[0:00] When you're ready, let me know. Man, yes. Like multiple people were speaking. Including myself. Your webinar has started. Yeah. And it's going on to go live on YouTube, just a minute.

[0:27] And you're now live on YouTube as well. Okay. Thank you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our city council meeting on this Tuesday, August 4th.

[0:40] 2026 we've got a very important council meeting tonight it is a public

[0:49] hearing considering a proposed property tax property tax impact

[0:56] statement so gentlemen welcome to our city council meeting I shall

[1:01] 10th August 4th, 2026. We've got a very important council meeting tonight, that you're

[1:10] able to meet as a public hearing.

[1:16] That's causing a heart attack. So, so far so good.

[1:21] Okay. You have it on YouTube right now. I'll pull up my, just a double term.

[1:27] Okay, are we okay? Okay. Again, welcome to our regular city council meeting to the

[1:34] August 4th. Very important. Truth and taxation hearing this evening. So welcome everybody.

[1:40] I've got a couple things before we even start with our roll call. Just some rules,

[1:47] regulations that tell you what this meeting is all about. So let's hit that first.

[1:52] So bear with me. I'm going to be reading a little bit here so I don't miss anything.

[1:56] In accordance with Utah State Code, the city has taxing entity.

[1:59] must hold a public hearing and ensure that individuals can participate in the hearing either in person or through

[2:05] virtual means. Individuals can provide oral testimony through video or audio connections and have the opportunity to submit

[2:13] written comments electronically for inclusion into the public record.

[2:18] The city posted instructions on how to access this hearing if you are viewing our meeting on your YouTube page

[2:25] and would like to provide comment at this meeting,

[2:28] at this public hearing.

[2:29] Please visit our website or Facebook page

[2:33] for more instructions.

[2:35] The hearing when we get to that portion

[2:37] will proceed as follows.

[2:38] There will be an introduction to the item by staff.

[2:41] I will then open that public hearing.

[2:43] We will take public comment from those participants

[2:46] in the audience first.

[2:48] Then any oral comments of participants

[2:51] in the electronic meeting.

[2:52] If you would like to make oral comments on the webinar, please hit the raise hand icon

[2:59] on the lower bar of the Zoom meeting, and Tannen will unmute you when it is your turn to

[3:05] speak.

[3:06] Once the oral testimony is completed, any emails or written comments received will be read

[3:12] into the hearing by our recorder.

[3:15] After that, any written comments that were received during the hearing via the chat function

[3:20] on the Zoom link will be read. Please make sure to state your name in the comment before you begin

[3:27] your comment. Please make sure this is a public hearing to hear and consider comments concerning the

[3:35] proposed tax increase. Please keep your comments concise to allow for all those wishing to comment

[3:43] to be heard. As a public hearing, there will not be any back and forth discussion between council

[3:50] and participants. The hearing is to allow public comment, which the council will consider

[3:56] before having a final discussion and decision at our August 18th council meeting. So that

[4:06] covers about everything. Thank you, Amy, for putting that together for us.

[4:12] That takes care

[4:14] of all our state requirements and those statements, and I hope you all understand that.

[4:19] So thank you for being here. Let's get started. I don't number one on tonight's

[4:27] agenda. Amy, come to the microphone. Roll call please. Mayor Allen. Here.

[4:33] Council Member Davidson. Here. Council Member Distan. Here. Council Member Parkinson.

[4:37] Here. Council Member West. Here. Council Member Taz. Here. Okay. Thank you, Amy and thank you.

[4:42] We have every council member with us tonight at this very important meeting. Thank you very much.

[4:47] Item number two is Pledge of Allegiance. If you'll all rise, repeat the pledge with me please.

[4:55] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands,

[5:03] for one nation, among or other, individual with liberty and justice for all.

[5:12] Thank you very much for that Pledge of Allegiance. Again, I welcome all that are in the audience today on Facebook,

[5:20] work on YouTube channel. Wherever you're listening tonight, welcome. Welcome. I hope we have a good, good crowd out there on the internet. Again, welcome all of you.

