Grand County Commission meeting report 2021-07-06

Packet is here: https://www.grandcountyutah.net/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_07062021-1370

Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqkNoV51_FI

Highlights of the meeting:

• Item G, presentation on trail ambassador program. Grand County will be funding “ambassadors” to hang out at trails and trailheads and encourage better behavior by tourists. This is part of a larger effort by Grand County to use Transient Room Tax (TRT) revenue in ways that are more beneficial to Grand County residents.
• Item K, acquiring SITLA D road easements. SITLA is squeezing more revenue out of its lands by having rural counties use CIB funds to purchase easements for D roads (unmaintained dirt roads) which cross SITLA parcels. There was some discussion about purchasing easements for only those D roads which seemed important, but in the end the GCC voted unanimously to purchase easements for the entire list, since easements can always be abandoned in the future if that seems desirable.
• Item L, Title 17 (public lands) revision. These revisions to Title 17 were requested by law enforcement in order to combat rowdy slackliners and renegade e-bikers (slacklining on the pedestrian river bridge, e-biking illegally on single track unpaved trails). There was a long discussion on one provision which made it illegal to “solicit, request, command, encourage or intentionally aid” any violation of Title 17. Some commissioners worried that that provision was overly broad. County Attorney Christina Sloan argued that the provision was necessary to target, for example, an e-bike rental business which directed customers to ride their e-bikes on trails which are not open to e-bikes (real world example, not a hypothetical example). An amendment to remove this provision failed, and the full Title 17 revision passed 4-3 (McGann, Hedin, Hadler, Walker yes; Stock, Woytek, Clapper no).
• Item LL, mid-year budget amendment. Moab is suffering from a post-covid glut of tourists. This has many serious negative consequences for our community, but one silver lining is that sales tax revenues are much higher than were forecast last Fall. Grand County (and presumably also Moab City, though I have not seen their revenue numbers) has a few extra million dollars to spend. (This also includes nearly 2 million dollars of federal ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds.) The initial budget amendment discussed at this meeting was mostly technical, assigning revenue streams to internal accounting funds. The decisions on how to actually spend the additional revenue will be made over the coming weeks and months. If you have ideas for how the extra revenue should be used, send them to commission@grandcountyutah.net.