Meeting Minutes

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Chairman Richard Horner called the meeting to order around 12PM

Attendance

Members: Chairman Richard Horner, Joseph West, Jerry Merrill, Doug Hancey

Visitors: Kimber Ricks and Todd Smith (Madison County Commissioners), Mayor Dave Ogden (Sugar City Mayor), Cory Sorensen via telephone (TruNorth Development)

Administrative Support: Katie Cook

Approval of Minutes

Richard Horner asked for a motion to approve the meeting minutes from September 3, 2015 which were sent to the Board prior to the meeting.  Joseph West motioned to approve the meeting minutes, Jerry Merrill seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.

Board Member Changes

With the recent election of board member Jerry Merrill to the City of Rexburg Mayor, there is a need for a new member to be appointed in his place.  Brad Wolfe has been presented and approved by the City Council.  Joseph West’s term has ended, but he is willing to continue to serve.  The City Council approved an additional term for Joseph.  Richard Horner asked for a motion to recognize Jerry Merrill no longer serving as a board member, Joseph West serving another term and Brad Wolfe being recognized by the board as a new member.  Doug Hancey made the motion, Richard Horner seconded and the motion passed unanimously.

Website

Tyler Guthrie designed a website for the URA and he came to the meeting to present the website and all of its features to the board.  Everyone was quite happy with his work and they like the idea of being transparent to the public.  The board would like Katie Cook to have the ability to make any basic changes and have access to Blue Host which is hosting the website in case something happened to Tyler.  It was also discussed that the domain name would need to be purchased every year for $15.  The hosting will also need to be renewed, Tyler will take care of that for us or he will email Katie when it is due and she can renew it.  Site placement would improve if the City of Rexburg would put a link to the site on their website or if they removed what they have about the Urban Renewal.  Mayor Merrill will check in to that.  Tyler will set up a Gmail account so that the Google Analytics can be tracked.

Approval of Invoices

Richard Horner asked for a motion on one invoice: $4,182.20 to Tyler Guthrie for the development of the new website.  Joseph West motioned to authorize the payment to Tyler Guthrie. Doug Hancey seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.

Review of Financial Status

Richard Horner presented the financial status of all districts and provided a handout (attached to meeting minutes).

North Highway District

N/A

Washington School District

Cory Sorensen was able to participate in the meeting via telephone.  His biggest hurdle with developers committing to the project is that the Mickelsen’s building will cost $250,000 to purchase and then there would be costs involved with tearing it down.  Cory said it would be a lot easier for him to present to investors if he could tell them the cost of the demolition of the building would be covered by the City of Rexburg and/or the URA.  Mayor Jerry Merrill was in attendance and he will do some checking on whether the City can do that or not.  They already planned to tear down the other 2 small structures left on that land.  Cory will talk to Broulim’s to see if they are willing to carry any of the cost as well since they will be benefiting from the project as well.

Downtown District

Richard Horner presented that the old seminary building, across from the school district office, owned by the LDS Church may come available.  He simply wanted the board to know and be thinking of a possible acquisition of that property if it does in fact come available.  It could possibly be used for extra parking for the downtown area.

University Boulevard District

N/A

North Interchange District

In the Plan it has the cost for widening 2nd East and Moody Road as well as some other things.  It also states that the URA would obtain a bond so that the work can begin immediately rather than waiting several years to be able to start doing that.  Richard Horner proposed that the URA work with Zions Bank as the financial advisor and to assist in preparing the bond proposal.   Doug Hancey made a motion to approve Zions Bank, Joseph West seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.

Richard also presented possibly using Hawley Troxell as the bond council.  Hawley Troxell was recommended to him by Elam & Burke, the URA’s attorney out of Boise.  Richard indicated that it will likely cost about $250,000.  It was motioned by Joseph West that the agency does so on condition of Hawley Troxell providing a proposal letter stating their services including an estimate of their costs.  Jerry Merrill seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.

Next Meeting Date and Adjournment

The next meeting was not set at this time; we will wait until the audit is complete.   The meeting was adjourned about 1:00.