The Heber City Council on Tuesday approved new penalties for parking violations that raised fines but lessened the severity of the offense. 

A committee comprising representatives from city staff, the Police Department, Justice Court and Prosecutor’s Office proposed the changes. Assistant City Manager Mark Smedley said the committee drafted the ordinance in part because of events at Main Street Park.

“This has really occurred because of the Heber Market on Main and all of the other events that we’re having. I think we have three to four events during the summer per week, and it has brought a lot of people,” Smedley said. “Mayor (Heidi Franco said) … we need to be careful and conscientious of the residents that live down there … so we’ve brought this proposal to do that.”

The ordinance raised the minimum fine amount from $25 to $50.

“It’s intended to create a meaningful deterrent because the prior amount was so low that people would park illegally as a convenience,” Smedley said. 

Late penalties of $50 and $75 apply after 14 and 40 days, respectively. Heber City did not formerly have late penalities for parking tickets and modeled its approach on cities like Park City, Ogden and West Valley City.

Heber City Code Enforcement Officer Travis Price explained that the Police Department will start with written or verbal warnings for unpaid parking tickets and, as a last resort, issue an arrest warrant.

Parking illegally was formerly classified as a Class C misdemeanor and has now been reduced to an infraction, the lowest classification for a criminal charge. Infractions do not appear on a person’s criminal record, while Class C misdemeanors do and may appear during background checks. 

Smedley hopes reducing the severity of the charge will place less burden on the Justice Court and reduce the likelihood of residents contesting their parking tickets.

“Sometimes people would get so frustrated that they would say, ‘I want to have a jury trial.’ And because it was a Class C misdemeanor, we would have to go through the process. And it was frivolous to do those types of things on a parking violation,” he said. “Dropping it to an infraction takes that option away from people that just have an axe to grind.”

The new parking ordinance went into effect Tuesday with unanimous City Council approval.

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Heber City resident Keaton Hansen nervously checks his bank account every time he gets groceries at Walmart. He has five kids, aged 2 to 12, and said he can’t afford daycare. He drives a car manufactured in 2003. Despite working as a nurse at Intermountain Health Heber Valley Hospital and having two side hustles, he’s “drowning” in bills to the point of “depression.”

So, when Hansen heard the Heber City Council is considering a 4.8% property tax increase, he knew he had to voice his dissent. City Finance Director Sara Nagel provided context to the tax increase at a Heber City Council public hearing on Wednesday, explaining that a home valued at $850,000 would pay an additional $16.83 — about the price of a burrito meal at a restaurant. 

“I’m not getting $16 burritos. I’m getting PB&J’s,” Hansen told the City Council. “It really is that dramatic. … We’re dying out there.”

Heber City’s proposed tax increase would generate an additional $174,000 for its general fund during fiscal year 2027, which began July 1. The general fund supports administration, public safety, planning and general operations. 

Nagel said the proposed increase is intended to keep up with inflation and maintain the current level of service. She added that the city is essentially asking for more property tax revenue to maintain its current purchasing power.

The city’s yearly budget is built by Nagel and City Manager Matt Brower from the ground up every year. That means every department must request and justify every dollar they plan to spend.

“We’re not asking for frosting here, and we’ve already achieved that by saying no to many (department requests),” Nagel said. 

But residents who attended the public hearing said they were more than happy with the city cutting back on spending to lessen or eliminate the tax increase. 

Rick Anderton suggested the city “DOGE” its overall budget, referring to the cost-cutting federal agency led by Elon Musk that dissolved last month.

Several residents said they would be more than happy to sacrifice spending on downtown revitalization projects like the Main Street Park redesign and the pedestrian-only alleyway, C Street. Part of the purpose of these projects is to draw in tourists and bolster the local economy, but they also come with price tags as high as $15 to 18 million, in the park’s case. 

“You don’t need extravagance. We don’t need luxury. Let’s get back to basics,” Hansen said.

Nagel clarified that the general fund does not directly funnel into these projects and that they instead have indirect fiscal impacts, like staff time spent working on them. In the park’s case, the only city funding will be Trails, Arts and Park tax revenue and impact fees, one-time fees paid by developers.

A trip to Folsom, California, that Brower and several city councilors are taking next month became a subject of ire from many of the residents who packed the room. The one-day trip, Brower explained, will allow them to meet with Folsom elected officials, learn how they operate the city and bring the insights back home. City officials went on a similar trip to three cities in Colorado two years ago. Funding for the trip will come from the general fund, according to Nagel.

Wasatch County Republican Party Vice Chair Patty Sprunt suggested Heber City and Folsom officials meet virtually instead, given the current economy.

