[0:35] Welcome to our regular town council meeting for Tuesday, September 1st. I am

[0:40] Oh, okay, you're okay, I'm sorry I put on that microphone.

[0:45] That's better.

[0:46] That's better again.

[0:54] Started with a couple of comments.

[0:58] I see a few people joining us online today.

[1:02] If you're online and would like to make a comment,

[1:04] please put your name in the chat.

[1:07] That'd be much appreciated.

[1:09] And since I can't see it, if anybody's there, maybe Brick,

[1:12] can you see if anybody in the room wants to make a public comment?

[1:17] We'll

[1:19] give it just a hot second here to see if anybody online wants to make a public comment.

[1:26] Not immediately seeing anyone.

[1:28] We've got gypsies with handrails.

[1:32] Okay, handrails, I can see that.

[1:34] Okay, hey, go ahead, Jim.

[1:36] Thank you, Josh, and thank you to all members of the council.

[1:40] I know that this kind of work this year is harder than it looks from here.

[1:45] I have a concern I wanted to share, and mainly it has to do with the leadership at the state

[1:55] level, regardless of anyone's party or affiliation.

[2:01] I was very concerned a few months ago, up in Boxelder, or the last little while, I think

[2:08] everybody knows what I'm talking about, the state cut a deal with the corporation over water

[2:14] and the actual county commission didn't know anything about it until the last minute,

[2:22] and at that point they had enough. They really didn't have any say that there was nothing they could really do.

[2:29] And what I'm thinking, I look around and I'm seeing a lot of water issues across not only the west,

[2:38] but across the country and maybe even the world.

[2:40] And our own position here is that we have a divided governance or a divided management on our water.

[2:52] And I think it's time that we really start considering that as a town.

[2:58] And it won't be long.

[3:01] I don't think before someone tries to play off one entity against another the way these things were.

[3:06] In any case, I think our water is going to be a lot more secure and a lot safer if we

[3:14] are to unify the entities that are controlling our water and unify them under the town council.

[3:22] We have an educated, not to say mature electorate.

[3:28] We have a good turnout on the boat.

[3:31] We seem to be solving problems.

[3:33] The council has proven itself. It's not going to go away tomorrow or next year.

[3:38] And actually it seems to be one of the stronger town councils and stronger entities in the region to me.

[3:45] But I think it is a weakness just from looking at it from the outside.

[3:52] And that's not to put any reflection on anyone who is on either the water board or the council.

[3:58] these are upstanding people who all care very deeply about our water in this town

[4:05] and how important it is they're needless to say there's you know they're the

[4:10] people of highest integrity and I and I trust that if the Council and the

[4:15] Water Board were to come together and and recognize that we are stronger as a

[4:23] unified town and a unified voice over our water, you know, with regard to our water, that we're just going to be stronger and better able to resist the trials that will come.

[4:39] I believe so that's my spiel. Thank you very much for listening and I hope you all have a good meeting and thank you.

[4:52] Thanks, Jim. I really appreciate your comments. I'll just go on the record now, say this mirror

[4:59] will never sign an NDA with the data center.

[5:04] But I think, you know, closer to home, you

[5:06] have some really dollar points. And I think there's some really good collaboration happening

[5:11] now between the town and the water board. And I think that the future is bright for that

[5:17] relationship. And we'll obviously have to see what happens as time goes on and we continue

[5:22] of those conversations. I don't see anybody else with their hand up or anyone else name in

[5:28] the chat and I'm guessing nobody else there so I'll go ahead and close the public comment period.

[5:37] And we'll turn to the portion of the meeting where we talk about approval of minutes.

[5:43] I wanted to propose a slightly unconventional thing which is to revisit some minutes we talked

[5:49] about last time and it's mostly because when we're doing those minutes I forgot to raise an issue

[5:55] that I had written down my notes and want to be kind of careful about these days and that is the

[6:05] minutes from the 4th of August and it's in the section where we were talking about voting on the

[6:12] contract for maintenance services, and the minutes say that I abstain because of a conflict

[6:19] of interest, and I just wanted to be really clear, I did not say that I had a conflict

[6:25] of interest. I do not have a conflict of interest. I said I was conflicted. I was probably

[6:30] a poor choice of reverse just because it's close to conflict of interest, but I did not

[6:36] say I was a conflict of interest. I was not announcing a conflict of interest. I have no monetary

[6:39] or other interests in it so I'm hoping you all will be okay with one more

[6:47] clarification in those minutes to say you know if you want to say I'm

[6:51] conflicted that's the exact words I used I just want to make sure that was

[6:55] clear because there's really technical definitions on the state level of

[6:58] conflict of interest that we really want to be careful about all

[7:04] right so

[7:10] that's

[7:12] the first set of minutes I guess those are the only minutes we really need to go

[7:16] back on. We'll work on our future minutes at a future meeting. That's right. We didn't

[7:21] put any other minutes on here, right?

[7:24] The 18th. Josh, I'm sharing my screen. Can you just verify that you're okay with, or

[7:30] everyone's okay with the jala or the August 4th, you noted that he expressed he was conflicted

[7:35] with the issue or how would you like that stated?

[7:40] I would just make conflicted on the issue to be fine.

