By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News
Following a heated public hearing regarding a proposed 225% property tax increase in Wellington and the decision to table the issue to explore potential solutions, the topic reemerged when the Wellington City Council convened on Wednesday, Aug. 27.
Instead of trying to push the measure through, the council gathered together to work through potential solutions to reduce the proposal.
The first proposal came from the Utah-based development company Lotus. Mayor Jack Clark explained that the company had contacted him following the public hearing. “We have empathy and compassion for the leaders of Wellington who face a difficult responsibility to ensure sustainable stewardship for future generations,” reads an email from the company to Clark. “With our contributions of impact fees, property tax, and sales tax, we also believe in contributing to communities as a direct team developer. Unlike most proposals, we know that the cities can increase public Funding through ownership in other lands. We build it, you own it.”
Joining the meeting via Zoom was Lotus Co. spokesperson Ava Lopez, who spoke about what the company aims to achieve in the city: “We develop slide tags multifamily homebuilders, so the homeownership products of all different scales,” she said. “And we believe in helping local economies grow by stimulating housing production.”
“We believe that we could build in places like Wellington to stimulate growth, and that way you’re not concentrating density and urbanizing rural communities, but you’re keeping rural, rural. And that’s what we want to do.”
As the item was a presentation, no action was taken.
Moving forward, the council engaged in a discussion in which each member presented potential ways to lower the proposed tax increase to a more manageable level for citizens.
This discussion opened with a presentation from Carbon County Clerk/Auditor Seth Marsing, who explained,” what we’re seeing is that companies like power companies, your railroads, your ConocoPhillips, any of those that are multistate or multicounty, they’re assessed by the state. Their values have stayed stagnant or decreased, and especially in our county when we’ve seen mines or power plants shut down. That’s a significant hit to our essentially assessed values.”
He continued,” Essentially, the tax burden shifts where these companies that are large multicounty, multistate, they’re paying less in taxes and the residents, their homes and their business systems, are paying much more in taxes. So it’s not Wellington City, Carbon County or the school district bringing in a whole bunch of additional revenue. You’d think that because, as a resident, you’re seeing that you’re paying more and more in taxes, but actually what it is again, you’re paying more, ConocoPhillips is paying less.”
Wellington City financial consultant Barbara Clendennen proposed that the city attempt to return to its post-truth-in-taxation rate of 0.001899 and increase from the current rate of 0.001586. “It doesn’t pick the ball that does help,” she said.
Council member Brian Thayn explained to the council that if certain facilities are built within the city, it would increase the share of sales tax that Wellington would receive. “There would be an opportunity there that could be reduced. The need for that burden to be placed on homeowners and the property owners, and the tax is already being paid, it’s just being spent outside of the community, so we could get that revenue back to the community. However, for the city to get involved in it would have to be something that is continuously operating and functioning such as a museum.”
“That seems like a possible partial solution with the budget, but it would certainly take community agreement because I think it would take the community support through volunteer time with their talents and possessions to make a museum come together and then have it operating with a curator,” he said.
Council member Kathy Hascall also spoke on the proposed increase, stating,” My thoughts are we cannot ask our citizens to do a 225% increase. We can’t do that. And we realize we have to do something. But I don’t think 225% is the answer. So, if we can reduce that to less than 100%, it’s still going to hurt. But I think that that’s going to be something we could probably work with.”
To achieve this, Hascall proposed halting all noncritical city expenditures and then reassessing them at the end of the fiscal year.
Hascall also stated that the council was “nowhere near” the point where they would consider dissolving the municipality into the county.
Council member Barney Zauss proposed delaying the increase and giving residents time to prepare and “scale back” their expenditures.
Another potential solution was to increase business engagement in the city. Mayor Clark explained that by using the blueprint of the Coyote’s Well Coffee Shop – which started as a food truck before transitioning into a brick and mortar store – they could attract more businesses by creating more opportunities like that.
They also looked at cities like Moab and Vernal, which have a food truck alley with picnic tables set up throughout for citizens and tourists alike to stop and eat.
Another possibility introduced was a smaller increase this cycle to raise the rate gradually. Councilmember Thayn warned that while good in concept, it could put the city in a similar situation next year.
When turning to public comment on the matter, Lori Whitaker explained that she was in favor of attracting more businesses to the area, but that it would be a tall task as Wellington Main Street is “not attractive.”
Mayor Clark explained that this would require grant money to help beautify the area, as well as potential volunteer work to help plant and maintain flowers around the area. Clark also offered to pay for the flowers out of pocket if anyone was willing to plant and maintain them.
Clark also discussed the cutbacks the city has already made,” I cut back on our HR guy that we were trying to develop. We cut back on him. We’ve cut back as much as we can. I have officers who are working their tails off, and I’m trying to figure out how to cut their overtime because I don’t like how they’re doing it. Does it need to be done? Absolutely! I want to be able to call 9-1-1, and I want them to be able to show up. So we can’t cut employees. Actually, I need another groundskeeper. I need another full-time office help. That’s where we’re at, and we want to hang onto the ones we have.”
Ultimately, the council elected to postpone a decision on the increase while continuing to search for solutions to lower the proposal, including a closer examination of Lotus Co.