The topic for tonight’s email is a document that we are currently working on, a nuisance order.
The purpose of the nuisance order is to have a procedure in place that defines the actions the Town Council would take when a complaint is received about something that would be considered a nuisance. A nuisance is defined in the draft order as follows:
For the purpose of this Ordinance, the word nuisance is defined as any person doing an unlawful act or omitting to perform a duty or suffering or permitting a condition or thing to be or exist, which act, omission, condition or thing either:
A. Injures or endangers the comfort, repose, health or safety of others; or
B. Offends decency; or
C. Is offensive to the senses; or
D. Unlawfully interferes with, obstructs, or tends to obstruct, or renders dangerous for passage, any public or private street, highway, sidewalk, stream, ditch, or drainage; or
E. In any way renders other persons insecure in life or the use of property
There are also a number of items listed such as weeds, junk, trash, hazardous buildings, noise, stinky things like dead animals, and smoke that would be considered a nuisance. Please read the attached document for more of those details. The list is not exhaustive and there are many more actions or items that could be considered a nuisance. This order is meant only for the Town Council to have a means to address complaints of the residents and not for any other purpose. The protocol would proceed like so:
The actions taken are still under consideration. One of the objectives is to ensure that any legal fees accrued by the Town to address this issue will be covered by any fines and that the actions are also strict enough that offenders will be motivated to abate the issue within the 30 days. The current draft includes a $100/day fine for a period of time and then it moves to a class c misdemeanor and eventually a class b misdemeanor.
We would love to have some input on this document. We will be discussing it at our next Town Council meeting scheduled for Jun 22nd. Please note that the attached document is a draft and may change before it is presented at the next meeting.
Planning and Zoning
The purpose of the Planning and Zoning Ordinance is to provide land use and development guidelines and requirements. It is intended to help implement the goals and policies of the Dutch John Master Plan (which you can find on our website). The Master Plan is meant to guide us as the town grows. One of the goals is to develop from the core out. This helps keep infrastructure costs down and continues to strengthen our sense of community. It's taken many years to be in a position where the decisions for the town are finally being made by the town.
The ordinance is also intended to protect the health, safety and welfare of not only the current residents and property owners, but future ones as well. It does this by establishing zones where certain uses are allowed with the idea of creating and maintaining a beautiful place to live for residents and commercial property that is prime for businesses. The document is a living document that will change as the need arises.
Planning and Zoning is a sensitive issue and it is even harder in a small community. It’s a challenge to come up with new rules that prevent some of the issues the old rules allowed. The ordinances are meant to protect us from our neighbors and our neighbors from us. Not just in the present, but also the future.
The Planning and Zoning Commission meets on the first and third Monday of each month. The first meeting is the regular business meeting. The second meeting is a work meeting and allows the members time to overview sections of the ordinances or work on other issues as they come up. The role of Planning and Zoning is to confirm that building permit applications are complete and make recommendations to the Town Council. They are not a decision making board. Any business that requires a public hearing or legislative-type business is conducted through Town Council. This could include changes to the ordinances, conditional use permit application reviews, or violations of the ordinances.
Community involvement is essential. Below is an outline of how to subscribe on the Utah Public Notice Website. Subscribers receive an email anytime a new posting is made or a current one is modified. The plan is to continue to have electronic access to the meetings, which makes it even easier to participate.
Utah Public Notice Website
All of the agendas, minutes and meeting recordings are posted to this website. You can look them up any time or you can subscribe.
https://www.utah.gov/pmn/index.html
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Under Bodys you can choose Planning and Zoning or Town Council
FREEDOM FESTIVAL 2020
Deciding what to do about the Fireworks show this year was difficult . The Freedom Festival was originally scheduled for July 11th. We don’t want to compete with the surrounding towns and therefore have always had our show on the Saturday of the holiday weekend, since July 4th was on a Saturday, we were unable to book the pyrotechnician at our normal rate. Due to COVID-19 restrictions we felt that we should cancel our show. The majority of the money used to pay for the fireworks comes from donations from residents and local and out-of-state businesses. The strain on the economy has been felt by us all. Asking for donations during this time of economic stress wasn’t something we wanted to do. Another factor affecting our decision was that Utah has already seen more fires so far this year than last year combined. We are sad about cancelling the show and are already planning next year’s show scheduled for July 3rd. We always welcome new volunteers if anyone wants to help with the planning!
FINANCES
Below is a simpler version of our budget form. Our fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30th. The 2020 fiscal year began 7/1/2019 and will end 6/30/2020. The numbers that are used are a close estimate for what the end of the year will look like because we only have a few weeks left. The 2021 budget hearing is scheduled for June 15th at 7:00 pm at the Dutch John Conference Hall. The official budget document may be found at https://dutchjohn.org/budget. There may be changes to it as we receive input and have discussions. The budget does not currently include any grants that we are applying for.
Hello fellow Dutch John Town residents! What a strange year it has been. 2020 has thrown so many things at us that we weren’t prepared for, coronavirus, protests, curfews, social distancing, the passing of Mayor Rogers and what feels like never ending wind. Well, we’ve got a new Mayor, Sandy Kunkel, and she is learning lots and working nonstop! We hope everyone is doing well and is looking forward to enjoying their summer.
The town has been quite busy recently and we have a large agenda ahead of us. We wanted to have a potluck dinner to see everyone and share some information, but even with the lightened COVID-19 restrictions it’s not possible. Instead, we are going to be sending out a series of emails to answer some questions we feel you might have. Topics we plan to cover are the town’s budget, taxes, roads, planning and zoning, future plans and any other topics requested. Please ask us questions, come to meetings, let us know what you’d like to see us working on or let us know what you don’t like. We want to hear from you!
We hope that you won’t feel overwhelmed with all of the emails that you are about to receive from us. Our plan is to send out a new email every Tuesday & Friday covering details about the town happenings listed above. We hope this will provide you sufficient time to read about each topic, process your thoughts and raise your questions and concerns. All of the messages will also be posted on our website at https://dutchjohn.org/town-hall for you to read any time.
If this message was forwarded to you, please send us a message so that we can add you to our list, also if you would like to be removed from the list let us know. We will be passing out paper copies of the subsequent messages for those of you who do not prefer email.
We are looking forward to getting together in the future and can’t wait to hear from you!
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