[7:47] I worked with Mr. Kellegerson on the fire department, I think a lot of him didn't know much

[7:54] about our new contractor and just didn't feel like I was in a position to go on it because

[8:00] I was conflicted because of that, so I think that would be fine.

[8:03] Okay,

[8:11] so that is there and then we are editing, remove four conflict of interest, just

[8:18] viewing of stains, and then those are there, okay, and then let me share my screen for

[8:26] the August 18th.

[8:29] That's right, okay.

[8:30] All right, there should be up there now.

[8:36] I didn't see any major changes and anybody else see anything they felt we needed to

[8:43] clarify? Did not. No. No.

[8:54] Requested vote on, on mending the first set we just talked about

[8:58] and approving these minutes. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay,

[9:06] we'll have those two.

[9:10] I'm going to toss it to you to help update us on the emergency services

[9:14] coordinator hiring process. Already. So they actually got quite a few applications for that role,

[9:21] which is really exciting. We ended up conducting three interviews with folks with really great

[9:27] experience and it was wonderful to talk with all of them. They had a variety of background

[9:36] experience and things that they could offer to the role. We ultimately did extend a job offer

[9:41] to Najoneva Gay. She has a significant experience with EMS as well as fire, including wildland fire.

[9:52] And so we're really excited to welcome her aboard. She will be starting next Tuesday, September 8th.

[9:59] And it is a part-time position, so my hope for her is that maybe she can sit in on a couple council meetings.

[10:07] a lot of her work will be conducted virtually and will do some onboarding between myself,

[10:13] Josh, and then the emergency services departments here in town.

[10:20] So I definitely want to welcome her, and I'm hoping that she can attend maybe virtually or in person next week.

[10:26] But I really thank everyone who did apply, who showed interest to ask great questions,

[10:31] because we had a fantastic pool of applicants to choose from and it was our decision.

[10:35] So her major focus to start out will be, of course, you know, getting to the new teams,

[10:45] getting familiar with our, getting familiar with our systems and things like that.

[10:50] We do have the emergency kind of alert system and operations manual that we want her to go

[10:59] through and then wanting her to get familiar with, you know, wildland fire, wildland urban

[11:08] interface work and things like that. I would say, you know, she has a ton of experience

[11:15] but there will definitely still be areas that will help her in her career growth but it is

[11:21] fantastic because she already has a wide breadth of network throughout her jobs and then throughout

[11:28] the county. Anything to add Josh? Yeah I did want to add a couple things reiterate that

[11:34] it wasn't quite a tough decision because we had really really good strong candidates

[11:40] with a range of expertise and I was a really welcome thing to see. We didn't know how many

[11:46] candidates we'd get for this position so it's great to see folks interested. I want to make

[11:52] a particular note to the council we had and I asked his permission to to say to this but we had

[12:01] the actual fire chief from Mohawk reach out to us when he saw this position and actually

[12:08] interviewed for the role he was interested in helping us out and you know while we felt like

[12:16] Nezronin was the better fit for the role. We think we could really benefit from some

[12:23] advisory contract advisory services from TJ. He was really willing to help us

[12:29] out with his perspective of challenges with other rural fire departments in Utah,

[12:35] emergency management planning. So I had a conversation with him actually just today

[12:40] and we'll kind of look into what that might look like but it may be that we

[12:46] use a little bit of our contracting budget to engage him in just helping out and jump

[12:52] starting our learning process on some things that he knows really well from his role as

[12:58] the fire chief up in the lab. Obviously, that's a full-time position. It was going to be difficult

[13:03] for him to be down in bluff on a regular basis, and there were a number of challenges with

[13:08] him feeling the role, but a great opportunity for us to perhaps work with someone going

[13:14] forward so I wanted you to either heads up that we're going to discuss that further with him

[13:19] obviously we'll stay within the budget parameters that the council has

[13:23] has approved and you know wouldn't go beyond that without coming back to the council for

[13:29] further budget guidance but it's pretty exciting to have some run of his caliber interested in

[13:34] helping us out and giving us some some support so maybe open it up just to the council if anybody

[13:41] has any questions where we're headed or about the hiring process and how it has unfolded so far.

[13:49] Thanks everyone for doing the interviews and working through that.

[13:56] I have heard a lot of good suggestions that I think that this person could implement into

[14:01] programs. So I would say that maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea just to throw some advisory ideas out there.

[14:10] You know, sort of committee wise or something, just to kind of come up with things that could

[14:15] help with this because, like I said, I've heard lots of good ideas thrown at me about things

[14:22] that could happen.

[14:23] So, that's great, Jen.

[14:28] Aaron and I will work on scheduling an initial meeting with Nojone and start thinking through

[14:34] kind of her work plan for the first, you know, 60, 90 days.

[14:39] but I think it would be really helpful for us to hear from council members on

[14:43] anything like that if you have ideas so if you'd like we could put this on the

[14:49] agenda for our work session our next meeting or I'd also just be happy to have

[14:53] you provide you know comments to me or Aaron and we can work that in as we

[14:58] Manager.

[15:00] Getting up in the role. Do you have a preference over, you know, doing that in a working meeting versus providing direct feedback? I think a work session would be nice, just because I think it's nice to bounce ideas off of everybody in the group rather than, you know, I'm just, just kind of going one on one type of thing. So if we have time in a work session, I think that would be great.