Sprunt recalled a conversation she’d had with a financially struggling resident who called his taxes “death by a thousand cuts.” She added that she moved from California to Utah for the lower taxes. She’s concerned by Heber City’s trajectory of more frequent tax rate increases. 

Heber City has increased its property tax rate five times in the past 30 years. Three of those increases were in the past five years, the most recent being a 9.3% increase in 2024.

Nagel said several cities are moving toward smaller, more frequent tax increases to avoid larger, infrequent increases like the 32.3% increase Heber City experienced in 2015.

“When city councils delay property taxes to the point of a crisis, and then they have to, it creates headlines,” she said. “No government agency wants to be a headline.”

Former Heber City Councilor Scott Phillips, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for mayor last fall, agreed. He was the only commenter in favor of the increase.

“These nominal increases are important so that we don’t have to have a 50, 60, 70% increase in one year,” he said. 

But for Mayor Heidi Franco, that wasn’t a good enough justification. She pointed out that everyone is facing inflation, and that the city could cut costs to avoid placing further burden on residents. 

“We can defer some vehicle purchases to more than make up this deficit,” she said. “To me, making sure that you are able to pay your bills and be able to take care of your own situations is just as important as the city being able to pay its bills.”

It will be the City Council, not Franco, that votes on the proposed tax rate increase, scheduled for Aug. 18. None of the councilors shared how they plan to vote. 

However, City Councilor Yvonne Barney said she felt “angry and frustrated,” just as many other residents did. She said most of her family cannot afford to live in Heber City and recalled her mother never buying anything she asked for as a kid, even if it was only 10 cents.

“For a single mother raising a child in Arizona, who was renting all the time, it was too much,” Barney said. “It is hard, and we need to recognize that just nickels and dimes really do affect the budget.”

The post ‘Death by a thousand cuts’: Heber City residents oppose near 5% property tax rate increase appeared first on Park Record.

Heber City Councilor Yvonne Barney recently qualified for Social Security.

“I know most of you don’t believe that I’m that old, but it’s true,” she said, which was met with laughter during the Heber City Council meeting Tuesday. “But I qualified and received the amount that I would have to exist on. And let me just say, I would be living on the streets. … It was absolutely horrible, and I’m so grateful that I have a wonderful husband who still likes me and is willing to help me out.”

The bleak fiscal situation of many of Heber City’s seniors is exactly why Mayor Heidi Franco has devised a property tax abatement program for them. If passed by the City Council, the program would begin in January.

Franco began her pitch with some statistics. Heber City’s median household income is about $110,000, according to 2024 U.S. Census Bureau data. In 2010, the median income in Heber City households was almost half of that — about $56,000. 

“I think many of our seniors bought or built their homes before that time period,” Franco said. “That was the economic standard in our city. We were not a high-income city. Now, it’s really increased, and we believe it’s only going to continue to increase.”

Local utility rates have risen as much as 36% since 2025, Franco said. The city is also considering a 5.2% property tax rate increase, which the City Council will vote on following a public hearing on Aug. 5. 

Factored in with rising property values in Heber City and nationwide inflation, it’s clear to Franco that seniors are facing a “ginormous need” for relief.

“We have senior citizens that are stuck between when they bought their houses 20, 30, 40 years ago and … the incredible inflation that’s happened,” she said.

Franco’s proposed tax abatement program would distribute lump sum payments to qualifying seniors. These funds would provide relief for seniors’ city and county property taxes from the prior year.

Seniors would qualify by applying for Wasatch County’s two existing low-income tax abatement programs, which are available to residents 66 and older. 

The county in January will share the list of qualifying Heber City seniors with city staff. The city will then distribute funds for its own tax abatement program to those who qualified for the county programs by the end of February. 

One of the county’s tax abatement programs is available to seniors whose annual household income is less than $44,221, and the other is for those making between that amount and $65,534. Franco tentatively plans to distribute $700 to each Heber City senior who qualifies for the former program, and $400 to those who qualify for the latter. That’s in addition to any funds applicants may have received from the county.

The funds for Heber City’s program will come from the Upper Jordanelle Ridge development. The developers in March amended their development agreement with Heber City by dedicating $1,500 per residential unit, or $4.5 million, to the city. Developers dedicated the funds as a show of good faith amid ongoing negotiations around the project’s open space, trails, design and layout, explained City Attorney Jeremy Cook.

Franco expects 150 qualified applicants in January, based on the number of citywide applicants last year. She projects the city spending up to $85,500 on the first round of the program in 2027, and up to $165,000 in 2028.

