EVANSTON — A new stake center for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is in the works for Evanston. 

The Evanston City Council heard from Aaron Blake of Evans & Associates, who said the LDS Church wants to construct a new stake center building on a 5-acre plot of land on Cheyenne Drive and Red Devil Drive.

“The new facility will be approximately 1,600 square feet and also include a parking area,” said Blake. “We wanted to show the city our plans as we go forward and see if you had any questions.”

Councilwoman Wendy Schuler asked about access points and utilities for the new building.

Blake said, “There will be two access points onto Cheyenne Drive to help with traffic flow, and we will run utilities to the area.”

To avoid the need for any retaining walls in the construction, the plans provide for various land grading.

Mayor Kent Williams said that one of the Planning and Zoning Commission members strongly opposes retaining walls, and Blake agreed that retaining walls are not in the plans. 

Since the proposed plot of land is not zoned for a religious facility, the LDS church is requesting the land be subdivided and a conditional use permit approved for construction.

Williams asked if there is an easier way other than a conditional use permit, to which city attorney Dennis Boal said city ordinances would need to be rewritten in order to change zones.

“We want community members and businesses to voice their concerns,” said Blake. “We’ve done several conditional use requests and are comfortable with it.”

Boal said the next steps are for the architects to submit an initial plat and a final plat to the Planning and Zoning Commission.

Council talks budget

City officials also discussed final budget items at their work session meeting Tuesday night.

As the 2016-17 fiscal year comes to a close, Evanston City Treasurer Trudy Lym presented summaries on the 2017-18 budget proposal. While there are different approaches to preparing annual budgets, the city chooses to add potential projects and department needs and desires to the budget.

This approach oftentimes projects an unbalanced budget, showing the city dipping into reserves at the end of the fiscal year. However, over the past few years, the city has ended the year on budget or in the black.

“At this point, we have not dipped into reserves at all,” said Lym. “We have over $400,000 in the budget and [things] look good. Our estimated general fund budget for 2017-18 is approximately 3.2 million in the red.”

Williams reiterated that the city may look like they’re going to tap into city reserves for the coming year but will look at projects and department requests throughout the year to determine if funds are available.

As in previous budget discussions, Williams said, “If it’s not in the budget, we can’t do it regardless if the money is there or not.”

Proposed fee increases

Lym brought up the proposed fee increases for the Portland Rose Room and other small changes.

“We are also looking at ways we can make incremental fee increases for water and sewer,” she said. “We need to cover the cost for services, but in a way that has the least impact on citizens.”

All council members agreed the city needs to collect fees to cover the cost of services, but ideally without large increases.

“I think it is important to educate the public on fee increases,” said Councilman Evan Perkes. “If we could do inflation increases, I think it [will] soften the impact.”

As the budget discussion came to a close, Lym told council members that payments to the Roundhouse Project loan have been made; if the city is able to continue the payments, the loan could be paid off in approximately a year. Initially, the city took a loan against enterprise funds — another section of city funds for the Roundhouse Project. Over the years, the city has only been able to pay interest on the loan.

“It will be nice to get that loan paid and off the books,” said Perkes.

Parks and Rec agreement

Evanston Parks and Recreation director Jay Dee Nielsen led the discussion regarding the annual operating agreement between the city and EPRD. As part of the discussion, Nielsen pointed out the various services provided by EPRD per the agreement with the city.

“There have been no changes to the operation agreement,” said Nielsen. “We have the same services, financial information, management/maintenance and employee benefits as the previous year.”

Nielsen said the Parks and Recreation District appreciates the ongoing agreement with the city and Uinta County School District No. 1.

Rounding out the work session meeting, council members discussed changing the meeting date regularly scheduled for July 4. Williams suggested changing it to Wednesday, July 5, and each of the council members agreed that a different meeting date is needed.

City clerk Amy Grenfell said the council will address the change at the June 20 meeting.