PUBLIC NOTICE
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT THE VERNON TOWN COUCIL Public Regular Meeting on July 11, 2024 at 7:00 PM at the Vernon Fire Station 325 South Main Street Vernon UT 84080.
Public Meeting
- Pledge of Allegiance
- Approval of Minutes from June 6, 2024-John stated there was one change to be made. Change 400,000 to 500,000 on the amount for the CBDG grant amount for first time applicates. Accepted with the changes, Scott made Motion. Tai Seconded. All in favor non opposed.
- Public Comments- Melinda Johnson Was present to voice her concerns on the 4th of July. Melinda stated that she was present at the meeting that it was on the agenda to keep or get rid of the 4th of July. There was a ton of support from the town asking that we not get rid of the 4th of July. Roslie was left to do it all. She does have a committee but the weight on one person is a lot on her and I do not support that. Melinda stated she told Rosalie that she was going to go to the town meeting and speak up for her. Melinda stated that Rosalie was completely overwhelmed. Melindas Suggestion to the council is that if the 4th of July is the big celebration for the town and the town really cares about it then put it out for a bid. The same way you do for the cemetery and weeds. If this is the towns Big thing then why cant the town fork out some money to pay for it. Second thought is Post it in January with a list of items and state we need someone for this and this. Give out as many assignments as possible to ensure it is not only on one person. If there is no one for that item then it doesn’t happen. The committee say that they care about this but then no one steps up to help out that is not ok. Its not ok for one person to just take it on. Rosalie stressed over this for months. You know from the newsletter if you read the newsletter she was trying to decide the themes. She wants it to wonderful and she works really hard but it is a lot to ask of someone. Same thing goes for the food Ted and Amalie always have a booth, and now they did breakfast. How do we get more people to step up and volunteer? Melinda stated she is aware that all the council are volunteer and you know all about this. If people really do care about this like they claim to care then why are they not signing up to help. Melinda doesn’t feel that this should all be dumped onto Rose to keep the traditions going. Other people need to step up and if they are not going to step up then the council should really reconsider. Melinda stated that she does love the 4th of July and she loves Vernon. She doesn’t want it to end. But it can not be the same people every year who are exhausting themselves every year to the point they say they don’t want to do it anymore. Rosalie mentioned That the people who have done it in the past do not want anything to do with it because its so hard to find people to help. If the 4th is as important as we claim it is then something needs to change. Melinda stated she cares about the town but she also cares about the one that is stressing about for months who feel that they do not have the support. John stated that he can not speak for the council but he was under the understanding that she had a committee and they split that all up. John stated that he had done it for several years. He stated that those are good ideas. But your right there was a full meeting that night when people came to say the 4th of July was important to them. Rosalie was given the go ahead to get a committee and start planning. Melinda stated that Rosalie did have a committee and this is not a problem. Melinda stated that Rosalie said that she wants to love the community and she doesn’t want to have to call people out by name saying they didn’t help with things. People are people and some people do and some people don’t. John states maybe get a different committee. Melinda stated that is the thing is getting people to step up and help out is hard. Melinda stated she is not saying that Rosalie did EVERYTHING by herself she did have help. The Livingstons did the Pony Express and Rosalie didn’t have any part in that. But it was still very Overwhelming to her. She would have liked to enjoyed the day with her family as well. She has little kids too. John stated you don’t enjoy that day if you’re in charge. Melinda stated you don’t enjoy it weeks up to that day. Melinda stated that is a lot to ask of someone. If you want to make someone stay engaged in the community and if you want those kind of people who are go getters then you do not want to ware them out. John stated one thing he thought of is each member of the council take one part of the 4th and do it. Stephaine stated here is her problem, when is starts to get this way they do not call us for help. Melinda stated why should you have to? You all volunteer for everything else for the town. John stated that Rosalie does have someone on the town council that is over park and rec and he should have been told about it. Stephaine stated and if we don’t know there is a problem then we cant help fix it. Melinda stated that she agrees with all of that. But she hopes that the council will see where she is coming rom on that. Stephaine stated they are the back up and need to be notified of these things. Melinda stated that she thinks there is a problem with people saying your amazing your so great. Because then they feel like they can not fail now and I have to keep going and I have to continue to do everything I am doing and make it better. It is so nice to have compliments but it is even nicer to have help. John stated that he thinks what they are really saying is they are glad its not me. John stated Lets make this an agenda item and we will talk about it. John stated that after every event like the 4th of July it is to have a debrief after the event to see what you can do better what worked what didn’t. It is important to have a meeting now instead of in January to go over these things. Mike stated he likes the idea of having people sign up and if they don’t get filled then it doesn’t happen. Then when people ask why didn’t we do this or that then we can say its because we didn’t have help. Maybe it would show people that we need help. Mike did say he likes the idea about putting it out for bid as well. John stated that it would require a lot of thinking on our parts because if you are paying them do you still need to give them money or do we pay for everything and give them a little bit more? It is something to think about. Nicole stated that it is great to have people say they