Soda Springs City Council 3/19
Mayor Robinson was excused for a regular meeting of the Soda Springs City Council, in which the question of hiring practices based on location were seemingly resolved, a medical leave policy resolution was passed, and a number of other topics were addressed.
Maternity Leave
The city has been discussing the exact wording and nature of its family medical leave and maternity (parental leave) policy for several months.
Because federal FMLA provisions are required of municipalities, the policy reiterates what is required by federal law in terms of time off, paid time off, and position holding following the birth or adoption of a child for the parent(s) involved. Using the city’s existing insurance coverage, the city managed to craft a policy explanation that should provide the maximum flexibility and support to the city’s employees. Some use of PTO to transition to the coverage implementation will be necessary, but will ultimately result in the most extensive coverage possible under the existing insurance instruments.
The policy does not come out of the city’s pocket; it provides benefits by taking advantage of the insurances that the city already has, based on the discussion held before the passage of the resolution. Clerk Andrea Haderlie was credited with the idea.
The leave policy only applies to fulltime employees, and is an application of the short term disability coverage held by the city, which does cover maternity leave.
There are potentially some wrinkles left to be ironed out in the policy, the council acknowledged, but they opted to put it in place, and then evaluate any situations that come up and adjust the policy if needed. Resolution 2025-1 was approved.
Councilmember Rod Worthington thanked everyone for working on it. “Way to think outside the box,” added Councilmember Ryan Carpenter.
Fee Schedule—Install Water/sewer
Resolution 2025-3 was also passed. It concerns the hookup fees for water and sewer lines. The fees were discussed at the last city council meeting, and it was determined that they were out of step with the rates in place around the region. Dan Squires noted that the fees do not cover the city’s costs for performing the service by half. The current rate is $1250 per hookup, and the resolution raises the rate to be “more reflective of actual cost” at $2500 each, which represents basically a “break-even” amount. Surrounding municipalities in Franklin, Bear Lake, and Bannock counties have significantly higher rates still. The resolution was passed.
Radius/Distance Policy
An issue that has been discussed a number of times over the past months came that much closer to being resolved, that being how far from the city of Soda a prospective employee can live to qualify for a position with the city.
There is no official policy on the city’s books that regulates the issue, which has caused some anxiety in the past. The unofficial and generally held understanding was that city employees needed to live within the school district boundaries to qualify for city employment. This has led to some inconsistency over the years to allow for exceptions to the unofficial rule, and many questions about whether such a sorting principle was really “fair.” The school district boundaries, for instance, run into some issues with residences in Bailey Creek, Freedom, and other parts of the county. Grace, Bancroft, Georgetown are in other school districts but are also relatively nearby, and represent the homes of many prospective city employees throughout the area.
Council President Mitch Hart sent an email to the council members that consolidated input from the department heads, as well as other opinions. The email provided the basis for the council’s discussion on the topic.
The major discussion points were whether the city wanted to set a policy for hiring based on a distance from the city, or a time to reach the city. The obvious crux of the matter was the ability for employees in the city to be able to respond to emergency calls from their homes in a timely manner.
Councilmembers discussed the wisdom of attaching the policy to either a 30 minute or 30 mile radius guideline, while also potentially allowing Dan Squires and Justin Hansen (to cover the areas of wastewater, water supply, fire, snow removal, power outage, and other infrastructure emergencies) more latitude for setting their own individual department guidelines.
Hansen and Squires stated that they felt a uniform policy that was the same for every employee was important, and that their departments would be able to respond effectively with a 30 minute travel time as the basis of the policy.
“We need one for all. It gets too muddy if we try to do it by department. In staff meeting, we came up with 30 minutes,” Chief Dan Squires said.
Councilmember Gritton asked “Would 30 minutes work for your oncall people?”
“Yes,” Squires responded. “Justin and I agreed”
President Hart said, “If you guys are happy, I don’t think we need to wrestle any more.”
A draft policy will be at the next meeting if possible.
Zoning Reclassification r1-c1 451 E Hooper Ave
A Zoning change for the above address was discussed. This would allow for storage containers. It borders the Twisted Metal property and goes to HWY on the West side. It would unify and make in-line the properties in that area by zone.
Planning and Zoning recommended to approve the reclassification, and the council approved changing it from R1 to C1.
Hearing--Conditional Use Permit 2 40 foot shipping containers
No public comments were produced. There will be an engineered roof over the top of them. A structural engineer has designed it. PZ has looked at the plans and approved them. They recommended that the painted letters need to be taken off. It will be a storage unit. The CUP was approved.
Councilmember Gritton asked whether the neighbors were spoken to, and was informed by Building Inspector Alan Skinner that the full procedure, including notice, had been followed.
Projects
EPA awarded money which SICOG is administrating. They are doing Phase 1 inspection of properties for Brownfield redevelopment projects. Mostly this is for asbestos abatement in older buildings. Hooper and Enders were thought to be good candidates for Phase 1 grant inspection.