[15:23] Oh, I'll ask Aaron. You don't mind helping me remember to put that on for our next work session. We'll put it a little bit later in the agenda.

[15:30] us if we don't have time for it, we can come back to it, but I think that's a great idea.

[15:35] Thanks, Jen.

[15:43] Hearing nothing further on that, we want to introduce the next item.

[15:49] As you recall, we've been discussing employee benefits policy.

[15:52] We're not quite ready to move forward with the formal policy vote, which I anticipate will

[15:57] happen on our next regular meeting and some more discussion happening at our work session

[16:01] next week.

[16:03] But I think we were all agreed that we want to be able to provide retirement services

[16:12] benefits to our full-time staff, and in order to do that, Utah retirement services requires

[16:20] us to have a resolution from the board to move forward with starting that process.

[16:28] And so figure we didn't need to have an official final vote on the policy before we could get those wheels turning.

[16:36] Obviously, we will have a formal policy really soon.

[16:40] But wanted to get this process going so that as soon as we have that policy in place, we can also have the benefits flowing.

[16:50] And we didn't need one for PHB, but we did need one from Utah Retirement Services.

[16:55] So, if you saw on your packet, it's a very short agenda item, a very short resolution.

[17:02] And I'd open it up for any questions or discussion on the resolution.

[17:10] Pretty straightforward.

[17:11] If there's

[17:19] no discussion on this, we'll go ahead and take a vote because this is a roadless solution.

[17:23] We need a roll call vote. So start with me. I'll say I and pass it to you, Britt. Hi, I'm going to

[17:34] abstain from the vote on this one because of my conflict of interest.

[17:41] Thanks, everybody,

[17:42] for participation. We'll say that passes on a four zero vote with one extension.

[17:54] Now we've got a

[17:54] couple of items from Michael and Michael. Welcome back to fluff. I wish I was there to you see

[18:00] you in person that maybe I'll go ahead and buy you to come up and since I'm

[18:07] remodeled be a little bit harder to hear I'll let you guys kind of guide this

[18:12] and if I have any questions I'll jump in but go ahead Michael and let's go ahead

[18:15] and talk a little bit about the West Love Cottonwood Edition Chips and Wayne

[18:29] rapid crush south to the portion of West Bluff that's gravel right now and it hasn't

[18:39] been worked on since 2021 and so the Chimpsilat using biolitics crisis, we're looking at a

[18:55] the limited amount of $100,000 and the plan is to get a proposal from contractors and

[19:08] then go to the transportation, the county transportation board on the 21st and try to get a 50%

[19:17] that matching with it, which make it work, party work.

[19:26] So that's the proposal, preliminary proposal.

[19:32] Yeah, there it is there.

[19:33] So let me share my screen stuff of some line.

[19:35] You can see, get oriented.

[19:40] Sorry, this is a very large file.

[19:43] Okay, here we go.

[19:44] So you see locks, locks bar,

[19:52] locks bar, saddle, all those red lines today, gravel, six

[20:19] So this is sagebrush here.

[20:23] So sagebrush, we're talking about Fort Street to the end, this street to the end, and

[20:31] then six street to sagebrush, right there, and that one that extends down is an alley,

[20:42] So we wouldn't, we wouldn't do anything that would perhaps rate it.

[20:47] So

[20:54] the blue or existing asphalt?

[20:56] The blue is existing asphalt.

[20:59] Yes.

[20:59] And the red is gravel.

[21:02] Right.

[21:03] Now, from what I understand, Chip C among gravel is non-infective.

[21:09] No, no.

[21:10] As the process would be to stabilize the road base,

[21:14] and move the gravel, stabilize the road base with cement, with that cement house, that's

[21:23] the standard stabilization, and then two coats of chips in, and that's the front end

[21:32] approved the drainage, and that would be the process.

[21:37] It wouldn't go on top of these.

[21:41] Is that what they did in bluff four years ago?

[21:45] Is that what they did in bluff four years ago?

[21:47] Five years ago?

[21:50] Yeah, we did.

[21:52] Because the left over was done in my driveway.

[21:56] Oh, I think you're thinking of the debauchled top of Mulberry.

[22:03] Yeah, one of the chips you had when I got the thing.

[22:06] When they did the straight right behind here,

[22:08] I think it was supposed if I wasn't on the board at that point in time

[22:12] But I think remember listening to the meeting that they were calling it a chip seal type product

[22:17] Because they had chip sealed the ass or the driveway at Twin Rocks

[22:22] So who was that contractor?

[22:30] Pay for wrong. Yeah

[22:33] Sorry.

[22:34] Paveright.

[22:36] Paveright.

[22:37] Paveright.

[22:38] Yes.

[22:39] Paveright.

[22:40] Yes.

[22:41] So yes, I do think that that was what that was built for.

[22:45] For this particular project, we would be doing a bid process ensuring that the contractors are

[22:56] qualified to do the work.

[22:58] We know a lot of them in the area, so we'd have more of the formal submission and get cost estimates and make sure that they are qualified as well.

