eye on Water & New appointments
by Lori cole
Photo by Lori Cole of a now familiar image; however, the flag was missing
The new Mayor hustled things right along at the January 7 City Council meeting, getting right down to business and wrapping up in about an hour and 7 minutes. I hope this efficiency and time-consciousness continues.
Department Reports
Ash Creek Special Services District
There will be a ribbon cutting ceremony on Feb. 2nd at the new water treatment plant in Confluence Park. For the next 3 weeks, they are conducting a “Clean Water Commissioning” by running clean water through the facility to make sure everything functions properly before beginning to use the facility to treat sewer water on Feb. 4th or 5th.
Hurricane Valley Fire District
Battalion Chief Rob Hooper - They are keeping an eye on Utah’s HB48 Wildfire Urban Interface Modifications Bill. Otherwise, December was a slow month with only 6 calls in Toquerville.
I looked up Utah HB48, which passed. Skimming the information and adjacent news articles, it appeared to indicate we should expect higher fees (and insurance rates of course) for those who find their address listed in the high wildfire danger locations. Out of curiosity, I looked up my own address in town. (Check website at this location)
Apparently, my risk is “high” despite living in a neighborhood with few trees, virtually no lawns, and lots of pavement. This is the kind of environment that a regular citizen might otherwise consider NOT to be a wildfire risk. I get it. Helping citizens see how they can mitigate fire risk is prudent, but charging property owners extra fees we can ill afford AND giving insurance companies more justification to cancel residential fire coverage because we live in some arbitrarily chosen “high risk” area is just scary. Clearly, I need to delve into this deeper because I would never have guessed paved roads and lack of trees and brush could lend itself to a “high risk” designation. I look forward to learning how this new system will benefit the citizens of Toquerville.
Assistant City Manager Darrin LeFevre
Reported that the City is meeting with UDOT to wrap up the final steps regarding the Toquerville Parkway Project. Some signage changes are still needed. He also mentioned they were still waiting for TDS to remove the wire that hangs over the cut.
Boulder Ridge Project – paving is on hold due to low outside temperatures.
Reservoir – The liner is down and the Toquerville Reservoir project continues.
IME Automations complex – The concrete walls are going up.
City Manager Ben Billingsly
Last day of leaf pickup is this Tuesday Jan 13th for Cholla & South, and Wednesday Jan 14th for everyone North of Cholla.
Financial Statements:
Ben wanted to let us know that our city financial auditor (in addition to the city auditors of other local cities) has not filed our city financial report with the State Auditor’s Office. The reports are due by Dec 31st each year, but just prior to the end of 2025 the State Auditor issued a “Draft Auditor Alert” requiring input from the cities regarding Public Infrastructure District (PID) reporting. Toquerville and other cities have provided the information, but the State Auditor has not issued a decision about how the PIDs are to be reported. Our city financial auditor is not issuing financial statements until they hear what the State Auditor expects. Bottom line: Our financial statements are complete except for the PID reporting and will be filed as soon as they receive notice from the State Auditor.
No citizen input this meeting
Business items
1. Water Leak Communication
Hannah Bolling, Deputy Treasurer– Provided information about the smart water meters, encouraging everyone to download the free “Eye On Water” application and use it to monitor their own water usage and stay alert for water leaks. Since October, the city has been using a new messaging system to notify citizens when the water system detects a 10 gallon per hour leak from their meter. There was some discussion among city council members about potentially notifying citizens when a leak is smaller than 10 gallons per hour, since we all benefit from conserving water and stopping water leaks as soon as possible.
There is a Leak Relief Program for users who have had a leak of 10k gallons of water per month or more: AFTER the leak has been fixed, you can apply to the program and potentially receive 2 months credited back to your account.
Sign up for “Eye on Water” so you can be notified early when you have a leak and get it fixed.
2. Non-Irrigation Use
User Water Policy – Historically, the city water policy for users who do not have ability to connect to the Toquerville Secondary Water System have been asked to pay an upfront, yearly fee to the city to receive a discounted rate on their water during heavy irrigation months of the year. It was also mentioned that although the spirit of the 2021 and 2024 resolutions intended the fee to be voluntary, the way it was written appeared to make the fee mandatory for anyone not connected to secondary water. The up-front fee has been around $600.00 with notices arriving in residents’ mailboxes in January each year.
This is coming up now because it is time for those notices to go out, but an evaluation of the program has shown that it is no longer providing a benefit to more than a few users. If the plan was going to be continued, the city wanted to clarify the language to make it clear that the program was a voluntary “opt-in” program.
City Manager asked the City Council to decide how they wanted to proceed and this included a discussion of whether the program should be scrapped altogether. Since so few were benefitting from the program, a motion to do away with it was made and it passed. Approved: Resolution eliminating the seasonal expanded culinary water base rate user without secondary user service.
3. Zions Bank Signatory Update
This dealt with adding signatures of new city officials to the bank paperwork. Passed.
Items 4-12 are appointments
4. Mayor Pro Tempore 26-27
Joey Campbell is nominated, accepts, passed.
5. Washington County Solid Waste Representative
Councilwoman Valerie Presslar nominated, accepts, passes.
6. Ash Creek Special Services District Representative
Joey Campbell has been and will continue to represent the city, along with new Mayor Catlin.
7. SW Mosquito Abatement
Todd Sands to continue representing the city.
8. Hurricane Valley Fire District Representative
Councilman Todd Sands nominated, accepted, passed.
9. Mayoral Appointments
Motion to approve all mayoral appointments, passed
10. Planning Commissioner
4-year term – Glen Leavitt nominated, accepted, passed
11. Planning commissioner 1-yr term
Mila Ellingson nominated, accepted, passed
12. Planning commissoner 1st alternate
Mark Welker nominated for 4 yr term – passed.
13. Strategic Planning Process
(City Manager Ben) Budgeting and strategy sessions coming up. (You can access this on city website under “Government” tab to access the strategic plan). Ben requested feedback from council on the format, location, and date/time of the meetings. They decided the first strategy session would be held on January 28th and that this year they were going to add a meeting where the public would be able to provide input into the process.
When a city asks for public input, that can be a really good thing. Let’s be ready to provide them with input!
The council meeting wrapped up after about 1 hr. 7 minutes which was excellent. It seems like there was very little wasted time and that is a good thing in my humble opinion.