Creating a Toolbox for Open Space Preservation

The Council Speaks

by Robin M Johnson

Colleen Bonner, mayor, closed the public hearing held Wednesday, June 28, and turned time for comment over to the city council. Councilman Karl Dodge was excused from the meeting. 

Bonner said, "I think we’re good, tonight, for the public comment time. We will have other opportunities for the public to voice their opinions. I appreciate the turn out tonight. I appreciate the comments that were made, the well thought out things that we’ve heard; a lot of good information for us as a council to go back and to make some decisions. Does the council have any comment?"

Bob Probst, council member, said, "I’ve heard a lot of good comments tonight, but two that stuck out in my mind was Lyle Gertsch and Randy Lundin. (Both spoke on open space.) If you really stop and think about it, we are literally surrounded by open space in this valley. You don’t have to go very far in any direction to find more open space than you can possibly use. You got the river, you got two golf courses, you got the mountains, you really don’t have to go to far. 

"How much open space do you want, really? What is the requirement if you can’t go out of your house and look out the back door and see something, you gotta get on a bike, go on get in your car, drive up and get on a walk. There’s a trail that goes clear around the lake clear to the dam. I mean, there’s open space, galore. And I don’t know that putting a big tax burden on the majority of the citizens for the convenience of a few is quite fair. We live in a place where there’s just endless open space around us, you have to make a little effort to get out and see it. You gotta do more than just look out your window."

"A bond may seem like a good idea, but it’s a long term burden to your taxes, and you’re going to see more bond issues coming up for schools. I think in the not to distant future. How much taxes do we want?"

Lisa Christian, council member, said, "And Midway Elementary is the oldest and so we are going to be affected next."

Probst said, "You’re going to see another High School, I believe, in the next few years."

Bonner said, "I’ve heard talk about that already.{

Probst said, "There’s tax increases  just around the corner beyond what we’re talking about. So I’d say, get out, make a little effort to go see the open spaces around us."

Bonner said, "But I think we’ve been given some good comments to create tool boxes of other ways, of maybe not having to bond, but to be able to, like you say, preserve some of that, maybe in our entry corridors, and different things like that."

Probst said, "I’m a farmer, I like to preserve farmers as much as anybody. Maybe some easements are the right thing, but one thing that might work better than anything is to go back and, I think we really need to look at the density. Reduce the density and certainly the height of the buildings. Something’s going to be built there, sooner or later, we don’t know when or what, but we need to try and make sure it’s the right thing.  Down here."

Bonner asked, "Are you talking about the C-4?"

Probst said, "That's the big issue ... there’s no doubt that someday, at some point, someone’s going to do something with that property. You know, they have property rights like the next guy does. So, I’m not completely sold on the bond idea. But there’s more open space than you can literally shake a stick at. You don’t have to go far to find it."

Kent Kohler, council member, said, "I just have a couple of thoughts. It’s a delicate issue, especially when you talk about property rights, land owners. I’m more ... interested in Pure Midway, for example, if you’ve gone out and you’ve talked to folks. I’m interested in what the Lundins have to say, I mean, I’m interested in what the Probst’s have to say, the Kelly’s have to say, the Van Wagoner’s have to say, the Kohler’s have to say, because they’re the ones still, the majority of our open space that we are talking about. They’re still doing the farming on it."

"When you talk about having a charette, I’m all for that, but I think we need to involve the property owners in this discussion, because they’re the ones that have the open space that we covet at this point. Well if there’s some kind of an incentive, which we’ve come up with the rural preservation,  I know we have an application, I think it’s two of them, I think that’s a great way to help preserve some of this open space. 

"I applaud Steve Ferrell (county councilman) because he’s keeping his piece of ground, he’s farming it, that’s what we’d love to see. Gosh, those of us that have been here for our lives, you know, when we had the small little dairy, Steve had a small little dairy, Bob did, most of the farmers around had these little small dairies. Grant has continued to keep his which is the last one here. But those days are gone. I applaud Grant and I hope he can keep in business, he had to do the cheese and the milk factory to keep the farming alive."