[5:35] Let's go to our consent items. We have one consent items, 4.1 approval of tonight's agenda. Any changes to that agenda?

[5:43] No changes, Mayor. No changes, Council.

[5:47] Anybody opposed to approving the agenda for tonight?

[5:51] Seeing no opposition, we'll prove that by general consent. Thank you, Council. Thank you, staff.

[5:58] Let's move to item number five. The most important part of our meeting tonight is a special order.

[6:04] A special order is a public hearing.

[6:08] So we will go right into that public hearing, as I said before, this will begin, I will introduce the item.

[6:18] We will have a staff applicant or staff presentation.

[6:23] We'll have any questions by the City Council.

[6:27] We will open the public hearing and then we'll have citizen input, then I will close the public hearing portion

[6:35] and it'll go back to our City Council for final discussion.

[6:41] So at this time, we'll have a short presentation on the proposed property tax impact statement.

[6:49] Thank you, Mayor. In accordance with state regulations, I'll read now the property tax impact statement.

[6:57] Washington, Washington City, Utah, 2026 proposed property tax impact schedule.

[7:04] Washington City will consider an increase in its property tax rate from 0.001590 to 0.001697

[7:17] to generate an additional $98,100.

[7:20] dollars. The following information is intended to provide decision makers and the public with

[7:27] an explanation of how the city's operations would be affected if the proposed property tax

[7:33] increase is adopted. Washington Terrace City's 2026 Certified Property Tax Rate 0.001590

[7:44] The city's 2026 certified property tax revenue $1,458,777.

[8:00] Proposed property tax revenue with tax change $1,556,877.

[8:10] proposed property tax rate with change 0.001697 new property tax revenue to

[8:19] Washington Terrace City $98,100. Estimated increase to

[8:26] Washington Terrace property tax rate 6.7%. Estimated annual increase to primary

[8:34] The very residents of $430,699 is $25.33 annually estimated annual increase to businesses valued at $430,699 is $46.05.

[8:54] Affected department, police, proposed budget, $1,300,000, $314.00, budget without tax changed, $1,200,000, $2,214.00, budget changed, $98,100.00.

[9:14] The impact of tax increase to fund contractual increases for law enforcement services entered into with Weber County Sheriff's Office.

[9:27] Those postings are in two locations tonight, one along with the county record of information as well as our proposed property and ex-chedule.

[9:42] And thank you. And on the table, if anyone would like to pick up a printed version of that, thank you Amy.

[9:49] They're also available on our website and very, very easy to find.

[9:58] Thank you very much Tom.

[10:01] Sheree, do you like to add anything tonight? Finance director, okay?

[10:06] Thank you very much Sheree. I appreciate all your work on this along with Tom and department heads

[10:13] and a lot of people putting this budget together as always.

[10:17] So thank you for all of your hard work.

[10:19] Thank you for that presentation.

[10:21] This time we'll go into the, again, human poor presentation of the impact state, but

[10:27] there is a presentation to identify it.

[10:31] So I've got more to add.

[10:33] Okay.

[10:34] Okay.

[10:35] Okay.

[10:36] So where's the presentation for the proposed property tax impact statement?

[10:42] We'll go down to the 5.2 public hearing and we'll go I got to finish the presentation.

[10:49] I've got I've got more to do. I just read the state that I needed to read and then I

[10:56] go into the presentation. Okay, so, so, okay, so, forgive me, we're forgiven. Thank you.

[11:06] Okay. Okay, this evening for those of you who are here for the town hall

[11:12] meeting, you will find this very familiar. You met through those who may be online or

[11:18] not have been here from the town hall. This public hearing is for a tax increase of $20

[11:25] to $5.33 annually for $2.11 a month, for a home value of $430,699.

[11:36] dollars. Now taxes and tax revenue are based on the city determining what they need to

[11:42] operate a city. And in this case we are indicating that we need some more funding to take

[11:53] care of our contractual obligation for share of operations. But we need to understand where

[12:00] property tax comes from. And basically it comes from all of the residents, all of the businesses,

[12:05] is people in and around the city who own property.

