URGENT ATTENTION -- Concerning open space and city funds: TO MY CUSTOMERS WHO ARE SOUTH JORDAN RESIDENTS Your city managers are acting very questionably in regards to the property connected to the Oquirrh Mountain Marketplace on 11400 S and 4000 West. Please read what the resident council member is saying: Hello all, first of all I want to thank those of you that could make it to the meeting last Thursday to discuss this property and the possibilities of a park. What I wanted to pass along is a last minute plea to as many of you as possible to attend the City Council meeting tomorrow night at 6:00 at City Hall (1600 W Towne Center Drive). I am embarrassed to admit this but there was a councilman that had told me that he would work with me on a resolution to find a way to make improvements at Country Crossing Park since the city staff no longer recommend a park at the property on 40th West. While I thought this other council member was working with me, he in fact has been working on a resolution against this that he is bringing forward tomorrow night and will likely pass. The resolution would effectively state that the city will not consider any improvements at Country Crossing Park until “appropriately prioritized in subsequent city budgets” which puts this off indefinitely. This other councilman purposefully kept me out of the loop of this resolution and had this item added to the agenda at the last possible moment, after our meeting together last Thursday night. Furthermore, City Councilman Don Shelton who has been sympathetic to the idea of putting in this park will not be in attendance at the meeting tomorrow which helps me understand why on earth this would be such a huge priority as to be added to tomorrow’s agenda. Effectively, they are waiting until we are down one vote to put this to a vote. Please come to the City Council meeting tomorrow night and speak out about your thoughts on this issue. Public comment is usually toward the beginning of the meeting which starts at 6:00. Some of the issues that I think are worth mentioning are the following. The reason that we are even talking about improvements at Country Crossing Park are that the city purchased the property on 40th West and said that they were considering putting in a “turf sport park.” This is VERY apparent by the fact that they used “Park Impact Fees” to purchase the land. Park Impact Fees can legally only be used for parks. Even though the city will pay the park impact fees back with the sale of that land, I believe that it sets a very bad precedent for the city to be using park impact fees for the purpose of “land speculation or to make a profit off of purchasing land and then rezoning it to something that is commercially more valuable. In my mind, the only way that the city can justify this action is to somehow invest in a park in this area. While I agree that the city never made any promises in regard to this land being a park or Country Crossing being improved but an expectation was certainly set by the city manager and also by the city in general purchasing the land with park impact fees. Some on the Council are saying that it sets a bad precedent for the city to do park improvements in a neighborhood just because of a development that is going in nearby. Unfortunately that precedent was already set with the Rushton Meadows Park that the city is putting in near the old Albertsons on 106th South. The city did some land deals with the developer that is currently doing work over there and the City ended up making about $730,000 on the sale of that property. Of that money, the city is spending $707,000 to the construction of that park. Furthermore, I believe that this would not set a precedent in that there were many circumstances that brought us to this point of believing that a park would be constructed on the purchased land. Please come tomorrow and let them know of your disappointment that they are ramming this through tomorrow and not waiting for the full council to be present to vote on it together and that they are turning their backs on this neighborhood. Please call me if you have any questions. My cell phone is 801-580-8304. Please forward this to your friends as well.
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 04:25:21 +0000
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