One of Midway's barns still in use today. Photo: (c) Robin M Johnson Taken June 2011

Christian, who is also Grant's sister, said, "Well, and I hope all of you out here, and I’m going to just say in this room, if they get manure on the road, don’t complain, think how grateful we are that he’s here. Don’t call and complain. He’s doing his best."

Bonner said, "It's organic fertilizer."

Kohler added, "It’s the smell of money."

Kohler continued his comments, "The bonding, it’s …, I think we can, hopefully we can use some other methods. We do, someone said we have a lot of means, maybe it was Lyle that said this. A lot of means, we’ve got a lot of money in the valley now. Geez, when I was (growing up) here there was no building going on. Somebody built a house, it was a rarity. We didn’t have people moving in here in the 70’s and the 80’s. Matter of fact our population decreased, I think, in the 70’s. They weren’t here. 

"Now we’re here, we’re building 20,000 square foot homes; I see 25,000 square foot homes in Midway. I never would have thought that. To me, growing up here, I’m like what the heck; if you built a 3,000 square foot home you were doing pretty good. But we do have a lot of means, I think we can get, hopefully we can get, somebody will pony up. I say man up, pony up. Maybe put in a fund and help preserve some of this open space.

"I was talking to George Hansen at the store the other day. He asked me what are the big issues going on in the city, I says well, you’ve heard about the C-4, who knows where that’s going to end up, I said, but we got a meeting Wednesday on bonding for open space. George said, 'Well, I hope you’re going to look at your corridors, your mountain areas, that’s the place you need to focus on.' I’m like, exactly, that’s where you look up to see the open space. I think that’s what we need to focus on, and we’ll talk more about this, I could ramble on. It’s a big issue, and I think we’ll take some time like you said. We’ll pick through it. We don’t make hasty decisions. I know we've been accused of it, but we won’t. I think we’ll take our time, work with the county and work with some other issues and we’ll get it right."

Bonner said, "Yeah, we’ll get it right, that’s what we want to do, we want to get it right when we do it."

Van Wagoner said, "I’ll keep mine short. I’m one of them farmers, also. But unfortunately, because of the growth, the biggest share of my farm was taken by the sewer district so that we could expand the sewer ponds so that the rest of the people that live here now can live in this valley. I still lease quite a bit of property, and I still run cattle. I have mother cows and I love open space. But sometimes our open space comes as a cost to others. Keep that in mind.

"You know I’ve heard a lot of comments about developments and that, I probably would like to make a lot of comments, too. But I have learned that I don’t all the property, I don’t have all of the answers. One thing I think we need to do is I think we need to explore some possibilities. I met with a developer today, and we’re talking about doing an exchange on his development for open space to where almost half of the development will be open space. Whether it will pan out or not, I don’t know. But we’re working on it. 

"I think we all have the same goal.We want to see a rural Midway. I think that we all want to have the luxuries of walking out of our backyard and look up and see the mountains. Bob had a good point. I can get on my Razor, and within two or three minutes I’m in the mountains and I don’t have a soul around me. And I got all the open space that I need, but I still would like to have open space in town.

"We've got to be conscientious about our developments. I think that our density in some areas is to great, I would love to see us back off. A good comment was the wetlands being used as part of the development, I don’t agree with that. I think that that shouldn’t be part of their open space, shouldn’t count. 

'I think that we need to get a committee together and explore opportunities or options. I think that we would be making a great mistake if we thought we could get it on the ballot this fall. I think that if we’re going to do it, let’s do it right, let’s do some studies, let’s look at other areas, and not necessarily Park City. You know, I can’t say that I’ve been impressed with Park City open space and the way they’ve done it, because most of their open space, or a lot of their open space doesn’t have animals. What I’m hearing from you, we like to see the cows. We like to see the horses. We like to see the trails. 