[12:09] And in this case, property tax is divided based on just

[12:14] their share.

[12:16] Their share of the pie and what each home or each business

[12:20] or entity is required to bring to the table.

[12:28] Taxes are based on home value.

[12:31] It goes right down to the primary residence

[12:34] in this scenario, in this discussion.

[12:36] and we'll just kind of describe it as a primary resident.

[12:40] As a primary resident, those properties have a evaluation

[12:48] that you take the value of the home times at 0.5.5 to come

[12:55] up with the discount rate for property tax.

[12:58] Each property is then taxed accordingly.

[13:02] So in this slide, there's a slide here

[13:04] that shows that the whole value of the, you know, in the slide is a million dollars,

[13:12] the total property tax collected is $10,000 and so the city would then, based on what

[13:17] they need, receive $10,000. Now let's take a look at what happens if home values go up.

[13:26] So if all of those home values go up this next year, there are some who assume that property

[13:32] tax would also go on but by state statue we're not allowed to as a city or county or taxing

[13:41] entity be able to be able to benefit from the windfall of a rising market. We have an

[13:48] obligation to to come up with with the revenues that we need in another way so when somebody

[13:54] looks at my property value went up it may or may not mean you have a property tax increase

[14:00] but the pool stays the same. Our revenue has to stay the same at that $10,000 as shown on the slide.

[14:11] But what if some houses go up and some houses go down in value?

[14:18] The pool of $10,000 remains equal, remains level. But within that pool there are ups and downs.

[14:26] So, some people may have a property tax increase, well an increase in their requirement

[14:34] for taxes, but the actual increase in a mathematical formula didn't change.

[14:41] The city's pool has to remain the same at the $10,000, regardless of what's going on in

[14:48] the market.

[14:49] Yet, however, if a city needs to raise more money or to capture more for the, for the

[15:00] General fund operations of the city, we rely on a couple of options to be able to receive that revenue. One of them is new growth. If there's new homes that go into the neighborhoods, if there's new businesses, if there's any taxing entity or any taxing property that goes in, that new growth comes to help and support city operations. And we've been fortunate with some new growth. However, inflation

[15:29] and new growth is not keeping up with the requirements for the ongoing revenue requirements

[15:36] to help with sheriff operations. So we have another option that the state has made available

[15:41] which is Truth and Taxation and that's why we're here tonight. Truth and Taxation allows

[15:47] us to make the pie bigger and receive more funding through public noticing, public hearings

[15:55] disclosure of the percentage and the purpose of the TNT process and not tonight but at our

[16:03] next meeting, a council opportunity to vote on whether or not they would support the taxing proposal.

[16:12] So truth and taxation is what we're doing tonight, what we're going through.

[16:16] Now the impact, I know that we read this in the statement, but we want to make it

[16:21] abundantly clear. The current rate is 0.001590. The proposed rate is 0.001697. So there's a little

[16:31] change there of the 6.0 not rounded, 6.73. So it's 6.7. So there would be a modest increase,

[16:39] which means to the taxpayer, primary resident who receives the discount rate of $430,000, your annual

[16:48] annual increase would be $25.33.

[16:52] Based value of $436.99 for a business is $46.05

[16:57] because they don't receive the discount rate of the 55%.

[17:04] Taxable value then, $430,699 times 0.55 of your $236.

[17:13] just for a mathematical G.S.

[17:18] Where is it going? It's going to law enforcement.

[17:20] We have a contractual obligation to support law enforcement services for our contractor

[17:27] provider of Weaver County Sheriff.

[17:31] This obligation and this opportunity helps to support the increase in

[17:36] level of service, take care of recruitment and retention of which the Sheriff's Office

[17:42] and therefore we have been struggling with for a few years now.

[17:47] So this combined effort will actually increase the staffing level for all contract cities

[17:53] by ten personnel.

[17:55] The obligation for those opportunities will land on the new employees that are coming on and

[18:02] that have been able to be successfully recruited to support law enforcement services throughout the city.

