City Council Minutes 1-20-26

TREMONTON CITY CORPORATION
CITY COUNCIL MEETING
JANUARY 20, 2026

Members Present:
Kristie Bowcutt
Brent Jex
Beau Lewis
Sharri Oyler
Blair Westergard
Bret Rohde, Mayor
Linsey Nessen, Interim City Manager
Cynthia Nelson, City Recorder

CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP

Mayor Rohde called the January 20, 2026 City Council Workshop to order at 5:01 p.m. The meeting was held in the City Council Meeting Room at 102 South Tremont Street, Tremonton, Utah. Those in attendance were Mayor Rohde, Councilmembers Bowcutt, Jex (left at 6:57 p.m.), Lewis, Oyler, and Westergard, Interim City Manager Nessen, and City Recorder Nelson.

1. Call to Order and Declaration of Conflict of Interest: Councilmember Jex declared a conflict with item 3. J.

2. Council Reports and Updates: (this was done during the regular meeting)

3. Presentations:

a. Title: RES 26-02 Organizational Chart

Mayor Rohde said tonight we present a resolution to change the organizational chart so Recorder Nelson will report directly to the Mayor and City Council. We are streamlining all other departments under the City Manager.

b. Title: RES 26-03 Temporary Justice Court Judges

Recorder Nelson said this is just updating our temporary justice court judges. We have a new judge who has selected several we can use in case he is gone and could appoint someone to cover for him. This will update that resolution.

c. Title: RES 26-04 Amending Development Application Review Fees

Director Seedall said this alteration allows all application fees to be paid upfront. I did an analysis to set this based on the applications we received last year based on how much time our staff likely spent reviewing developments. The application fees should cover our development review for in-house staff and consultants. This will basically be a flat fee for each application. At the end of the year, I will go through and do the same exercise to see where we are.

d. Title: RES 26-05 Impact Fee Adjustment

Director Seedall said a few of our impact fee analyses have a table showing what the max impact fee for ERUs can be. This resolution is just a paper trail to show we are following those schedules. I have shown all the impact fees we generally have for utilities and building permits. There is about a 3% increase, which is general inflation. We would have to go through the impact fee process again if we felt those were lower than they need to be. I think they are in a comfortable range. We are a few years from getting the secondary system on the east side of town running. At that time, it would be worth doing an impact fee analysis to separate culinary and secondary water with their own impacts.

e. Title: Financial Results for Fiscal Year 2025

Finance Director Curtis Roberts said at the end of the year we prepare everything for the auditors in the form of financial statements. Those are all prepared in accordance with the accounting standards we are responsible to comply with. I want to go through a few of the financial results so you know where we ended June 30. I always look at revenues and expenditures. This is money coming in and out. The General Fund is almost anything not accounted for elsewhere. These are governmental funds. If we look at the General Fund for the last fiscal year, we took in about $10.8 million. We have what is called current expenses or operational costs. Those are ongoing. Capital outlays are more of your one-time costs. We do not do a lot of those out of the General Fund they are out of our Capital Projects Fund. Those are designed to accumulate resources to spend for one-time purposes. During the year, we transferred money to pay for future capital projects. About $1.4 million went to other funds. At the end of the day, the General Fund decreased by about $5,000. Fund balance was about $3.5 million and can be used for various purposes. Some will have to remain for operational expenses, but we will discuss that through the budget process. We are going to account for all our operating revenues and expenses to see how we are doing. The Council will determine how much is available for future, one-time projects. As budgets are submitted by department heads we will work with them.

