With dwindling funds, Ivins looks at more fire staffing and pickleball courts, votes on water ordinance

IVINS — In a pivotal meeting that lasted from late afternoon to the stroke of midnight last week, the Ivins City Council looked at staffing the Center Street fire station and building new pickleball courts. 

Ivins Director of Finance Cade Visser speaks before the Ivins City Council, Ivins, Utah, June 2, 2022 | Photo by Chirs Reed, St. George News

But fire staffing, pickleball courts and other future city projects may be hindered by a warning from the city’s financial director that Ivins is spending more money than it’s bringing in and may be in the red by 2026.

“Expenditures are growing faster than our revenues,” Ivins Director of Finance Cade Visser told the council as the clock nearly struck midnight. “2026 is a scary year. Taking on any debt right now, we don’t have a lot of wiggle room. My advice is as a city we cross our fingers and look for grants.”

Along with a long meeting, the council finished another policy marathon, finalizing and approving a new water ordinance for new construction designed to reduce water usage that has been worked on for months. Ivins joined Washington County and neighboring city Santa Clara in passing new ordinances based on a model ordinance created by the Washington County Water Conservancy

With several issues that, for a time, filled the Ivins City Hall council chambers nearly to capacity, the meeting lasted six hours and 30 minutes. While there might not be any way to know for sure, Chris Hart, who has been mayor for nearly 22 years and was a council member for several years before that, said it was the longest meeting he could remember.

“It was fun to be part of the longest city council meeting ever and I don’t want to do it again,” council member Dennis Mehr said at around 11:58 p.m.

But near the end, Visser spun a chilly tale worthy of the midnight hour that also conjured up the possibility that property tax increases may be inevitable to pay for the needs of the city and its residents.

Visser said the budgetary horror story would be a short one – with the under-construction Black Desert Resort bringing in additional tax revenue after 2026 to rejuvenate the city’s coffers.

Visser cited three factors: Rising inflation, dwindling water supply limiting growth and the need to pay for more essential services like firefighters. The latter comes from the department’s stated need to take on more full-time professionals to provide better 24/7 coverage, as opposed to volunteers. 

“The professional versus volunteer is going to be expensive,” Visser said. “The story is with limited growth, it’s grim.”

This caused members of the council to address something usually difficult to bring up among political leaders – especially those in Southern Utah: A tax increase. 

The members of the council were grappling with a full house of residents who want more services and pickleball courts that would cost money while being told the money isn’t there.

Council member Lance Anderson at the Ivins City Council, Ivins, Utah, June 2, 2022 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

City Manager Dale Coulam, alluding to Visser’s two predecessors as the city’s finance director, said each recommended a property tax increase to the council but that never happened. Council member Adel Murphy said that may have been a mistake as taxpayers might see a larger increase now than if there were incremental increases that keep up with inflation.

“If you did it every couple of years, it wouldn’t be such a shock now, “Murphy said. “It might be 40% now.”

The last time Ivins raised its property tax was in 2005. Under Utah State law, like in 2005, it would take a Truth in Taxation hearing to raise the property tax. 

Hart acknowledged it would be “tough for a city to get enough votes to increase property tax” and suggested one alternative – at least as far as improving fire services is concerned – would be to create a special tax services district for the Santa Clara-Ivins Fire Department that would be similar to the Hurricane Valley Fire District and would assess its own tax separate from the two cities it represents.

Council member Lance Anderson balked at the idea. 

“It costs more and we’re giving more authority to someone else,” said Anderson, agreeing with Murphy that tax revenues had been kicked down the road for too long. “We’ve got to raise our taxes or we have to pay anyway.”

Ivins and Santa Clara reunite on fire but aim at county

With two members of the Santa Clara City Council and Santa Clara’s city manager in attendance, the Ivins Council appeared to make peace with their Santa Clara neighbors over their joint fire department after divorce threats in the previous meeting over what they say is a lack of fire coverage in Ivins compared to Santa Clara. 

Ivins City Manager Dale Coulam consults with Santa Clara-Ivins Fire Department Chief Andrew Parker during the Ivins City Council, Ivins, Utah, June 2, 2022 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

That included a tentative agreement for Santa Clara to include more funds in its budget that could cover additional part-time staff to man the Center Street Fire Station in Ivins which has not had any full-time firefighters or emergency medical services workers since the department centralized most of its staff at the Rachel Drive station in Santa Clara late last year. 

However, both cities directed united anger at the Washington County Commission for not providing enough funding to cover work the Santa Clara-Ivins Fire Department does in an unincorporated area along Old Dixie Highway 91 from their city limits to the border with Arizona and Littlefield.  

Andrew Parker, who took over as the new fire chief of the Santa Clara-Ivins department three months ago, presented four possible solutions at the meeting that would add staffing for the Center Street station. This ranged from moving the current ambulance team but no firefighters to the Ivins station to a more expensive addition of a second ambulance crew and 12 firefighters that would cost both cities a combined $1.28 million.

Under the two cities’ joint operating structure for fire and police, Santa Clara mostly oversees the fire/emergency medical services department while Ivins handles much of the budgeting and operations of the police.

Parker told St. George News after the meeting that ultimately, it’s not about making sure the Center Street station is manned as much as having the right people manning it. 

Four options offered by Santa Clara-Ivins Fire Department Chief Andrew Parker to man the Center Street Fire Station presented during the Ivins City Council meeting, Ivins, Utah, June 2, 2022 | Graphic courtesy Santa Clara-Ivins Fire Department, St. George News | Click to enlarge

“It’s staffing. That’s what puts fires out, not necessarily fire stations or equipment,” Parker said. “It’s, it’s our great people. It costs money to do that.”