[23:10] Yeah, and, you know, it would be a lovely, like, the grand junction, the grand junction

[23:17] and that, or, you know, like, the grand junction.

[23:21] Well, not to name any names, well, we got a lot of folks, we got the role of X, we'll

[23:25] reach out to all of them.

[23:27] And then, Michael, so the reason that Michael's able to, like, provide estimates and everything

[23:33] is because Violetics, we did the Rhodes Analysis a year ago, two years ago. So Michael, can

[23:43] you just talk through the prioritization and where this project fell on the Violetics recommendations?

[23:53] So this was scheduled to be done, a projection to be done, well, I don't have the 23rd,

[24:07] but the 23rd would include doing the Chimpsil process to fall all the streets in doubt the way they looked at.

[24:18] And so in terms of like why this project would be a priority versus other other items can talk through your process on that as to why this one is a good one for this year.

[24:28] Yeah, well, you know, this part, you know, like I said before, this part of town has got a very

[24:34] little attention, mostly attention to the area. And so I just felt like it was time to improve

[24:46] Westport. And, you know, and again, this is a proposal.

[24:54] Yeah, because we had the large project that went through this past year, over on Second

[25:01] East and Black Locust, you've had work going on, Cottonwood, you've done some stuff over

[25:08] here on Mulberry as well as some stabilization on Fifth, I think, and by the school.

[25:17] and then of course we took on, these are new so we just took all of these on, you guys were all here for that, and so yeah, this Southwestern corner hasn't received much attention.

[25:37] Oh, she probably should be here, if not, let me know, call it.

[25:52] So, you know, just called back to Violetics.

[25:54] You know, they asked the manager to prove along the streets

[26:09] We have been able to raise 1.2 million for the high-way improvement project, like

[26:31] and if I understand right from previous conversations, if we do the GF seal on those roads, we get more funding for roads for the next year as well.

[26:42] Well, yeah, that's the other benefit, you know, a gravel road is weighted too, but you know, in terms of a dispersion, annual dispersion, a road is weighted as five, so it's a big difference.

[27:02] We haven't gotten our final final this person from UW or 2020, just go to UW in 2026.

[27:13] But that should indicate to us what kind of benefit we got from doing the recycle glass pool.

[27:22] because

[27:25] we lost and you might recall with the downbills 3.3 miles with this command.

[27:34] Right.

[27:36] So Michael, a couple of questions and comments here.

[27:43] I am certainly in favor of fixing up the streets over there on the west side.

[27:50] And I do think that like rather than wishful thinking that we're going to win the lottery

[27:56] for 3.5 million like we just have to go through like how much can we do with the budget

[28:01] we have this year and like yes we will apply for grants where we can but like you know

[28:07] per small town and we just need to be thoughtful about how we spend our money.

[28:11] My thinking is that I really like to see us develop kind of a prioritization list that

[28:19] that the council can discuss as a matter of policy.

[28:28] We can do that.

[28:30] You know, one street or a few streets at a time

[28:33] and really think about like what are our major priorities?

[28:38] What's in the most need?

[28:39] What's the biggest bang for the buck, those sort of items?

[28:42] So while I think we should go ahead and move forward with this now,

[28:46] I'd rather for the kind of the rest of the year's budget

[28:51] work on some sort of prioritized list.

[28:53] so we can be thinking about the projects in relation to each other.

[28:59] I have a hard time saying, well this is a great project, of course it's needed.

[29:03] But how does that compare to the other needs of the town

[29:05] and how we all have to maybe be prioritizing those funds?

[29:11] And I know that's not an easy process, but I think it would be really helpful

[29:14] for the Council to see kind of a list of the top five or the top ten projects

[29:20] And I was to be able to think about, okay, how do we want to sequence them with the limited funds that we have over what time frame.

[29:29] So I'd say, go ahead with this for now and let's try to do more of a prioritization process so we can add a little more of a list on.

[29:40] I have a question and I want to know how six west is going to what we're going to do with six west to make sure that we don't have an issue with this.

[30:01] I'd hate to approve this project to get money for it, and then be slapped with a lawsuit or something like that, because I don't feel like we've ever really settled the Six West issues.

[30:11] just says the one of the by the by the the alley well the corner the alleyway half the street

[30:19] as far as you know I mean I think we have differing I think there are differing opinions

[30:26] out there that I don't think have ever really been resolved and I just you know I would I

[30:32] would hate to see something come down and happen and we pave something that is an hours or

[30:40] Or, you know, I would just like to see some resolution to this 6th-last issue as two boundaries.

[30:46] I was not getting any pressure on it.

[30:49] Oh, okay.

[30:55] Yeah, Jim, I think that's a really good point.

[30:59] And my suggestion would be that either we aid contact the potential, the land orders that would be of

[31:08] potential conflict and get their sign off or we wait on that particular zone as you know we're

[31:16] in the process right now potentially hiring or rehiring legal counsel and one of the projects

[31:23] we want them to work on is kind of resolving the major serving inaccuracies that are on the west

[31:30] side of town and what would be needed to fix that. I don't think it's a big deal for most of the

[31:36] streets over there, but that sixth wet is one where it is.

