By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News

The Emery County Board of Commissioners met on Tuesday, March 17, for their regularly scheduled meeting. This affair included a public hearing on the issuance of a general obligation bond, approval of a donation to several Emery High School students to attend Girls’ State, and discussion of potential changes to payment-in-lieu-of-taxes and Community Reinvestment Agency disbursements.

Opening the meeting, the commissioners heard from Desirée Malley of the Emery County Library System, who was seeking ratification for the Accessible Small and Rural Communities Grant from the American Library Association for the Ferron Branch library. 

“We’re hoping to make some renovations to the entrance and the entryway,” explained Malley. “So, with the permission of all three Commissioners, the county will receive a check to begin the project within the next month, and the official start date is May 1, 2026.”

Following the explanation of the grant, the commissioners unanimously approved the item.

After this, the body heard from seven Emery High students who were seeking a donation to attend the American Legion Auxiliary’s annual Girls State.

Aaliyah King, Annika Magnusen, Hailee Barnett, Zoee Perea, Elizabeth Roberts, Elli Stoker and Elly Stilson all presented their cases to the body, explaining that this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that would help them understand the inner workings of government.

Upon hearing the request, the Commissioners approved a $250 donation to each girl, with the caveat that they come and present their experience following the event’s completion.

Next on the docket, the Commissioners jumped into a public hearing regarding the issuance of a general obligation bond for the Castle Valley Special Service District. CVSSD Manager Jacob Sharp, alongside attorney Eric Johnson, presented to the commission, explaining that the bond was for $1.6 million and was a part of the series of general obligation bonds the community voted to approve in 2019.

“So, to go along with this $1.6 million loan, there’s a $1.58 million grant we’re using throughout the county. Each of the cities and towns we work in each year, we just kind of slowly and incrementally improve facilities there that we operate, maintain, and whatever else,” said Sharp.

One question was asked of the manager about how this bond is disbursed among the municipalities in Emery County, with Sharp explaining that there wasn’t a hard formula for disbursements, but that typically larger communities would see larger projects. He did note that exceptions do occur, such as a recent three-year water project in Emery Town.

Following the public hearing, the commission approved the issuance of the bond by a 3-0 vote.

The final noteworthy items of the meeting arrived back-to-back, with Commissioner Keven Jensen opening a dialogue on how the county disburses its PILT and Community Reinvestment Agency funds.

“So what’s kind of going on, EMS, and this was just a thought, is we need to try to incentivize our ambulances and to have them in service more and closer to the people,” said Jensen. “We were talking about some ideas of potential three-quarter time, maybe, or full-time, or just raising the on-call time. And some of our neighboring counties. They actually just raised their on-call to like $5 an hour, and we’re still paying $1 hour at night.”

He continued to explain that because of this, he was seeking to find a way to increase that compensation,” This is just to try to seek other funding. How to bring in money so that we can incentivize people to be on call and to give that service to our people better.”

“We have to be careful,” expressed Commissioner Dennis Worwood. “It’s been mentioned before that it gets dicey when you depend on something like mineral lease moneys for ongoing programs because they can go away.” Citing a neighboring county that funded its jail system through mineral lease money and had to readjust for an unexpected shortfall.

Voicing his opinion on the matter, Commissioner Jordan Leonard spoke in favor of the idea,” I think it’s a good idea. I know we may need to look into the Jaws of Life for our fire district. I know that ebbs and flows with mineral lease moneys and those other recreation districts, so. I’m definitely interested in looking at that.”

“I think it’s something that we need to move upon this year for sure, and sooner rather than later,” added Worwood. 

As the item was only a discussion, no action was taken.

The next meeting of the Emery County Commission takes place on Tuesday, April 7, starting at 3 p.m. in the Emery County Administration Building.