“I don’t think we’re going to need it for years and years and years to come. I think it’s … a short-term economic crunch for longtime citizens that own property in the city,” she said. “But time will tell.”

Although the City Council did not take a vote, all members were receptive to the idea. 

“I know several (seniors) that were my teachers in school … and those tax numbers are crazy compared to what they have coming in for income,” said City Councilor Aaron Cheatwood. “I think it’s a great thing we probably should have done earlier.”

It is not just seniors who own homes who are financially struggling in Heber City. U.S. Census Bureau data shows that 5.3% of city residents are impoverished — or about 3,700 people, according to Franco’s estimates.

“That’s not a number that any of us should be comfortable with,” Franco said.

City Councilor Mike Johnston said he hopes the tax abatement program is only the first step the city takes in helping residents who are financially struggling.

“I want to continue talking together and figuring out, ‘What can we do?’ because I think it’s bigger than just this. I mean, we’re talking about a welfare program, and I’m just as interested in helping people with their food insecurity and … utility rates,” he said.

The City Council will vote on the tax abatement program on Aug. 18. That’ll be less than two weeks following its decision about whether to raise property taxes.

Seniors can apply for Wasatch County’s existing tax abatement programs by visiting tinyurl.com/288bmckx. The county also has programs for residents who are disabled, low-income or veterans.

The post Heber City considers property tax abatement for low-income seniors appeared first on Park Record.

Russ Watts has sought a development agreement with Heber City for his affordable housing community for three years. Now, it will finally be drafted after overcoming a parking problem he said could have destroyed the project’s viability.

Watts, who lives in Midway, came up with the idea in 2022 after realizing just how many of his employees at Watts Enterprises commute to Wasatch County because they cannot afford to live there. 

The community will be called Celebration Housing, in part because securing housing for the county’s essential employees will be well worth celebrating.

“We respect and appreciate all the different entities that provide services for our community,” Watts said. “So, I think our No. 1 celebration will be (that) we now can say that we can accommodate housing for anyone who wants to live in the valley, work here and enjoy the social community here.”

Celebration Housing will include 148 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments on 8.75 acres next to Wasatch High School. Watts hopes to add more units in the future, but the details have not been worked out, and Heber City has only approved the first phase.

The 148 apartments will be affordable to tenants making 40 to 80% of the area median income, which is between $54,000 and $109,000 for a family of four in Wasatch County. 

Half of the units will be affordable to residents earning 80% AMI; 59 units will be affordable to those at 65% AMI; and 15 units will be affordable to those at 40% AMI. 

Mountainlands Community Housing Trust will deed-restrict the units to ensure they remain affordable in perpetuity. 

Celebration Housing will not include any market rate units, as was originally planned, because of loan requirements by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The first 148 apartments will cost $43 million. Watts Enterprises expects a return on investment of around 6%.

In addition to Watts’ company, the project has several financial contributors, including the Hicken family, who donated 4.25 acres for the first phase; the Wasatch County Housing Authority, which is investing $750,000; and Heber City, which agreed in December to defer Celebration Housing’s $3.2 million in impact fees for up to 12 years. 

Impact fees are one-time fees on new development. Watts will pay back these impact fees at 4% interest. The details of the deferment will be finalized in his development agreement with Heber City.

The development agreement can now be drafted because the City Council has agreed to apply a less stringent parking code to the development. 

City code typically requires multi-family dwellings to have two parking spaces per unit, or 296 parking spaces in Celebration Housing’s case. The City Council on July 7 agreed to apply its downtown parking code, which instead determines the required number of parking spaces based on the number of bedrooms. That means Watts needs 266 parking spaces for the first phase of the project.

Finding room for parking without reducing the number of units has been one of the greatest challenges of the development, Watts said, especially when factoring in future phases.

City community development director Tony Kohler proposed reducing parking for Celebration Housing because the plan can always be tweaked in future phases if there’s a need.

He added that the development is close to potential employers like the high school, Heber Valley Hospital and Walmart, meaning some tenants may choose to walk, bike or use High Valley Transit instead of driving every day.

Watts hopes to partner with the Wasatch County School District to add the required parking for an eventual full buildout of Celebration Housing.

In a March school board meeting, he pitched the idea of installing nearly 180 parking spaces on school district property and splitting their use between the school district and the affordable housing community,

The school board declined to take the matter to a vote. Board members had concerns about mixing public money with private industry and raised questions about whether employees would settle for renting instead of owning.

Watts is still hopeful he can convince the school board to partner on parking in the future, potentially by adding owner-occupied housing in future phases.