[18:09] So, this is going directly to support officers, whether it's anything from investigations to the drone programs to enhance patrols and all of the areas that go into providing law enforcement.

[18:32] enforcement services, even when you, okay.

[18:38] So bottom line, it will increase from 98,000 to 98,000 total tax revenue that the city would be receiving for law enforcement to support that contractual obligation is 98,000, $100.

[18:55] Thank you. Now, that's all I have on the presentation.

[18:57] Okay, thank you Tom very much. Okay, so we have the introduction of our item. We have

[19:05] presentation of proposed tax impact statement. We also had a presentation from Tom explaining

[19:14] the reason for the tax increase. I appreciate that very much. At this time, I will turn it over

[19:21] to our city council and open it up for any questions by our city council.

[19:28] So Council has reviewed this many times, heard it many times and I don't know if there

[19:35] will be many questions at all, but that's not unusual.

[19:39] So, any questions, Council?

[19:41] Okay.

[19:43] You've heard enough of it.

[19:46] We start this back in November and we work on it, we work on it, we work on it, so it's

[19:52] very clear to this Council that we're doing.

[19:54] I think so. Thank you, Council Fall, and your hard work on this. Would you like me to read the impact statement again?

[20:00] No, let's take that as a note. How many times have we read that?

[20:05] It is very important. Tom, could you clarify one more time, the increase of 10 officers, that is not 10 officers to our city.

[20:13] That's 10 officers to the contract cities and how many cities is that?

[20:17] to all of the contract entities that are in that pool, so it'll add 10 officers in various assignments to that entire pool, which is Washington,

[20:31] in Terrace, West Haven, Far West, Plain City,

[20:37] unacorporated Weaver County,

[20:42] Hubbard, Ogden Valley City.

[20:45] I'm missing it.

[20:46] You went up.

[20:47] You went up?

[20:47] Thank you.

[20:49] And those cities, so all those cities share

[20:52] the combined resources that are available

[20:55] to come out and help us in an event.

[20:58] A good example of that event was our fire,

[21:00] where we had, essentially, all of the, we

[21:09] had the majority of the lion's share of all officers in Waver County in Washington Terrace that night, much greater presence than if we were to try to do it on our own.

[21:20] We had every available officer and we had officers from throughout the area.

[21:25] We had 98, excuse me, 48 law enforcement vehicles here for that fire event.

[21:34] And we had basically around the same four fire operation vehicles of 48 who come with people in those vehicles,

[21:43] whether it's a multiple or just one.

[21:45] So we had an amazing support for our fire and so this contract and staying with this contract with with Weber County is is in our best interest.

[21:56] Thank you for clarifying that we understand that it's 10 for the contract cities of the cities. Thank you.

[22:03] Okay.

[22:04] Okay. Thank you, Chair. All right. Let's move on then. At this time, ladies and

[22:10] gentlemen, we, I will turn it over to, I will open the public hearing portion. At

[22:19] this time, we would like to hear public comment from those participants that are

[22:24] in the audience first. Those that are made especially have to come. We'll ask them

[22:29] first if they would like to come forward. We actually come forward at least

[22:33] state your name and please no longer than three minutes, okay? Time is yours.

[22:45] It's Kathleen Kramer and I find it sad that more people don't come to public hearings

[22:54] and participate, but everyone I talk to, like it was pointless because they know what you'll do anyway.

[23:04] My question to you would be if you knew you needed the 98, however many thousand for the sheriff and I think they do an excellent job.

[23:17] Why would you vote to spend 30,000 on the flop cameras that we didn't need and we maybe could have put off?

[23:29] I don't understand how you budget that way, that is my comment.

[23:38] Thank you very much.

[23:41] Anybody else?

[23:44] Okay.

[23:45] Thank you, audience.

[23:46] Thank you for coming in person.

[23:49] That's how public hearings used to be.

[23:51] It was all in person.

[23:52] Now we open it up to the universe.

[23:55] It seems like.

