Ivins Council reaffirms fire department pact with Santa Clara, but development debate flares up

IVINS — After weeks of back-and-forth between the two cities that make up the Santa Clara-Ivins Fire Department over its future, the Ivins City Council renewed their promise to their neighbors during last Thursday’s meeting. 

Ivins Mayor Chris Hart at the Ivins City Council meeting, Ivins, Utah, Aug. 4, 2022 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

But the city’s mayor got a little fired up over a flyer sent out by firefighters against a breakup of the department, and separately about residents at the meeting making their thoughts known about a rezoning of land for short-term rentals or a “horizontal  hotel.”

It wasn’t as much a case of a vote to reaffirm the partnership as it was a chance for a council member to move to end it. But there were no takers.

“This is an opportunity for a council member to make a motion to dissolve the partnership,” Ivins Mayor Chris Hart said during the meeting as he looked at each council member and saw only a smile and silence. “Well, together we stand.” 

The night before at Santa Clara Town Hall, when Santa Clara and Ivins held their first-ever joint council meeting, Santa Clara City Manager Brock Jacobsen and Santa Clara-Ivins Fire Chief Andrew Parker offered at least a temporary plan that would use existing budgeted funds to reopen the Center Street Fire Station in Ivins.

The Center Street Fire Station, Ivins, Utah, Aug. 4, 2022 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

Santa Clara oversees the budget and operations of the fire department, while Ivins provides additional funding and infrastructure. The opposite is true of the cities’ joint police department. 

The fire station had been a bone of contention between the two cities after the fire department left it without firefighters or emergency medical technicians – leaving all of them in Santa Clara city limits. 

Council members expressed appreciation for what they said were Santa Clara city leaders’ efforts to remedy the problem.

“The bottom line on this is we’re going to have that station staffed and quick, and that’s a good thing,” Ivins Council member Adel Murphy said.

Parker had said during the joint meeting that it might take a week to make the station fully operational again. A week to the day of that meeting, the Center Street Fire Station is returning to 24/7 firefighter and EMT operations on Wednesday, Aug. 10. 

Council member Adel Murphy at the Ivins City Council meeting, Ivins, Utah, Aug. 4, 2022 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

“If you put our city in their shoes, it’s become clear to me they’re trying their level best,” Hart said of the council’s counterparts in Santa Clara. “No one here can say they are not interested in the needs of our city. That ought to be a hopeful thing to all of us. It seems to be we’re stronger together than separate.”

There was still some skepticism expressed by some council members. Jenny Johnson continued to express concern about the department moving from mostly volunteers to using more paid and full-time firefighters. Parker has said having more full-time firefighters will mean more continuous coverage and trained personnel. 

Echoing a view he made the previous night in the joint meeting, council member Dennis Mehr remained worried that moving away from volunteers is too much of a culture change for the department.

He took most exception to volunteers needing to promise to have a more firm schedule and other steps to remain with the department immediately, as opposed to being “grandfathered in” over five years. 

“I get the idea. I don’t understand why we wouldn’t want a fully-trained person to continue helping,” Mehr said, noting some volunteers who have preferred a grandfathered approach. “Instead, we’ve decided to cut our losses. I think the culture has been impacted and bruised in the community.”

The mayor expressed an emotional bruising concerning a flyer that firefighters and other members of the department left on door handles and cars in church parking lots over the previous weekend. 

Santa Clara-Ivins Fire Department Chief Andrew Parker speaks before the Ivins City Council, Ivins, Utah, Aug. 4, 2022 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

The flyers urged the councils of both cities to keep the fire department together and also criticized the idea of using strictly volunteers for the department.

Hart expressed strong feelings about the move saying it was an overstep and also expressed concern the flyers may have been produced with city machines and distributed on city time.

“I want to mention the impropriety of that,” Hart said in comments directed at Parker, who was at the Thursday meeting. “To attempt to influence or pre-poison the water, it was just completely out of line. I hope you would have discussions on how inappropriate that was.”

Parker responded that he had already looked into the matter and no city funds were used and said the department already has politicking rules. 

“This is emotional for everyone. This was on their own time,” Parker said. “Our own full-time workers worried what would happen if there was a split.”

Added Hart: “That didn’t help. It had a negative effect on council members.” 

‘Not a fan of short-term rentals’

Also drawing a reaction from Hart was the dissension expressed by a large group of residents who oppose a developer’s request to re-zone 113 acres at the corner of Puerto Drive and 400 South. Rize Capital, developing the land for the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, said it wants to build 550 homes and townhomes on the land.

At least half of the homes would be for what Rize calls a “horizontal hotel” with a central check-in area. However, Rize previously had called the homes short-term rentals, and opponents to the development say that still is what they are. 

An area is shaded on a map showing where a developer is hoping to build 550 residences, half of which would be short-term rentals, Ivins, Utah, July 21, 2022 | Photo courtesy of Ivins City, St. George News

With a large number of the seats in the chamber occupied by residents opposed to the zoning change, council member Mike Scott expressed his own opposition to the plan. 

Eluding to Rize officials saying that tourism is part of the city’s general plan to generate revenue and there isn’t enough housing for tourists, Scott said what draws people from other places to Ivins isn’t the accommodations.

“I’m not a fan of short-term rentals. Those aren’t the kind of tourist accommodations we want,” Scott said. “People don’t go somewhere because it has a lot of tourist accommodations. They go because it has a feeling, a vibe.”

That comment drew loud applause in the chamber, and Hart appeared to be flustered. 

“We do not do that here,” Hart said.

Scott said that under the city’s table of uses, which defines what type of residential and non-residential establishments are permitted in the city, there is no entry for a horizontal hotel. 

“I’ve looked in the city code and I have not found horizontal hotel,” Scott said. “How can we approve a horizontal hotel when it doesn’t exist in our code?”

Council member Mike Scott at the Ivins City Council meeting, Ivins, Utah, Aug. 4, 2022 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

Ivins City Manager Dale Coulam responded that a horizontal hotel would fall under the entry for “Resort Hotel” in the table of uses.

City code states a resort hotel is “a building or buildings offering temporary lodging accommodations, or overnight accommodations for guests, with a common room reservation system, four or more guestrooms, and which may include additional services, such as restaurants, meeting rooms, entertainment, and recreational facilities.”

Thursday’s meeting originally was going to be a public hearing where residents’ comments would be heard. Despite the notable public presence, the meeting was not opened to public comment after officials said The Spectrum newspaper did not publish the legal notice of the public hearing in time.

Under Utah law, notice of a public hearing must be published no later than 10 days before such a hearing and must be published in a “newspaper,” forgoing an online-only publication such as St. George News. 

For that reason, a public hearing on the fire department scheduled for the joint meeting the night before also had to be canceled.

At this point, pending publication in a newspaper, a public hearing on the SITLA development would be held at the council’s Aug. 18 meeting.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2022, all rights reserved.

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!