It only takes a bottle cap of water to breed 300 mosquitoes! Spraying Notice

Mosquitoes and deer flies will be prevalent this year at the lake.  The county is spraying for mosquitoes Tuesday and Wednesday at sundown (8:30 - 10:30).  Commissioner Bill Cox said that because it has been a very wet spring conditions are right for mosquito and deer fly breeding.

Cox suggested that people drain pools, waterfalls or standing water or put larvacide on the water to kill as many mosquitoes as possible.  Deer flies are another matter as they cannot be killed by the same concentration used for mosquitoes.

Cox said that so far, the mosquitoes which carry the Zika virus have not come as far north as Utah, but still precautions such as repellent should be used.

New Meat Market In Garden City

The Lakeside Market and KOA has added a wonderful new feature of locally cut meats.  Pork, beef, chicken and varied cuts are now available at the market.  Having eaten their steaks which are marvelous, we are sure that you will enjoy these hand cut and trimmed meats.  Not only is meat available, but the selection of fresh produce has also increased. Be sure to shop at the Lakeside!

Flag Display Finished

The new three flag display in front of the veterans memorial has been completed.
It was built by donations of local veteran's groups.

Short Term Rental In The County

RANDOLPH, Utah.  June 9, 2016.  George Peart, Joey Stocking, Mark Hislop told county commissioners that there is good monitoring of short term rentals in Garden City.  "How much monitoring?" asked Commissioner Tom Weston". 

Hislop said,  "If there are complaints then the enforcement officer goes out.  If he drives by on a routine check and sees they are not in compliance he will issue a warning.  Most of the people are good about complying."  

If someone is not in compliance then the compliance officer calls the property manager or owner, then the owner has 15 minutes to respond and put the rental in compliance.  There is a $750 per night fine for each infraction.  If there are problems fined three times, then the license is taken away.  The ordinance officer keeps a tally of how many times an infraction has occurred .  

Hislop, who is a property manager as is Joey Stocking said that they take it seriously, and give strict instructions to renters. There are 300 short term rental units in Garden City.  Renters are not allowed to park on the street or on lawns.  George Peart, County Building Inspector, said that the three strike rule really works. 

They also  have a dedicated  number posted on the home page of Garden city where anyone can complain.  There were only 7 complaints last year and 4 were people who were private owners.

Peart said that the property managers are good about keeping records for all taxes. 

Commissioner Norm Weston, asked if the sanitation rate needed to be adjusted.    Mark Hislop replied that the two dumpsters in Shundahai were overflowing, the city has added two more dumpsters.  Areas with short term  rentals have more trash.  A sanitation fee should be part of the license.  

Bob Peterson, Garden City Ordinance Officer,  and Mitch Poulsen, Director of the Bear Lake Regional Commission presented a power point of the software Garden City is using to monitor rentals.

Poulsen had looked at several short term rental ordinances and felt that Garden City’s was one of the best.  The 15 minute response rule has been  good.  There is a fee for the license of which a portion goes to the city and inspection of the fire marshal.  It has to be renewed each year.  

"The property managers are a real asset to the city, because they keep the rules and pay the taxes," said Poulsen.  

"Garden city is doing a water study impact, to see if short term rentals using more water than residential users," said Bob Peterson.  "In July and august  water usage is huge in Garden City."

Hislop said that it should be looked at for a year's usage.  Peterson said they were doing a lot of analysis, and slicing it up.  

Bob Peterson told commissioners that it is a dynamic issue through out the nation.  It is a complex issue.  A good ordinance is important, enforcement and a good management software so that you can monitor  if there is real problems with short term rentals. There also needs to be someway to track  and to check online for listings.  Ideal Beach has 40 short term rentals and they also have timeshares which makes tracking difficult, so the city has software that maps short term rentals.   It will flag expiring licenses.    All information about each property can be pulled up including emergency contacts.   They can find properties which are not licensed on the internet listings.  They have every property in city and county in the database so as a property comes up on the internet listings and found by a web crawler it can be pinpointed.   They can use google aerial views and can validate it from the website. Peterson  thinks there are at least 15 properties which are short term rentals in county.  

The commissioners asked Poulsen to finalize the ordinance with minor changes for county use and then they would schedule a public hearing on it.

More Parking And New Facilities At The Lake

Three new rest facilities and  parking sites on the north side of the lake have been added.

County Constable

Bobbie Bicknell Coray, Reporter

Rich Civic Times

RANDOPH, Utah.  June 9, 2016.  Jim Houghtalen, Rich County Constable, told commissioners that the Utah Association of Counties told him that any county should be able to appoint a constable. Representative Lee Perry said legislative intent of his bill was counties to appoint  constables.  However, UCIP , (Utah County Indemnity Fund) says that it is not the case, so there is some confusion.   Representative Parry is opening a bill file to clarify  the intent.  They are in the process.   

Until that is clarified, Houghtalen has been deputized out of Washington county and he will go back to just serving warrants and small claims.   Commissioner Bill Cox said that Sheriff Dale Stacy and the County Attorney and Houghtaen should write a contract that they are all comfortable with.  Cox told him that he should not continue to act until this is clarified and the County Attorney and the Sheriff meet.  

Bear River Mental Health

Bobbie Bicknell Coray, Reporter

Rich Civic Times

RANDOLPH, Utah.  June 9, 2016.  “It is difficult to help someone who doesn’t want to change and who wants to keep committing crimes”, said Reed Ernstrom, Director of Bear River Mental Health, “but if they want to change, we are there for them.”

Because so many people in prisons today are either mentally ill or drug abusers, the Justice Reinvestment Initiative was passed by Congress.  It changed some felonies to misdemeanors  to take non violent offenders out of jails.  However they did not fund the second part of that which was to provide outpatient care.  HB 437 expanded Medicaid somewhat but there is less than $50,000 for the three counties to provide the care. This is really not enough to do a real job preventing recidivism.   

So there is now an uptick in property crimes.  The released prisoners often have friends who keep them  in a criminal atmosphere.  Some states have well funded programs to work with the released prisoners and it has worked.

A better plan is to have early intervention and get therapists in the schools before the behaviors become criminal. 

“We are grateful for the money the county provides  because it leverages $20 for every one dollar the county provides,” said Ernstrom.   “And we appreciate Commissioner Cox on the board.”