Director Roberts said now we are getting into our enterprise funds or business type funds. This includes our water systems and treatment plant, along with storm drain. We have two non-major funds: solid waste and sewer collection. Here are the operating revenues minus operating expenses. We do not want that number to go negative. That means we are not charging enough to recover our operational costs. We always want our operational revenues to exceed expenses. We are glad to report they do in all cases, but are they exceeding it by enough where we can replace assets? We have old lines and some will need to be replaced. We want to set aside enough money for those. We also have to cover inflationary factors. Historically, I have said 2-4%. We have learned inflation does not always fall in that range, especially when it comes to construction. We are finding that it comes out closer to 4-6%. The treatment plant has an additional factor because it has regulatory compliance. History tells us 4-6% is too low. We need something closer to 8%. We are in the middle of a huge upgrade to the sewer treatment plant and are doing it all out of cash because we set rates adequate enough to generate a return. Without this type of return, we would have to bond for improvements. Our recommendation is to continue this type of process because once we go into debt, other people monitor our rates and we can lose control. The water fund does have debt, but we are technically in compliance. We have to consider long-term, what do we want to do with our water rates? How are we going to address our rate structures overall? Currently, the operational income we generate is not sufficient to replace assets. I talked about that last year and there was no decision to raise rates. We are now two years behind. With everything that has been adopted this year, we are going to drain all the cash out of that account. We are using it for the right purposes, but it is a result of not doing rate increases. Once you get behind it is hard to make up. When we did the treatment plant we set a series of increases over a period of three years. People knew the next increase was coming and we were generating adequate resources for foreseen replacements. This is the City’s finances in a nutshell. We are not in paranoia mode. We are solid, but it is weakening. There will be some fun discussions during budget time.

f. Title: RES 26-06 Budget Amendment

Director Roberts said last year’s process of going through the budget and capital projects was chaos. It felt like we had millions of requests. In the middle of all of that chaos, we changed fire chiefs. During that chaos we discussed ambulance replacements. We had an idea of what was going to happen, but it did not get fully communicated that one was already in process. There was an order for an ambulance. They did not require a payment to start construction, but it is going to get delivered and they want money. It is good to have a certain amount of cash on hand because sometimes life does not go according to plan. With this ambulance coming in, we are proposing to use funds from the vehicles fund, which still has money. We are just using the resources we currently have. This would allow us to continue with this purchase to be delivered in three weeks. There have been miscommunications, but we are working on getting a replacement schedule in place. The next ambulance purchase is scheduled for 2027. This year, we are reversing the process. We are going to do the operational budgets first so we have a more solid idea of where operations are coming up. We are trying to make it simpler. Then we will get into capital. We already have something built but will tweak things as we go.

g. Title: OPMA annual training

City Attorney Dalton Smuin said in this video and our discussion, you are going to get a broad view of what the Open Meetings Act is and how we comply. After watching the video, he said staff is pretty well-versed in knowing how to notice meetings. As noted, it is ultimately up to the governing body to make sure it is complied with. A Council meeting occurs when you have proper authority to conduct City business and a quorum is present. A simple majority of the Council is a quorum. If you count the mayor, a simple majority would be four of the six. If the mayor and councilmembers do go out, they should not be deciding a matter that is going to come before the Council for a vote. Those members cannot reach a conclusion on what should be done about an issue and then come back and say, this is what we discussed and here is how we proceed. It needs to be done in the open.

Attorney Smuin said to move into a Closed Meeting you have to have a two-thirds majority vote. For this Council, that means four of the five councilmembers have to vote and agree to go into Closed Session. In your open meeting minutes, state the reason, location, and vote by each member. For the Closed Meeting you will have a recording. Relatively few items can be discussed in Closed Session. You can discuss the character, professional competence, or physical and mental health of an individual. To discuss that person in any other form, you have to go back into Open Session. My advice is to not have a Closed Session on litigation unless the City Attorney is here. If those issues come up, the attorney should be there so we can have confidential meetings that are attorney-client privileged. Discussing the purchase of real property involving water rights can go into Closed Session because you are going to place a bid and the City needs to be competitive. If a member of the public thinks you violated the Closed Meeting they can sue. The judge would listen to the Closed Session. Anything that happens in there that should not have, gets released to the public and they void anything you do in Closed Session. Also, if you are going to deploy additional security measures you can have a Closed Session, or for issues related to criminal misconduct and certain discussions regarding procurement. With RFP or RFQ you can go into Closed Session to discuss trade secrets. If the City is going to bond, you can go into Closed Session to discuss that as well. You cannot interview someone or vote them in during a Closed Session. You cannot vote on anything during a Closed Session other than to leave a meeting.