will help but at the end of the day 90% of the day they don’t help. There has to be some accountability for that. Melinda stated that is why she thinks that the money will help. People are tied to money, for example if someone is getting paid for something they can not go. If you are a volunteer then whatever its ok not to go. John stated that he spoke to Rosalie during breakfast at the start of the day and asked her how it was going. Rosalie said that she would have 7 or 8 kids there to help her and I only had 2. Maybe next year we pay these kids. Say we are going to pay you $10.00 an hour to do these different things. Melinda stated something like that may be great for the youth. The other feed back is also the sound system is great in the tent but if you don’t have a large loud voice then you don’t hear it. John stated that he was under the tent and he didn’t even hear. There has to be something else or someone with a loud voice that can command to do that because that seemed very difficult as well. John stated that he looks at some people in the town who say that the 4th is very important to them and they are not there anymore. Part of that is burn out and part of that is I am going to escape before someone asks me to do something. John stated that his thoughts are if we are going to have to have people cooking on the 4th he is going to be there to support them, he will not have the BBQ or Picnic at his house. Lets face it when you take people home not everyone is going to come back. We have some families in town that do that. But we lose a lot of people when we do that. Then the people who are there to cook and make some money that day will lose out on those sells. It puts a strain on those people who are trying to make that day a great day. John stated he thinks all it would take is cancelling it one year. Melinda stated exactly but then it might be like ok we are done and they are not doing it again, we will find something else to do. Johns stated he doesn’t want to see it go away. John said to Mike you have some things to think about. Closed Public Comments.
- Sheriff Report- Not present
- Joe Mannino (Fire Chief) – Waited for Department reports.
- Signing Resolution adopting final tax rate and budgets. John stated that somehow the word got out that we are raising taxes. We are not raising taxes. This is a signature that goes to the state every year that we are not raising taxes and that we are adopting the tax rate that the state of Utah has put out there for people to see. The tax rate .000338 Our expected revenue is about $8,000. It is nothing. John asked do we have to open this up for discussion. Rob stated you can open it up for discussion but at this point it is what it is. If there is nothing to discuss then you can open it up to a motion. The choices are you raise taxes you do this or you lower them and the town is not in a position to do that. Taxes have not been raised in the town of Vernon since the 1970’s. If we went off the cost of living this $8,000 would be around $30,000-$40,000 that we would be bringing in today. So, we are hurting. Where we really hurt is where we go to apply for these grants. They say you are not even doing anything because your tax rates are so low you’re not even trying. There was not discussion – Motion made by Scott seconded by Tai.
- Department Reports/Commissions/Committees
- A) Mayor John Olson: Council of Government – Meeting with the 3rd quarter sales committee and they have come up with a scoring criteria. John then handed the paper to Stephaine. The new Applications deadline is august 1st. Stephaine asked what the maximum amount we can apply for. John stated that you can apply for whatever you want. Vernon can apply the grant but with not rising taxes it may be harder. John stated that we could apply for the one that goes off of the amount of people in our community. If they did that it would be maybe $100,000. John stated that it was discussed on what to use that on. Stephaine stated that she also has an idea on what that can be used for. The Guy who is doing the ordinance for the subdivision also offers a program, that he would redo ALL of our ordinances and resolutions for about $40,000. John stated that she would have to call and see if that is something that would meet the requirements. John stated that he knows a good one. When the engineer was out the other day he stated that next year Sharp will need to have a sealant put on it. John stated he isn’t sure the price of that. We would have to call Jake to figure that out. Council of Government is meeting on Thursday but John will not be present for that. He stopped by the courthouse and made sure the main item on the agenda was to have this point system criteria voted on. There is a couple on there that were not on there before and one of those is safety. John feels our roads are a hazard.
Cemetery- John mentioned that Mike sent him a picture of a Conex for town. It was pretty nice. The door was wide enough that they could pull the mower in there it was around $5000.00 It has an option that you can wall off sections. You could put a wall up for the flags and other items the town needs to store. John wanted to throw that out. Mike stated it is $5000.00 but he isn’t sure if it was the 20’ or the 40’. Scott asked is that delivered? Mike stated yes that is delivered. John state it was the 20’ one and he thinks it is plenty big for what they need. Its not used. Its Brand-new and all one color. You can get them with roll up doors or swing doors. The swing ones are the ones that make it water tight and mouse proof. They are a lot more secure than a shed. John asked Nicole to put that on the agenda for next meeting. Call Mountain America to check on a check that was deposited from Mr. Durrant. Scott and Mel were not paid since 2021. We will make sure that is taken care of and that they are paid for the opening and closing of the graves. Nicole Stated that they need to ensure they get a contract of some sort to ensure we keep up with this. Melinda stated that she had paid them during her time there. The amounts in our accounting would be 300 or in multiplies of 300. That is the amount per grave. John spoke to Mel and he said he had not gotten anything in a while. John told Mel we need to get something in writing he was going to have Amy write something up. Nicole asked do you know how many burials have happened since then. Nicole then gave John the date of the last known payment. John will figure that out and we will get this corrected. John stated that the computer might do that.