Two Ivins council members – Jenny Johnson and Anderson – have previous experience working as volunteer firefighters in Ivins. Both pushed the fire chief to still consider volunteers, especially as a way to save costs. Johnson said she wasn’t excited with the continued push in the department from volunteers to full-time firefighters. 

“I’m partial to the volunteer system,” Johnson said, adding volunteer firefighters build more trust in the community.” I don’t think we’re so big that we can’t have volunteers.”

While Parker said the department will continue to use volunteers, he said the department can provide better service with more professionals.

“My job is to … increase our services, provide higher quality of service,” Parker told St. George News. “That’s basically where my energy is to provide for Mr. and Mrs. Smith the best service, and that’s what I care about.”

Parker presented a “heat map” that he said showed that a majority of the department’s calls are south of Center Street and the centering of manpower on Rachel Drive was to make sure the most firefighters were available where the most calls came from. 

A “heat map” shows the areas of most frequent calls for the Santa Clara-Ivins Fire Department | Graphic courtesy Santa Clara-Ivins Fire Department, St. George News | Click to enlarge

That said, he admitted that move has created bigger delays in more outlying parts of Ivins. 

“There’s definitely a delay, but the majority of what you saw from our heat map, the majority of our residents are getting that fast response time,” Parker said. “Our guys are gonna get there as timely as possible to provide the best service, but there is a delay out in that area so that’s what we’re working to solve.”

Parker said he could enact solution one, moving the department’s ambulance crew during the day shift to Center Street, immediately. He added in 60 days with funding he could execute a second solution where for around $290,000, a second ambulance crew with 12 part-time staff could be hired to staff Center Street 24/7 with an EMS team. That wouldn’t include firefighters, who would still be coming from Rachel Drive.

Santa Clara City Manager Brock Jacobsen told the council Santa Clara would include the funding in its budget.

But Jacobsen and the council redirected their ire away from each other and toward Washington County, which they said tasked the department with handling fire and EMS incidents on Old Dixie Highway 91 all the way to the Arizona border without compensating the cities monetarily. 

That includes incidents like one in February where Santa Clara-Ivins firefighters rescued a man whose car went off Old Dixie Highway 91 into a ravine outside the limits of both cities. Jacobsen said fire crews off to deal with something near Littlefield are even further away from responding in either Santa Clara or Ivins. He added he was dismissed by an unnamed Washington County commissioner when he asked them whether they could help pay for such service.

Santa Clara City Manager Brock Jacobsen speaks before the Ivins City Council, Ivins, Utah, June 2, 2022 | Photo by Chirs Reed, St. George News

“A commissioner said, ‘So you guys need it.’ I said, ‘No, you need it,’” said Jacobsen, adding if the county isn’t paying for the fire coverage, they may need to find other means of covering the unincorporated area. “If they’re not going to pay what our residents are paying taxes for, well let’s take care of Santa Clara and Ivins.”

Jacobsen said he has asked the county for $330,000, which would cover adding a full-time EMS staff to Center Street and could also go to adding full-time firefighters at the location. 

 Two other solutions offered by Parker at the council meeting included a third option to add three full-time supervisors to option two to create a limited fire response from Center Street that would cost a total of $620,000, while a fourth option would staff Center Street to match staffing at the Rachel Drive station for a total of $1.28 million.

Council member Mike Scott noted it didn’t sound like multiple options as much as an ultimate goal. 

“It almost seems like one solution in phases,” Scott said. “One immediately, two in 60 days then figure out how to implement the rest.”

As the three-hour discussion concluded and both Ivins and Santa Clara expressed a united plan moving forward, Johnson said this entails effective communication. 

“I think a lot of this would be resolved with more communication,” Johnson said. “I hope we can continue to have good communication.”

Costs of pickleball

Continuing to respond to the request of several Ivins residents for more pickleball courts, Ivins Parks and Recreation Director Benny Sorensen provided the price tag to add four public pickleball courts: About $250,000.

That doesn’t include an additional $200,000 to build onsite bathrooms or additional plumbing. Then there’s the cost of acquiring land for the courts, as the city said it doesn’t have an existing site to place the courts.

Coming just after a long discussion that involved needing to find around the same amount of money to build up the city’s firefighting resources, Hart said pickleball may be a lower priority. 

“After our discussion on fire, I don’t know where the money is coming from,” Hart said. “Safety is our biggest deal. That’s numero uno and everything else gets sacrificed.”

Council member Dennis Mehr at the Ivins City Council, Ivins, Utah, June 2, 2022 | Photo by Chirs Reed, St. George News

Water ordinance approved

After dominating much of the discussion of council meetings since February, the council voted to approve a new water ordinance for the city that would apply to all new construction and projects.

In the last debate, Mehr expressed concern about too much government intervention in how people use water. He was ultimately the only no vote in the 3-1 final vote, with Johnson having to leave earlier during the extended meeting. 

“I appreciate the effort that has been done, but nay,” Mehr said. 

Among the stipulations of the new ordinance:

  • All new residences and newly constructed non-residential buildings will be required to have hot water recirculation systems and water-efficient plumbing and fixtures installed. 
  • New residences won’t be allowed to have more than 8% of the square footage of their land with grass if single-family/duplex, 5% if a multifamily complex, and that percentage goes further down if the complex has a swimming pool or water feature. 
  • Grass will not be permitted in new nonresidental construction unless it is for active recreation. 
  • Any water features will need to include recirculation pumps and in most cases can’t exceed 300 gallons.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2022, all rights reserved.

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!