The City Council will formally approve or deny the Celebration Housing development agreement after it is finalized within the next 90 days.

After that, Watts will secure loans with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But first, the economy will have to go “back to normality,” as he put it. He said interest rates would be over 6% if he took out his loans today; he needs them to be closer to 5% for Celebration Housing to be fiscally feasible.

Watts hopes to begin construction on the first phase of Celebration Housing in the spring of 2028.

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The imposition of an additional property tax on residents of a new development in Heber City moved one step closer to a vote this week.

The Heber City Council on Tuesday held a public hearing dominated by skepticism from elected officials, city staff and public commenters alike.

D.R. Horton, the developer of The Highlands, a community of 811 homes, townhomes and apartments near the Utah Valley University Wasatch campus, asked to establish three public infrastructure districts, or PIDs. The development is estimated to be completed by the spring of 2028.

The public infrastructure districts would allow the developer to impose a special property tax on owners of the 576 homes and townhomes within The Highlands. The tax revenue would be used to cover more than $22 million of the total $40 million cost of installing public infrastructure, including roads, water, sewer and electrical.

The Highlands homeowners would pay about $500 in taxes for every $100,000 of their home value each year, on top of other property taxes, for an estimated 31 years. That’s how long it would take for the bonds to be paid off.

If the PIDs were not established, the developer said it would need to add $40,000 to the purchase price of its homes and townhomes across the board.

City councilors were unconvinced by D.R. Horton’s initial proposal last month. The developer promised cost savings for homeowners if the PIDs were established but did not have solid numbers to back up its claim.

D.R. Horton provided those numbers on Tuesday. The developer estimates that if the PIDs were established, townhome owners would save nearly $1,400 per year, and homeowners would save over $830 per year because of shifts in the purchase price, plus loan and down payments.

If the PIDs are approved, Heber City would benefit by retaining 5 to 10% of the tax proceeds generated. The City Council floated ideas for using the funds on the Heber Valley Arts Center planned near the development or improving an existing public trail along U.S. 40 or The Highlands’ public park.

Utah Senate District 20 candidate Annette McRae made a public comment acknowledging that the benefits to the city are “appetizing” but distract from issues with PIDs.

She referred to the PIDs as “trading a smaller, upfront cost for a much longer, long-term debt burden paid entirely by the buyer rather than the developer.” She added that she would like to see a more concrete breakdown of specifically how the developer would use the money raised by the PIDs.

City engineer Russ Funk chimed in that he does not like PIDs because they allow developers to build at a lower cost while selling housing at market rate. He appreciated that D.R. Horton had promised a $40,000 purchase price reduction but asked that Heber City enforce it in an agreement to ensure D.R. Horton cannot go back on its word.

But that may not be possible, according to City Attorney Jeremy Cook.

“I think it’d be really hard to try to draft any language where you could enforce a reduction in home prices,” he said. “I just don’t know how you could draft that and make it reasonable.”

City Councilor Mike Johnston did not believe such enforcement was necessary.

“We have to give some credit to citizens, that they’re smart and understand what they’re buying. Every purchase of a property is an at-will transaction that the government should not get involved in,” he said.

The City Council is scheduled to vote on the public infrastructure districts on July 21.

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Fourth District Judge Sean Petersen has dismissed charges for stalking and child abuse against former Heber City Planning Commission alternate and Heber City Council candidate Jami Hewlett.

The misdemeanor charges were filed last summer, when Hewlett was running for City Council. Her husband, Michael Hewlett, was running for mayor at that time. They were eliminated from the race during an August primary election.

Hewlett last June allegedly violated a stalking injunction filed against her by her husband’s ex-wife.

A Heber City Police affidavit states that Hewlett posted about her husband’s ex-wife and her children several times on social media, including their work and school addresses, a description of their vehicle and videos of them. Officers subsequently arrested her, and county attorneys charged her with a misdemeanor for stalking.

Hewlett was charged with a misdemeanor for child abuse the next month. The alleged victim, her 16-year-old stepdaughter, described Hewlett as “physically abusive” in interviews with the Children’s Justice Center. 

The child said Hewlett had hit her. She recalled one incident when Hewlett allegedly threw picture frames at her when she did not want to go to “Disney on Ice,” and another when Hewlett allegedly “tackled (her) and pinned (her) down,” bruising her arms, when Hewlett caught her using her phone in bed at night.

Heber City Police last June recommended Hewlett be charged with the misdemeanor for child abuse and also recommended that Michael Hewlett, be charged with retaliation against a witness of that alleged abuse. County attorneys filed those charges in July 2025.