They then discussed Conflicts of Interest. Attorney Smuin said State code is pretty simple. It is that you must disclose any conflicts you have but can still vote. If you think you have a conflict, you probably do. You may not, but it is best to declare it. A Conflict of Interest under City code includes any voting matter where the matter being considered shall have a direct impact on financial gains for a member or member’s household. Under City code, if you or a member of your household is going to receive an economic benefit from the vote it is a conflict, and you have to excuse yourself from the dais. You are not allowed to vote or participate on the matter.

h. Title: ORD 26-01 Rezoning 05-060-0089 from RR-1 to R1-10

Director Seedall said the property owner asked for a rezone from RR-1, which is rural residential acre minimum lot, to R1-10, single-family housing 10,000 square feet minimum lot size. This matches the properties around the parcel.

i. Title: ORD 26-02 Amending Chapters 1.04 & 2.04

Director Seedall said ChrisDean Epling and I have been working on the Neighborhood Partnership Initiative (NPI). This is a program we are mimicking from Provo City that has been going on for about 50 years. Ms. Epling said they started it because they needed to update their Land Use Plan and get public input. It has been successful. This is an avenue I think will help create bridges and fill in gaps as we grow. Director Seedall said the changes in 1.04 introduces the NPI and its organizational structure. How the districts will be formed and how they operate under the guidance of the Council. As of now, we are looking toward not having these be public meetings. We are hoping this board will be more of a gathering piece and report information to the Planning Commission and Council. This will create a structure and network for citizens to know things through this channel. We watered Provo’s framework down to meet the size and capacity of both staff and public. We have broken the City into four districts: west, central, east, and south. We also included everything in our current annexation boundaries so anyone adjacent to Tremonton will have a voice. It has taken time to get volunteers to staff the administrative portions and we are still looking to fill some positions. We are hopeful this will be the best way for staff to get information out. Ms. Epling said the idea is to give information to people and have a discussion before it hits these meetings. We cannot require developers to come to these meetings, but it will be encouraged. This would provide the developer with feedback from citizens and answer their questions. The developer might go away with a better idea and at least you have more ideas and an avenue. If the developer is not there, we can still give them all the information we have. Right now, it almost feels too late to have any input by the time these items hit the Planning Commission and Council. This will help educate the public and get the information out. That is the whole purpose of this program.

j. Title: Discuss renewing contract with Garland for police services and ILA with Perry

Chief Cordova said as we grow, we have more crime. We are constantly trying to stay ahead of that, and I am always looking at creative solutions without raising costs. As we get bigger, we are going to need more law enforcement. One of the best things we have done as a City is partner with Garland. Having two cities come together has helped offset our costs. We are in the infancy stages of talking to Perry about doing something similar. They approached us because they like what we do. They bring a lot to the table as well. They can run their own department, but they are looking to the future as their community is also growing. They are looking at how conquering manpower issues with a professional police department while keeping costs reasonable. The solution is looking at regional police departments. Basically, it is a partnership with other communities. We come together to provide the best possible service at the lowest price.

