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. K. I I assume I am excused?

Does it do you Look.

Given given his hourly rate, I would suggest we excuse him. I was gonna ask if we have to pay for it or not. That's that's that. You tell me what's going on.

Yeah. Yes. Yes. Thank you for your time.

Thank thank you very much. It's nice to to sort of meet you. I'm sure that I'll really meet you in the not too distant future.

Yes. Certainly. Okay. Bye bye. Bye bye. Discussion items we have, we would like some updates from the North And South Advisory Committees, the meetings that have been held since

our last meeting last month. Catherine, yeah, let me just say that this while we're getting the board reorganized, we didn't want to stop with the process of proceeding. So the North and the South committees have been meeting. I know the South committee has has a larger task, because they have to look at the EMS situation in the South, which the North doesn't have to do. So I think, Steve, we've been meeting almost twice a week, haven't we? Mhmm. Chad is Chad mayor Chad Lindley of Wellsville is the chairman of the South, and I invited him to come and kinda give us an update. Can you please come and address us?

While Chad's coming up Mayor Lindley. Excuse me. We have so many meetings of the subcommittee and the subcommittee of the subcommittee that members of that committee probably realized I wear the same shirt to all these meetings. This is your fire shirt? It's whatever meeting that day is. Oh, okay. Nice looking shirt, Laurie. That's kind of you.

Thank you.

Well, I having the ego that I have, I I honestly thought this was because I was handsome and intelligent. I think I'm the sacrificial lamb. Just an update on on what we're doing with the advisory committee in the South. Been working diligently. Thanks to a lot of good people involved. Tony Stauffer, folks from Hiram. I appreciate what they're doing with our EMS. We have in fact divided up assignments to the various mayors on the committee. We have a a financial equipment training, EMS, and a category for our unincorporated areas. So we are moving forward there. I think there's a lot of a lot of discussion about money and finance. At the end of the day, we believe as a committee, our most important thing that we can do moving forward with our district is the service that we are truly providing for our citizens. Chief George, this week came up with a great operational chart that kind of charted where we would like to go with our committee and with the fire district. That involves a fire chief, an assistant, clerical, answering and operating under the district umbrella through the steering committee and ultimately to the board of trustees. So we are moving forward there. Great story about Abraham Lincoln. He had a great general by the name of McClellan. McClellan could organize everything. He was very detailed. He was indecisive. Abraham Lincoln brought in an old guy that drank bourbon and smoked cigars, and I don't know. That's not a judgment call, but he didn't give two hoots about organization. But Grant was not indecisive. I believe the worst thing that we can do now moving forward is to become indecisive. We have an opportunity to move forward. We're doing that step by step, board of trustees. Let's keep that going. Let's move this forward. Let's do everything that we can do to move it forward knowing that we're going to have holes. Let the people let let the let the folks fill our programs full of holes. Let us patch the holes and let us move on. We can't afford any longer to just sit still. As I've listened to mayors, as I've listened to to to fire people, the one thing that concerns them is there is not a plan. I believe with our group in the South that we have a great plan with some concerns that needs to be addressed, but we will address those and move forward. Thank you. How can I help you?

Do you have maybe that sheet that we used? Do you have do you want us to make pass that out? I think it kind of shows it it not the

not the end result, but it's it part of the process. You know what? I I didn't make copies. I thought you were going to make copies. My mistake.

Janine is great at making copies. She'll she'll go make a bunch of copies for us. Black out those black out those notes. I don't want anyone to know that I can't spell. I think you did ask me to make copies, and I didn't remember that I needed to do it, Mayor Leslie. I'm sorry.

This this this organizes as a district with with fire chief Tony, keep keep me on task here with a fire chief, and clerical personnel. That will that will go down to the various stations, whether it's Mendon Wellsville, Hiram, Paradise, Nibley, Millville. So it's a operationally, it's a it's a it's a great program.

