At their regular meeting on Feb 5th , Summit County Council Members heard about a variety of issues—from bills at the Utah Legislature to concerns in Public Input.
The Council got a briefing on proposed bills at Capitol Hill. One of those, HB 92, would stop local governments from prohibiting prescribed burns.
Council Member Glenn Wright said they still need to find out more about that legislation.
“There’s some pluses and minuses to that. The Forest Service really needs to be able to do more prescribed burns. I’m not sure if this bill is the right method because it may restrict our abilities to do anything to prevent certain types of burns in the county. So we’re gonna have to talk to the legislature, and some of our allies here at the Capitol that see if some modifications can be made, and maybe get some better understanding about what’s actually happening in that bill.”
He said the county definitely has a position on a proposal to stop local governments from implementing stormwater regulations. Deputy County Manager Janna Young said that could be a violation of the Clean Water Act. Wright said it’s a really bad bill.
“I think we are universally of the opinion that that would be a disaster. And that is definitely one of the things Kim and I will be discussing with UAC representatives this morning to try to defeat that bill.”
During Public Input at the Council’s session, a resident said she wants the county to address the housing needs of senior residents who hope to retire here.
“We don’t have any answers now. But we do have working groups discussing that issue. There’s an ad-hoc group called the Aging Alliance, which has been talking about, that I’ve been participating in for six months to a year. And we’ve actually talked to developers who might be interested in providing some type of housing like that. I don’t know if it’s gonna be exactly what she’s looking for. But we invited her to participate in the group.”
A different concern came up from a Summit Park resident, who doesn’t want the county to place too many surveillance cameras on public facilities or property.
“The cameras we have installed are pretty much just for security issues around county buildings. We have not been asked by any other government entity to supply surveillance cameras on any county roads or public areas. There are lots of surveillance cameras that are hooked to private security systems. As someone brought up, the doorbell cameras now, some of those can be accessed by security agencies and public officials under certain circumstances. So that is outside of our ability to control.”
Council Member Glenn Wright.
And a final note. The Summit County Council and Park City Council have scheduled a new date for their Transit Summit. It’s going to be March 4th.