After years of discussion about merging East Carbon and Sunnyside into one city, Councilman Dave Maggio announced the talks are on again at the East Carbon City Council meeting on Tuesday night.
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Maggio was acting mayor pro tempore in Mayor LaFontaine’s excused absence. “The cat’s out of the bag,” he stated. “This is not some corporation take over, this is for our survival for both cities. Sunnyside is too small to remain viable as a city and East Carbon is not far behind.”
East Carbon City Attorney Jeremy Humes outlined two directions the cities could take to merge. One is for each to make a plan outlining their assets, liabilities and debts and then to pass a resolution. The second approach is to put a petition to the citizens to vote and then there would be a 45 day window to formulate a plan with the debts, assets and liabilities. It would take only 10% of registered voters in the municipality to pass the petition. It would be advantageous for both cities to follow the same route to merge. Humes had some drafts of both resolutions and petitions for the city to look at.
CO Barbra Robinett said she had spoken with Sunnyside Council members at the Public Safety meeting and they wanted to get together with East Carbon Council after the Sunnyside meeting next Tuesday, March 5 at 7:00 pm. The goal is to get all the necessary plans and resolutions in place so the final matter can be on the November ballot.
Other actions in the meeting included a presentation by Lt. Williams of the Utah National Guard to have East Carbon City draft and sign a city covenant to support the military veterans that are residing in East Carbon. The council voted to make this a part of their Community Days Celebration July 13th.
Wendy Leonard approached the city with a request to purchase two parcels of property from East Carbon. She had her husband want to build a barn to house their show and tack horse mares. Those horses currently are stabled in the Ogden area. Planning and zoning tabled the request in an earlier meeting until they were sure how to proceed. The council stated they would find out the fair market value and put a public notice that the parcels were available for sale. Leonard could then put in a bid for those pieces.
The council also passed a resolution to clarify that the owners of rental properties are responsible for the utility bills accrued by their renters if the renters skip out without clearing up the charges. There was one rental property owner that spoke up with his concerns that a malicious renter that was being evicted could turn on the water and leave it running for days and he would be stuck with the bill. The council sympathized with him, but felt they had to protect the city interests first.