[31:39] So I think we would want to either A, have something in writing that the landowners

[31:43] involved are okay with it happening, or B, we wait until we can get a little more

[31:49] official final, you know, resolution on that particular issue.

[31:57] And I've got some thoughts of how we might go about doing that, but we really need to work

[32:02] with an attorney to make sure that it all works out well, I think.

[32:06] I

[32:16] think we have some, you know, I think we have some overall weird spots in town to do

[32:22] with roads that I think that if this year we really want, you know, I mean, we could,

[32:26] we could really take it up and kind of clear up a lot of things.

[32:31] I know that the, where Mulberry splits off is kind of a weird spot and I think Cecilia has

[32:38] some weird issues and I think there are a few that if we just kind of focused on

[32:42] clearing up some road issues that it would be really beneficial.

[32:48] Yeah I agree because you know the second street was surveyed, second street was almost all the way up.

[32:55] Right.

[32:56] Right.

[32:57] And the markers were there.

[32:58] Yep.

[32:59] And the last time I wrote I didn't see it.

[33:02] So I agree with you.

[33:03] there may be one mark on the, so that would be the east side.

[33:12] Yeah.

[33:13] Yeah.

[33:14] So I agree that should be checked out because right now there's a sign that says dead end.

[33:20] It's not a dead end.

[33:21] Right.

[33:22] Wait on second.

[33:24] Second.

[33:25] Did you come off, come off from Mulberry?

[33:28] You don't want the second?

[33:29] Yeah.

[33:29] The property only had a sign that says dead end.

[33:32] which is confusing.

[33:34] Yep.

[33:35] That sign should be back.

[33:38] Oh, yeah.

[33:41] Well, Michael, we should talk to the landowner about that sign.

[33:46] As you know, working on those sort of issues around town

[33:50] to work on misleading signs.

[33:53] But I would just suggest as it relates to working on these issues,

[33:57] we've got issues all around town.

[33:58] We take a somewhat holistic approach to them

[34:02] And but like if we wait until every one of these issues is done to do road maintenance in our town, it might be a long time

[34:08] so I don't think we should do that but rather than get you in the middle of those issues, either A, we can talk about talking to the landowners involved in this particular case, or we can just hold off on that.

[34:23] I don't think it'll be forever, but I don't think it'll happen in six months.

[34:26] We're having like is not an easy process to get a court order to have things corrected.

[34:34] And so, and certainly we have other things going on as a town, so it's going to take us

[34:38] a minute to have those discussions and want to do it in a way that honors all the property

[34:43] owners involved and make sure everybody's on the same page, so it's going to take a little

[34:47] bit of work and I don't want to hold up you doing good work on the town on behalf of that.

[34:52] Yeah, I mean, you know, that particular street according to biobatics is a, you know, got a value of 13,630 dollars.

[35:04] Okay.

[35:09] Well, thank you.

[35:13] We also have the discussion of spring weeds. Can you tell us what you're thinking about that?

[35:25] Yeah, so I'm sorry I missed it.

[35:28] So I got reports over on rapper brush that goat heads are beginning to appear in the right

[35:38] of ways, probably because of the summer, there was any water from the drain down into the

[35:46] cages.

[35:47] And so suggestion was made that this is a good time to spray that crop of goat heads and

[36:09] I mean,

[36:12] I have two jobs that I got from the county.

[36:17] The county comes down every spring, you know, over by the library.

[36:22] And so that's the question.

[36:27] Being a cyclist, I like the idea of spraying for go-hats because that's the only way that

[36:33] I know to really knock them back.

[36:36] And how many use the go-hats do I look before I'm caught in the corner?

[36:42] I mean as long as they're not, I mean if they've already gone to seed, then spraying them,

[36:47] I mean it would kill it, but it wouldn't.

[36:49] Right, so that's why right now it's kind of the idea to talk to them.

[36:52] Yeah, and if you're just popping up right now, then I say, yeah, I'll spray them.

[36:55] Yeah, I think I have to do spring.

[36:57] Yep.

[36:58] Okay, mindful spring.

[37:00] Yeah.

[37:04] Well, I'll chime in here.

[37:05] I think spring is a freaking waste of time and money and effort.

[37:10] I've been channeling my inner Ed Dobson for a long time

[37:15] and being a warrior on goads on my property.

[37:18] And there's no way you can spray unless you're spraying

[37:23] almost every week of the year for the summer and you're going to get co-heads like

[37:27] they come back every time there's any rain like we would have to have somebody

[37:32] out there literally every week all summer long if we wanted to catch

[37:36] co-heads and I should as heck don't want spray around my property around my dogs

[37:43] around the kids that play at my house and so I think it opens up a big can of

[37:47] worms, where you're both wasting money and time and causing potential effect on people's

[37:54] private property.

[37:56] I look for us to look into this further, but no town that I've ever lived in is the

[38:02] town responsible for that park strip out in front of your house or what ab you.

[38:10] Somehow you're expected that the town is going to take care of the weeds in front of your

[38:15] house.

[38:15] And I just think it's not likely that we can ever do a good job with that, and we would certainly need to pay our maintenance person a lot of money to be just going around town spraying all the time, which I'd much rather have them spend time and after doing something other than going after the goat heads that I don't think it's going to be successful spraying because you just have to be on it all the time.

