• Mona City Council meeting is postponed until next work session after a dispute erupts over subdivision water ordinance discussion

• New Councilmen sworn-in in Mona
  
  
• Levan Council discusses the enforcement of Nuisance Ordinance
  
  
• Weiss Highway in West Juab County first road to be claimed by state officials for right of way through federal lands
  
  
• Obits
  
  
• Classified Ads
  
  
• Home
  
  
• Back

Mona City Council meeting is postponed until next work session after a dispute erupts over subdivision water ordinance discussion

By Myrna Trauntvein

Times-News Correspondent

Next council meeting, Mona Council members will have a work session to discuss the passage of a resolution that Mountain States Subdivision and Canyon Flats Subdivision be allowed to use water-supply plans they had in place before a water ordinance was adopted.

After tempers flared and former council member Doran Kay was accused of failing to make public a letter he had received from Phillip E. Lowry, the sometimes-city attorney, notifying of concerns Pat Painter's attorney had raised, Mayor Bryce Lynn suggested the meeting close and the council discuss the issues at the next council meeting, a work session.

The meeting officially ended, Lynn left, but the council just moved to the outer office to continue the discussion.

Doran Kay, who left office prior to the meeting, and Harry Newell, continuing council member, were not well-pleased with a resolution passed by the majority of the council at the last meeting held in December.

"I really thought it was unfair because it took me by surprise," said Newell, who, along with Doran Kay, voted against the proposal.

"Lowry said the adoption of the resolution was disturbing from a procedural posture, both because such action was not on the council meeting agenda and because it was not formally proposed to the city through the planning commission and the council."

Newell was speaking of the decision, ratified by the majority of the council, (Darlene Fowkes, Cory Squire, and Rory Nielson) to allow Pat Painter, as developer of his property, lease water to subdivision property owners and then have the homeowners association gain control of the water leases after 51 percent of the property was in the hands of the owner's association.

In December, Painter, his attorney, Jens Fugal, along with Bart Jackson and Kerry Lynn, met with the council on behalf of the Canyon Flats and Mountain View Estates subdivisions requesting their projects be grandfathered into the ordinance recently passed which requires water be dedicated to each building lot prior to a building permit being issued.

Under the resolution, the majority of council members agreed to allow the previous agreements to be honored "grandfathered" in since they were both proposed and accepted prior to the ordinance.

The way the city ordinance has been designed, a water certificate is stamped by the irrigation company and recorded with the lot deed. The action is supposed to prevent the water from being sold after it is dedicated to the lot.

Painter made the proposal, which was accepted by vote of the council, over a year ago when a plat was accepted to attach water to each of the building lots in his subdivision.

Since that agreement occurred before the ordinance was written, he said, the prior arrangement should be considered as meeting the requirements to dedicate water to the property as designated in the new ordinance.

Quinton Kay, newly sworn council member, agreed with the position his brother, Doran Kay, had taken and sided with Newell in calling for the resolution passed at the December meeting to be rescinded.

"If you want to make a change, you should back up, regroup, and rewrite the ordinance," said Quinton Kay. "But proper procedure was not followed."

Painter asked Doran Kay what had happened to a letter sent to him, for the council, on Nov. 17, from Lowry in connection with a letter sent to Lowry from Painter's attorney, Fugal.

"Phil (Lowry) did not send me any letter at all," said Doran Kay, "not like that."

However, when Painter pressed the issue, Doran Kay produced a letter and presented it to Mayor Lynn.

He said that he had not passed the letter on, if that was the same one Painter was referring to, because he was no longer the council member over water and because he had informed the council that he had received a letter from Lowry but was told that Lowry was no longer the city attorney.

Nevertheless, said Painter, the letter should have been forwarded on to the person who was over water or handed to the mayor. It should have been treated with some respect.

The letter, from Lowry, within its body also claimed to have a letter from Fugal attached. It was missing from the copy Kay had and Kay said he had not seen it.

Lowry said the objections of Painter to the new impact fee ordinance had been sent by Fugal to Lowry. "He (Fugal) has now done so (listed the objections) in a letter, a copy of which is now enclosed," wrote Lowry.

"You will recall that the council voted to approve the ordinance without legal review, and that I was not authorized to provide such review," said Lowry. "Indeed, for fiscal reasons my role was expressly restricted in a fax cover sheet to simply prepare the ordinance for notice."

"You will recall in my conversation with you that my greatest overriding concerns were (1) the Mona Irrigation Company could be viewed as a virtual monopoly, and (2) that it might be effectively converted into a utility regulated by the state oversight authority."

"Other concerns related to the state impact fee statute were not discussed because I had no mandate to review that statute for the city," said Lowry.

Kelly Lynn and Bart Jackson questioned whether Quinton Kay, who has interest in a subdivision and who is a share-holder in Mona Irrigation Company, should be allowed to vote when a conflict-of-interest is, to their way of thinking, so clearly manifest.

Quinton Kay had wanted a letter from Lowry to be read to council members but, Lynn said the item would need to wait until the agenda Item: "Council Business" as there were others, whose names were on the agenda, waiting to address the council.

Newell, though he read the letter into the minutes of the meeting during the council reports time slot, emphasized that it was prepared by Lowry as a "draft for discussion purposes only" and was not signed by the attorney.

"While I may not be apprised of all the facts," wrote Lowry, "the situation as it has been described to me smacks of gamesmanship."

However, Squire said it appeared that Lowry did not understand all of the details.

"Unless we own the system," said Mayor Lynn, "neither Pat"s (Painter's) plan or our water ordinance is defensible."

However, he said, he thought both plans would work and that, in the long run, the result of either plan would be that the city would have water tied to each lot as a prerequisite to building.

He saw no need for rescinding the resolution nor for discussing the issue further on that night.

"We need to have a work session and discuss it there," he said.

Quinton Kay attempted to informally and individually poll council members but Lynn objected: "You are out of order. You are not in charge. I am the mayor."