The Taylor Town Council met on June 7 to discuss a packed agenda with consideration for an airport consultant contract, changes to special events and amendments to intergovernmental agreements and changes to the town code.
The council voted to approve the consultant agreement with Morrison Maierle for planning and design engineering for upcoming airport projects. The town receives entitlement money from the Federal Aviation Administration and is required to utilize a consultant. Every five years it must be put out for bid and is awarded based on qualifications and not cost. Morrison Maierle has been the consultant for the past five years and was the only bid received in the process. The town has been happy with the working relationship with Morrison Maierle previously and is happy to continue that.
There is approximately $450,000 in upcoming projects over the next five years and that funding has already been obtained. The town receives $150,000 in entitlement money every year and can carry that forward for a period of three years. Some of the scheduled projects include reconfigured parking, replacing runway signage and taxiway lighting, relocating and installing a fuel farm that will allow jet fuel in the future, and creating a non-aeronautical access road to the airport’s hangars. The council approved the contract.
The council voted to renew its intergovernmental agreement with Navajo County for overseeing court collections and criminal justice. The county prosecutes misdemeanors on the town’s behalf at a cost of $7,700 a year. This agreement has been in place since 2011.
An amendment to the shared services intergovernmental agreement with the Town of Snowflake was approved changing how it is determined how much each town will contribute to the shared services. Also part of the amendment is the transfer of management of recreation to the Town of Taylor instead of Snowflake. This evens out the management of shared services, as now Taylor will manage the fire department and recreation with Snowflake managing the police department and the library.
Previously the census information was used to determine how much each town contributed, however, that information is only updated every 10 years. The towns have created a formula called the Cost Sharing Allocation Percentage (CSAP) that will be determined each fiscal year. The results will be tabulated by considering state-shared revenues and sales tax, with deductions or additions for any shared sales tax agreements. Currently Taylor covers approximately 42 percent of the shared services budget and this change would raise that by an estimated one percent. “This is an equitable agreement,” said Council Member Kyle Peck.
Several minor changes were made in regards to special events such as the Fourth of July Rodeo and the Sweet Corn Festival. With these changes the town will still maintain their same level of involvement. Those changes include:
* The Fourth of July Rodeo Committee will become its own entity and will be applying for non-profit status.
* The Snowflake Taylor Chamber of Commerce will oversee the vendor portion of the Fourth of July events and management of the Sweet Corn Festival.
* The towns Special Events/Special Days Committee was voted to be de-commissioned in light of the event management changes. It was determined that it is no longer needed.
* Other events that are already successfully ran by volunteers such as Trapper Days will have no management changes for now.
The council also gave their approval of two ordinances that were simple verbiage changes to the town code of items that no longer apply. One of those items pertained to elections that are now held in the fall instead of the spring and to remove outdated water rates and other specifically stated fees that no longer apply. The other change applies to planning and zoning variances and the procedures for those to make it more uniform.
The next regularly scheduled monthly town council meeting has been moved from the first Thursday due to a scheduling conflict. The meeting will be at 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 12, at the Taylor Town Hall located at 425 Paper Mill Road in Taylor.