[38:40] And I know it really sucks to do it because I'm out there in the heat all the time.

[38:46] I wish I could burn them, but we got a burn band in place, but it's just, it's not successful

[38:54] to spray one or two times, you'd have to be spraying all summer.

[38:59] And I just think the town is no way the town could take on keeping go heads off of people's

[39:04] properties they need to get to work in front of their houses.

[39:09] Maybe that's controversial to say, but am I up in any way?

[39:13] I mean, I agree with your point.

[39:15] I think we all fight the same battle at all of our houses.

[39:19] I mean, pulling out and removing them physically

[39:22] or when you can burn, burning them,

[39:25] when you can actually destroy the seeds.

[39:28] But I mean, I don't know, it's tough.

[39:31] Because this year we haven't had much moisture

[39:33] and a little bit that we've had.

[39:35] I mean, they're pretty opportunistic.

[39:37] they pop up as soon as there's any moisture. I mean, if it's really bad and no one's gonna get

[39:43] around to pulling it, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I definitely agree with your point. I'm like,

[39:48] we could spend a lot of money trying to control and with spray, but it continues going like it has

[39:56] this year without much moisture. I mean, we may, you know, one treatment might... I don't know. I just

[40:03] just you never know I mean we could spray it and it might kill all the new ones that

[40:07] have popped up right now but then you know maybe in two weeks we get another rain and

[40:12] then the next round comes up and then maybe rains again and we get another round so yeah

[40:18] I don't know it's co-heads are tough it's definitely it's seemingly never-ending problem

[40:30] I mean don't get me wrong I'd love for the talent to do whatever we can on goads like I'm

[40:34] of I hate those things.

[40:38] And those of us that are out there fighting all the time,

[40:42] I just think we're going to have to figure out

[40:45] something other that is prey.

[40:47] And I don't know, I guess it's like if it's

[40:50] a reasonable amount of money, it's a big precedent to set

[40:54] that we're going to go start spraying in front of people's

[40:56] houses and the people call up and be like, hey, come

[40:58] spraying in front of my house.

[41:00] And then I'm going to call up and say, don't

[41:01] bring in front of my house like I really don't want you getting you know that

[41:05] stuff in my garden in my house and you know around around my property and I just

[41:10] think it's a can of worms it's a pretty difficult can of worms.

[41:18] The only true way

[41:19] I've ever seen to get rid of goat heads and we did it in our pasture up north close

[41:26] to me. Yeah, because on my heads and knees out there the pasture well and if you pull

[41:31] one big plant one seed falls and you miss it. I tried to catch them all but yeah you

[41:35] You can then go back and get that one.

[41:38] Yeah, it wouldn't go.

[41:40] Maybe the town donates some funding to some genetic research

[41:44] where we can genetically modify the go-heads

[41:46] to not produce spiny seeds anymore.

[41:51] So I would be open to like what the county has done

[41:55] where it offers spray, like if a homeowner wants

[41:59] to do that at their property and we want to cover that,

[42:02] like I'd be okay, then people are popping in,

[42:04] they're doing the work and we're helping to facilitate. To me, that's different from us as a town

[42:10] paying our contractor to go around, which they're not going to be able to get everything. So

[42:15] maybe that's a good alternative, is that people are concerned on their property and they don't,

[42:20] you know, have access to do something with it, that we could support them in that way. And to me,

[42:26] that's a more reasonable kind of middle ground. What about areas where it's not, I mean, it might

[42:33] somebody's property but someone might not live there like someone probably owns the land but

[42:37] you know say someone's got a plot or there's not someone living their full time and you know

[42:42] weeds are just out of control and it's like affecting all the neighbors around like that's

[42:49] I mean I don't I don't think it's the town's possibility to fix their weed problem but just

[42:54] just think about it. It seems like that becomes start to get into like the light and you know what I mean?

[42:59] Yeah, I like kind of thing, but we haven't had to deal with any of this.

[43:02] Yeah, I've got it.

[43:03] Well, the county does have ordinances, for example, you know, saying that you have to take

[43:08] care of not just weeds on your property.

[43:11] The reality is, if you talk to Ed, you'll get a long sermon on this, but goads aren't actually

[43:17] on the not just weed list at the county level.

[43:23] So I don't know if we could, as a town, have our own weed ordinance that says, hey, you

[43:28] We have to kick her a weed and we do consider going to be a noxious weed.

[43:36] It's a complex issue there.

[43:38] I mean, with to your idea, we could do it similar to like the mosquito abatement stuff where

[43:44] we have, yeah, I mean, I don't hate that idea of just having some herbicide that people

[43:50] could pick up.

[43:52] I think that's a nice compromise.

[43:54] I might as I would like to add to that, we have a lot of town property that I think that if we could administer our town maintenance people to kind of focus on those areas, I know that along the old elementary school, the brick, whatever we're calling it these days, the go has can get quite, quite, quite bad and you know, I mean that's two pretty large size blocks along the roadway that we could take care of, certainly around this building and the grounds that are here around this area.

[44:24] around West Park, I think that if we could kind of make set an example of trying to take

[44:31] care of town properties and providing with chemical or whatever for private residents

[44:37] that I think that would be a nice gesture.