Chief Cordova then addressed rumors. First, this is not being spearheaded by Brigham City. Brigham is not even involved. We are just looking at how we can offset the budget. As far as finances are concerned, we have a bunch of competing demands, and this allows us to put a pin in some of the concerns we have. We would be able to expand our investigations and our manpower. The biggest benefit with Perry is they do not need to use a lot of police resources due to their size. They have a lower crime rate. As we grow and have all these developments, we are supposed to meet a certain staffing standard. It is expensive to do that. This would allow us to partner with them, diversify our manpower and take care of problems in all three communities. Most of my experience comes from that environment. I did that for 16 years and it can work. It just needs to be organized. We would introduce a police board, which would allow all representatives from each city to weigh in on major changes, especially when it comes to costs. People have also said why was the public not informed? That is what we are doing tonight. We are informing you. There is no vote. This is preliminary. We were approached and had some discussions, but at any moment, either city can say this does not make sense and abandon the idea. I hope not, because I think this is best for everybody. Someone asked why Perry does not just join Brigham? I am flattered they approached us rather than Brigham. Their people have seen what we have been able to do as a department and are interested in that kind of service. This model has failed in places, but I attribute that to a lack of knowledge in trying to rewrite the structure. We already have a blueprint and I have seen it work. We would use the model that has been tried and tested. We are pretty strained administratively, especially when chasing grants to help offset costs. A lot of our assets go to patrol and we are very busy. Combining increases patrol and our supervision and administration without any significant cost to our City. Our detectives have a ton of cases and are overworked. This would eliminate that. We would always be able to ensure we have plenty of officers on duty to cover all three cities. This would help reduce liability. Overall, it makes sense. The only downside I can see is it is more work for me and the City to get it off the ground. I think it will be worth it overall. There will be a savings. The net value I put down is about $1.35 million year over year in manpower, vehicles, investigations, and administration. We do have a good relationship with Brigham and I have already talked to their Chief about it. If it is time sensitive and they need somebody now, we have the partnership where they will send guys if we need them and we return the favor. Distance is not a major factor. There is more wear and tear on vehicles, but it opens up more opportunity. As we are looking at attracting and retaining officers, it is nice to know you have the opportunity to work in three different cities. There are also more administrative sergeant, detective, and SWAT positions. This would make us more attractive to candidates in a competitive market. Councilmember Jex, who also works for the police department, said what it comes down to is a tradeoff. The police department is behind on staffing and the caseload is expanding. Is it worth trading 20 miles occasionally for the health and growth now and not having to raise taxes?

When asked about benefits to Tremonton, Chief Cordova said right now, out of the three cities, we use the most resources. We are getting beat up on investigations. We have a proactive unit Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC). We do great work and have exposed a lot of problems. This last quarter, we had the highest ICAC cases. Because of our limitations with staff on the investigative side, we are not able to get to those and handle them as quickly as I would like. The biggest benefit to our City today is the added investigations. We would be able to have a lieutenant over that, which they are going to pay for, as well as another investigator. They also have an ICAC detective who is specially trained. We are helping them on the patrol side with staffing, which is safety for them. They also have a very high success rate with proactive narcotic crimes. Our guys are drowning, and Perry’s officers are looking for things to do. Their patrol is sometimes short-staffed and they are alone, which is dangerous. If we combine, we can make sure that does not happen anymore.

Councilmember Bowcutt said I appreciate what the police department does, but I drove from my house to Perry and it took 24 minutes. Are we putting more liability on citizens and those on the road? Is this going to affect other aspects because I saw it when we switched dispatch. Box Elder County is now an island. They do not have radio backup like they had before. Chief Cordova said that is not accurate at all and that is part of the misinformation out there. The reality is, they are one button push away for everybody being on the same channel. It is discouraging to hear that because part of the press conference was to correct that. He provided an example of how they are all on the same channel and have direct communication between dispatch centers and officers. It is super smooth. Back to the unified police option, I am not saying we will never have officers going down the freeway with lights and sirens, but we are going to regardless of if we have this relationship. Our guys are responding to other agencies when they have high profile incidents, but the only difference is we are not getting the benefit from the relationship. We are still going to take on some of that liability and in return, we would expect the same from them to respond. The reality is, what does this do for the City? It saves a ton of money and brings a ton of resources. It is a creative way to solve some of the problems we are up against without raising taxes. My job is to generate ideas and I hope we get buy in, but it is up to the Council. This will save money year over year. This is the best solution I could come up with, without increasing costs. I understand your frustration, it is frustration for me to have to ask the Council for these big things, but the reality is, as we grow we need more resources. We are growing a lot. At some point, we have to either come up with a creative solution to solve the problem or a new funding source to keep up with demand. Councilmember Jex said we can constantly be reactive and not get ahead of the problem or we can be proactive and get ahead of the problems before they happen. Curbing growth is the only way we are not going to have a constant evolving police, fire, and publics works department. All those things come with growth. This is a creative way to take care of our problems and adds a lot to all the cities involved without asking for money.

