Concerns on Bonding for Open Space

 Slow Down Your Speed

by Robin M Johnson

Several citizens expressed concern about borrowing money to buy open space in the Open Space Public Hearing on Wednesday, June 28. They also talked about other needs Midway can consider spending money on before bonding for open space.

Ron Lowry said, “We love Midway like everyone does and obviously the open space that we have and I consider valuable open space is the agricultural open space within our city. And I like what Steve (Ferrell) had to say about that and the county’s thinking.”

“I’m kind of a sensible person and I was listening to this tonight and the presentation. It reminded me of someone who’s found out they’ve lost their job, or the hotel tax, and we go out and buy a nice car with a mortgage on it and, is that sensible? I mean, personally I would never do that if I knew that I just lost my job. That’s all, we need to be sensible and not, I mean, if you drive up and down our streets maybe we need pavement more than we need new parks, and a few things like that. It’s just some thoughts. Thank you.”

Jacklyn Jackson said, “I’m here tonight for someone else who couldn’t come and so I’d like to read a letter that she wrote, it’s from Collette Broadhead.

Broadhead’s letter states: “Over the last few months there’s been a lot of talk about bonding for open space. Although I applaud these efforts and appreciate them, I am concerned about unintended consequences. Let me explain what I mean and I hope that my voice may not be drowned out over the hum and excitement.

“My husband and I moved to Midway 20 years ago. We both grew up in rural Utah. I over the hill in Francis and my husband down the street in Charleston. We picked Midway, believe it or not, because it was the most affordable and it allowed us to be close to where we both worked at the time, The Homestead Resort. At first I was not pleased to be living in Midway, it was too big and I did not know anybody. Over time this changed and I’m happy to say, when asked where I am from, that I’m from Midway, even though I still think it’s too big.

“Many years ago there was no Valais, Dutch Fields, Fox Den, and Sunburst, just to name a few. Everywhere experiences growth, even the small town we grew up in is bigger today than it was when we left 20 years ago. As long as people continue to have children we will have to accommodate growth. We are lucky in all of these subdivisions they are required to have open space with walking trails and the impact fees that allow the city to maintain some amazing parks. This is at the cost of those who want to move here. Midway City has done an excellent job foreseeing that impact and planning for it.

“What would have happened if 20 years ago we had requested a bond for open space? How many of you would have homes today in Midway? We are blessed with some amazing open space. We are surrounded by a National Park, three State Parks, multiple golf courses, and open space without development. And within development there are open spaces that are being maintained by entities that do not impact our property tax. The way I see it, that is how it should be.

“There’s a statement on the Pure Midway webpage that concerns me and I would like to address it. It says “General Obligation bonds require voter approval to increase property taxes in order to generate money for specific projects.” It is still largely getting a line of credit for a project and then making payments to a bank to pay back the money. When I get a line of credit for my household budget, it is usually as a last resort. I don’t believe we have exhausted all of the possibilities privately.

“I supported Bonanza Flats because I do believe we should have open space. I, however, got to decide what amount my household could contribute. When bonding, that decision is taken away from me and I don’t feel that’s the American way. I would love to attend the meeting tonight, but as we are struggling with cost of living in Midway and so I am going back to school to get my degree. I have class tonight that I could not miss. I wanted my voice and concerns to be heard. Please don’t force me out because some believe someone should provide them open space. The way I see it when I moved here we had open space and I believe we still do. Thanks for your time.”

Lyle Gertsch said, “I’ve lived in Midway most of my life, grew up here, and I’d like to go on record as being opposed to the bonding … I have three acres. I can look out my backyard and I’ve got open space, but I paid for it. I’m not in favor of paying for others open space (through bonding). Where would it be? Would it be on the east side? The west side? Where will it be, and that’s the question.

“We have open space. We have Snake Creek. How many people have never driven to the top of Snake Creek? I go up Faucett’s, I understand that that’s a county road, there are signs saying, private property, turn around, go back, no trespassing, and we haven’t done anything to maintain it, we’re so narrow minded about the city, what about the surrounding areas? … I know that’s county area, but we are the county, we are the county.”

