Wellington City began their regularly scheduled city council meeting with all members, excluding Andrew Pehrson, in attendance. Pehrson had been excused.
Wade Williams from City Sanitation was in attendance to discuss the expiring contract with Wellington City and to re-negotiate some of the terms within the contract. Williams stated that there has been a steady increase of $0.15 per can each year and would like to see a verbiage change in the new contract to address the increase.
Scott Wolford, accompanied by Jenna Draper from the Utah Inland Port Authority (UIPA), came to council to address an error that had been made on their part.
Wolford stated that the UIPA was not currently in compliance with state regulations due to the error in which they had zoned for the new Castle Country Project Area. Wolford stated that there is a portion of the land area that they had intended to use for Wellington Microtech, that is located in Wellington City and not the county like they had assumed.
Wolford explained that this is an error that they very much wanted to rectify and would love to work with Wellington City going forward to help to bring in new businesses that they believe would benefit Wellington City.
Wolford stated that the UIPA has quite a bit of regulations that are put on them and one of those regulations states that they are not allowed to create a project area without being invited first by the local land use authority.
Wolford advised that, with any project that they bring to the area, the city will receive 25% of the tax revenue and the UIPA will receive 75% of the tax revenue, but that revenue must be invested back into the community. It was stated that after 25 years, the city would then receive 100% of the tax revenue.
Wolford said that though 25% may not sound like a lot, for Box Elder county it’s equaled out to 52 million dollars.
Mayor Brad Timothy and council members advised that they want to maintain ownership of the parcel, but were on the fence about Wellington Microtech due to being approached by some of their representatives few months back, promising a few different things, but have had no communication since.
Wolford stated that the business that they brought in didn’t have to be Wellington Microtech, advised that it could be anyone, but they would still need to work something out with Wellington City due to boundary lines.
Mayor Timothy and council agreed to look things over and to discuss it with the city attorney to come up with a resolution with the UIPA.
Mayor Timothy then proclaimed September 2024 as Suicide and Prevention Awareness Month and discussed meeting with local representatives to hopefully educate Wellington City residents on the many resources that are available throughout the county.
The council then discussed the new building update and voted unanimously to approve Jones & DeMille as the contractor for the new city building, stating that they would sit down with a representative from each department to discuss needs. Council wants to ensure that the new building isn’t just a functioning building for the next couple of years, but wants to ensure that it makes sense in 25 years or more.