- B) Scott Livingston:
Water – Had water meeting last night. They voted on their next year budget and everything is going good on that side of things. The pump of the well is starting to act up, so that is something that needs to be replaced. That is something they are working on now. John asked how big of a pump is it? Scott stated he didn’t know. They had the Zimmermans come out and look at it. They are getting quotes for that. John asked Scott to mark all the meters before the construction starts. Those are all marked. We hope that they are all marked. They are all about 3 feet deep so we should be good for that. John stated they should only be going down 11 inches.
Treasurer- New checks from MACU so those do have a new look to them. Nothing else to report.
Business Licenses- Nicole will send over the spreadsheet for Business Licenses.
- C) Stephanie Loder:
Planning and Zoning: Meeting went well they were able to get through 2 drawers of the filing cabinet. That should be finished in august. Stephaine suggest that the town do that as well so they can put their ordinances and resolutions digital as well. Meeting has been canceled for the month of July. Also may cancel the Month of August or move it due to the Tooele county School Board meeting. John asked how are the new board members on the board? Stephaine stated they are doing good when they come. John asked are you getting a Corum? Stephaine said actually according to the update we only have to have 5 people and I am a voting member. So we will wait until we are done going through everything and see if that changed somewhere.
Grants- It is not time to report on the grant. Now that the works is being started, we will have something to report.
- D) Tai Lauti:
Ambulance/Emergency Management- Nothing to report
Fire Report- Mike stated that he got a email from Dan stating there was 2 Type 6 fire trucks available which is similar to the F350 outside. They are from the Forest Service. They signed an agreement with Utah that they get first dibs on the western forest service. Mike could not get one but he said there would be more available. But they are on the Program where they are the Government use and you can use them until they are not usable anymore. On this one we would have had to transport it from Oregan. So it would be a free truck but we would have to pay for the transport. John asked do you need another truck. Mike stated that they are 12 years newer then the one we have. Mike stated that we own the F350 that the department has right now so they would be able to sell it. The department does want to recycle them so they do not have a bunch of old trucks. John stated that if we bring one in then one has to go. Mike stated that was the plan. Scott mentioned can we go and look at the trucks. Mike said they have a whole report that looked to be from the Mechanic shop. It listed everything that was good with it and everything that was wrong with it. Stockton and Rush valley grabbed those 2. Mike asked what do we need to do in order to be able to jump on them? Does that need to go into the Budget? John asked they are free aren’t they? Mike said yes but we would have to pay for the transport. Shar asked how much is the transport? Mike stated they didn’t even look into them because they didn’t get the truck. He stated that you have 2 weeks to pick them up once you say you want them. You have a 2 week buffer. John asked Rob what the process would be. If Dan calls again saying we have a forest service truck in the program like the hummer. Rob suggest that we put it on the agenda and approve it up to a set amount and that way they have the approval moving forward. Mike will look into the price of freight for a vehicle.
Animal Control- It is time to order Dog tags for this year. John asked if he got the email about a couple of meeting that are coming up. Tai stated that he did receive that email.
- E) Mike Cheatham:
Roads- Road construction has started on Castagno and Main. Mike asked are they going North at all? John stated that they are not doing much. Mike asked Nicole did we ever get the paint for the speed bumps. Nicole stated that she ordered it and it should be there the 17th. Shar asked why is Kilgore coming all the way around the block if they are only doing main and Castagno? John stated they are dumping the tailings on Olson Lane. That was part of their bid. That is why they were able to get the bid low is because they were dumping it local. If they were hauling it to a dumpsite the bid would have been higher. Shar stated that they are flying down that road in front of their house. John stated that he will call Rodger tonight. John mentioned that they had a construction meeting on Monday and went and looked at the places on sharp. One thing they pointed out is where it looks like where there are tracks around the gravel its not coming up yet, and its starting to deteriorate. It really isn’t it has had 3 years of traffic on it and if you put a seal on it then it will take care of that. They are going to Repair the place under the trees and the place at the base of the hill. They looked up at the top of sharp and took pictures of it to take back and see if they can get them to take care of that as well. Mike stated that he doesn’t know anything about asphalt he was told it was cold roll. John stated that some of it they said was their fault.
