City Council Minutes July 21, 2026

TREMONTON CITY CORPORATION
CITY COUNCIL MEETING
JULY 21, 2026

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

CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP

Mayor Rohde called the July 21, 2026 City Council Workshop to order at 4:00 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, Lewis, Oyler, and Westergard and City Manager Nessen. City Recorder Nelson was excused.

1. Call to Order and Declaration of Conflict of Interest

2. Council Reports and Updates

Councilmember Oyler said I talked to Jenny Christensen at the Senior Center about other cities paying for their seniors. She said the last time they did that was in 2022. Fielding, Bear River City, and the County are paying. Plymouth might also be, but Garland, Elwood, Deweyville, Howell, Portage, and Snowville are not. We need to revisit those cities because many have new Mayors and Councils that may be more receptive. The Food Pantry is doing well.

Councilmember Westergard said we had Bart Oyler’s funeral last Thursday. There were a lot of the legacy fire department guys in attendance. It was a good tribute.

Councilmember Bowcutt said the Public Works projects are wrapping up. They feel good about where they are at. For Planning Commission, we had an amazing meeting last week with positive communication.

Councilmember Jex said we have two guys we are looking to hire, and we hired a secretary to replacement the one we lost.

3. Presentations:

a. Title: RES 26-46 Agreement for Bailiff Services—Manager Nessen

Manager Nessen said this is the same agreement we brought last time. Our current bailiff has resigned so we need to figure something out. This is a good option. They provide all the training and equipment, we just pay the hourly rate.

b. Title: ORD 26-11 Discharge of Projectiles

Councilmember Jex said I think it is ridiculous that parents cannot buy their child a BB gun at Christmas and shoot it on their property. They have to go the County to shoot it. This ordinance would not authorize firearms. State and federal codes still apply, but this would allow BB guns and slingshots. There are age requirements, and the homeowner is responsible for any damage. It cannot be heard from an adjacent property. This would let homeowners use their land for what they want.

c. Title: ORD 26-12 Parks, Trails, & Open Space Master Plan

Planner Lance said Community Development Staff is bringing this forward because we are the ones to draft the ordinance and do the clerical work, but Parks and Rec should take all the credit for the plan. Landmark Design drafted the plan. It did go to the Planning Commission and met all public notice standards. We feel we have a pretty good master plan, but plans can always be amended. Director LeFevre said back in 2013, the SDAT gave recommendations. They talked about the murals, benefits, and amenities that Tremonton has. In 2017, the City gathered community input and worked with Simon Sorensen to create a Main Street plan. In 2020, the City hired Landmark Design and created an Integrated Land Use Plan, which was designed to work with our current General Plan. Since then, we have seen substantial growth. In 2021, Landmark brought the concept to the City and in 2022 they had the draft. In 2023, they adopted the Integrated Land Use Plan. Chapter three of that plan was on parks, trails and open space. A lot of that information was taken from the 2011 Parks, Trails, and Open Space Master Plan. By this time, we were already 10 years behind our plan due to growth. So we decided we needed to create our own master plan. The plan has six chapters. First is an introduction and outline with a profile of the community and who we are. Chapter two is the parks section that goes over the level of service a community needs with standards and recommendations. Chapter three is the detailed parks and designs. Chapter four is trails and chapter five is on open space. Chapter six is implementation and funding, creating a roadmap for staff to follow. Here are the top recommendations from each chapter. This also sets goals and priorities we should be looking toward. This master plan will help us connect our current city park system to the City’s mission and vision. The plan uses a two-lens approach—analytical, seeing how what we have today stacks up against other cities and communities our size and national standards. Next is the public outreach approach using wellness surveys, public engagement, community needs assessment, and the park showcase to see what the community desires for parks. This plan gives a framework for policies, goals, budgets, and standards to work toward. Top takeaways are that residents use parks frequently. Jeanie Stevens, Shuman, and North Park are the most frequented and highly rated. Overall, park quality is positive. However, Meadow Park and the city offices need better amenities. Top priorities from the community overall are better trail connectivity, having additional parks, improved communication, and programs like dog parks and aquatics. A rec center is also a high priority and often associated with aquatics. Looking at the level of service, the national park standards for a city our size is 13 acres per 1000 residents. We are at a 2.4 acres per 1000 residents. That is a low number, but it should not be alarming because we do live in the West. Not every State and community has six national parks within a five-hour drive. We also have 120,000 acres of farmland. We should be focusing more on park access, making sure we have a park within a half mile of all of our residents. Our parks are overused for sports. Our level of service goes down as more people move in. The most important thing to plan for now is acquiring land. We do have some areas earmarked for Parks and Recreation, which we are super grateful for. We have three parks that will meet those needs as they get built. We also evaluated amenities and how they stack up against our current level of service. Our priorities would be to develop planned parks, update existing parks, and acquire land for future park use. Trails are probably the highest priority for residents. They want to see the trail plan implemented. We have the vision and plan in mind and will figure out costs as we go with funding implementation of different things through grants. In the needs assessment, 70% of the 500 plus respondents were in support of a RAP tax. We are currently in the works of doing that. This year is a County ballot, so staff is working to get it on for next year, 2027. We are getting the wording in place and will see if the County wants to move forward with a County wide RAP tax. There are a lot of variables that go into that. It would all be set here by the Council when we get to that point.