After discussion from the Council, Chief Cordova said we are truly in the infancy. This is to inform you, talk about it, answer questions and concerns. If there is a better way to do that, I am all in. I think we need to get creative to solve these problems if we are not going to look at adding taxes. Most of the Council agreed they felt blindsided by this item being on the agenda, as they received concerns from citizens and felt there was a lack of communication. Chief Cordova said any time I have an idea I cannot just send it to the whole Council because a lot of my ideas are not good. I want to fine-tune them and make sure it makes sense. I would not present something to the City if it did not make sense. We have to address the rumors. This is very much in the infancy, and nothing is set in stone. We are not voting on anything tonight. We are just talking. We are working together to see if it makes sense. We are addressing concerns. Unfortunately, we have the classifieds on social media and there is a swamp of information. It is just speculation and false information. I hope we are overcoming that by sitting down and talking because these are valid concerns, and I am happy to iron them out. I believe in not bringing a problem without a solution. If you guys do not like the idea, tell me how we can catch up on staffing without raising taxes, aside from partnerships with other communities.

Chief Cordova said with Garland, we have had an MOU, but we are working with their mayor on moving toward a full-service agreement. I will finish by saying if you have questions or are getting approached by constituents, reach out and I can help you answer them. You can make me a list and I will go over it one by one. I will also give you examples of how it works and why it makes sense financially. At the end of the day, you get to decide. You can vote it down, make it disappear and then we can go back to the drawing board. Or if it makes sense, my job is to give you options and information to keep the City safe. I am trying to do that in the most affordable way. That is why this came up as an option. Please do not think this is a done deal. It is far from it. They also discussed growth being a factor and how they can better prepare their departments for the demands that come with growth.

4. Review of the agenda items identified on 7:00 p.m. City Council Agenda

5. CLOSED MEETING: No Closed Meeting held at this time.

a. Strategy session to discuss the purchase of real property when public discussion of the transaction would disclose the appraisal or estimated value of the property under consideration or prevent the public body from completing the transaction on the best possible terms; and/or
b. Strategy session to discuss the character, professional competence or physical or mental health of an individual; and/or
c. Strategy sessions to discuss pending or reasonably imminent litigation; and/or
d. Discussions regarding security personnel, devices or systems

The meeting adjourned at 6:57 p.m. by consensus of the Council.

CITY COUNCIL MEETING

Mayor Rohde called the January 20, 2026 City Council Meeting to order at 7:01 p.m. The meeting was held in the Tremonton City Council Meeting Room at 102 South Tremont Street, Tremonton, Utah. Those in attendance were Mayor Rohde, Councilmembers Bowcutt, Lewis, Oyler, and Westergard, Interim City Manager Nessen, and City Recorder Nelson. Councilmember Jex was excused.

1. Call to Order

2. Invocation by Pastor John Sinski, Calvary Baptist Church
Presentation of Flag and Pledge by Scout Troop 126

3. Roll Call

4. Approval of Agenda:

Motion by Councilmember Lewis to approve the agenda of January 20, 2026 with the Council Reports being in this portion of the meeting. Motion seconded by Councilmember Bowcutt. Vote: Councilmember Bowcutt – yes, Councilmember Jex – absent, Councilmember Lewis – yes, Councilmember Oyler – yes, Councilmember Westergard – yes. Motion approved.

5. Declaration of Conflict of Interest: None.

6. Presentations

a. Years of service award to Lynn Green, Parks Superintendent – 25 years
b. Years of service award to Jeff Oyler, Fire Fighter II/EMT Advanced – 35 years

Mr. Green was not in attendance. Chief Jarrow provided a bio on Mr. Oyler. They then presented him with an award and thanked them both for their service.

Mayor Rohde called a Public Hearing to order at 7:08 p.m. to receive input on the city’s budget listed below. There were 26 people in attendance.