There are six cities in the South that need EMS. And we've kind of organized it into three groups, as he said. Yes. We one group is Hirem Paradise. One group is Wellville Minton, and one group is Nibley Millville. And we're we're taking a look. Hiram is is is kind of the core city in the South, and so we're we're looking for Hiram to provide some leadership in in some of those areas. But we're also, recognized that that Nibley, Millville want to build up their own capacity as a part of this. And of course, men in Wellsville have fire stations and have some capacity. So we're trying to make use of what we have and reconfigure what the county does with EMF to match the support of the cities. It's it's it is a complex situation in the South.

Thank you.

Catherine, may I Yes.

I I appreciate, this hard copy being accessible. Remind everyone this is a work in progress.

Right? Very much so. You know,

this is this is worked as a subcommittee of a subcommittee of a group as

This this is not a decision. This is a working document. Yeah. Chief George prepared this.

And what we're basically studying is what is

best South district level, what best done at the municipal level, what happened operationally. So, that's what we're working on. But we're really not ready to tell you what the decisions are yet because the South is still working on it. Yes.

And when the south advisory committee is ready to make a decision, it will be an advisory decision.

Yes. And it will come to the district. Just to make sure that

we're dotting the i's and crossing the t's. Yes.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, folks. For presenting. Is there has there been anyone designated from the North Committee to present? Yes. I asked Jay Downs,

who has been attending the north meeting to give us a report on that.

There there hadn't been as much activity in the North because they're not struggling with the EMS situation that we're struggling with in the South. So the North has met a couple of three times now, I think. Yeah. Go ahead, Jay. Okay. My name is Jay Downs. I'm the I'm with the Smithfield City Council. I also am the secretary of the North End Advisory Committee. Our chairperson, Jeff Young, he couldn't be here today. He's he's sweating it out in Alaska. He's really having a hard time up there.

So

Anyway, yes. We have met through, several times now. Our last meeting was on July 9. At that meeting, we, had tasked meeting before that for our operations, for our fire chiefs to get together and start working about different operations and different questions that would come up with them as far as training and equipment and everything, so we could address that. At that, our meeting on the ninth, county exec, Danes was not able to attend. And so, we there was a lot of questions that came up in that meeting that needed to have answers for. As county exec, Danes has said, in the North End, operational or EMS is a little bit different than it is in the South End operational wise. So, we didn't really have much discussion with that because it probably won't change that. However, as far as the district and stuff like that, there was a lot of operational questions about how the district would function and how it would operate and what's the different things that come in. So, it sounds like we got more stuff coming out of the South about the district than what we have really discussed in the North in which we probably ought to we will probably discuss. And our next meeting is next Thursday at 6PM. Anybody's invited to attend. County exec Danes is supposed to be coming and talking about the spreadsheet, the finances, and that sort of thing. One of the thing that did come out of our meeting in our last meeting was was that if fire departments needed extra resources for training or for, different things, there should be an avenue. They should be able to have the ability to go and contract mayor Rudy, mayor Lindsay, anything else that I missed? You guys are both there. I think so. Pretty simple. Any questions for me?

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Could I spend a minute and kind of show you an overall picture as a part of what the timeline is? Yes. That's the next item on our

agenda.

I think you can probably see this from the back of the room. This is this is a spreadsheet that is moving. It's not always the same. We're we're kind of using that to try and keep track a little bit of what's happening. I think if I, if I walk you through it, it will be helpful to you to understand. Here is a paper copy of the same spreadsheet. I'm just gonna walk through it column by column. The first column is the taxable value of each of the communities in the valley. So, for example, the first one is Hiram, and it it has, in terms of taxable value, a billion dollars worth of property. We're taxing these cities for our county fire budget. We collect inside of Hiram $369,000 that goes from Hiram taxpayers to our county fire budget. K? So this is our county fire budget is 3,900,000. I've got all of the cities here listed. So, the cities in the South, their taxable value totals $5,557,000,000. In the North, the cities and the unincorporated area total 5,800,000,000. So you can see the North and the South are the same. Well, if I look at North Logan, North Logan has a billion 777,000 77,000,000 in taxable value. They contribute $611,000 to our county fire budget. Lot of money,

mayor. Need to do it. We've we've really loved that.

