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Show gffiff 1 11 ; i .... ii. .i ... - k " At ,M. : ' " . . -v. j i; ! ntmarr. ' I.- ' ?l T""': !.:' :r':: ;j j ! I f i f ra, .ir , IV- '! H' " 'Hj ii ' ! ;: if iJ r .e. -.id 3 : ilJ-i iv L ; ' "" ('"" ' City Council Approves Community and Recreation Center at the Golf Course ! ;1 S3 l ....... .. . y Harlow Clark For the past six years, Ce-lar Ce-lar Hills residents and council nembers have been debating vhat to do with recreation mpact fees collected from de-'elopers. de-'elopers. Fees not used by the ixth year have to be returned, 0 the issue is urgent. On April 9 the city council awarded 1 bid to build the community ind recreation center to the ow bidder Peck Ormsby for ;2,190,800. Council Member Ken Cirk's motion addressed a lot f concerns raised recently ibout uncertain economic Events and Recreation Center to Community and Recreation Center. Not everyone was happy with the action. Ken Cromar, formerly of the city council, filmed the meeting and kept asking to be heard, but the meeting was not a public hearing hear-ing and Mayor Eric Richardson refused to take comment, telling tell-ing Cromar, "We're not going to have back and forth on this." Nonetheless, council members addressed many of the concerns that residents had raised recently. Council Member Marisa Wright addressed ad-dressed Jerry Derringer from , , , i ii ii. 1 1 Ken Cromar films the Cedar Hills City Council on April 19. Council Member Mem-ber Marisa Wright is asking City Attorney Eric Johnson about the legal issues of building the community center. "With all due respect," Wright said to Derringer, "you are a water attorney," not a municipal attorney, and she invited City Attorney Eric Johnson to the podium to talk about what would happen to the funds if not used. Johnson said the city code is inconsistent with itself at you when you told me we couldn't have a library there?" Johnson hesitated, explaining, ex-plaining, "That was in executive ex-ecutive session, so I wouldn't have felt free to bring it up." He added that the majority of council members at any time would prefer to pay down the debt. imes and having a wide vanity van-ity of activities instead of sim-)ly sim-)ly a clubhouse for golfers. The motion noted that ac-ivities ac-ivities could "vary from sea-on sea-on to season and year to year" ind that the kind of activities vould be an administrative natter, not something need-ng need-ng repeated council approval. Council Member Scott Jack-nan Jack-nan addressed another con-:ern, con-:ern, asking Kirk to change the lesignation from Community the Mayor's Blue Ribbon Recreation Rec-reation Aquatics Committee who had said at the April 4 council meeting that his legal research indicated the impact fees could be returned to the current landowner rather than the developer as Mayor Eric Richardson had told the committee. com-mittee. Derringer had also said that according to city code an appropriate use would be to apply funds to the debt service on the golf course bond. didn't agree with everything committee members said, but all opinions are valid. "The wish list exceeds the funding list," the mayor said, adding that he was not inclined to put the matter to a municipal vote, that there has already been substantial input. After the community and recreation center was approved, Cromar packed up his video camera and tripod and left. When asked outside the building build-ing what he would do next, he said he was "exploring all the legal options. The citizens have not had their voice heard," he said. He also said the mayor had admitted to him in an e-mail e-mail earlier that day that there had been a conspiracy to keep the issue off the ballot. Mayor Richardson said Cromar had missed the word "not," that he had said there was not a conspiracy to keep the matter off the ballot, that the city had even shortened its process to give Cromar more time to gather signatures, but Cromar had missed the April 15 deadline. The mayor said the events center was an issue in 2005 when he ran for the city council coun-cil and in 2009 when he ran for mayor, that he had debated debat-ed it with his opponent, Jerry Derringer, and had asked Derringer Der-ringer to be on the Blue Ribbon Rib-bon Committee because he valued his input. Richardson said the threshold for getting something some-thing on the ballot was very ' low, signatures from registered regis-tered voters equal 15 percent of the number who voted in the last presidential election (for example, 300 if 2,000 had voted), and Cromar hadn't submitted the petitions. He added that Cromar was experienced expe-rienced at doing initiatives, 2001, 2005, 2007 and 2011, and knew how they worked. "He knew this would be an issue is-sue a year ago." about who impact fees would be returned to, "so we look at statute," and statute says the funds would be returned to developers, but doesn't define developers. Wright asked if the funds would go back to developers de-velopers if not spent. "That's the safer position," Johnson said. She asked about a case in Lehi where developers were suing the city. He said he understood un-derstood the district court had ordered the funds returned to the developers, which bolstered bol-stered his opinion of what would happen to. Cedar Hills' funds if not spent. Wright also asked, "Is it true that the money cannot go Wright said she had gotten got-ten emails and phone calls all day from people saying, "Do the right thing, don't build the events center," and "Do the right thing, build the events center." "I live here too. I paid impact fees too," Wright said, adding, "I am voting my conscience con-science on this. I don't want money going back to developers." develop-ers." Kirk said he had also been flooded with e-mails, and had to cut and paste replies and still had been unable to reply re-ply to all. "The silent majority major-ity is as valid as the proverbial prover-bial squeaking wheel," he said, adding that the hardest thing is to determine the majority. "A vote would do it," Cromar Cro-mar called out. "Please don't interrupt me," Kirk said. Jackman asked about the Blue Ribbon Committee. Wright said it was hard to get consensus among 25. "Is that right, Julie?" "Yes," Julie Sessions. said. "There was one thing everyone ev-eryone had consensus on. Don't refund the money!" Jackman said. "Yes, that's right," Wright said. She also said that she to the bond?" Yes. "Is golf a legal form of recreation?" Yes. "OK, golf courses are legal." le-gal." Jackman asked, "What about pro shops?" It's related to the golf course, so yes, Johnson replied, re-plied, adding that even if the city didn't own the municipal golf course, it could likely sell golf clubs, just as municipal munici-pal pools sell goggles. Wright also wanted residents resi-dents to know that Johnson wasn't just telling the city council what they wanted to hear. "Is it true that I got madder than I've ever been |