"A good comment was brought up by Mr. Lundin. The trails are in dire need. Once we get all the trails that are planned for Midway the estimated cost for maintenance is $250,000 a year. So we need to start coming up with either a better way of making trails, I have some ideas, I just got back from Europe and I seen some trails over there that I like and I’m going to propose them during this moratorium to the council and see if it’s something they might be interested in. So I think we got a long ways to go, I think we need to get a committee together, we need to look at ways that we can come up with money and not rush into it."

Christian said, "I think tonight was very good, and I think that the biggest thing that we need to do is all work together. I just have to say there’s a fine line, because many of you who stood up tonight live on my farm. All of the people in the Dutch Fields, I cried the day they dug those holes, I hate it, but you’re all here. And those people who have the open space, whose families have been here as long as I have, have kept that open space and it’s been nice for all of us and now we can’t penalize them because they didn’t develop … before, before we came up with trying to keep it all open. So we have to be careful. 

"I really feel strongly, not that we can’t keep it open, but we also have to work with them and they have to be able to have some say because they have those rights, and their families worked that land and, it’s like Kent said, a lot of them had farms there, a lot of them, there were farms on those open spaces that worked hard, and those families worked hard, and I’ll tell you right now, the Dutch Fields is paying for my mom to be taken care of, and those people need to have that same right. So I live it a little differently than most, because I’ve watched that, and I love so many people in the Dutch Fields, love them, glad you’re here. And I have great friends there. Which one was it I’d kick out? Well, you can’t come because we have the open space, I wouldn’t do that. I love you all and you’ve added such great things to our community. 

"I think we need to really consider the best way to keep that feel, and keep it rural. As far as a bond, I’m concerned about the bond, I look at Pure Midway, and they’ve done some great things, and I’m hoping maybe they’ll come up with some ideas to help us, because I don’t think we have time for a bond. If we wait for the next, I don’t think we can get to this election, if we wait to the next election a lot of the ground that we would really want to be open is going to be gone. So, unless we come up with alternate ways, and there’s a whole bunch of smart people out there, and right here, and we ought to be able to come up with some other ways. Maybe there’s grants, maybe there’s, you know, there’s got to be some ways to figure out, to do some things. Besides, I know that we’re really going to work on some of the density, and some of the zoning. And I feel like that’s important. So, thank you guys all for being here and I appreciate all of your comments and that you’re all here and that you love Midway as much as I do and I’ve been here a long time."

Bonner said, "I think the idea of putting together a group of citizens as a committee to look at this and to evaluate, from what I’m hearing tonight, the place we would start is with the farm, which we only have one left, and maybe figure out a way to help so that Grant and Russell can continue to farm and encourage them not to have to sell that off for a development. I think that’s probably a place of great value in the city, would be the farm. Actually, it’s in Wasatch County, so we will have to work with Wasatch County on that."

Christian said, "But a lot of the ground that Grant actually rents and uses and puts cows on are in Midway, and those are going away, Rene was right, they’re going away. And pretty soon he’s not going to have a place (to farm) to hay and to put cows, and we, you know, it’s going to go away."

Bonner said, "I think as far as starting, just from what I’ve heard tonight, that would be the place we would focus on, or that one of the top priorities  ... I would think that the Kohler farm, and maybe between us, and working with Wasatch County somehow that makes it even better for it, you know, that the farm isn’t really in Midway, it’s in Wasatch County but we can work together and maybe our dollars can go further. It definitely needs looked into, there’s definitely a lot of things that we need to do and I think that we need to do it right, we’re only going to get the opportunity to do it once, so we need to make sure we do it right. So, with that, we’ll just keep you posted as to what we’re going to do. I think if forming a committee is something that we’re all kind of in favor of, I think we could ... come up with some guidelines."

Christian said, "What exactly, I mean, I totally agree, but just so if we’re going to put it out there for applications, what is this committee? Is it an open space committee, what is it?"

Bonner said, "Let’s discuss that and we’ll put it on in two weeks for a discussion of where that’s going to be. Okay, sounds good to me. So, alright, thank you for being here."

The council scheduled a work meeting for tonight, Wednesday, July 12, at 5:00 pm, to discuss forming a committee relating to open space.