It was a time for some new faces, as The Malad City Council met for its first regular meeting of 2026 on January 14.  Meetings of the city council are held on the second Wednesday of the month, unless a special meeting is called, as is sometimes warranted.  

While a regular meeting, it was exceptional in the sense that it began with the swearing in of new city councilmember John Williams, who ran unopposed in November for the seat formerly occupied by Larry Thomas.  Thomas, who was featured in last week’s Enterprise, has been on the council for two and a half decades.  It was also announced during the meeting that current city councilmember Jaime Olsen will be stepping down from her position, due to ongoing home building and relocation out of the city.  Bylaws require councilmembers to live within the city.   A member will be appointed to serve in Olsen’s place until an election fills the seat.

A new vote for council president is required after an election, and the city council chose to keep current council president Lance Tripp in that role.

Mayor Hawkins noted that the council assignments in other cities are often liaisons, rather than oversight positions, and she suggested cutting a few assignments out of the list, including PZ (which has an administrator), and a few others.  

Sheriff Wiliams

Sheriff Williams spoke to the council about issues from the Sheriff’s Office, primarily the monthly report and staffing issues.  He presented his report of incidents and trends in Malad and Oneida county inclusive of Nov and Dec.  “It’s about usual.  About the same for both months.  Citations went up in November.  Once the snow starts flying, they drop a little.”  

Williams then turned to an ongoing discussion involving staffing levels at the Sheriff’s Office.  “I’ve got some notes here,” he began, “the SO is in rough shape right now.”  The department is in the midst of one impending retirement, and another move.  The office is not receiving many applications.  “The people I’ve talked to about it have laughed at me,” Williams said.  “The burnout is here, it’s real.  The more people we lose, the worse it gets.”  A relatively recent hire leaves two open positions, with more to come.  The office has had applicants on Indeed.com, but they were not qualified for the positions.  “I don’t know what the problem is.  There’s got to be something.  I don’t think we have a local base that’s interested.  Nobody is going to come to Malad to be a cop, because they just can’t afford it,” Williams said.  He noted that there wasn’t enough staff to have a fulltime SRO for the schools.  “It’s heartbreaking being too short staffed to show this county what I can really do,” he said.  

The. Mayor asked whether other cities are having the same problems.  Williams said that smaller towns have similar problems with housing and cost.  In Bear Lake, one officer and his family were living in a camper trailer.  “We are trying the very best we can guys.  It’s a struggle right now,” he said.

Williams noted that he was seeing “younger and younger kids getting involved” with problems, and that it was important to be able to better respond to those situations than current staffing levels allow for.  

Tyler Webster

The yearly pump inspection was conducted.  Two lift pumps need to be replaced.  The lift station on Bush is showing some wear.  

Tumbleweeds were noted as a problem at the Wastewater treatment area.

A little washout on 3rd w.  has been shouldered and rocked in.  

Some of the equipment they removed from the park was damaged in the process.  The plan is to put the old equip out by the pickleball court.  Some kids have been playing on it.  Members of the council who had seen the equipment agreed that it might potentially be dangerous to play on.

John Christophersen—
Code Enforcement

A dog which ended up injuring someone has been out, and Christophersen is looking to find it.  There haven’t been any citations issued, because he doesn’t have enough evidence of the crime, other than the victim’s report.  If a dog is declared vicious, he can request that it be destroyed.

JC reported that he is getting more and more calls about cats. A gentleman recently called, and pointed out that the animal ordinance includes dogs, cats, and other animals.  They have to be licensed and “on a leash” or controlled.  “They are harder to catch than dogs,” Christophersen noted.  Unless they change the ordinance, it is enforceable.  

Councilman Tripp observed “I think there are a lot of people in town who feed feral cats,” which keeps them from leaving the area.  JC would like to buy more live traps, and try to catch a few.  

Attorney Evanson will look at revising the ordinance to specify “feral cats” rather than pet cats.  Spaying and neutering is essentially free due to available grants, according to JC.  But, he noted, “you spay one, and you’ll still have a litter of 20 new cats in the spring.”