Community Relations- Mike stated they had a really good turn out for the fourth of July. Also had some concerns that were Already covered. But he did hear a lot of good as well. The people he talked to really liked the dinner after. John stated that there were a lot of people that were there. John stated that a couple of things that he observed was there was a huge turn out for the parade but getting people to come into the program was hard. John was embarrassed with the turn out at the program. He felt the same for the after activities under the tent. He stated there was a fair crowd of people during the day We will need to find something to keep them there during the day. John stated that he felt like the people in charge especially Rosalie did an amazing job.
- Other Business:- John gave out a paper. John stated that on Monday during the meeting part of the bid for main street and Castagno was to put the millings on Olsen lane. Which puts dirt on the top of the asphalt that is already there. The people from Kilgore when out to Olsen lane. They all said we could just put this on the top and smooth it out but within a few months all of it will be pushed to the side and you will have ruts right down the middle. Jake Mentioned what about tearing through the asphalt and dumping this stuff on top. But with that you will have huge chunks of asphalt that will tear up a transmission. Roger the lead over the construction said let me go back and see if we can do what is called Pulverizing and what it is was to dump the stuff on Olson Lane like they planned on doing and the machine comes and goes down 8 inches and it grinds it all down so the stuff they are dumping plus the what is left of the asphalt that is left on Olson lane. It would be taking it down to a gravel road. Item one is $16,665.00 is to pulverize 8 inch thick and the millings from what they are dumping. Item two They do not think they will have enough stuff from Castagno and Main street to do all of Olson lane. This item would be to just pulverize what is left of Olson Lane without the millings from Castagno and main street. Last Item is to get a grader and a compactor. At that point we would have a mile and half of gravel road. But its $35,640.00. When we do these projects we need to be clear of where the money is coming from. 2023 Vernon received $200,000 from Tooele County COG to do bank heads hill Another $200,000 that we can use as matching funds up until 2027. In 2022 we got $500,000 from Tooele COG to finish Sharp and start Harker RD. We got $345,000 for the RCOG. In 2021 we got $300,000 to do Sharp RD. From the $5000,000 we borrowed $150,000 to finish Sharp RD. That leaves us with $350,000 to do as much of Harker RD as we can do Starting with Sharp RD. We have spent $450,000 on Sharp RD, will spend another $350,000 on Harker RD. We will spend $345,000 of Grant Money on Main Street and Castagno. We will borrow from the $200,000, $75,662.00 to finish Castagno and main street. That is where the money is coming from. We will not have to use any of the road budget for any of the construction that is being done. John asked what is the Amount we have left from the roads budget last year $13,800 plus this years budget of $50,000 for the B&C Roads money. We need to ensure that we keep enough money for snow removal and repair. We have spoke about buying a truck and that would also come out of this money. We have approximately $68,000 in our road Budget this would take us down to about $25,000. Mike asked do all 3 of these need to be done or are these options? John stated no All three would need to be done. Kilgore is giving us a good deal because they are already out here if this was something they would have came out for only this reason they could not have done it for less then another $10,000-$15,000. All of this is based on if they do not have any problems on main street. We can not vote on this tonight but we have to discuses this tonight and hold a special meeting on this in a couple of weeks. Before they leave. Scott stated the number of families that live down that road this is a good cheap bandaid for right now to give them something for now. With the circumstances with then already being here to do it I think it is a good use of our money where we have the money to do it. Mike asked what kind of maintenance does this type of thing require. John stated that it is just grading. John spoke to Roger about that. If the town can get the CDBG grant and connect it with the $200,000 from Larson Hill it would be a $700,000 project next year we would have a road grader out there. Also they could probably do a seal at the same time if they can get the money to do that. Mike asked when they do something like this is it pretty much ready for asphalt after that. John asked them by doing this pulverization isn’t that one step closer to just laying the asphalt on top of it. He said it could be but we would still need to do the core samples. But if there is nothing dramatic then we could just grade that out and do asphalt but that is years down the road. That road will be the last one to be done. Right now they have done about a ¼ a mile on the road and they have a grader and roller out there now. They started just before the road going up to the cabin and they have ended right before that little stream of water. It is already smoother then it was. Rob stated its like dumping gravel on a side walk its nice now but it will not hold up. If this is something that the council will entertain then you will need to set a special meeting for this a little more then a week out that way it is able to post 7 days for the public notice and the proper posting. John has been getting texts about others wanting the millings for their roads. He has told them it was part of the contract to take them to Olson lane. Mike said he is all for it. That road needs something. Special meeting is set for July 22rd 2024 at 7pm.
9.Review and Approve Town Bills.- Motion made By Mike Seconded by Scott
- Adjourn- Motion made by Tai. Seconded by Mike.