7. Public Hearing

a. Public hearing to receive comments in considering amending the Budget entitled “The Tremonton City Annual Implementation Budget 2025-2026 General Fund, Capital Fund(s), Enterprise Fund(s), and Special Fund(s)”, for the period commencing July 1, 2025 and ending June 30, 2026

There were no public comments. Mayor Rohde closed the Public Hearing at 7:09 p.m.

8. Citizen Engagement

Levi Winward said I am coming in objection to workshop agenda J. I have done research. Chief keeps quoting that it is a good system and it worked here in Utah. As a matter of fact, the government voted to end it in 2023. Five departments have left the Unified Police Department because it costs too much. It was cheaper for the cities to run their own police department rather than united. They lost influence and local control. Decisions will be made in cities that they have no control over. There was worry about people being double taxed and worry of conflicts of interest with the sheriff’s loyalties to the county or were they to the cities. It got disbanded. There were also cities that left because of increased response times. All of this stuff is documented. I encourage you to do research and consider the future. If the Unified Police Department does fail, and it probably will, it will cost the City more money to rebuild from scratch.

Christine Williams said I am concerned about becoming a unified system. If you are going to do that, turn it over to the County and unite as a County. Do not leave poor Garland out. Get rid of all the chiefs and let one County person run it. This would lighten Tremonton’s budget. They have already hiked taxes. We citizens do not need any more taxation.

Debbie Brantner said when Councilmember Jex talked about the cases that bothers me that it is going on here in our little town. I would like to see us do this and combine with Perry. From what I understand, it is with the three towns, Tremonton, Garland, and Perry. Garland is not being left out. I think we would be making great strides for safety. It would be a great solution for not raising taxes. I encourage people not to read social media, it is crazy. Do your own work and check into it more because this is the first I have heard about it. On the dispatch thing, trust me, if you listen to that scanner as much as I do, it has been crazy. We needed a change, and I am all for changing to Weber dispatch. I do not think we were getting the good coverage like we had in the past.

9. Consent Agenda – Any Councilmember may request an item be removed for separate discussion

a. Approval of minutes – January 6, 2026
b. Approval of October Financial Statements & Warrant Registers
c. Approval of Resolution No. 26-02 Organizational Chart
d. Approval of Resolution No. 26-03 Appointing Temporary Justice Court Judges
e. Approval of Resolution No. 26-04 Amending Development Application Review in Fees & Fines Schedule
f. Approval of Resolution No. 26-05 Adopting the Impact Fee Adjustment

Councilmember Bowcutt asked why the City buys vehicles from out of town? I called our local dealers who would do anything to have our business. Manager Nessen said usually it is due to availability. Councilmember Bowcutt said I understand that, but their lots are full and we need to at least give them a try. Let us bring it back home where it should be when we can. Mayor Rohde said I think we need to support locally as best as we can. That needs to be part of the consideration.

Motion by Councilmember Westergard to approve the Consent Agenda. Motion seconded by Councilmember Lewis. Roll Call Vote: Councilmember Bowcutt – yes, Councilmember Jex – absent, Councilmember Lewis – yes, Councilmember Oyler – yes, Councilmember Westergard – yes. Motion approved.

10. Strategic Business (Ordinances & Policies)

a. Discussion and consideration of adopting Resolution No. 26-06 amending the budget entitled “The Tremonton City Annual Implementation Budget 2025-2026 General Fund, Capital Fund(s), Enterprise Fund(s), and Special Fund(s)” for the period commencing July 1, 2025 and ending June 30, 2026

This item was move to the Consent Agenda and was approved there.

b. Discussion and consideration of adopting Ordinance No. 26-01 rezoning parcel 05-060-0089 located at approximately 900 West 225 South, from Residential District (RR-1) to Residential District (R1-10)

Director Seedall said this is north of 225 South, near Ron Keller Tire’s current site near Iowa String and Main. It is about two acres, and they are asking to rezone from RR-1 to R1-10, which matches the zoning to the south, east, and north. There is access on 900 West. They would have to design a 60-foot right-of-way. No public comments were made on this topic.