[23:56] And so this is our first time really with all these new state requirements.

[23:59] So we're going to do our best.

[24:00] OK, now we're going to turn it over to any oral arguments of participants on the electronic meeting.

[24:06] If you would like to make oral comments on the webinar, please hit the raise and icon.

[24:15] And we will have our specialist watching for that.

[24:20] Anything.

[24:21] We currently have no one who's communicating they wish to speak.

[24:26] OK, that will put us in.

[24:28] We'll go from there, and we'll go to any emails or written comments received.

[24:36] We'll be read at this time.

[24:38] Okay, so Amy will read those that she has received today or okay.

[24:42] Great.

[24:43] So we received two.

[24:44] So the first one is from Trina Held, I'll just read the whole email and it'll be added to

[24:50] our minutes as part of the record.

[24:52] To serve them, I wish to state my opposition to the use of the proposed text, augmentation

[24:57] to fund increased policing.

[25:00] Investigation into city statistics indicates

[25:02] that the city currently experiences only about 10 crimes

[25:05] per year that require concerted police effort.

[25:09] With the current outlay of 1.2 million per annual,

[25:15] I believe law enforcement is more than sufficiently funded.

[25:18] They are doing a great job.

[25:20] There are many other public services in need of this money.

[25:23] Programs that are more urgent and I feel would be more

[25:26] beneficial to city residents. The proposed approximate 100,000 could keep the

[25:32] vitally needed senior center of float. It could pay for school lunches for our

[25:37] children. The money might be used to prepare fire breaks and increased fire

[25:41] fighter ranks to combat the currently very real fire dangers we are facing in

[25:46] these dry summer. In this dry summer, the list continues. Please be responsible

[25:51] of our city funds and choose to finance public services that are currently lagging.

[25:57] We are pleased very efficiently now. Please use any new money to actually increase

[26:02] the well-being of our residents. The current plan does not do that. Respectfully,

[26:07] train the health of Washington, Ontario, to our resident for 26 years.

[26:11] Okay. Thank you, Amy. Thank you, Theresa.

[26:14] Okay. The next email that I received is from Catherine Health and it says to whom it may concern.

[26:20] I vote no on the proposed tax increase.

[26:24] Washington Terrace is a peaceful and very safe city.

[26:27] 1.2 million per year is more than sufficient for policing requirements.

[26:31] The biggest threat curse currently facing Washington Terrace is wildfires, not crime.

[26:36] I believe those funds could be better used to fund our fire department.

[26:42] With the Adams fire taking the life of one of our elderly residents, the priority is clear.

[26:47] I would be admirable to this discussion in the future.

[26:51] However, now is not the time for increased policing.

[26:53] It is time to protect citizens against a very real and current threat in file fires,

[26:58] sincerely kept in health.

[27:00] All right.

[27:01] Thank you, Catherine.

[27:03] And thank you, Amy, for speaking on behalf of those two young ladies.

[27:08] Appreciate that.

[27:09] Okay, so you're not receiving the others.

[27:12] Okay.

[27:12] Okay. Now after any written comments, we'll receive written

[27:23] comments. Now we go to any

[27:24] written comments that we received during the hearing via the chat function on the Zoom

[27:29] link. We'll be read.

[27:31] We have received no written comments via the chat on Zoom.

[27:35] Okay. All right. Then we've taken care of those responsibilities. It brings us back

[27:41] to our audience here, if anybody would like to come up, okay? Great. Thank you.

