In a special meeting on Tuesday, the Summit County Council held an electronic Retreat to look at their work plan for 2021.
They didn’t complete all the items on a busy agenda, but Council members sketched out their priorities for next year—ranging from climate change to a trail connection between Kamas and Oakley.
The County Council met this week on an irregular schedule, since Wednesday was the Veterans Day holiday. Council held their regular session on Monday, and the Retreat on Tuesday.
Among the comments at that meeting, Council Chairman Doug Clyde said he has the same priority that he did four years ago--looking at the water quality around the Weber River and the Kamas Valley. He said they’re heading for complete disaster if development proceeds without proper water safeguards in the county code.
He said one important element there is what is called “Land Capability Analysis.”
“If I have a piece of property, and the Weber is already in violation, federal water quality standards, and I flow into the Weber. The water is right at the surface of my property. My property is dead flat, it’s absolutely board flat, you scrape down one pine needle, and you find water, You have zero land capability, zero. You can’t put crap on your land, because any crap that you put on your land will further deteriorate the water quality in the Weber River, because you’re going to be accelerating the flow of nitrogen and phosphorous and suspended-and-dissolved solids into the Weber. That’s a radical example. Not many people have a piece of land that has absolutely zero land capability in it. But they are out there.”
Clyde said he also wants to work on an Oakley-to-Kamas trail for next year.
Council Member Glenn Wright said two concerns for him are the very real challenges of climate change, and the demographic changes that will happen because of it.
“As we get warmer, the Wasatch Front is gonna become a more and more disagreeable place to live. Projections are that by 2050, the climate there will be that of Las Vegas, without the wine, women and song. That’s gonna push people up to the Wasatch Back. At the same time as our snowpack decreases—20 years from now, we’ll probably still be a ski resort. We’re not gonna be a top-class ski resort. In the 2040 to 2050 time frame, we will probably not be a ski resort at all. We have enough entitlements in the county right now to hold a population of the city of Salt Lake City. And if we don’t do something about it, we’re gonna be one-acre houses, as far as the eye could see.”
Wright added he wants to look at a Transfer of Development Rights program, in order to move density off areas like the Kamas Valley, to concentrated areas like the Canyons Resort, Kimball Junction, or the Cedar Crest Overlay Zone on the East Side.
He said they also need to work on the Wildland Urban Interface Zones, developed areas near forest. He said if the recent Weber Canyon fire had happened a few months earlier, in drier conditions, it could have wiped out all the residences in the Canyon.
Council Member Chris Robinson said he wants to complete road projects, like those on Old Ranch Road and the link from Bitner Road to lower Silver Creek. He added he’d like to re-engage with the Weber Basin District on Snyderville Basin water planning; look at Open Space on the East Side of the county; and work on regional transportation.
He also noted the Silver Creek stream corridor, with its old mine tailings.
“I think the Silver Creek restoration efforts that we’ve broached in recent days with the Fish and Wildlife service is a beginning of a—as Doug mentioned—a slow-moving ball. You can’t expect it to move too fast. But we need to start forming the ball and getting a little momentum.”
Kim Carson is retiring and won’t be on the Council for 2021. But she said that will be a tough year, because of Covid, along with the workload challenges facing the staff.
“With the reduction in staff, I’m concerned about even getting the work that we’ve on here done. One of my biggest areas of concern in the way of staffing is probably the Community Development Department. They’ve got a lot of big projects, especially when we start bringing up some of the code things that we would like to have looked at, if they don’t create chain reactions to other areas of the code, and some of the projects that we haven’t made it through yet this year.”
Other items for her include transit, waste collection and senior services.
Finally, the group also heard from Council-Member-Elect Malena Stevens, who is taking Carson’s seat in January.
“Responsible growth is a high priority for me. And I think that’s encapsulated in a lot of these different areas we’ve already been discussing—making sure that we’re clustering development where it makes sense. If that requires looking at TDR’s and really being intentional about where we’re putting development, I think it’s going to be critical with these issues as far as preserving our water quality, ensuring the quality of life in general.”
Stevens also mentioned proactively working to foster recycling; and access to Mental Health services on the East Side of the county.