Motion by Councilmember Bowcutt to adopt the ordinance. Motion seconded by Councilmember Oyler. Roll Call Vote: Councilmember Bowcutt – yes, Councilmember Jex – absent, Councilmember Lewis – yes, Councilmember Oyler – yes, Councilmember Westergard – yes. Motion approved.

c. Discussion and consideration of adopting Ordinance No. 26-02 amending the Tremonton City Code Chapter 1.04 Land Use and Chapter 2.02 Concept Plans

Ms. Epling said we are excited about this new Neighborhood Partnership Initiative. The whole idea is to have volunteers partner with the City to get information out about development and educate citizens on what is coming. This will be a two-way communication, gathering information from the citizens to present to the Council and Planning Commission so they can know there has been work going into the feedback that is presented. This gives the Council a gauge of what people desire, and you have public input as we grow. We did a lot of research and found Provo has been successful doing a districts program. We have divided the City into districts and will eventually divide into neighborhoods. As a development comes in, we will let the districts know and have a meeting to get as much information as we can before it even hits the Planning Commission. Mayor Rohde said this is a great example of the public and City working together for a common cause. Councilmember Lewis said thank you for being proactive. Councilmember Bowcutt said this is a positive thing. We have tried for years and you got it going. Councilmember Westergard said this is great and can help with the rumor mill and answers questions. Ms. Epling said this is the first step and I would love to see this flourish. This will be a filtering place for people to talk and learn more. Ideally, we will have a meeting with the developer and a representative from the neighborhood will report a non-bias outcome of what happened at the meeting to the Council. That way the Council can gauge community involvement. All neighborhood meetings will be open to the Council to come and observe, but not be a participating member. That is the time for citizens to discuss with the developer.

During public comment, Jada Smith said how will you reach out to people? Ms. Epling said we will need a lot more help. I have tried to do flyers in my neighborhood but that is really expensive. We could have signs posted and for social media we could color coordinate each district, so when posts are made, people will know if they have a neighborhood meeting that week. Meetings will always be on Wednesday nights. Each district will have a presidency and it will be up to the presidency to decide how they distribute information. Ms. Smith said what if people in a particular district are not enthusiastic about participating? How do you intend to gain participation? Ms. Epling said that is a good question. People are busy and will not always be able to attend, but we will have an executive board who will have information to get out and can address concerns and bring things to the meetings.

Jeremy Ellis said do we know what the expected financial burden or expectation is on the City with this? Mzs. Epling said it is all volunteer.

The public discussion portion of this topic was then closed. Councilmember Lewis said I am excited to have feedback that will come unbiased right from the source, so we know how to vote without trying to guess what the majority wants. I am grateful for your efforts. Councilmember Bowcutt said getting as many people involved at the beginning is going to be key.

Motion by Councilmember Lewis to adopt the ordinance. Motion seconded by Councilmember Westergard. Roll Call Vote: Councilmember Bowcutt – yes, Councilmember Jex – absent, Councilmember Lewis – yes, Councilmember Oyler – yes, Councilmember Westergard – yes. Motion approved.

11. Reports and Calendar

a. City Manager Report: None.
b. Upcoming Calendar Items

Mayor Rohde said the Daddy-Daughter Dance will be at the Fairgrounds on February 7, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. On February 12 at 7 p.m. we will have a town hall meeting. We are going to go over things we have been working on and will take questions from the public. I also want to introduce our new website. We are excited about where that is headed.

At this point in the meeting, they went over Council Reports and Updates:

Councilmember Oyler said the Senior Center will have a dance on February 13. Anyone over the age of 18 is invited. They will have dinner and dancing. There will be a cost as this is a fundraiser. Dinner is at 5:30 p.m. with dancing from 6 to 8 p.m. The Senior Center is doing a wonderful job with Meals on Wheels. In December, they delivered 1,601 meals to 110 customers. Dine-in and take-out served 1,028. The Food Pantry is having a big food drive on March 14.