[27:52] Hi, my name is Jerry Kennedy. I just want to say I don't really support this increase as

[27:58] similar to other residents. I think we could focus more on fire department and also modernization

[28:03] of our water and sewer systems. I think that would be a much better use of this tax money, but

[28:09] That is just my opinion. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Jerry

[28:14] Appreciate that anybody else

[28:18] Okay, we will now thank you very much

[28:23] We'll now close the public hearing portion of this of this public hearing the truth of taxation hearing

[28:29] We'll now give it back to the council for any final discussion council

[28:38] Thank you, Tom. I did a great job explaining that one more time. And the two comments that

[28:46] came in obviously that came before your presentation. To my understanding, the proposed tax

[28:55] increase is not to increase policing. It's to keep the policing we already have. It's just

[29:02] they increase their charge where 98k short that's the reason in general in

[29:11] simple words we're doing this tax increase not to increase police

[29:18] it actually adds

[29:19] 10 officers right but it's it's not our choice they gave us the quote and we

[29:25] have to meet that and we have if we want to keep their service yes but let's

[29:32] remember that we have to contribute 98,000 to that pool. Every other city may be doing

[29:38] the same thing in our pool, increasing to pay for those additional officers. So we're

[29:45] not the only one paying more this year for our contract. Every contract city is paying

[29:50] a little bit more because you're not going to get to new officers with $98,000. But when

[29:57] and you have 15 other communities.

[30:00] Contributing into that pool, then you can get those 10 officers for the pool. That's right. So, so we really are kind of increasing, but we are just continuing to keep up with our contract. Right. And our options are either to have our own police force, which cost about three to five million dollars. We go along and keep their service and, you know, meet their new quote or find another service provider.

[30:30] which we tried and I think we got one quote and that was like almost double we we got a quote for two million

[30:36] They said thank you very much, but no and then we got another quote from another city that said

[30:41] We're not gonna give you number and you have a good thing as it is and no, thank you

[30:46] And then another one we reached out to they said they did not prepare a quote for a response right?

[30:51] I just wanted to clarify that the last person who's in support of tax increase, but this is

[30:57] what we were coded, and at this point this is kind of our only option, only reasonable option.

[31:04] Good point.

[31:05] Yeah.

[31:06] That's a hard point.

[31:06] Thank you, Z.

[31:08] Councilor, who else?

[31:09] I'm going to just call in a punzy.

[31:11] I think it's fair to say that you've done your due diligence for us to explore all the options.

[31:18] And this is the most viable for our community and for the contract cities.

[31:22] Jeff,

[31:27] and in those comments we also had some recommendations that maybe funds were allocated

[31:32] to other things. We are not asking to increase taxes to augment any other services. There's

[31:42] only for the contract with our law enforcement. So we hear that, that yes, we, you know,

[31:51] the mentioned seniors and other public services and infrastructure and so forth, we are not

[31:58] raising taxes to do that. We are doing the best we can with the funds that we have, and

[32:06] we're in decent shape there. The city is not falling apart, the infrastructure.

[32:25] Okay.

[32:26] identify precisely what our truth and taxation cause an effect is.

[32:35] So this is the only item that is available or then identified as the recipient of the

[32:43] TNT process.

[32:44] So we actually have a structural requirement to state it, public announce it,

[32:56] publicly

[32:56] what we're doing. So we are bound by those requirements by statute to identify those specifically.

[33:06] Okay. Council thank you very much. Thank you very much. At this time I'd like to complete this

[33:14] special order and to remind people. Yes.

[33:22] Right. Okay. Oh, I have to be doing that section. Okay.

[33:27] Okay. Before I close that public hearing, you have to make one announcement. Yes.

[33:32] No action will be taken tonight on the final budget.

[33:36] Council will consider the public comments heard tonight.

[33:39] There will be a council meeting on August 18th at 6 p.m.

[33:43] Here at City Hall for a final discussion and decision on the final budget.

[33:49] Thank you.

[33:50] Okay, we got that in there.

[33:52] Okay, great.

[33:54] Okay, looks like I got a thumbs up from Amy, so looks like we covered everything.

[33:59] We need to cover, according to state mandates, and so we thank you all, we'll close this special order section, and

[34:10] Section five, and we'll go on to item number six. We'll entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting. Motion to adjourn.

[34:17] Well, second.

[34:18] Yeah, a motion to adjourn. All in favor say aye.

[34:21] Aye.

[34:21] Thank you very much.

[34:23] Appreciate you all. Council, thank you. Thank you for participating in the audience tonight.

[34:28] Thank you for coming over.

City Council Meeting

Transcript