The Town of Mantua Town Council Minutes

The Town of Mantua Town Council Minutes

Held on November 3, 2016

At 6:30 at Town Hall

Council Members in attendance: Mayor Mike Johnson, Margo Miles, Brett Kearl, Mike Christiansen, Nathan Blaine and Jan Palmer-Recorder

Audience in attendance: Lynn Wood, Jill Donahue, Cindy Bach, Brenda Dixon, Harper and Janis Johnson

Presentation of Audit for 2015-2016: LynnWood and Jill Donahue from Woods-Richards presented the audit for 2015-2016 to the Council. Lynn introduced himself and said that Ryan Child our auditor had another audit so Lynn offered to help him by presenting this audit to us with Jill. They didn’t have any problems to report in doing the audit. Jill reported the Town is in a very good position. Lynn Wood will go over the findings and recommendations that Ryan Child had. He said Ryan had met with the Mayor and staff and gone over all the findings and recommendations and he was very pleased with the response from the Mayor and staff. He is very optimistic about the new accounting clerk being successful. He believes most of the findings and recommendations will be resolved this year. He feels the financials are quite good this year. The Town Council and Staff will see that these items are implemented soon.

Renting out Town Hall for events and parties: The Mayor reported we had a request to rent out Town Hall for a family Christmas party. Janis said our Court and Town records are stored in the closets here and they are not secured at this time. She feels we would need to secure or move those items. The Mayor would like to see about getting locks on the closets. Harper explained he can do that but we need to remember the Town doesn’t even hold their parties here due to food being served and the floors have carpet on them. There would have to be cleaning deposits in place to cover any damage. We have a lot of equipment in the Council room that couldn’t be moved. Margo feels there are other places they can rent for parties she doesn’t think this building was designed to hold parties here. She does agree we should have locks put on the closets regardless. The Mayor thinks it is a bad precedence to set and the Council agreed. The Town Hall will not be rented out for parties.

Automated payments for Water Bills: Nathan had some different options to make it easier for residents to pay their bills. The service will cost the Town money a two to three percent fee. So he would like to potentially offer this as a free service since it will save time. The way he thought we could do it is to use the QuickBooks so it would just download into our QuickBooks program. He wants it all hosted on an external server so there is no passing of information. Brenda has worked with PayPal in the past. Nathan had some different options which all charge varying fees. He thinks this will save Brenda some time because it would automatically integrate into Brenda’s QuickBooks account and she wouldn’t be invoicing things manually. He would like to offer it as a free service since it will save so much time. Janis said the auditor gave us the name of a service that other cities were using. Nathan said that some of the services offered statements by mail also monthly statements would be available so the residents can log in and see their status on their account. The Mayor is concerned whether this would be more work for the staff. Whatever we do we need to lessen their burden not give them more work they are already maxed out on their hours. He thinks it will make it less burden on the staff. Nathan feels it may cut back on late fees if residents have the choice to use a credit card to pay for their Town Bill. Janis will talk to Brenda and decided what will work for the staff.

Park Impact Fees: Mike C. wants to move forward as a town to establish a park impact fee study. So we have engaged a firm that will help us put that together. We will start that within the next couple of weeks.

Motion to move forward as a Town with a Park Impact Fee Analysis

Motion: Mike Christiansen

Second: Margo Miles

All in favor motion passes

Ordinance to change water impact fees for ½-acre parcels only: The Mayor explained there have been several people who have wanted to change their impact fees from 1-acre parcels to ½-acre parcels. To simplify this we have an ordinance the Mayor would like the Council to look at, that makes it possible to only purchase a ½-acre connection with enhanceable fines if they water more ground than that. Nathan asked are we only going to allow residents to water ½ acre of land. Harper explained that Bill has some lots that are larger than ½ acre so they will have to turn in a landscape plan to show no more than ½ acre of land will be watered. Where we have such a limited source of water we need to do everything we can to make sure it is used properly. Nathan thinks this infringes on people’s liberties on what they do with their land. The Mayor doesn’t think the town is in a position to allow someone to put in 5 acres of grass because they own 5 acres of land. Even if they are independently wealthy and can afford it, doesn’t mean the town can allow that to happen we do have limited water sources. Harper explained we have to have a conservation plan filed with the state. You have to show you are doing everything in your power to use your resources in a responsible manner. Brett likes going this route he understands Nathans concerns with limiting people but at the same time engineering studies are based on equivalent residential connections. This is based on an average connection. Harper explained if someone wants to put in 1-1/2 acres of grass we can’t count that against our ERC’s because they are based on a ½-acre building lot. Nathan asked if our water study was done correctly. Brett explained there are rules and regulations you have to base the study on. Mike C. would like to look at the old ordinance. Anytime we talk about restricting residents more he would to step back and see what the payoff of protecting community verses rights of a few individuals are. The Mayor said we will look at it at our next meeting then.