d. Title: ORD 26-13 Rezone Code Text Amendment

Planner Lance said staff is looking to simplify parts of the process where it is unnecessarily convoluted. There are things per code we are requiring that you should not be. In this section a lot of the language for what staff is looking for in a narrative. We do not want to be accused of tying an applicant down. This would keep it simple and clean. Next, we are taking out the requirement for a map. Staff has the skills and know-how so we can create those. Applicant does not need to waste their time doing that. D is in reference to asking an applicant to generate an engineered concept plan and that is problematic when we talk about real money being put down for a proposal. It starts to look like applicants are guaranteed or vested. We do not want them spending any money on engineering when the question is, does the requested zoning fit in an area as has been discussed? Administrator Epling said to clarify, this is just for hard zoning not an overlay or bonus density. Planner Lance said we are streamlining and simplifying. This was reviewed by the Planning Commission. There was good discussion largely about how the Commission wants to see a simplification of the process and gear our applicants toward the Integrated Land Use Plan, future land use map, and new parks plan. The Planning Commission recommended approval 4-0. Administrator Epling said they mainly discussed striking intent because our code requires what does the applicant intend to do. The intent can change if it changes hands, so we wanted the applicant to stick with our plans and does it fit the proper zoning principles.

e. Title: ORD 26-14 Planning Commission Code Text Amendment

Planner Lance said this came by direction from the Council that we look at term limits. We had good discussion with the Commission, who came up with a good suggestion to look at code language for alternate members. Option A draft suggests term limits and adjusts other language in that section that already exists in our code. Option B encapsulates the discussion from the Commission with four-year terms. Administrator Epling said staff originally proposed two years that shall expire in January of the second year following the appointment and until their respective successor shall have been appointed. Provided that the term shall be assigned and adjusted necessary to maintain staggered appointments so two members expire each year. Alternate members shall serve under the same term provisions and may serve in place of an absent or disqualified member until a new replacement is appointed as provided by this title. The Commission suggested increasing the two-year term to four years and they added details for the alternate members. City Council may appoint one or more alternate members to the Planning Commission. They shall be Planning Commission members and subject to the same appointment process, qualifications, terms of office, training requirements, removal provisions, and compensation as all other members of the Planning Commission except otherwise provided in this section. They felt alternate members should be able to have a voice in the discussion, but not necessarily a vote. Alternate members may participate in all Commission meetings and deliberations but shall not vote unless designated by the chairperson to serve in the place of an absent or disqualified voting member or when a vacancy exists. Alternate members shall possess the same authority and voting privileges as members for whom they are serving. In the event no alternate member is available, the chairperson may designate a current NPI member who has regularly participated in those meetings as determined by the zoning administrator to serve as a temporary alternate member. This would help prepare people, who are active in the community, take a bigger role. Mayor Rohde suggested they vet this wording with the City Attorney.

f. Title: ORD 26-15 Establishing Regulations for Fireworks—Fire Chief Jeff Jarrow

Chief Jarrow said we are going back to what the State has. We have two zones, Radio Hill and the Malad River, where fireworks will be banned. I really want to address the State law and show that we are following that. The goal of that ordinance is to give me the latitude to make decisions without having to hold an emergency meeting. This would have something already in place, so everyone knows there is certain criteria that the fire chief is going to use if we do have a ban. Otherwise, we are going to have a set map. We will always use that map unless there are extenuating circumstances due to weather and extreme fire conditions. Year by year, conditions will change and that is why I want to have some kind of parameter in place so we can be justified in canceling fireworks when needed. It holds the citizens accountable as well.

