Blanding City Council adopts new tax rate

by Kara Laws
The June 26 meeting of the Blanding City Council was very brief. The council unanimously adopted a property tax resolution that will slightly lower property tax. This resolution adopted the General Property Tax Rate of .002444, which is the certified tax rate, plus redemption.
The certified tax rate is a revenue neutral tax rate. It is adjusted each year based on growth, not inflation. This plus redemption is calculated by the San Juan County Clerk for the 2018 tax year.
This lowers the certified tax rate from .002449 to .002444. It may be the perfect amount of saving for an extra annual ice cream cone, and everybody likes ice cream.
The council also appointed two new members to the recreation board: Nidia Jones and Kyle Hosler.
Councilman Logan Monson said they are adding two new members instead of just one to offer more help and balance. This will give the board three women and three men.
The women will be in charge of helping with volleyball and coed sports. The men will be in charge of helping with football and coed sports.
Council members mentioned that they were happy with the appointments and the balance they bring to the board.
In other news, the utility projects are moving along, with the power distribution project almost finished. City Engineer Terry Ekker said the power project should be finished up in a few weeks.
The poles to the new clinic are up and the city is waiting for Emery Telcom and Frontier to finish moving to the new lines. Ekker said he has been pleased with how everything has gone.
City Manager Jeremy Redd expressed appreciation for how smoothly the project has been conducted.
He said while no one likes to have their power out, he had very few complaints about outages. Redd mentioned that Cache Valley Electric works to make sure outages are for the shortest amount of time possible.
The sewer project is also moving along. Brown’s Canyon Road will remain closed for the near future. Blasting of the rock will occur any day.
The city budget was reviewed for the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Many categories were significantly under budget, including the police department and visitor center, which are both down 14 percent in spending.
All expenditure categories are dead on or below budget for the fiscal year. Savings and additional income for the year will go to the general fund to be distributed to city projects and programs.

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