“The last thing is on Pine Canyon Road, you know that it’s not a speedway. Do we need a police force instead of open space? We used to have Jay Clayburn as one police officer, but they would sit on Pine Canyon … between 7:00 in the morning and 7:00 at night to see that one third of the cars went by my house (were going) 50 miles an hour. Are there other things we need to do besides open space? There are more things that make it on the docket besides open space and we need to look at (those) before we look at bonding for open space. Thanks.”

Dana Byerly, “I have a lot of sympathy for people all over in this discussion, the developers, the people that are going to be taxed if we raise the property values, and if we raise the taxes and such, you know these things are hard. Running a city is not easy either. You guys lost a ton of money from the resort tax. You’ve got to have the things that the city needs.”

Byerly said he adamantly opposed to high density developments like C-4. 480 apartments bring in “at least 480 cars, probably more like 960.” The commercial part of C-4 would bring “an influx of people that don’t live in this valley permanently, they’re transients. Their love for the valley is limited.” Both of these would greatly impact traffic.

“Along with that, the high density, comes other obligations, like a police department to enforce the law, already we’ve heard comments about people speeding, heck just go down Center Street to about 500 South, they’re not doing 35 when they pass that, they’re doing 60, possibly even 70. My intersection, there’s a cop. He sits out there and he writes tickets and he says, ‘You can’t believe how fast people are going. This is what’s happening in our beautiful little city.”

 I like the comment about our blessing. Living here is a blessing. Well, living here and the blessing includes everything that we love about this valley. There’s got to be ways to do the things that we do, to preserve the sanctity of this spot that we call Midway. We need height limits. We need density limits. We need to move slowly to preserve what Midway is today and what it represents.

“I didn’t move here because I wanted to move to another potential Sandy. I moved here because you can’t breathe in Sandy anymore. Every day they say it’s a voluntary restriction, whose going to volunteer not to drive? Or have a Bar-be-que? Or burn this, or burn that? It just doesn’t happen. If we allow density in Midway to increase, this little valley is going to get polluted a lot faster than the Salt Lake Valley. These are things that I worry about having been there and done that.

“I really appreciate what Brad did with the demonstration and power point presentation on the bonding. … Everything costs money, you can’t just go somewhere and say I’m going to live here free. And if the city’s going to continue to maintain the infrastructure and everything else that goes along with this city, it costs money. So we have to come up with that money.

“ I’m not a rich man, I’m not well to do, but I am willing to pay extra tax to live here because I love this place, and I want to live here, and for the folks that are of means, I love the idea of having a pool (Pure Midway’s idea) that maybe folks that have lived here, and have lived here all their lives, and their kids are living here, and they have to move if they double their property tax, let the pool take care of it.

“There’s been so many good ideas, but the one thing that really impressed me the most tonight was the fact that the mayor said we can’t rush into this, we have to do it slowly, methodically, and intellectually. … I think now, we all have sympathy, and we all understand that this is a complex problem. But let’s not pave paradise and put up a parking lot. There’s other ways to do it.”

"Do it slowly, methodically, and intellectually." Dana Byerly  Photo credit: Slow Down,
by Elizabeth Lloyd, Flickr, link to photo, https://www.flickr.com/photos/lloydcrew/5297713284/

Bonner said, “Just one comment on the speeding when he talks about people driving and they’re going 70, take a look around, it’s all of us sitting in this room, we’re the drivers on those roads. So we all need to slow down. The ‘they’ is us, sitting here, okay, so everybody remember, tomorrow when you get in the car to check your speed before you go up the road.”

On a light note Randy Lundin said, “The open space thing with the farming I think the people the live here and drive here, they’re going too fast to enjoy any open space, they run over all the old deer, the wild animals, you know, they’re killing them right and left, and it is because of the speed. So there will be signs when you come into Midway that explain, slow down, look at the beauty, enjoy the beauty."

Bonner said, “Kind of like those old farm ones that they used to have when you drove along the highway and they’d have those funny little statements all the way along.”

Lundin said, “We need something, because texting is not rural, when you’re driving, the open space, you have a lot of open space that people can enjoy. On the speeding thing, I say slow down, save the animals, look at your open space you have, because you have a lot of it … with the state park right against you.”

Lundin turned to an infrastructure matter. “Your trails are all falling apart …  the asphalt has to be used or it falls apart within two or three years. I don’t know what the answer to that is but it’s possible that …  doing them like sidewalks, making the trail concrete, there’s got to be some kind of a compromise there because all the trails by my place will get tree roots real high in them, you know, you can’t walk on them. I know it’s more beautiful to go under a tree, but they don’t last, asphalt trails.”  