Terrill Schwartz

Schwartz announced that he was also planning to retire toward the end of the year—maybe in September.  Schwartz has served the city of Malad in a number of capacities, including mayor and Treasurer.  

Misc

A discussion of the annexation of property into the city was held.  Casey Jones owns property on 100 W that he was seeking to have annexed into the city.  Per the discussion, annexation is simple if neighbors to the owner that requests it are on board.  If not, there are percentages of households and total property percentages that need to sign off on it.  

The properties are on 100 W.  There is a 13.2 and a 45 acre lot, which are contiguous.  Power and water run down the road.  The sewer is on the other side.  He is looking to develop the lots into homes.  His plan is to keep it as farmland until such time as it makes sense to develop it.

They would like to start first with single level units for people 55+ to start with.  

Plans for future development of lots on the property were presented to the council as a concept model.  This is just west of the industrial park area. 

The question of whether the city would want to take property that had its own wells already was raised.  

Jones wanted to know what the community needed.  He suggested maybe a mix of 20-30 doors, and noted that quad homes are popular now.

The council expressed willingness to move forward with the annexation.  JUB’s engineer thinks that it would be a good time to “loop” the water in that area.  

Council agreed to move forward with annexation, pending the developers needing to go back to the neighbors first.  

JUB

John spoke to the council about its water rights.  At times, the city exceeds the allocated withdrawal.  Since the SCADA was added, the problem has lessened.  Right now, the city has sufficient water rights.   Growth is moving in a trend direction that will put a strain on that.  He said that if the city requires developers to bring water rights with them, it should be ok.  

S of the park, and in the NW part of town are areas of growth.  At 2% growth, the city should be able to meet the water needs.  There is a need for redundancy in the wells.  With only 2 of the 4 working, reliability can be an issue.  Fixing leaks within the system will also keep more water in the system.  

The council largely agrees that it is always good to pick up water rights.  

Attorney Evanson said that he has been contacted by  someone with water rights in Malad that is willing to sell them.

Terrill Schwartz said that they might be able to buy a lot, drill a well between the two wells that they have, and then hook in where there is a line already.  

JUB wanted to talk about the next step for the city’s water issues, which would involve a bond election. Then there would be a location to select for a well.  He thinks they should use a hydrogeologist to look at the location first.  Some communities do a right of first refusal contract which gives the city the right to match an offer on a property they are interested in.  

The city clarified with JUB that they were interested in purchasing water rights, requiring developers to provide irrigation water, as well as other things.  This would be part of an ordinance.  The developer would need to supply secondary water under the current ordinance.  But JUB noted that a lot of communities are requiring developers to provide  a number of water rights to the city.  

A study on what the city could potentially charge developers by way of impact fees is not yet done.  Capacity Replacement Fee is official term.  SICOG has been approved to prep for the bond election.  

Leak detection is one of the critical things that need to be done with the bond, as water loss is one of the biggest contributors to the supply and usage issues.  JIUB recommended that they start talking to SICOG right away.  The bond election would be in May.  

The average home uses half an acre foot of water a year.  There are 75 acre feet for sale, which would provide 24.5 million gallons a year.

Separately, a TAP Grant for 400 N to 500 N down 100 W was presented.  A resolution needs to go in with the package for application to LHTAC.  The city provides 7.34% to match grant.  The grant would be for sidewalks, through an LID, though there are only a few homeowners involved.  It would cost the city around $14K on a $539,200 project.  A resolution was passed to approve the grant.  An LID takes about 3 mos to be set up.    

Misc

The city needed to find a new software setup for the city admin, like payroll, documents, etc.  Black Mountain Software was approved as the new provider of the city’s software.  

Councilmembers Tyrell Neal and John Williams being sworn in.

Tyrell Neal 

Councilmember Neal asked whether the city needed specialized PPE (personal protective equipment) equip to clear out aerators at the wastewater facility.  Tyler Webster said that they do need a fall harness, some “trapper gloves” and some other things.  

Jaime Olsen

Olsen thanked Webster for filling in potholes, and noted the locations of some others in town.