[44:41] I'm 100% on that.

[44:42] We should be living, you know, we should be showing and taking care of the town property

[44:48] and investing contract time, you know, from our contract means person to do that and totally

[44:53] make sense.

[44:55] So I'm very, very supportive of that as well.

[45:09] Any other discussion on this issue?

[45:16] I guess if not, then Michael and Aaron, maybe we can talk about internally how to kind of make sure and move forward with providing folks some access for the weeds gray and making sure that we're taking care of the town properties.

[45:28] We

[45:31] might be able to get the herbicide

[45:37] from the county.

[45:38] We'll make them die later this spring.

[45:44] You just pick it up from on there.

[45:46] Yeah.

[45:47] Can I ask one bit of clarification for item four?

[45:50] So due to the Sixth West concern, are we asking Michael to hold off until that is done?

[45:58] Or are you asking him to move forward with the rest of the project, not including Sixth West?

[46:03] What was the decision?

[46:04] I think move forward with the rest of the project and hold out.

[46:07] up, hold off on six left.

[46:09] Yeah.

[46:10] All of six left.

[46:11] So I have a very other street besides that one, correct?

[46:16] OK.

[46:16] All right, thank you for the question.

[46:17] My caveat on that is I think it'd be worth the conversation

[46:23] with the proper, you know, the involved proper owners.

[46:26] And if they're like, no, we don't want you to do that,

[46:28] then we just move forward without it.

[46:30] But if they are OK with us moving forward with it,

[46:33] I think that would be OK.

[46:34] Okay, so, and I'm happy to have that conversation if you're not, if you're not comfortable

[46:40] doing that, Michael, but I think it'd be worth while we're doing this project, at least

[46:45] to have that conversation, and if not, we just work on the rest of the project.

[46:52] And a quick search on the go-kits to eradicate, and they're looking like they can last in

[46:58] the soil for up to 10 years to see, and to get them you're gonna have to work five to six

[47:06] consecutive years to stop them in the best way is digging them up in the spring when the

[47:11] yellow thing forms and not till them in the ground because they had less to protect you.

[47:18] That's about to do in my house. I've for about five years of removing them, I've got them back

[47:23] significantly where I barely have any. Yeah. I'd like to see something like gopede days,

[47:29] so some like our burr days. You make like a festival a little bit and whoever brings them like the

[47:33] most go head that was cool yeah I want to see go head days that's a great idea

[47:40] a lot of that group that comes in in the spring yeah oh yeah that could be an

[47:45] AmeriCorps project yeah we should but yeah I think you make a big festival

[47:52] love it and then you know award a trophy and a you know most go heads pulled in a

[47:58] year on going. Yeah, on going. All right, we will, we will move forward. I'm all about the

[48:07] go day. That's a great idea. Yeah. Give us some competition. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Michael.

[48:16] Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Michael. Thank you, Michael. I can't remember what Danny Jocelyn did, but it was in,

[48:21] maybe it was in conjunction with the arts festival. I don't remember. Did you think that some kind of

[48:26] No, it was it was it was several years ago. No, no, no, it was a goat head

[48:32] competition and they just had to bring in, you know, yeah, it could have been

[48:41] important a year. I think it was more than a year ago, but yes, I think we're thinking

[48:47] of the same thing.

[48:50] I think it was a music festival or something

[48:54] that.

[49:01] Similarly, serious next agenda item. I wanted to gauge the council's thinking on

[49:10] this issue. So as you'll recall, we had a little bit of a briefing from Jeremy at the

[49:19] county on the proposed sales tax, 1% sales tax increase that would go to fund emergency medical

[49:26] services in the county and since then it has been formally put on the ballot by the

[49:35] county. I believe it's a proposition number seven is what it's going to be and so everybody's

[49:40] going to be voting on that this fall.

[49:46] Governments are not allowed to expend any money to support or

[49:50] proposed ballot propositions, but we are allowed to take a position, to essentially

[50:00] say we support or we oppose a ballot initiative as a formal position. There is no requirement

[50:11] that we do so, it's just a statement that we do so, but we could as a body to take a position

[50:19] on the validation.

[50:22] I personally am very strongly in favor of it because I think our EMS services in

[50:27] the county are really underfunded and we need to support our EMTs and do everything we can. And

[50:36] this is a way where as a very tax-craft county that raising property taxes is very difficult

[50:43] that the burden of EMS services would primarily fall on visitors.

[50:49] I understand that there are business owners that think that we can't just keep raising

[50:55] sales taxes indefinitely, but I personally think that most of our visitors are not going

[51:02] to choose to like drive up the more out where the sales taxes are going to be even higher

[51:06] or something like that, rather than staying in bluff, they're just going to pay the extra

[51:11] 1% sales taxable should have been a primary EMS.

[51:15] I know not everybody agrees with me on that.

[51:18] What I wanted to just gauge is whether or not

[51:21] the council feels like you would be beneficial for us

[51:24] to take a position on this issue if you'd rather stay out

[51:28] of it as a council.

