Courtesy Tyler Powell

After the Pleasant Grove City Council approved a budget amendment Jan. 17 that moved approximately $600,000 from the city’s roads fund into its general fund, eight residents banded together to create a referendum to place the budget amendment on the ballot this November. The eight sponsors of the referendum included Cassie Zonts, John Mouritson, Neal Beckstrand, John St. Clair Sr., Pamela Beckstrand, Jacob Zonts, Tyler Powell and John St. Clair Jr.

The request was sent to the county last week for the sponsors to be verified as Pleasant Grove residents and voters. That part now completed, the next step is for the city attorney to conduct a legal analysis to verify if the budget amendment is a referable item. According to the election code, the city has 20 days to complete this process, but Pleasant Grove City Administrator Scott Darrington said the analysis should be done by the end of this week.

If the city attorney determines the item is legally referable to voters, the city clerk will create petition packets presenting arguments for and against it, Darrington said. They also will create a financial impact statement. Once the packets are completed, the sponsors and anyone else they have asked to help can begin gathering signatures. “The local clerk has five days to provide the sponsors with a copy of the referendum petition and signature sheet,” the election code states.

As there are 19,707 active registered voters in Pleasant Grove, the sponsors will need to collect 2,266 signatures to get the item placed on the ballot, Kristen Swensen, elections director for the Utah County Elections Division, told the Daily Herald. The sponsors have 30 days to turn in the packets from the time the first signature is collected, but not more than 45 days total after receiving the packets, the election code states.

Regarding what will happen to the $600,000 if the referendum is placed on the ballot, Darrington said, “The money will be held until the electors determine whether to eliminate the transfer or to transfer the money to the road fund.”

Fully funded roads

Courtesy Tyler Powell

In 2015, the city worked with JUB Engineering to complete a study that determined what the cost would be to address the city’s road issues. The minutes from the city budget and planning retreat on Jan. 24-25, 2015, summarized statements from Marty Beaumont of JUB Engineering: “Mr. Beaumont stated that if the City spent $2 million per year, in 10 years the roads would go from 18% excellent roads to 37% excellent. … This amount of money would take care of the roads that are reasonably inexpensive to maintain. Over 30 or 40 years contributing closer to $4 million per year would show an increase in overall road quality but not in the shorter term of 10 years. Mr. Beaumont’s opinion was that a budget of $3.6 million per year would make a significant change.”

In the recent meeting where City Council members amended the budget to take money out of the roads fund and put it back into the general fund from which it had been allocated, Neal Winterton, Pleasant Grove public works director and city engineer, said the cost to build a road today would be one and a half times the estimated cost to build a road when the previous study was done. If that is applied to the entire cost of $3.6 million needed to maintain city roads and make a significant improvements, the roads fund would need about $5.4 million yearly today.

The $600,000 taken out of the road fund was separate from a pool of $4.5 million set aside specifically for the roads program. However, the sponsors of the ballot initiative are concerned with the council taking money out of the fund because the city is already below the needed funds to completely maintain and update the roads, and because the city recently received money from the county to go toward roads through the new quarter-cent sales tax.

“It just doesn’t make sense to me, how the mayor does go to Utah County, says our roads (are) in dire need, we need that money and then just to take it right out of that same budget,” Powell said.

This sales tax was implemented at the beginning of this year and is collected and distributed by the county to each city. Pleasant Grove will receive about $750,000 annually from the tax, to be used only for transportation needs.

Courtesy Tyler Powell

Darrington explained the city’s reasoning for moving the money after receiving more funding for the roads. First, he said, the new money allowed officials to take the $600,000 and put it in the general fund to be used for other needs in the city. It gives the City Council more flexibility in what they can spend the money on, he claimed.

Secondly, while the roads are not fully funded, with or without the $600,000 in the roads fund, Darrington said they do not fully fund most programs or needs in the city. “We try to do the best with the money that we have, but I feel like $4.5 million is a lot of money to go into roads. So that’s why I recommended pulling that $600,000 out and then putting it back into the general fund.”

Reason for the referendum

Three of the sponsors, Powell, St. Clair Jr. and Zonts, explained to the Daily Herald why they are sponsoring this referendum. Powell said he is doing it for three reasons. The first is that he wants more funding for the roads, and the second is the principle of giving residents a choice and a vote when many said they wanted more money to go toward roads. The third reason, he said, is that “It’s a stance against the City Council, saying, ‘Hey, no. We are the citizens. We’re demanding you start listening to us instead of doing it your own way.’ … I want them to start listening to us because that’s what we voted them into office to do.”

St. Clair Jr., who led the group that collected signatures to get the Pleasant Grove property tax increase on the ballot last year, said he also is sponsoring the referendum for much the same reason as Powell, adding that “They (City Council members) are not proactive in reaching out and going to talk to citizens and ask, ‘What do you want?'”

Zonts also explained his reasoning for sponsoring the referendum: “I don’t like property tax increases.” He explained he does not think it is right for the City Council to move the money out of the road fund, which is one of the most “popular and needed basic functions of a city.”

Powell explained he and the other residents behind the ballot measure understand their neighbors’ viewpoints are different from theirs, so if they vote to keep the budget amendment as the City Council voted on, the sponsors will respect what the voters want. “We’re willing to listen to the citizens. … We’re going to do our part to get the message out as best as we can. Past that, I don’t think we have any agenda. We just want to give them the vote to say what they want,” he said.

However, if citizens vote against the choice of the City Council, and the council does not heed what the citizens vote for, Powell said, “If they are not willing to listen to us, we’re gonna keep fighting.”

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