Yeah. But but now look look at at Smithfield Ghibli then? Smithfield Take some of ours. Smithfield contribute We are. 525,000 to our county fire budget. Trenton, one of the smallest cities in the valley, has 58,000,000, and they contribute 20,000. So so what we've done here is just allocated where we're getting our money that runs our county fire budget. Now, we have unincorporated areas in the county. In the in the South, our unincorporated areas contribute $337,000 to our county fire budget. In the in the North, they contribute $203,000 to our county fire budget. So that kinda gives you an idea of where the money comes from that that's going out and we're using to run the county fire budget. Now, the the fire areas that are in the unincorporated areas are covered by municipalities. For example, Hiram has a fire zone, and they cover $75,000 worth of taxable value that's part of this 337 that is in the unincorporated area. So, Mayor Miller's fire department has not only the city of Hiram that they take care of, they take care of a portion of the unincorporated area. And in that unincorporated area that Hiram City covers, there is $75,000 worth of taxes that we collect that go to our fire department. In a number of cases, the unincorporated area taxes actually exceed the city. So, for example, if we come down and look at Paradise, Paradise only has $141,000,000 of taxable value in the city. So, only $48,000 of our county fire budget comes from the residents inside of Paradise. But, Paradise covers a much larger district. They have Avon. They have those canyons. That whole area out there. There's a lot of area that Paradise covers that's not within the city. So they there's actually 91,000 that's collected from outside Paradise that is covered by Paradise. So, by doing this, we're we're looking at those kind of issues. And and what we've done is taken this this 337 that that I'm pointing at right there, and divided it up amongst who's covering those unincorporated areas. We've done the same thing on the South. For example, if you look at Smithfield, Smithfield itself had a large tax base, but it's also covering almost more than half of the unincorporated area in the north end of the county. So, from the Smithfield area that is being covered by Smithfield Fire Department, we have total of $203,000 that comes from that end of the county, and Smithfield is covering a 108,000 of that. So, Smithfield is is covering a great deal. Now, if we make the change to a fire district, and this, we're not saying it will happen then, but if we made the change to move the county fire department to make it a fire district at the October 1, at that point, we would have a quarter of the city budget left, or a quarter of the county budget left. Our county budget is 3,000,009. We would have $977,000 left of that, assuming that it was prorated over the full year. Are you following me, Dave? So so and then the next three months, we would have to spend the same amount to run the current fire department, and that comes down to fire district as of October 1, and turned over the money, then the fire district would have to take over paying salaries and all those other things for the remaining three months of this year. That would total this $9.73. Now, in December '26, on our taxes, we have noticed that we're collecting money for what's called the Cache County Fire Fund, and that money is designated to go to the the fire district or for fire services. So with our property taxes, we will collect $3,033,000,009 $09,000. If you take that money and allocate it to who's providing fire coverage, that's that's a combination of the share of the 3,900,000, and what of the unincorporated area you're covering. We haven't decided just what we're going to do there. But if we were to say, we're going to distribute that money, but hold back a portion that should be used by the fire district for a chief and some centralized control. This this is no one made this decision yet. Let me just emphasize that. Were we to take a 95% and distribute that, then if, for example, let's let's look down here at North Logan. North Logan buys all of its fire services from Logan. We don't as a county, we provide very little in the way little if any services to North Logan. So North Logan would get six eleven. Your share of the unincorporated area, Mayor it looked like it was $7 worth. I don't know what's your fire area, but you have virtually no nothing else. It's so generous. Yeah. It must be a shed somewhere is what I'm thinking. So you get another $7. If I take 95% of that, it'd be 581,000. Now the the thought is, and that this is this is something the fire board will have to decide, But if you're not getting any services from the fire system in the district, we would then sign an interlocal agreement with you so that you would get your fire services from Logan and distribute 95% of that money back to you. So you would get a check for 581,000, and that would be used to pay, in part, a share of what the cost is to you of the services from Logan. So that's how it would work in your case. In Smithfield's case, Smithfield is providing virtually all of your services, Mayor Rudy. So you would get the $5.25, the 108. We took 95% of that, b six zero two. So so depending again, Mayor Rudy, on what level of services we're gonna provide in addition to what you provide yourself in your own city. But Hyde Park, come up and look at