Michael Hewlett pleaded guilty to his third-degree felony charge in December and was ordered to complete thinking errors and parenting courses and therapy.

The Wasatch County Attorney’s Office filed the motions to dismiss Jami Hewlett’s two charges “in the interest of justice” on Monday. 

That means, before making a final judgment, the court considered the nature, circumstances and severity of the offenses, the physical, emotional or other harm the defendant caused the victims and any input from the victims.

Judge Petersen dismissed Jami Hewlett’s two charges without prejudice. That means the cases could be refiled before the statute of limitations passes, which is two years after the offenses allegedly occurred. That would be May and June 2027 for the child abuse and stalking charges, respectively.

The post Child abuse, stalking charges against former Heber City Council candidate Jami Hewlett dismissed appeared first on Park Record.

Developers of The Highlands asked the Heber City Council on June 16 for the authority to impose a special property tax on homeowners, requiring them to cover more than half of the $40 million tab to install public infrastructure, like roads, water, sewer and electrical.

The Highlands is a community of 811 homes, townhomes and apartments near the Utah Valley University Wasatch campus, which broke ground in September 2024 and is estimated to be completed by spring 2028. 

The developer, D.R. Horton, is turning to homeowners for funding because there are no nearby governmental entities, including Heber City, that “consider it desirable, feasible or practical to undertake the planning, design, acquisition, construction, installation, relocation, redevelopment and financing” of the public infrastructure, according to the meeting agenda materials.

Mayor Heidi Franco said that’s because of the area’s unique engineering requirements.

“We have sensitive lands. They’re sloped. They have other needs. Our drainage system, gravity, hydrology, it’s all factoring into extra costs for developing in these areas,” she said.

The Highlands developers are seeking to finance the community’s public infrastructure by creating three public infrastructure districts, also called PIDs. 

PIDs were introduced in Utah in 2019 and allow developers to impose taxes on homeowners within a defined district to fund public infrastructure in the area, rather than having all taxpayers in a municipality pay for it.

The Highlands PIDs would impose annual property taxes on the 576 homes and townhomes within them for 31 years, the estimated time for the bonds to install the infrastructure to be paid off. The 235 apartments would not be included in the PIDs.

These homeowners would pay about $500 in taxes for every $100,000 of their home value annually. In other words, a homeowner with a home valued at $600,000 would pay $3,000 annually, or $93,000 over 31 years, in addition to their other property taxes.

Curtis Leavitt Horton, senior land acquisition manager with D.R. Horton, estimated homes to be priced between $550,000 and $600,000, though exact numbers won’t be determined until August at the earliest. If the PIDs are not approved, developers would instead add $40,000 to each home’s purchase price.

Heber City would retain 5 to 10% of proceeds generated by the tax, as required by the city’s PID policy. The City Council could use the proceeds however it wished.

Max Martin, a development manager with Forestar Group, a subsidiary of the developer, suggested the funds be used on improving infrastructure near The Highlands. 

His ideas included upgrades to the public park within the development or connecting the asphalt trail alongside U.S. 40 between College Way and the Wasatch Commons apartments. Franco also suggested using funding for the Heber Valley Arts Center planned near the development. 

Heber City currently has two PIDs for developments: The Slope and Jordanelle Ridge. Both have the same tax rate as The Highlands and have dedicated 5 and 10% of proceeds to the city, respectively.

City Councilor Sid Ostergaard supported The Highlands PIDs because it would allow the development to be built more quickly. He was especially eager to get The Highlands’ 67 affordable housing units built. 

Eleven of these units would be priced at $218,000 to be affordable to those making 60% of the area median income, which is $81,720 for a family of four. Forty-four units would be priced at $338,000 to be affordable to those making 80% of the area median income, which is $108,960 for a family of four.

City Councilor Yvonne Barney was more skeptical than Ostergaard. She was concerned about the PID’s potential to inundate “penny-pinching” homeowners with extra costs.

Franco agreed.

“It is going to be very expensive for median range income, or even our affordable units that you’re talking about, to be able to pay those property taxes,” she said. 

Barney also referred to a cautionary memo about PIDs that State Auditor Tina M. Cannon released in March, after Wohali, a resort in Coalville with a PID, declared bankruptcy last August. 

Cannon cautioned governments to consider whether they were financially accountable for PIDs. This would mean governments would be responsible for the transparency of PID finances, such as by including PIDs in their financial statements.

That does not mean Heber City, for example, would be liable to pay The Highlands’ bonds for public infrastructure if the development did not go as planned. That would be the responsibility of property owners within the PIDs.