g. Title: Discussion on Fire Department Remodel—Fire Chief Jeff Jarrow

Chief Jarrow said we got three quotes for a remodel of the bathrooms and our downstairs living quarters. C&K construction came back with the lowest bid. We currently have two showers for four people. The goal is to increase staffing over time to accommodate calls. We are already pretty far behind, and it is difficult for them to shower after a fire. The plan is to increase the showers and toilets. There would be four men showers and two women showers, with a bigger locker room style bathroom. We have five bedrooms right now and would add one more for six bedrooms total, so we have space for growth. It will take about eight weeks. They will include shower trailers on site for us to use in the meantime. That is included in the quote (about $100,000). We are asking for a budget amendment. Finance Director Jamie Heiner said the proposal would come out of capital projects, which currently has about $3.1 million balanced.

h. Title: Discussion on Fire Billing

Chief Jarrow said this is something we have discussed to help recoup costs for extrication of vehicles, traffic accident, and clean up. One of the pages talks about billing for fire recovery for a structure fire. Their limit would be $500. That money comes from the insurance company. I looked at a couple different insurance contracts for homeowners’ insurance and it says that the money would be sent to the homeowner, who is then supposed to pay the City. A commercial structure, would be $5,000. Again, there would be a check from their insurance company so we would recuperate that cost. Fire Recovery would help us recover those costs for the service provided. Councilmember Oyler said so this is a contract for someone else to do that billing? What do we pay them? Chief Jarrow said they take a percentage (22%). Councilmember Oyler said we used to do that billing in the office. Can we still do that, so we do not have to pay that 22%. Chief Jarrow said we could. My only concern is that it might get lost along the way. I know when I started here years ago, we were doing it and then we stopped. Councilmember Bowcutt said so you are giving this other company the same exact information that we could give in-house. To me it does not make sense to send it to somebody else when we have capable people here. Chief Jarrow said my question is, who is going to do it and is there a process in place? These guys have a process. This is our reporting system. When we finish a report, as soon as we hit submit, this information goes to the State for the calls. The information goes directly to them. That is why I am asking, is there a process in place to get that information here? Are we walking the paperwork over to you guys? If we do calls over the weekend those automatically go there. How do I get that to our City staff? This year we could have billed $27,000 for the 43 calls that were traffic accident-related calls. They would have charged us $2,000 for their services. These guys are in place and ready to do this. Are we going to get bogged down doing other things? The Council agreed to work on this in house and to get that process started.

i. Title: RES 26-47 Generative AI Policy

Mayor Rohde said this would give any contractor who works for the City, direction on how they can use AI. It has very specific language about what you can and cannot put in it since it is going out to the world. This is all built around State code and has been vetted with our attorney. We have created an employee handbook. Most importantly what is built into this is what I call the human touch. Nothing can go out of AI unless it has been read or touched by the person working on it. I have to read it. I have to validate it. I am responsible for that data that is going out. This policy is going out so we can start to use AI in our City (August 15). Once we get this running, we can put in templates and say, create an ordinance using our Tremonton City standards.

j. Title: Tremonton Connection Plan

Mayor Rohde said the connection plan has our mission, vision, and roles. The Mayor and Council set direction, while City staff carry it forward, and citizens give input. That puts all of this on a horizontal relationship. We are all working together. We now need to determine what we want to have in each pillar and build our final document off that.

The first pillar is connected to the good life. Here are the challenges: few amenities and limited recreation, concerns for youth and young adults, preserving small town identity, loss of agricultural way of life, aging and neglected park system. Outcomes are year-round places to gather, play and belong, facilities and public spaces that keep pace with growth and beautification that builds shared pride, gateways, downtown parks and neighborhoods. Here are some goals we can work on. Adopt a citizen-centric generic plan for 2026 and grow our signature connection events, multiple sport recreation complex, bring the parks system back to standard, launch neighborhood connection programs, a downtown city-wide beautification push, and honor our veterans. The Council discussed things they are already doing and what could be improved.

Councilmember Jex said we need to at least do a feasibility on that complex. I know it has a big upfront price tag, but cities that are doing it, are keeping property taxes low or non-existent. We have to bring revenue in. Councilmember Bowcutt said the General Plan is a must. Mayor Rohde said I really like Main Street. I think that is going to do a lot for us over the next few years. Councilmember Oyler said I feel like one of the sports things needs to be in there.

