Service Agency chairman says revenues will still fall far short of $5 million needed to upgrade infrastructure

Stansbury Park Service Agency trustees finalized a tax rate hike for greenbelt and recreation taxes of 4.3 and 4.2 percent, respectively, this year by a 4-2 vote last Wednesday evening.

The increase will raise the tax rate from .000959 for greenbelt and .000960 for recreation to .001 for both areas. Trustees could have chosen to raise the rate as high as .0014, however in a previous meeting they decided to propose enacting a lesser increase because of the current condition of the economy.

Trustee Randy Jones voted against the motion on account of tough economic times.

“The people who recommended the tax increase are people with more expendable income,” Jones said. “That’s not the demographic of Stansbury Park anymore.”

Those who make up Stansbury Park are more commonly families with multiple children and both parents working to make ends meet, Jones said.

“Not having more money stinks for those of us who are maintaining the community,” Jones said, but added that he felt overall the general public was happy with current conditions in Stansbury, and so he didn’t feel any urgency to ask taxpayers to dig deeper this year.

Trustee Debbie Record’s feelings about the increase were similar to Jones’.

“I felt like with gas and food prices going up this was the wrong year to have a tax increase,” Record said.

Stansbury Park Service Agency Chairman John O’Donnell, however, pledged his full support to the increase, saying that since he moved to Stansbury he’s seen the infrastructure continue to decay due to lack of funding.

“If we want to move forward without the duct tape and the glue, we need more money,” O’Donnell said. “If we continue to do the little that we are doing, we will continue to deteriorate.”

O’Donnell even proposed the idea of bonding as a way to finally be able to dedicate large-scale funding to projects that have been pending for years. He estimated the board needed $5 million dollars to tackle infrastructure issues. The approved tax increase will only generate an additional $111,249 for the service agency to spread out through its budget.

“The community is going to need a lot more money than this tax increase,” O’Donnell said. “We need to bond. It’s just too much. We simply don’t have all the resources we need to get these projects done. It’s about time to throw the gauntlet down. If we don’t start now, it won’t ever be done.”

Trustees cited the swimming pool as an example of a recreation service that is not profitable, and actually runs in the red due to the continual cost of fixing cracks and resurfacing. Other problematic areas in the park include the sprinkling systems, which require manual turn on by an employee, wasting precious time that could be spent elsewhere. Additionally, the ponds have been an eyesore and have had regular clogging/overflowing issues for years. And the clubhouse is aging and sees so much use that it is rapidly deteriorating.

Longtime Stansbury Park resident and former service agency trustee Walt Holmes said he wished the board had increased taxes to the maximum allowable by law — a 46 percent tax rate increase.

“There’s such a need for improving the deteriorating infrastructure,” Holmes said. “I can’t understand why you would consider a bond when you haven’t raised your tax rate the highest it can go.”

Holmes has a personal interest in the poor condition of the golf course ponds because one of them neighbors his house.

“The pipes between the ponds are failing and separating,” Holmes said. “They need to be replaced. We pump an awful lot of water into them, but it’s not getting there because of the leaking.”

The clubhouse, Holmes said, is over 30 years old now and showing its age.

“If you decided to renovate it to accommodate those who use it, then you would have to bring it up to code,” Holmes said.

Trustee Scott Totman moved that the board adopt the increased tax rate as is, and trustee Glenn Oscarson seconded the motion.

The board plans to discuss the budget and what the revenue increase will mean for individual line items at an October meeting.

Jamie Belnap: jamieb@tooeletranscript.com