Hyde Park. Hyde Park's getting would be getting $315,000 for fire and EMS coverage. Cost of the fire service. Anyway, what what this is is an effort to treat each party differently based upon how they're accomplishing their objectives. It it is complex, though. I've been talking about cities on the North. Cities on the South have been receiving EMS coverage from the county fire department. So when we look I've got this little chart down here. When you look at this, if if if we take the amount of money that these three teams of cities, Hiram, Paradise, Wellsville, Mandon, and Nibley, Millville are getting, Hiram and Paradise together have a credit of $556,000 that they could use for the for the EMS coverage that they need. Now, that might not pay for the entire cost of the EMS coverage. It doesn't now. But it would be million $267 to use toward providing EMS coverage for them. Now, Providence Providence is in the South, but again, Providence, you're you're buying your services from Logan. You don't get virtually any services from the other municipalities. So there's $453,000 that's collected from Providence residents, so if we took 95% that would be 430. And you might say, well, why shouldn't we get it all? There are some things that need to be done irrespective of cities. For example, we have a whole set of wild lands around us that we have to take care of. We also have to organize this structure. We have to enter into interlocal agreement. There's some freight that have to be paid to the district to run this whole system. And and that's what the 5% is going for, whether it's 5% or 3% or 6% is for the fire board to decide what's necessary. We've had a long discussion about training in the South. I don't think that discussion's occurred in the North yet, but we've been talking about do we want to try and arrange for the training at the district level, or do we want to just let the cities each make their own decision? So that's some of the things that are being discussed. And like I say, the 5% concept is what what does a fire board determine? And Mayor Alder, I think when we discuss this, you'll be a member of the fire board. So you'll have input, and so will the mayor of Lewiston. You're gonna have input as to what we decide to do. Okay. Now, all of this comes down to to where are you? In terms of cash balance, this system will run. We have enough money to do this, but it it's it's tight. One of the reasons it's tight is because the unincorporated area does not pay anything other than just the cash county tax with respect to fire, where people who live in a city pay both a portion of their fire through their taxes to the city, and then they also pay the county. So mayor Alder, your money here, you you pay taxes to Providence. Providence pays part of the cost of the fire, and you pay money to the county as well. So there's two sources of money if you live in the city, But if you're in the county, you don't pay anything toward that. So the the county's going to have to consider trying to equalize what the unincorporated citizens pay versus what city citizens pay, and because we're trying to equalize the services to the unincorporated areas as well. We don't want to be in a situation where if you live a 100 feet out of Minden, that you pay half as much towards your fire coverage as if you're inside Minden. We want it to be the same, because Minden is using its fire department to take care of that unincorporated area. Same thing is happening outside of Smithfield, outside of Paradise. It really isn't fair for the citizens of Paradise to pay twice as much as citizens just outside of Paradise, because they're both being covered in the same area by Paradise. So, the county can levy the unincorporated area to make up that difference. And so, what we're what we're going to recommend to the county is that they do that. And the county already has a municipal services levy in place. We have just never funded it. And so this year, as a part of taxes, we can fund it. Assuming that we try and make up that difference, the fire district will have another $716,000 at the end of 2027 that it can apply toward fire coverage. And that again, will be distributed amongst the fire areas that are covering those unincorporated areas. So for example, if we look up here at Paradise, remember Paradise was the the most outstanding example of of a city that is small, but covers a big area. Their city is 48,000. They're covering 91,000 worth of taxable area. Well, if we institute Let's see. I can't see the lines long enough. This one is Let's highlight it. There. I'll go over and see how much they now, they get another $121,000. Now, that money is under the control of the county, because that'll be a levy and the money will come to the county. But we're going to be sitting down with Paradise and saying, okay, you've got to cover this wildland area. We need to make sure you have the equipment and trucks to do it. That's true of the small cities that are on the perimeter of the valley. Lewiston, Minden, Wellsville, Paradise, and Hiram, and Smithfield cover those areas. So, we're gonna wanna be using that money to support those smaller departments. And in the whole scheme of things, that's in the interest of the whole county, is that we do that. So that's kind of where we're looking in terms of making recommendations, but nothing has been decided yet. Any questions? Dave? How will this evolve