Next, Mayor Rohde said we need to make sure we stay focused on good, local social media and preserving our small-town identity. A modern City website on a digital front door. Everything we do should be on level seven dignity scale. We should all be treating each other well. We also want to launch a public transparency dashboard for 2026 and have more town hall meetings. Councilmember Lewis said I personally would launch a Share the Good campaign. You get what you focus on. The more people are looking for the good, the better off the community becomes. Councilmember Jex said I think having those town halls should be vital.

Mayor Rohde said pillar three is safety, stability, family security, and the challenges are aging facilities, domestic violence, bullying and youth, safety, scaling safety with growth, limited economic development, workforce development gaps. The outcomes we are after are fire and police capability that stays ahead of growth, a multi-year plan for scaling safety with population and risk. Peace at the neighborhood level, trust with public safety, neighbors who know and care for neighbors, and economic diversification. Some of them we have here is a deliberate economic development strategy. We have a multi-year public safety scaling plan, that is staffing shifts and equipment to keep the fire and EMS ahead of population growth instead of always behind it. Make our public buildings look more like we mean business, give youth construction outlets, keep critical infrastructure ahead of growth and close workforce gaps. I checked every one of those. I think the economic development strategy is vital. A multi-year safety scaling plan. The second one, I think would be lumped in with the Main Street one from earlier. I have heard a lot of people say we need to give our kids something to do downtown.

Mayor Rohde said the last pillar is connected to positive well-being, high mental health needs, substance abuse epidemic, small and fragile economic base, water supply and sustainability, fiscal capacity and constraints. Outcomes would be meaningful access to mental health, tracking physical, mental, and social well-being over time, fiscal transparency for residents that they can act on, fund capital facilities planned with consistent capital savings. Build a real financial plan for the City. Finish the utility rate studies and asset depreciation schedules. The trails funding, open the books before the hard-asked questions. Meaningful access to mental health and sustained support. Finally, secure our water for the future. Councilmember Bowcutt said you can almost check every single one of these. Mayor Rohde said I will put together a final plan for our next meeting where the Council can help me determine how to finalize it.

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 5:53 p.m. by consensus of the Council.

CITY COUNCIL MEETING

Mayor Rohde called the July 21, 2026 City Council Meeting to order at 6:00 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, Jex, Lewis, Oyler, and Westergard, and City Manager Nessen. City Recorder Nelson was excused.

1. Call to Order

2. Invocation by: Pastor Eusebio Granda
Pledge led by: Councilmember Oyler

3. Roll Call

4. Approval of Agenda:

Motion by Councilmember Jex to approve the agenda of July 21, 2026 with the change that they do not discuss item e. Motion seconded by Councilmember Westergard. Vote: Councilmember Bowcutt – yes, Councilmember Jex – yes, Councilmember Lewis – yes, Councilmember Oyler – yes, Councilmember Westergard – yes. Motion approved.

5. Declaration of Conflict of Interest: None.

6. Presentations

a. Years of Service awarded to Tyona Price – 5 years with Fire Department

Fire Chief Jarrow provided a bio on her and the Council thanked her for her service.

7. Citizen Engagement: None.

8. Unfinished Items from City Council Work Session: None.

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

a. Approval of minutes – July 7, 2026
b. Approval of Resolution No. 26-46 Agreement for Bailiff Services
c. Approval of Resolution No. 26-47 Generative AI Policy

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

10. Strategic Business (Ordinances & Policies)

a. Discussion and consideration of adopting ORD No. 26-11 Discharge of Projectiles

Layne Wilding said I am a little concerned. I have highlighted things I would like to discuss. The discharge of a projectile. This new ordinance is going to apply to private property. There is no mention about public property, parks, and areas like that. In the old ordinance, it said within Tremonton City limits. Do you want to put this to the whole city limits? If it is only on my private property, that means I could technically go to the park with my bow and arrow or my beehive BB gun and shoot and do whatever I want. That is just a different interpretation of that particular requirement. Do you want to consider public property in this ordinance or is it just going to be strictly private property? The next item is individuals under the age of 16. Who is going to verify that and how are you going to track that. How is that going to be enforced? The old ordinance said within the City limits of Tremonton, which would include both private and public properties. You have now restricted this just to private property. It does not mention public property, so I do not know how that is going to be handled. Councilmember Jex said this ordinance is designed to give private property owners the right to discharge something on their own property. It does not give anybody the right to do that in a public park, on Main Street, in a roadway, or anything like that. Mayor Rohde said that is called out very specifically. Mr. Wilding said the part about things that are not going to cause a noise that your neighbors are going to hear, that really bothers me because most everything we do will cause a noise that will cross my property boundary. That noise from the discharge must not be audible beyond the property line. I am not sure how you are ever going to satisfy that requirement. I would suggest that be taken out.

