Attending Members: Mary Esther Putnam (Chair); John Nichols; Dall Winn; Jeff Gardner
Also Present: George Cropper (Treasurer); Beverly Udell (Secretary)
Absent: Gerald Schiefer (Fire Chief); Spence Beckstrom
Guests: Fermin and Vi Esparza; Rhodell and LaMar Terry; Fred Pendleton; Cameron Fleming; Sarah Fleming; Timothy Graham
1. General Business:
a/b. Welcome – Meeting was opened by Mary Esther (Chair) at 5:00 PM and the Pledge of Allegiance was said.
c. Meeting Minutes for April 7 were reviewed. John motioned to approve the minutes as written. Dall seconded the motion. All were in favor.
d. Pine Valley Building Permits Reviewed: N/A
e. Impact Fee: The required 90 days has passed since the vote was in approval of changing the impact fee structure. One item on that impact fee structure needs to be reworded from “new business” to “new commercial business” as per Dave Patterson, County Attorney. Jeff motioned to accept the change, Dall seconded that motion.
f. Roads: Spence is a member of the Transportation Road Authority Board. There was money allocated from the government to Washington County, after which there was a Board assigned to oversee those funds (which is what Spence is on.) Based on the money received, we will get new guard rails on Deadman’s curve (after 15 years of Pine Valley residents asking for them.) Spence once talked about trying to get some roads paved in Pine Valley with the funds as well, but it came down to too much money of which ALL individual Pine Valley property owners would have to pay for, even if they were not effected by the paved roads. Not surprisingly, most of the people in Pine Valley are not favorable towards the idea. Fred commented that real dollar figures have not even been established. Fermin also commented that he would be against it. The consensus by the PVSSD Board is to let that whole matter drop. Last fall, the road to Central was repaved, but the chip sealing of it failed. We were told by the County that the road would be redone again to amend for the fail chip seal, but now they are telling us that we are getting the barriers by Deadman’s instead. This makes no sense, since the money for both of them came from different funding allocations. * LaMar Terry has been working hard to get 300 West by his home reopened. Now there is a pile of dirt and rocks in the middle of the road. The road is shown on maps and is platted. He is getting very frustrated with Ron Whitehead because Ron keeps telling LaMar that the road never formally existed. Right now, we can not get a fire truck to LaMars house because of the lack of a throughway road. In the winter, property owners can not even get in. A few years ago when the Forestry Department place a fire break around Pine Valley, they skipped the area by LaMar’s house because they couldn’t get in. LaMar feels this is a very dangerous situation. Alan Gardner might be a good one to speak to since he is from Pine Valley. Mary Esther also said that she would make a phone call on LaMar’s behalf.
g. Board Member Reports:
John: John has not yet had a chance to review the cow fencing around Pine Valley. He has requested a map of who is leasing the property in which the cows graze. * John met with Randy Russell. There has been a LOT of work going on in the campground area. They have haul in a lot of dirt, rocks, pea gravel into the old dumping area, assumingly in preparation of a sledding hill.
Dall: Dall received a letter from the Washington Planning and Zoning in which they stated our extension to the fire station has been approved. That is really nice, especially since the building has been completed for months already! * Dall went to the annual meeting of the P.V. Irrigation Co. While they are definitely moving forward with a water price increase, the extent of that has not fully been determined yet. The PVSSD is no longer responsible for what the water company does, and hasn’t been for a while. The water company is a private company.
Mary Esther: We have had many calls from the public asking to use the fire station for private affairs such as birthday parties, anniversary parties, etc. This could be very problematic because of the dangers associated with all of the equipment we have. Our insurance company would also balk at the general public using the building in such a way. Pot Luck dinners are classified as “firemen dinners”, so this would be different. Some people have asked if they could use the building only as a back up in case of rain, but that then makes us responsible for taking our equipment outside in the rain in order to make room for the party. Beverly chimed in that maybe a difference would be private use versus something that the whole town is invited to (public meetings, town events.) The college building is not available for public use either, only for college employees.
Jeff: A proposal is made to move the time of the PVSSD meeting back to the original 6:00 PM slot. This will start with the June meeting.
g. Fire Chief – Dall reported for Gerald (see report).
h. Treasurer Report – George (see report).
2 – Public Comments: N/A
Spence moved to adjourn at 6:10. Dall seconded the motion. All were in favor. The next Board meeting will be held on Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 6:00 P.M.