Creation of The Highlands PIDs would require a public hearing and a resolution by the City Council before developers submitted documentation creating the PIDs to the Lt. Governor’s Office.

But those first steps are not yet on track to be completed. 

The developers’ first stumbling block was their lack of defined numbers to compare a homeowner’s property taxes with or without the PIDs.

As previously mentioned, the home prices are not yet finalized. Additionally, the municipal property tax rates the developers referenced when comparing homeowners’ estimated taxes were outdated rates from 2024 and may change again in August, when the City Council will vote on a 5% property tax rate increase.

“I don’t understand why (these PIDs are) needed. The idea of cutting down the cost on the homes does make sense, hypothetically, but the numbers are not real,” Cheatwood said. “Understanding that, over the course of a mortgage, you might actually save money? That’s actually easy to prove and see. So let’s just prove it and see it with real numbers.”

The City Council will discuss the Highlands PIDs further on July 7.

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Heber City is rethinking an update to its stormwater master plan for the North Village area after discovering planned embankments may pose a risk to human life during a severe and improbable flood.

The North Village Overlay Zone constitutes several developments north of downtown. These include the 8,000-acre community Jordanelle Ridge on the east side of U.S. 40 and The Slope on the west side. The latter, 39-acre development broke ground in April in the North Fields, a freshwater wetland area that has been used as agricultural land for generations.

The stormwater master plan exists in part to protect these developments, which are in the path of stormwater runoff, from debris flows, also called mudslides.

An update to the plan would have included several embankments designed to hold stormwater runoff. 

City engineer Russ Funk said Utah Division of Water Resources representatives indicated that the largest of these embankments, planned for near Coyote Canyon Parkway, would likely be classified as a high hazard dam, and several other embankments would also likely be classified as high hazard — meaning it poses a risk to human life if the dam fails. 

Funk had anticipated the embankments being classified as moderate or low hazard.

High-hazard dams must be engineered to endure the maximum probable flood, the largest flood that could physically occur in the area. Maximum probable floods are astronomically unlikely.

In the North Village, the maximum probable flood would have a discharge of 1,200 cubic feet of water per second.

The embankment near Coyote Canyon Parkway is designed to handle a 100-year flood, a flood with a 1% chance of being equaled or exceeded in a given year. That means the embankment can handle a flood with a discharge of 160 cubic feet of water per second.

“Is (re-engineering and constructing the dam to handle 1,200 cubic feet per second) even feasible without completely cutting out another big, huge section of the mountainside there?” Funk said. “Is there a way to do it? Probably. Is it going to be expensive? More expensive than it would have been if it was moderate.”

North Village developers would build the embankments and be reimbursed by the city, which would own the embankments and be liable if they failed. 

“This is a real risk to the city, putting these dams above the city,” said City Manager Matt Brower. “Santa Clara, Utah, in (2012), had a failure of a dam similar to that. It flooded a third of their historic downtown, causing damage to all those properties within it.”

There is currently no risk to human life in the North Village area because these embankments have not been built.

These embankments were designed in response to public outcry about letting stormwater flow to the North Fields.

Stormwater in the area has historically flowed southwest to the North Fields from higher elevations on hillsides on the east side of U.S. 40. 

“Prior to the valley being developed and farmed … you can see (from) the natural topography (that) when a big storm would come, it would direct water down these natural drainages (and) would make its way through the North Fields to the Provo River,” explained Funk.

The construction of the Timpanogos and Wasatch canals in the late 1800s altered the flow of stormwater runoff, and the construction of U.S. 40 in the next century further changed it. 

That’s why most stormwater runoff does not flow into the North Fields like it once naturally did, Funk explained.

During the two-year process between 2020 and 2022 to develop the first stormwater master plan for the North Village, Funk and city staff pitched the idea of allowing stormwater runoff flow into the North Fields, which received significant public opposition.

That’s because there are two kinds of stormwater runoff, natural and developed, the latter having been polluted by flowing through roads and development. Both types would have been permitted to flow into the North Fields.

The city then devised a plan that separated natural and developed runoff, allowing only natural runoff to flow to the North Fields. 

Both kinds of runoff would first be detained at basins. Developed runoff would be treated and retained. Natural runoff would seep into the ground.

Any natural runoff that did not infiltrate the ground would be released into the North Fields. But that plan also received pushback from the public, Funk said. So, the city came up with the idea to hold the leftover natural runoff in embankments, the high hazard dams in question.

These embankments would be about 25 feet tall and would have significant aesthetic impacts.

