On November 15, the City of Cedar Hills announced agreement to pay a $190K to settle a lawsuit filed by the Utah Valley Homebuilders Association against CH for “illegal” use of the $2.9 million impact fees collected for the building of a Recreation and Swimming (aquatic) facility. The funds were instead used to build a golf clubhouse, golf pro shop, and wedding reception center the City sometimes calls a “Rec Center”.
Rather than taking responsibility for questionable decisions, the Council seems to be blaming and deflecting their error on concerned citizens who have been trying alert their neighbors. For example, the City wrote on the website:
“A few residents like to claim that had a swimming pool or other type of recreational facility been built instead of the existing recreation center then the City would not have been sued. This is simply not true.” (see CH City Statement of Nov. 26, 2012 at http://www.cedarhills.org/node/1790 )
Really? The City’s statement is an interesting play on words, because had the City simply fully obeyed the law and built the rec & swimming pool facilities for which the money was collected, within the legal time frame according to Impact Fee Law, then the Utah Valley Homebuilders Association would have had no grounds for a lawsuit. Instead of taking responsibility for the error, the City instead says it “does not admit to any wrongdoing”, but pays them $190K of our money anyway?
Cedar Hills Citizens for Responsible Government obtained a copy of the lawsuit filed from the Court, which details the grounds for their complaint of “illegalities” against the City. (see PDF below) Within the seven “Causes of Action”, the following points complaints were provided:
“32. The amount collected by the City that was not expended within six year of collection is not certain but it was reported by the City to exceed $1,500,000 in the documents the City is required to file with the Utah State Auditor…”.
“34. Some of the fees collected by the City were not expended or encumbered within six years of their receipt and cannot therefore be…because the City did not make the required written identifications required…to avoid that deadline…”.
“41. According to Utah Code…, a [city] may expend impact fees only for a system improvement identified in the impact fee facilities plan and for the specific public facility type for which the fee was collected….
“42. The Recreational Facilities Impact Fee (“RF Fee”) was established by the City to collect money to build a recreation and aquatic center in the City according to…the 2000 enactment documents… upon which the current RF Fees are based…
“43. The use of RF Fees to build a golf club house is not for a system improvement identified in the impact fee facilities plan and is not the specific public facility type for which the fee was collected…”.
“55. Plaintiffs have been damaged as a result of the illegal imposition of impact fees, including without limitation that Plaintiffs have been required by the City to pay the illegal impact fees as an exaction imposed in order to obtain development approvals and/or building permits. …”
See attached PDF of… Lawsuit – UT Valley HomeBuilders Assoc v CH
Therefore, contrary to the City’s claims and inferences, according to the lawsuit it appears that the Homebuilders Association wouldn’t have had reason for complaint and a $190K settlement had the City simply obeyed the law and used the impact fees in a timely fashion for the purposes it was collected.
Additionally, on December 18, the Council voted unanimously to pursue a bid process on estimated $200-300,000 new expenditure (apparently money taken from the $500K dollars collected to build a proposed city hall type building “civic center”), to make the basement of the Clubhouse, more like a “rec center”. The bid could be much more than the Council’s estimate, and still will require another vote before proceeding. Contact your Council to share your opinion.
According to the audio recording of the Council meeting, prior to the vote Council member Jenny Rees appropriately pointed out, “I guess my concern is that, and I’ve talked with a couple of you as well, when we go back to the original building [golf clubhouse] that was approved for $2.1 million, somehow we spent $2.9 million. I don’t want to get into a situation where we’re spending way more than what we thought it was going to cost. I don’t know how we got into that situation to begin with, but I don’t want it to happen again.”
Unfortunately, the Cedar Hills Council has consistently over-promised and under-delivered, with taxpayers carrying burden of the difference. Never under budget, always over. For example, the golf course was promised to make $150K per year in profit, but instead has required taxpayers subsides of -$550,000 a year – making annual $700,000 difference in the wrong direction. Similarly the Public Works building was budgeted for $800,000 and ultimately cost $2,300,000, — a negative $1.5 million difference.
Cedar Hills Citizens for Responsible Government has been concerned that the Golf Financial Committee’s report, while acknowledging that our claims of $550k annual financial loss every year was correct, they did not present the information on the front page of the City Newsletter nor they include every year’s losses, they did not consider any golf course exit strategy, they claimed to have better ideas on how to profitability than past Councils but offered no financial projections or goals, nor would they offer an estimate of what future year the golf course might actually break-even in a single year. Good stewards of our tax dollars?
So, the Utah Valley Homebuilders Association was compensated with $190K, but the citizens are left with an over-priced “Rec Center” that serves mostly golfers but pretends to be a rec center. These losses don’t include the City’s attorney fees which cost citizens $160,000 over the last 17 months. (see separate posting)
If the City had simply obeyed the law they could have saved the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. There is no end to the “good” that government can do when using other people’s money.
.