[51:31] So I'm not putting this up for a formal vote tonight,

[51:34] but wanted to just see where people's thinking was at on this

[51:39] and see whether it's something we would want to think about voting on in the future

[51:44] or if there's not an appetite then you know we've got other things to do but I

[51:49] feel like it was at least worth a discussion. There are other municipalities and

[51:53] governments in the county that are going to be taking positions. My understanding

[51:58] largely in favor and wanted to see where the left sits at that so would welcome

[52:03] from any discussion from the council on what you think on that issue.

[52:08] I'll speak to that.

[52:10] I'm a business owner who collects sales tax.

[52:12] I was very impressed by Jeremy Hogard's presentation that he did with us.

[52:18] And the fact that he stated that 44% of our attract calls are tourist related at this point in time.

[52:24] And I think that's particularly true with the bluff EMS and the Southern EMS calls.

[52:30] I know we have lots of accidents on the highway.

[52:31] I know we have lots of things like that that are directly tourism related.

[52:36] I am in favor of the 1% sales tax for the EMS.

[52:42] I think it's a money well spent and it's a value that's given to all of our tourists.

[52:46] And I think that as a business owner, if I explain that this 1% sales tax increase goes directly to supporting EMS.

[52:54] And not some other idea that people aren't going to argue with that.

[52:58] people want ambulance service when they need it.

[53:03] Yeah, I'm all for it.

[53:07] Yeah, same.

[53:14] Here's the last one.

[53:15] No, I was looking it up just quick as I could.

[53:20] And

[53:35] does provide that, then we have to give equal time

[53:39] to those opposing it.

[53:41] So anybody opposing it has to come down.

[53:43] Right.

[53:44] Give them time to tell us why they pose it before we come out

[53:48] and make a brief statement saying,

[53:54] And I think that's fair.

[53:58] I think that's fair.

[53:59] I think it'd be good to go.

[54:03] Your right.

[54:04] My understanding, the way I read the laws,

[54:06] if we're going to take a position which I want to engage

[54:09] if you want to.

[54:10] We would want to put it on an agenda and then invite

[54:15] the public to come and make any oppositional statements.

[54:20] So,

[54:24] and I think that would cover our bases.

[54:28] We would want to make sure we do that in the meeting where we vote on it as make sure

[54:33] that we provide that opportunity and put it out there on the agenda that if anybody

[54:37] wants to come in opposition.

[54:39] Of course, we would also let people make public comments to that effect at any meeting as

[54:44] we always do as well.

[54:45] Do

[54:51] I basically read the room that you all would be comfortable with us making that make it to make any statement?

[54:57] Yeah, yeah, I think I think Gary's point is well taken, you know, I mean that

[55:04] That if there's anybody who is in opposition anybody in town, you know are our voting public or something

[55:10] I don't necessarily know that I want that input from outside of our voting public, but

[55:15] I don't know if there's any organization out there that's opposing it

[55:22] I haven't heard of anyone opposing it.

[55:25] Yeah, Gary, I think it's generally for, you know, those rules are generally for larger

[55:33] ballot initiatives where there's organized opposition, which I'm not aware of any organized

[55:38] opposition, but I think you're just put it out there in case there's opposition.

[55:42] We don't know of that we have that opportunity for them to come forward.

[55:47] I think if we knew of organized opposition, we would want to make a specific invite to

[55:51] those folks. And so I thought, you know, before we put this on an agenda for

[55:56] formal, though, I would reach out to Jeremy and just be like, hey, has any

[56:00] group come forward with a formal opposition that we would want to invite and see

[56:05] if he's heard of anything. But other than that, I think we could just put it on the

[56:09] agenda and they welcome and encourage people to come if they have opposition.

[56:13] I like that.

[56:17] Okay. Well, I appreciate you all giving some guidance on that. We'll

[56:20] probably agenda that for our next regular meeting in two weeks.

[56:23] Erin,

[56:31] just since my voice is running out do you mind going through the looking ahead

[56:34] and other items?

[56:36] Yes.

[56:37] So, upcoming things for September include discussion in the work session and hopefully a discussion

[56:44] about the full written policy for the employee benefits.

[56:49] We did receive multiple responses to our legal counsel RFP, which is exciting.

[56:56] So Josh and I will be delving into those, comparing them, reaching out for any clarifying

[57:01] questions, or if we don't already know who they are, reach out and just say hi.

[57:07] Hopefully we would have that ready for discussion and vote during the regular meeting and middle

[57:14] September.

[57:17] Josh is putting together the housing consultant to RFP for you all to look over and we can

[57:23] get that issued.

[57:24] And then as a reminder, planning and zoning has requested a joint meeting just to talk about zoning code and zoning code changes for September 15th.

[57:36] So those are the big ones. Any initial questions, concerns? I know we've got some folks out next week that any other items or sneak peek stuff that you need.

[57:53] And then of course we've got the emergency services coordinator role duties and items that we'll add to the work session next week

[57:59] So those of you who are out if you have any thoughts send those to me directly and I'll make sure those are part of the

[58:14] Ready all right here. No other items. We'll go ahead and consider us a terms. Thanks for putting up with me being on from the road and thanks to everybody for being there

[58:23] Yes, they've traveled yep. Thanks

[58:26] It is 459 pm and we're turning everything on.

[58:33] All right, so you can hit that over the paper.

Bluff Town Council Regular Meeting - September 1, 2026

Transcript