The Division of Water Resources has not yet officially classified the hazard levels of the dams. Funk hopes they are ultimately classified as moderate or low hazard. In that case, the city would likely stick with the current plan.

But if any of the dams are high hazard, Funk would like to return to the design that permits leftover natural runoff to flow into the North Fields instead of being retained. 

City councilors did not vote, but all were amenable to the idea because natural runoff has historically flowed to the North Fields, and developed runoff would not be permitted to flow there.

How long it might take to work out the kinks in the North Village stormwater plan is unclear. 

For Franco, the fiasco represented “the cost of doing business” in “sensitive land areas” like the North Fields.

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Central Utah Water Conservancy District Project Manager Chris York told the Heber City Council on Tuesday he learned earlier that day that “all the high water in the Provo River is gone.” 

High water comes from rainfall and snowpack, the accumulation of snow that melts seasonally into bodies of water. The Natural Resources Conservation Service declared this Utah’s “worst winter for snowpack going back to at least 1930” on May 1. 

The lack of high water means 80% of the Provo River’s first class water rights — those prioritized when in drought — can be satisfied. When a similar declaration was made in 2021, it took only four days for that 80% to drop to 60%, according to York.

The Provo River provides the majority of water for local pressurized irrigation, York said, with the rest coming from water stored in Jordanelle Reservoir. 

When flow is low in the Provo River, more and more water used for pressurized irrigation comes from Jordanelle Reservoir, lowering the reservoir water level. Mayor Heidi Franco called that “(not) a pretty sight” last month.

However, York is optimistic that voluntary water conservation by residents will allow Heber City to make it through most of the pressurized irrigation season, which lasts from April 15 to Oct. 15. 

The City Council unanimously approved entering the second phase of its four-phase water shortage plan — voluntary, rather than mandatory, conservation — to ensure the pressurized irrigation season lasts until Sept. 15.

“I have a lot of belief in people, and I think hopefully they’ll rally around the message and understand that there are people who really didn’t have an irrigation season in central and southern Utah. We’re really fortunate that we’re talking about Sept. 15,” York said. “We’re all in this together, and we need to do our part.”

The second phase of the water shortage plan encourages residents to limit lawn watering to three days a week, June through August, and two times a week in April, September and October. Watering should also be avoided between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. and on windy, rainy or snowy days.

The Utah Department of Natural Resources has an interactive map breaking down how often residents of each county should water their lawns on a given week. On the week of June 12 to 18, for example, Wasatch County residents were advised to water their lawns three times a week. Residents with lawns that have low water use grasses should have watered their lawns only twice. That map is available at tinyurl.com/4s4xxr3u.

Heber City also asks residents to conserve water in other ways, like limiting hard surface washing, washing vehicles using a bucket and hose nozzle and covering swimming pools when not in use and lowering the water level by 4 inches below the spill line.

The third phase of the water shortage plan would make the conservation efforts around lawn watering, hard surface washing and swimming pools mandatory.

No phase of the water shortage plan mandates use of culinary water, water that has been treated for human consumption.

However, some neighborhoods of Heber City, like Valley Hills, use culinary water for outdoor uses. Heber City is encouraging residents of those areas, too, to follow these same conservation suggestions.

The goal of the second phase of the water shortage plan is to reduce city-wide water use by 5%. The third phase aims for a 15% reduction or more.

Franco questioned whether the second phase would be enough.

“Sounds to me like we need more than a 5% reduction right now,” she said. 

A 5% reduction would require about one-third of city water users to follow the voluntary conservation suggestions. City engineer Russ Funk explained that a reduction on the same level as the third phase’s goal is possible if even more residents take up the city’s suggestions. 

York added that mandating water conservation can lead residents to sometimes increase their water use, especially if the rules are not properly enforced.

“People think, ‘Oh, boy, I’ve got to get my water.’ It’s the COVID toilet paper and bottled water all over again,” he said.

Public perception of water conservation poses another challenge. When residents see agricultural water use, they often assume farmers are not conserving, York said. 

“But they are cutting back,” he said. “You can’t really cut their wheel line in half, so to speak, so usually, what happens is they extend how many times they get across their field. So, if they’re used to getting across their field once every eight days, maybe now they’re getting across their field once every 10, 12 days.”

A similar conservation process is used for lawn watering at city parks, explained Assistant City Manager Mark Smedley.

“What happens if people don’t understand that those things are happening … they say, ‘Well, the city’s not going to do it. They’re not conserving. Well, it can’t be that important,’” said Funk. “We’ve got to figure out how to educate.”