into the district then levying these taxes?

Well, the district will have a chance to decide whether it can continue to collect the same amount that the county has been collecting, that same $3.09 $0.09. If you go over here, this spreadsheet has assumed that that's what you do, and that would result in another $3,000,009.00 9 coming in in December of and and that would leave that portion of the taxes the same with the adjustment that taxable value moves a little bit. But what we've tried to do is figure that out. But this board, the fire board, will be the one that decide. We'll have to decide this fall, whether we want to increase that or decrease that. And and the fire board will have to have its own truth in taxation hearing, and that's why we're trying to get a legal set of appointed people to make that decision. All got to be initiated quite

Pardon me? When I say soon, that's gotta be initiated pretty soon. Yeah. We'll

we need to appoint the legal fire board on the August 28, and then we've got about two weeks to to put notice out there, but we don't actually have to make the decision till, I think it's October or November.

The intent has to go out. Yeah.

Larry. Thank you, George. And I I appreciate personally how much effort you put into this, and I think we all, owe you a thanks for it. Well, you know Well, I'm not done yet. But that was just the beginning. Go ahead, George.

It's it's a really tough thing, Larry, because it involves some really good county employees. Yeah. I just have to tell you. And and when you get into a reorganization and you're it just it it has been difficult to deal with because we have quality employees. And as fire district makes the decision who we're going to hire, and and we're trying to get the municipalities to to take as many of those people as we can. But it it it that is what has been difficult. Yeah. Fiddling around with numbers is one thing. The difficulty of trying to do justice with the quality employees, and their feelings as they watch their future being discussed is what made this difficult. The other thing that's made it difficult is just a need to understand how critical this is service that involves lives and and things. This mess we had up, on Canyon Road over the weekend is is an explanation. And by the way, all of the parties, Logan and the county resources that responded to that, it was done well.

Really done well. So those are the things that make it difficult. And then I can't help myself, but to just go back to the numbers briefly, if I may. One of the things that helps me try to see a big picture on this is what does it cost for fire protection? What does it cost for EMS? What does it cost for Nibley City to run the city? What does it cost the school district to build schools and educate our students? And I think the way you compare the cost of things from all of these different entities is to look at the fraction of taxable value in the jurisdiction that that, you know, where these services are being provided. So one thing that helps me, you know, where does the 3,900,000 come from that's now in the county general fund? Well, that comes from 0.35 thousands of the taxable value in each of these jurisdictions. Point three five mills are in George units. It's 350 mills. It doesn't matter. We all, in context, know what we're talking about. But the 3,900,000 that the second column here is, is all proportional to the taxable value in these entities. And that's 0.35 thousands of the tax, taxable value of 0.35 mils. Now, if you want to, if you want to compare, you know, services and costs for services. Now, with that number, you can say, well, how much does the school district take to to build schools and educate our kids? How much does the city of Nibley take to into the general fund to to run the city of Nibley? So I just point that out because for me, that helps me understand, you know, the cost of these different services that all of the the government agencies should and are providing to the citizens.

Yeah. That and and I should say there's, there are different ways this can be analyzed. You can use taxable value. You can also use population base. You can also use where do the incidents come from. I mean, we have pretty good mapping, and we know how many EMS calls come from each area. For example, we know in the South, Mayor Miller, I think what we determined was approximately a third of the calls come from hire. And Hyrum is a little less or more than a third when you look at taxable value. But Hyrum had more residence than Nibley does, but the tax it they're just a bunch of different measures. But because the county principally relies on property taxes, we felt like that was the best way to apportion the money that's collected. Thank you. Any other questions? So George,

we have this before us with the the amount of money that you've explained to us. Also, could we talk about the timeline? So we know that the applications are due by the twenty fourth. Yeah. The The application period closes on the twenty third, and then the county council meeting is on the twenty fifth. And that's when the names will be proposed to the county council, and the county council will choose the 11