Councilmember Lewis said for Parks and Rec I am always impressed at what they do. They sit at the bottom of the cash pile and deal with staffing, too. Director Zach LeFevre is doing a great job at managing that. They have their Junior Jazz program going on now. I think there are 108 teams. That is a lot of kids in that program and they are doing a good job. Also, in Las Vegas, there is an International Council of Shopping Centers trade show we may want to consider investing in. We could send people down. As I listen to revenue conversations, I think it would be wise for us to start seeking the right businesses to increase our revenues. If we are wise in the way we approach economic development, we can lower property tax and ease the burdens on our people. Also, the Main Street Committee has already started gathering a lot of the business owners downtown and are going to be expanding that out to focus on Main Street initiatives. Mayor Rohde said I have talked to a lot of businesses and they really want to be part of that Committee. I think that is a good venue for them.

Councilmember Bowcutt said Public Works is busy and has a lot of projects. They are getting ready for an upgrade on the wastewater treatment plant, so the compost facility has been moved out west. They will also start widening Rocket Road in early 2026. They are working on the cemetery expansion. A company came in and drove our roads and gave an analysis to help identify their rating. This will help determine when roads need to be replaced. This spring they are going to start a storm drain project. Secondary water will move to Fridal Heights and Garfield Estates this spring, with Holmgren East hopefully next spring. Director Carl Mackley just hired a new guy and is looking at two more. I have been working with Director Seedall and things are going great.

Councilmember Westergard said I met with the Fire Chief today, and they do a great job. They have frustrations staffing wise, too. That is my concern, everybody has concerns and they are all fighting for the same money. When I go to work in the morning the lights on Midland Square look nice. The events there have been good and it is definitely better and more usable.

When asked about the City website, Councilmember Lewis said we have website improvements that could be made. There are State requirements we need to follow by 2027, an example of that is being able to shrink and enlarge text or adjust audio for those who are impaired. Also, for cyber security, which is becoming more of an issue. We received quotes that were very high. We have the internal skill sets to do those, which will require extra hours, but save us money. We are moving along with our own coded site. We are not just building a frontend website that allows citizen interaction, we are building a tool that allows leadership to have a system.

Mayor Rohde said we have the Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) organized. As an FYI we have a car that used to deliver Meals on Wheels and the motor went out. It will cost more to put a motor in it than the car is worth, so we are going to scrap it. We have another car at the Senior center that got T-boned and hopefully we can get insurance to cover that. My goal is to get employees a vehicle they can travel to and from meetings in. Someone from our City needs to serve on the Mosquito Abatement District Board. They meet every other month and get a stipend of $75 for every meeting. They would report that information to the Council once a quarter.

Mayor Rohde said we learned in a training we have to specify why we are going into a Closed Meeting. Tonight we are doing so to discuss the character and competency of an individual, which should not be discussed in public.

Motion by Councilmember Westergard to move into closed meeting. Motion seconded by Councilmember Lewis. Vote: Councilmember Bowcutt – yes, Councilmember Jex – absent, Councilmember Lewis – yes, Councilmember Oyler – yes, Councilmember Westergard – yes. Motion approved.

The Council moved into a closed meeting at 7:53 p.m.

12. CLOSED MEETING:

Motion by Councilmember Westergard to return to open session. Motion seconded by Councilmember Bowcutt. Vote: Councilmember Bowcutt – yes, Councilmember Jex – absent, Councilmember Lewis – yes, Councilmember Oyler – yes, Councilmember Westergard – yes. Motion approved.

The Council returned to open session at 9:17 p.m.

13. Adjournment.

Motion by Councilmember Westergard to adjourn the meeting. Motion seconded by Councilmember Lewis. Vote: Councilmember Bowcutt – yes, Councilmember Jex – absent, Councilmember Lewis – yes, Councilmember Oyler – yes, Councilmember Westergard – yes. Motion approved.

The meeting adjourned at 9:17 p.m.

The undersigned duly acting and appointed Recorder for Tremonton City Corporation hereby certifies that the foregoing is a true and correct copy of the minutes for the City Council Meeting held on the above referenced date. Minutes were prepared by Jessica Tanner.

Dated this 3 day of February, 2026.

Cynthia Nelson, City Recorder

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