Byerly said, "Ma’am, I have a question about the speeding, who sets the speed limits on the roads?"

Bonner said, “My understanding of that is in Utah any residential community or area is limited to 25 mph. and that’s like statewide. Is that correct?”

 Van Wagoner said, “They do a traffic study, upon the traffic study it’s determined by how many cars, how close the residents are, and that helps determine the speed. The class of the road also helps determine the speed. If it’s a residential road it’s 25 mph, but if it’s a commuter road, then it increases. If the houses are spread out, 35 mph, then if it’s a main road like Highway 113 that goes to Heber and Charleston that can vary from 35 to 55 mph."

Van Wagoner said the state determines the speed through traffic studies on state highways. On city roads the state recommends a speed. “If it’s in the city and we want to change it from whatever the state recommendation is then we have to do a traffic study and we have to justify, and my experience with traffic studies, more times than not, they increase the speed."

Bonner said, “So you do run the risk that if you do a traffic study, it could increase the speed.”

Byerly asked about the law enforcement of the speed limit.

Van Wagoner said, “I worked for thirty two years for the sheriff’s department, I was the sheriff for twelve of that thirty two years. When I first started our average call rate was ten percent of our time we spent on handling calls. When I retired seven years ago 90 percent of our time was handling calls. And it increased that much, so ten percent of our time was spent enforcing traffic.

“Without increasing the tax burden and everything to hire more officers, you handle the calls that take priority to traffic. Midway City chose several years ago to contract with the Wasatch County; they basically pay the salary of one officer. They used to have their own, but their own officer could only work forty hours a week without getting into overtime. So, by having the county doing it they had twenty four hour coverage, not necessarily an officer here, but they had access to law enforcement coverage twenty four hours a day.

“Now, Midway City, if they want to increase and double their law enforcement budget, they can have a second officer, or eventually they could get up to where they had their own. It’s very, very costly to have your own police department. I will tell you that. Your insurance alone is over $100,000. Then you have to have a judge, then you have to have a vehicle, you have to provide body armor, you have to provide a weapon, you have to provide training, and so it gets very, very costly.

Bonner said Midway could contract for another officer but the budget would need to be raised.

Van Wagoner said part of that contract between Midway and Wasatch County Sherriff’s office is that all fines and forfeitures go to the county.

Bonner said, “We don’t get any of the revenue that comes from a speeding ticket.”

Gertsch said he sees the deputies drive around, but they don’t park to monitor traffic and he would like to see that.

Van Wagoner said, "My last year I wrote 398 citations in Midway, out of 1300 citations I wrote for the year … When we had a petition on River Road … about the speed, eleven out of the twenty two people that signed it we wrote tickets to … the mayor made a good point, we all need to slow down. We need to teach our kids to slow down."

Bonner said, “And encourage your neighbors to slow down.”

Van Wagoner said, “I’d be very much in favor of hiring additional officers for the city if we had the revenue.”

Bonner said, “We will eventually have to do that.”

Van Wagoner said, “It is expensive, an officer is not cheap; time you pay their retirement, time you pay their wages, the vehicles, the gas.”

In summary items these citizens would like considered are: Is it wise to go into debt when you lose the Resort Communities tax? What would have happened if we had bonded for open space twenty or more years ago? How many of you would be here?

Other considerations include: Getting a line of credit for a project to pay back the bank in a household budget is usually a last resort; to find open space funding we haven’t exhausted all the private sources yet. Please don’t force some out because others believe they should pay for their open space, let paying for open space be a choice. Those who want open space can buy their own and maintain it. We have open space all around us in the county and in the state park. A fund or pool to help those who cannot afford increased property taxes. We need to move slowly to preserve what Midway is today and what it represents. We can’t rush into this; we need to do it slowly, methodically, and intellectually.

City needs brought up by citizens that might need attention before open space were: If you drive up and down our streets maybe we need pavement more than we need new parks. Everything costs money; we need to find revenue for more traffic control in Midway, to help the city maintain the infrastructure such as roads, water, and sewer, and to fix the deteriorating asphalt trails that don’t get used because they are falling apart and tree roots are growing through them. Finally, slowing down while driving to avoid further law enforcement costs.