Payson Town Council Special Meeting - June 3, 2025: Resolution for $16M Bond Election for Aquatic Facility
Payson Town Council Special Meeting - June 3, 2025
The Payson Town Council held a special meeting on June 3, 2025, at approximately 8:00 p.m. to discuss and take action on Resolution No. 3452, ordering and calling a special bond election for November 4, 2025, to authorize the issuance of general obligation bonds for the construction of a town aquatic facility. After extensive deliberation, the council voted 6-1 to approve the resolution.
Discussion Items
- Acting Town Manager Sheila DeSchaaf introduced the resolution and noted that the council needed to determine the dollar amount to be presented to voters.
- Deputy Town Manager Christine Smith reviewed the proposed pool project, initially presented on May 14, 2025, and provided updated cost estimates that included escalation for inflation and market changes. The preliminary estimate for a basic indoor pool with a cover was approximately $20.2 million. The uncovered version was estimated at $15.7 million.
- Public Works Project Manager Rod Buchanan confirmed the pool design specifications: 25-yard length, six lanes, depth ranging from 3 to 7 feet, with zero-entry for ADA compliance. He emphasized that a decision on lane count was needed as soon as possible to meet the construction document deadline of February 2026.
- Parks and Recreation Director Steve Richardson expressed strong support for including a lazy river (or therapy current) for water walking, noting its benefits for community health and recreation, especially for older adults and therapeutic users.
- Town Attorney Christina Estes-Werther clarified the ballot language, which would authorize "constructing, improving, and acquiring a town aquatic facility, including buildings, amenities, and improvements." The deadline for publishing the ballot information was August 6, 2025.
- The council discussed various design and cost trade-offs. Ultimately, consensus formed around a $16 million bond amount at an assumed interest rate of 6%, for an uncovered pool with footers for a future cover, six lanes, a lazy river/therapy current, zero entry, and no slides or indoor lobby. The election cost was estimated at $38,000.
- Council Member Jim Ferris moved to table the motion, but received no second.
Key Outcomes
- Motion to approve Resolution No. 3452 was made by Council Member Scott Nossek and seconded by Council Member Brett Flaherty.
- The motion passed 6-1: Mayor Stephen Otto, Vice Mayor Susan Tubbs, Council Members Charlie Bell, Brett Flaherty, Dallin Haws, and Scott Nossek voted yes; Council Member Jim Ferris voted no.
- The approved resolution calls a special bond election on November 4, 2025, for the question of authorizing up to $16 million in general obligation bonds at up to 6% interest to fund the aquatc facility.
- The design specified is an outdoor heated pool with six lanes, zero entry, a lazy river/therapy current, and footers for a future cover. Construction documents are expected by February 2026, with a refined cost estimate by October 2025.
Meeting Transcript
Zoom and Christine may haven't had a chance just to confirm all of the design elements to make sure that what is going to be delivered is what everyone is expecting. So I guess I don't know what I'm expecting is design bill. That's what I'm expecting. Well, you've already approved a C-Mar contract for this particular purpose, so that would be different. Thank you. So I guess I did I know everybody's in a hurry and we want to get through. I'm here for the nine. I just got out of here. My thought is you have an opportunity, and I know that it's rushed, and I apologize for the information becoming late, but between May what 6th and now, and you know, we found out I don't know it what the actual deadline was because we didn't know we could make the agenda. So a lot of this has been rushed, and I apologize for that, but it is want to make sure that our design folks get a chance to draw. Are we waiting for Rob? Brian's project, yeah. Our project manager. You can start the meeting, special meeting. And so I'm starting the special meeting. So uh Mayor and Council, I'd like to just kind of give it a brief history. We want to start the middle first. Oh, sorry, I thought you already said it. Okay. Special meeting, June 3rd, 2025. Roll call, please. I let the record reflect that all council members are present. Council member Hawts is present on Zoom. Purpose of the meeting is discussion, possible action regarding resolution number 3452, ordering and calling a special bond election to be held November 4th, 2025 in and for the town of Paison to submit to the qualified electors a question of authorizing the issuance and sale of general obligation bonds to the town. Sheila start the discussion, please. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I know that part of the information that needs to be included in the resolution that council is considering is the dollar figure that would be submitted to the voters. So I just want to find out if our team that has been working on the design can summarize the information that was had with the discussion. Um for council, so we know exactly what that gets us. So we can thank you, all right. Mayor and council. Uh I'm here uh to give you some updates on the information that we shared with you at the May 14th meeting. Uh that's where we presented the concepts, and our takeaway was to focus on the Malibu site, and um move forward with an uncovered pool at that time. Since then there was some more discussions about adding a cover. And so I want to give you some of our most recent numbers because at that time um we still hadn't um refined the numbers. If you recall the numbers that we provided were plus or minus 25 percent. Uh, we did not include any um escalation for inflation or um changes in the market. So we now have factored that in. And so tonight with the dollars you you're talking about, part of the conversation will be we may have to remove or downsize certain aspects in order to meet those dollar amounts. So I'd like to give you the estimated costs we have in place now that takes away that plus or minus 25 percent, um, adds in the inflation amount, and what we will get for it. So the uncovered version, we talked about it being about starting around 12 million. When we factored in all those um outliers, it now comes to 15.7. So again, we could downsize some of the features, and that is for the basic pool. Um if we would like to cover uh the four million dollars that was thrown out four to five million for the cover. Uh we have an estimate still for 4.7, but it's now getting close to a year old, and with the tariffs, there's some uncertainty of how um the cost may change. Um again, we can reduce some costs, but that's what I would like to uh talk about more tonight. So to deliver the pool that we talked about at the last meeting, it would be approximately 20.2 million. So that includes uh just the basic indoor pool with the cover. Uh the cover itself increases the cost of um additional systems because with the cover now we have to add HVAC systems, we have to add more electric and lighting.
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