Engineer Skinner wasn’t sure whether the floor drains were tied into the sump pumps that tie into the sewer.
Ledger Creek
There should be an agreement shortly regarding moving sand to begin making trails in the Ledger Creek area. The county RB will be involved with some of the hauling.
Soda Creek Irrigation
The city is working to determine whether boring under the tracks near the cemetery to install a pump for watering the grounds will be possible.
Enders Update
The council has talked to both contractors about the roof repair and extension for the Enders building that were approved at the last meeting. The repairs will extend the life of the building and keep it from experiencing environmental damage from water and other weathering. The process of exploring the state Parks and Recreation department adopting the Enders as a State Park is ongoing, and there will be another site visit soon. Regardless of the state’s ultimate decision, keeping the building in a salable state increases its value to whomever the next potential owner is and makes such a sale or transfer more likely.
The council wondered whether the contractors could “take a peak at Hooper school and see if it’s worth recovering the old bricks?”
Main Street Gem Grant
A Main Street Gem grant from the county has been factored into the cost to business owners for water and sewer line repair on Main Street as a component of the project from 2024. The city applied for the same grant, but wasn’t awarded it. The county grant was partially approved for $18K. The county donated the grant money to the city to help defray property owner costs for line connections. The County added another $12K to make $30K for offsetting connection fees.
With some adjustments to the original estimates and the application of $30K to the effort, the cost to most business owners (excluding those who had already replaced their lines beforehand) went from around $6K to around $3K.
The city will now reach out to property owners about whether they would like to pay a lump sum, or interest free financing for three years at about $65/mo.
A few construction issues on Main Street will be repaired when the weather allows, and the Pedestrian crossings will be up after the sealcoat is down. The relative advantages of sealcoating versus chip-sealing were discussed.
Fixed Asset Policy and Procedure
1987 is when the current policy regarding the city’s tracking and accounting for its fixed assets. It has not been updated or amended up to the standard that cities need now, including financial reporting, calculating depreciation, and useful life schedule.
It was noted that “it’s all over the place in our inventory” by President Hart. The policy will be on the agenda for next meeting.
Department Heads
Director Dan Squires
Wastewater Director Squires reported that they had been experiencing issues at the treatment plant with solid waste buildup. The north clarifier was found to have 9 feet of solid, when it should have 18 inches. According to Squires, the way the clarifier works is that the profiles move across the bottom on strips that are embedded in the concrete. “You cannot change anything without taking everything apart. It’s basically a throwaway clarifier. The design is that you basically run it until you need to put another one in,” Squires said.
Squires expressed his concerns about how the older device is not field repairable. “It’ll run 13, 14, 15 years and then it will go out,” he said. At present, the north side one is out, and the south side one might go out soon.
A quote for both sides plus spare parts was received for $90K for mechanisms and spares. Labor was predicted for 7 days at $5K/per—creating a total cost of around $150K for the whole project. The delivery of the equipment could split the cost between one year’s budget and the other.
Right now, Squires reported that “We are in compliance. I called DEQ and they said thanks for the heads up. They don’t seem concern. I warned them that our numbers are going down, though.” DEQ requires that water purity after processing clears certain thresholds.
President Hart noted “we are still at operating quality removal, which means that the system itself is good [other than the clarifiers].”
Squires agreed, but noted that “If the south side goes down, we’re out of compliance and there’s nothing I can do.”
Noting that there wasn’t really any choice, a motion to begin ordering the parts and conducting the replacement was approved.
“I’m pretty sure I can make this work in my current budget. I think we can do this,” Director Squires said.
Councilmember Ryan Carpenter stated, “You’ve got big equipment, you got big repair bills.”
Chief of Police Golightly
Chief Golightly noted that ITD grants have been cut back due to uncertainty with the federal granting process.
He stated that next month at the second meeting, the new K-9 officer should be sworn in.
Director Justin Hansen
Director Hansen asked whether the hiring policy only applied to new hires. City Attorney Tom Smith explained that the city had a lot of flexibility with the policy, and adding a “grandfather clause” to cover any existing employees would be straightforward.
Hansen also asked for clarification on remote work, though the question could not be fully addressed without Mayor Robinson who oversees city employees.
Hanson reported that two employees are in St Anthony for LHTAC to get their Road Scholar certification, and then they will get their RoadMaster certification by June 1.
Hansen reported on the No 5 hydroplant. During the power outage a few weeks ago, when the power came back on it was full of smoke. It sent a signal in the circuit breaker to have the charging motor run, and it burned up. The motor was destroyed and it will require a $1700K fix. Hansen is in the process of trying to figure out what is going on with it.
Citizen Input
Curtis Barnes
Barnes spoke about the residence policy, saying “In a perfect world, everyone who works in the city would live in the city. I realize that’s not how things work. But once you start branching out---I would encourage the dept heads if nothing else to keep in mind that living in the city limits should be encouraged. It also helps grow the city too.”
