The Riverton City Council held a work session at 4:30 PM and a regular meeting at 7:00 PM on May 19, 2026, at City Hall. Key topics included stormwater management, a presentation from Salt Lake County Council, park entrance improvements, water conservation strategies for parks and splash pads, a legislative update, and an amendment to the tentatively adopted budget for police compensation. A boil water order was announced during the work session due to an illegal cross-connection discovered earlier that day.
Stormwater Discharge 12600 South CRA Project: City Manager Kevin Hicks presented a preliminary proposal to allow a developer to direct stormwater from a future development into an existing city retention pond with excess capacity. The developer would pay all associated infrastructure costs. Council unanimously supported the concept, viewing it as an efficient use of existing infrastructure.
Salt Lake County Council Presentation: Council Chair Amy Winder Newton and Councilmember Suzanne Harrison presented an overview of county services, governance, and budgeting. They noted that nearly 75% of the general fund supports criminal justice and public safety, that the county maintains an AAA bond rating, and that tourism revenue funds cultural/community programs. They discussed jail capacity challenges, behavioral health initiatives, and partnerships for treatment and reentry services. Riverton councilmembers asked about golf course funding, law enforcement, homelessness, and regional cooperation.
Main Park Entrance Discussion: Public Works Director Cary Necaise presented eight conceptual options for the vacant area at the entrance after skate park removal. Options ranged from simple sod replacement ($35,000) to decorative landscaping, pathways, parking, recreational courts, community gardens, and a conservation garden ($150,000). Council generally favored Option 1 (sod and trees) as a temporary beautification measure that could be completed before Town Days, reserving the possibility of future amenities like futsal or street hockey if outside funding becomes available.
Park Water Use and Service Level Discussion: Mr. Necaise outlined a drought mitigation plan that categorizes parks into four service levels with irrigation reductions from 10% (athletic/civic areas) to 25% (low‑priority open spaces). He noted that recent upgrades (weather‑based controls, moisture monitoring) are already improving efficiency. For splash pads – which use non‑recycled culinary water – staff proposed reducing hours to noon‑8 PM and potentially alternating days for the least‑used Old Farm location. Council supported the reductions and emphasized clear communication to residents.
Boil Water Order: During the work session, Mr. Necaise reported that a city monitoring system detected reverse flow, leading to discovery of an illegal cross‑connection between a property’s irrigation system and the culinary water supply. The connection was shut off immediately. In coordination with the Division of Water Quality, a precautionary 48‑hour boil order was issued while water samples are tested (results expected Thursday afternoon). Council discussed future prevention through dual‑check valve installations.
Tentatively Adopted Budget Amendment: Nick Geer presented a revised police compensation proposal: a 1.5% cost‑of‑living adjustment plus a 4% step increase, for a total 5.5% adjustment. The increase would be funded through the RLESA fund, reducing its fund balance from 5% to 1.5% for the year. Councilmembers supported the change as a retention and competitiveness measure. The amendment was approved unanimously (4‑0). The public hearing on the budget was opened, no comments were received, and it was left open until the June 2, 2026 meeting.
How are you doing? Good to see you too. She's good. She's uh kids doing well. Yeah, Donald's area. I will, definitely. Thanks for coming. Yeah, I think that's it. Okay, we're ready to start. Um do we have Council Member Smith. I don't believe she's on yet. We'll proceed without her. We'll let you know when she does get on. Councilmember McDougal will not be joining us tonight. Okay, we're gonna start with presentations, and our first one will be from Mr. Hicks regarding stormwater. Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. This hopefully this item is gonna be a very quick one. We're just needing to get some some head nods, some guidance from you all as to um how you how you feel about this recommendation as we proceed into the next steps with some development. So what you'll see in front of you is uh the Brooke. Okay, Shannon has joined us, Mayor. Um what you'll see on the screen, uh as you know, there's the front in front of the park is a community reinvestment area that we have. Um it is a an open project area. We haven't really done much beyond just creating the project area. Uh the s the rectangle in yellow is owned by one developer. Um where it is in a CRA project area, we can the city and the CRA has a little bit of discretion to work with developers a little bit to try to help streamline or improve some of the processes or development opportunities that might be inside that yellow box. Specifically what we're asking at this point, we have confirmed, our engineers have confirmed, that there is capacity inside our city pond there in blue. The ultimate question is whether or not the city council is okay with allowing the developer in yellow to share and let some of their water come, well, pretty much most of their water come into our city pond. If the council is okay with that, the developer would be responsible for the cost to get that water to the pond. However, it worked out, that would be a separate agreement that would eventually come before the city council in terms of maintenance of the water, etc. So this is very preliminary, but before the developer goes too far down the process of what they want to do, we wanted to come before the council and just get some feedback and nodding, shaking of heads whether or not you agree or disagree with allowing the developer to utilize that excess capacity of the pond for the stormwater for that property in that's outlined in yellow. And one additional comment I have met with the developer and it indicated that is fine with myself as the mayor. So I just need feedback from the rest of you regarding that. Personally, I think it's a great idea if we have the excess to assist with that. We have been looking forward to development along there. And uh specifically, I'm always looking forward to something edible coming in along there. I don't know why. I don't eat out a ton, but I like the opportunity, the idea. So I I'm personally am in favor of that, and uh believe it could assist a lot with the ability to do something nice there. Thank you. Any other comments or feedback? Yeah, I'm I I'm supportive of it. I I was just curious, do we have an estimated kind of assessed value that we're offering, or is it really just hard to estimate the value that it's providing? It it's it's really hard to estimate that, really. I mean, what it would be is is depending on what ultimately goes into their development on the in the yellow piece. By us taking water and putting it in there, it frees them up where they wouldn't need to utilize some of that space or as much of that space to retain on site, whether it be underground or in ponds, so it allows them to use the the larger portion of the rectangle for development. So that really depends on ultimately the use and the site plan that gets presented and approved. Cool. I I think it's a it's a great opportunity to have um some of the development there that we've been looking for as a community, and this is an appropriate use of city assets in a way that like we have excess capacity, why not allow it so that we can drive this development? Thanks.