Some residents, however, are gung-ho to immediately start conserving. 

Resident Tatum Smuin shared some of her ideas about eliminating decorative turf to save water for the Provo River during a public comment.

She also pointed out that it can be difficult for residents to maximize their water conservation when many homeowners’ associations levy fines on homeowners with yellow lawns.

City Councilor Yvonne Barney explained that the city cannot intervene in a private contract between citizens. However, residents can place pressure on their homeowners’ associations to change the rules, given the statewide emergency declaration over drought conditions Gov. Spencer Cox issued last month.

The post Heber City will not mandate water conservation as Provo River lowers appeared first on Park Record.

Although 70 applicants from across the country applied to be the next manager of the Heber City Municipal Airport, the person approved had local experience that set him apart.

Adam Bunker was promoted after more than three years as the airport’s assistant manager. He was nominated by Mayor Heidi Franco and confirmed by the Heber City Council on Tuesday.

Bunker, 25, grew up obsessed with aviation, in no small part because his father was a naval engineer. As a kid, he devoured all the books in the aviation section of his elementary school library.

When he started attending Utah Valley University in 2021, Bunker wanted to be a pilot, but he switched programs and completed a bachelor’s degree in airport management. Then, he earned a master’s degree in engineering technology from the university because he was interested in the business and technological aspects of airport management.

Bunker began his professional career as an airport operations specialist at Spanish Fork Municipal Airport in 2022. He joined the Heber City Municipal Airport in 2023 as assistant airport manager, overseeing day-to-day operations, supporting the airport manager by processing permits, attending meetings and community events and ensuring Federal Aviation Administration compliance.

“You get a little taste of everything. You might have to wear sunscreen and Carhartts to work one day, and then a suit to work the next,” he said. “There’s grounds maintenance. There are labor-intensive projects that you get to see go through and participate in, and then there’s also political and process and admin stuff. … I don’t think there’s very many jobs with this variety or this amount of creative problem solving.”

Bunker has served as acting airport manager since early April, when the previous manager, Travis Biggs, left the role. 

To help fill the void, the city approved the three-person airport team working more hours than usual. With such a small staff — which Bunker and Franco hope to expand — efficiency matters. Improving productivity at the airport will be Bunker’s top priority stepping into a managerial role.

“I plan to invest a little more time into the training of employees. It’s no secret that Heber’s grown, and we’ve had to adapt with it, so I think it’s not really an airport that can be run by one person,” he said.

Bunker said many small, municipal airports are stuck in the past when it comes to digitizing information and automating tasks.

“If we have a filing cabinet full of leases, there are airports that have let those lapse before, and people haven’t been compliant or haven’t paid in sometimes years,” he said.

He said the Heber City Municipal Airport’s workflow has been “notoriously slow” in the past and that there hasn’t been an easy way for the public to get information from Heber City Municipal Airport other than “showing up to the office and asking for someone to print off a piece of paper.”

Bunker has implemented his airport management software, Tamarac Technologies, at the Heber City Municipal Airport to help remedy that. The software has been implemented in 15 airports across the country since its launch in 2023.

The software compiles all information a manager could need, from leases to contact information, in one place. It also has tools for billing, employee scheduling and communication, task checklists and tracking of hangar leases and insurance to ensure they remain up to date.

“I like to think of it as another employee that likes to do all the boring things,” Bunker said.

It also has an interactive map of the Heber City Municipal Airport. Bunker and his team are currently building a public-facing version of the map, including hangar space, rates and fees.

Bunker hopes that embracing technology at the airport frees up employees to focus on community events and outreach and expanding general aviation, or aviation by civilians, which are Bunker’s other top priorities as manager.

There are two common misconceptions about the airport: that it is subsidized by local taxes and only for “the rich and famous,” as Bunker put it.

“Odds are it’s your neighbor that’s here, not some guy in Park City that has a seventh house there,” he said.

Additionally, grants from the Federal Aviation Administration and Utah Department of Transportation cover about 95% of the airport’s funding, with airport revenue supplying the rest.

Bunker wants the Heber City Municipal Airport to become more of an economic and public benefit by adding hangars to support general aviation.

“We have a waiting list that’s, I would need to check, but 300 people long that would love to come put a small aircraft here,” he said. “I would love for the community to think of the airport fondly, and also make the airport very accessible for the community.”

Franco shares that goal.

“We want this to be, like Adam’s saying, an asset for our community, as well as for the next generation of flyers, and for them to be inspired here, just like he was inspired,” she said.

The post Heber City Airport’s new manager prioritizes efficiency, community outreach appeared first on Park Record.