SBA Cell Tower Lease: The Mayor explained that we have 3 cell phone companies that rent space from us on the hill. We have a company that would like to give us a lump sum or structure some payments for that site. They say that SBA can create a perpetual communications easement over the land that is currently being leased for their tower site so the Town of Mantua could receive a lump sum of $142,000 today but continue to own the land. This is different than other offers we have received. The Mayor explained we don’t know what the future holds if someone goes out of business then we don’t receive that money. He would be favorable to the first option of them giving us this lump sum but still owning the land. The Mayor would suggest we wait one more week and get more figures on this. Margo pointed out they keep addressing the School District in the proposal so might probably need them to send us something that addresses the Town of Mantua.

Policy on Open and Closed Meetings: The Mayor asked Margo to look over the policy and come up with one for the Town of Mantua.

Construction Deposit for Debris in the Cobblestone Waterways: Harper explained in the developments the homeowners are responsible to maintain the waterways. The problem we are having is the construction workers come in and leave a mess in the Cobblestone Waterways for the homeowners to clean up. Maybe we could come up with a larger construction deposit than $500. Harper isn’t even sure the construction deposit takes into consideration the waterway we might need to relook at the construction deposit. Harper suggested we put together a packet for both the homeowner and the contractor so they are better informed when they build a home. We could put a note in the packet that states this packet covers the main questions asked by homeowners but if you have additional questions or are working on city right-of-ways contact the city for more information. Mike C. thinks we need a timeline for homeowners that so many days after occupancy the waterway needs to be cleaned up or the city will clean it up for you and you will lose your construction deposit. Brett thinks the construction deposit needs to cover other things because some people don’t have contractors build their home and the waterways need to be covered in that deposit. He thinks the construction deposit needs to be more encompassing because there are other issues like a dumpster being dropped on a city street, debris going into other yards etc. we need teeth in there to say this will be coming out of your deposit. It has to be there for whoever owns the property. We rely on the County Building Inspector to come in and say whether the building meets code, but we are not stopping anything on our end saying did it meet our Land Use Code. There are other inspections that need to be done other than just setback inspections. Harper thinks we should put something into place that says what that construction deposit consists of. Brett says that prior to occupancy the county should check with us to make sure all our inspections are taken care of also. We do need to increase it so it covers the costs the city may incur. Harper thinks the Planning and Zoning could come with something and then present it to the Council for approval.

Departments:

Fire Department: Mike C. reported the Halloween Bash went well they served hot dogs until eight o’clock that night. The Mayor wanted to thank the Fire Department for doing the Halloween Bash it is a nice tradition.

Maintenance: Harper got the oversized speed limit signs ordered for Willard Peak Road. He hopes to have them up in the next few weeks. He also emailed our attorney on the Spiers property so he thinks we will have a proposal going back to his attorney within the next couple of days. Mike C. asked if all the fire hydrants got fixed. Harper said they were here yesterday and they should be finished by the first of next week.

Court: Janis gave the Judge the monthly report and he implemented the new transactions reports that the auditors requested and dated and signed them. So the court is in compliance with the recommendations from the auditors.

Celebrations: Nathan will be moving forward on the two Christmas Celebrations. He will get hold of Gardner or Bryce Jeppsen to see if they are still going to be in charge of the program and Santa on Christmas Day. Since Christmas falls on Sunday this year the party will be held on Monday. We need to make sure Gardner will order the candy for the Christmas Day party. Santa coming to town will be held at the Town Bowery this year, Nathan will need to line up Santa, order Cinnamon Twists and make sure we have plenty of cups and napkins.

Law Enforcement: Shane Zilles is working out real well.

Water: Harper thinks the property deal with Dennis Spiers is positive, he has an option to purchase three water connections if he chooses.

No Public Comment

Motion to approve the Council and Closed Meetings held on October 20, 2016

Motion: Margo Miles

Second: Brett Kearl

All in favor motion passes

Motion to pay the bills

Motion: Mike Christiansen

Second: Brett Kearl

All in favor motion passes

Council Comments

Nathan thinks this is a great Town, he knows he wasn’t here a lot last month he had to have surgery but he appreciates all that everyone does.

The Mayor said Brigham City sent us a letter saying that they are looking at their options. Margo would just like us to keep in mind all the trucks we will have coming and going.

The Mayor would like to have the Council do the online training through Leagues of Cities and Towns.

He would like Margo to put in the Policy for Closed and Open Meetings something about attendance. He knows that the Planning and Zoning have a regulation that you can’t miss any more meetings than 1 per quarter.

Motion to adjourn

Motion: Brett Kearl

Second: Mike Christiansen

All in favor motion passes

Adjourned 8:45 p.m.

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