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

b. Discussion and consideration of adopting ORD No. 26-12 Parks, Trails, & Open Space Master Plan

Mr. Wilding said I read the entire plan and had a lot of comments and questions and found several typos that have been corrected. I am concerned about growth projections in the plan, which is less than 3% population growth between now and 2050, which I think is way underestimated. I expect this plan will get revised. I am a little concerned that we still have a plan out there and there is no statement in this document that says this plan supersedes that one. Staff recommends this would be updated every five years and based off the past General Plan, it says it will be updated every 10 years. My question is who is going to track it and be responsible and how are we going to be sure it gets done in five years? That this plan will be revised, and we will not be like the General Plan where we waited over 25 years to get it updated. Mayor Rohde said valid questions. The new comprehensive plan will actually address that with dates on every one of those chapters on when they need to be reviewed. We do need to make sure we have a valid review process in place.

Cassandra Merrell said I did not read the entire document. I am just really grateful for the ideas of future parks. My son and I go to the park almost every single day so to be able to have them updated with features and more parks and different things is really exciting to me. I am really grateful for the whole plan. Thank you.

Motion by Councilmember Jex to approve the ordinance including a provision that this plan supersedes any prior park plan. Motion seconded by Councilmember Bowcutt. Roll Call Vote: Councilmember Bowcutt – yes, Councilmember Jex – yes, Councilmember Lewis – yes, Councilmember Oyler – yes, Councilmember Westergard – yes. Motion approved.

c. Discussion and consideration of adopting ORD No. 26-13 Rezone Code Text Amendment

Mr. Wilding said the comment was made about having a cheat sheet. I wholeheartedly agree that would be great. I would also encourage the staff to put a flow chart together. A simple flow chart would go a long way to answering questions about how things work and how we get answers and what the flow and process is. A cheat sheet would be great, but a flow chart would be even better because it would give us exact steps on what we can expect along the way.

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

d. Discussion and consideration of adopting ORD No. 26-14 Planning Commission Code Text Amendment

Motion by Councilmember Bowcutt to table this item. Motion seconded by Councilmember Jex. Vote: Councilmember Bowcutt – yes, Councilmember Jex – yes, Councilmember Lewis – yes, Councilmember Oyler – yes, Councilmember Westergard – yes. Motion approved.

e. Discussion and consideration of adopting ORD No. 26-15 Establishing Regulations for Fireworks

This item was not discussed.

11. Reports and Calendar

a. City Leadership Report

Chief Jarrow said our old fire truck was brought back. With the Box Elder County Fair parade coming up, I wondered if the Council would want to ride that. The Council agreed. Chief Jarrow said it is an old classic truck. Councilmember Westergard could drive it and the Council can ride along. We will keep it here at the station until then. Our social media page had 1.2K followers back in April and we are at 3.2K currently. We have been working with media companies to put videos up.

Mayor Rohde said our Citizen Advisory Committee is going to keep moving forward, but Norm has stepped down due to personal reasons. We will be restarting that soon. A couple of people are interested in helping. I want to thank every one of you for all you do. It is fun working with you. I want to thank City staff for everything they do as well.

b. Upcoming Calendar Items

Mayor Rohde said Hay Days is July 24 and 25. We will need to all help cook. Friday night, we cook dinner. Saturday morning, we cook breakfast. The Emotional Wellness Committee will not be meeting again until September 2. The Farmer’s Market hosted by businesses will be held the first Saturday of each month at Shuman Park.

Mayor Rohde said we will now go into closed session to discuss litigation.

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

The Council moved into a closed meeting at 6:41 p.m.

12. CLOSED MEETING:

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

The Council returned to open session at 7:14 p.m.

13. Adjournment.

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

The meeting adjourned at 7:14 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 day of , 2026.

Cynthia Nelson, City Recorder

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