members. No. No. Actually, let let me I think the way this is set up is you'll choose the eight from the applicant. There are the way we're we're planning on being set up is there will be two county council members, one from the North and one from the South, that will be trustees, and then the county executive will be a trustee. So we'll have eight positions, and I I should be careful saying this, because our legal counsel is working on this. But I think the way we anticipate it being set up is there will be voting districts. So for example, Hiram will be a voting district. Nibley will be a voting district. Hyde Park will be a voting district. When you get to some of the smaller cities, you might have four cities that are one voting district. But we're we're gonna try and spread it out geographically, so the fire board will represent all areas of the valley. And I think the way it works in our system is I will make a recommendation to the county council. And I think we go through the advising consent arrangement with respect to the fire board. I think that's how it's going to work. Again, haven't seen the final bylaws yet, and that part of what will be in the bylaws. Okay. My intention my intention if to the extent I have, and it's only a recommendation, is that we appoint the mayors at this point on the fire board. I'm not sure that's the way it should be long term, but I think to get this started, it makes sense to use the mayors as the parties to represent the different areas. Partly because it isn't just a district. We're trying to use the municipal fire departments as a part of the organization of the district. So it makes sense, for example, for mayor Rudy to be appointed because he and and mayor Miller have have some very substantial fire assets that are gonna be necessary to run this this system.

Okay. And then we will meet as the newly constituted fire

Day after. Before. Day after, we need to be here because we're gonna have a a race to get done what need to be done from that time. So as,

the county that we will have to have everything in place to if we're going to levy a tax by the second week of September.

Yeah.

That's right. We'll have to adopt our

bylaws. Well, we'll we'll adopt I I suspect Don't have to. The first time we meet days and advance by our own rules. Well, I I suspect what will happen is that we will pass a resolution to who the chairman is. We'll have bylaws. Bear in mind that the state code governed much of what we do. The bylaws just need to be in accordance with the state law. But I think if we move quickly, we will be in a position to approve a tentative thing. And if our intent is to just continue with with the same levy amount, that won't be too complicated. And bear in mind, that's a tentative thing. You still have the right to amend it after that. You you'll we'll have another two or three months before we get to the final budget. You just won't be able to exceed

what we The proposed Yeah.

Gap. Now that's why we haven't stopped the north and south committees from from working, because we're trying to have that work being done so that we're ready to move in August.

Okay. So that's I think it's ambitious, but I think it's like mayor Lindley said, let's let's not let's not dilly dally.

Yeah. If if we miss if we miss the the time periods this fall, it sets the whole process back a full year. We go all the way back to trying to set it up in '27 and '28, rather than 2627. So there's a reason to hurry. I think the work is being done well. I know the South is is working very, very hard. And, Larry, I think with a few exceptions, we're pretty close. Aren't we, Mayor Miller?

I I think we've made great progress. I think we, you know, start at a point where in the in public record, it was, like, our city's getting out. Right? Yeah. I I believe that we have with effort put into it. Thanks to everyone who has been working on that. I think we have moved from, no. This is never gonna work and we're getting out to, hey. I I think we got a shot here. Yeah.

The the North, Jay Downs and Mayor Rudy, is not near as complicated as the South. There's still some work to be done, but we pretty well know what the money flows are gonna be. It isn't gonna look all that different when we're done. They're just gonna be more money to get the goals accomplished in the in the North. Any

k. I think, is there any other questions we have as far as timeline or next steps?

My suggestion would be as as you consider the timeline that you plan on meeting the day after the meeting on the on the twenty fifth. So that'd be the next meeting on beyond the twenty sixth.

Wednesday, the twenty sixth.

At noon again?

At noon. Nobody can obviously, nobody can hear my stomach rattling.

I thought that was something else.

Yeah. You're fine. Okay. So next meeting Okay. So next meeting will be Wednesday, August 26 at noon.

Janine, will you send us an invite, please? Thank you. K. And

I wanna introduce we had I'm sure everyone got the email we had our former clerk for the fire board. She resigned. But we've talked to the clerk's office, and LaShelle works for the clerk's office. She's gonna help us with posting our, our notices online and making sure that we have, it separated with the county and the fire district, etcetera. So thank you, LaShall, for posting this, and thank you, Janine, for stepping in to the notes. We appreciate your help that you've done. Is there any other items that we have from those in attendance? Seeing none, just consent to adjourn. K. We'll see you on twenty sixth. Thank you.