Cedar City declines to back water legislation

CEDAR CITY — The City council declined to publicly back state legislation that would allow the creation of a local district to develop and to implement a groundwater management plan in cooperation with the Utah state engineer.

Senate Bill 20, sponsored by Sen. Dennis Stowell, R-Parowan, is intended to address the over-allocation of water rights in Utah basins.

City councilwoman Nina Barnes said she didn't feel comfortable passing a resolution SB20 because the bill has already passed in the Senate and will most likely pass in the House.

City Councilman Steve Wood agreed and said that whatever the council voted on wouldn't be pertinent to what happens in the Legislature anyway.

"We're not saying we agree or disagree," he said. "We are just saying that we don't think the resolution is going to be effective and we don't see a reason why we do it right now."

But Wood and others council members do have concerns with SB20.

In an interview after Wednesday's meeting, Wood said his primary concern is who would be represented on the newly created district board.

City Councilwoman Georgia Beth Thompson said the one concern she had about the bill was whether board members would be elected or appointed.

Her said appointing members who also have taxing authority is a problem because voters could never remove them from office.

Wood and Thompson both said he'd like to see representation from the board from elected people because they have to answer to the public.

"The point of the bill we're apprehensive about is the fact they could have taxing authority and have commissioners who aren't elected," he said.

Wood said he agreed with the rest of the bill.

"Other than that, I think it serves a good purpose," he said.

In other business:

the council considered a resolution to change the impact fee calculation for the Southern Utah University Science Center.

When SUU submitted a building application for the science center, the city calculated the impact fees based on the city's impact fee ordinance. The total amount came to $153,527.