By Brooke Barker

March 2, 2006 | RICHMOND -- There's a new council in town as of Tuesday night. Thirteen members of the city Youth Council, including a new youth mayor, Melody Jensen, were sworn in by Mayor Michael Hall at the City Council meeting.

"This will be a good experience. I was telling Melody earlier how I served as a youth mayor in Lewiston. Good luck to all of you," Hall said after the youth council repeated the oath.

The new youth council has a conference in March at Utah State University, where they will learn how to be better leaders and get involved in the community. After Hall excused the teenagers and their parents, the council got down to business. They passed three ordinances and one resolution.

Ordinance 2006-1 establishes Richmond city's manual of design and construction standards. It will be available to contractors and developers at cost as soon as it can be printed. A public meeting will most likely be held in March to discuss the changes to developers and contractors, but a date was not set during the meeting.

"The changes let them [contractors and developers] know, 'Hey guys, some things have changed in Richmond. We've entered the real world.' This gives our policy some teeth on being sure the infrastructure is done correctly," City Manager Marlowe Adkins said Adkins explained how in the past some sewage systems were installed improperly, and the new changes can help guarantee things are done correctly in the future.

Ordinance 2006-2 involving subdivision regulations was approved after Councilman Allen Lundgreen spent five minutes checking to make sure the changes he asked for during the last planning and zoning meeting had been made.

Ordinance 2006-3 involves requirements someone must meet before being granted a certificate of occupancy. Most of the requirements added to the checklist for inspectors were based on previous experiences as well as Hyrum's requirements. The ordinance met opposition among members concerning the wording of one of the requirements -- a driveway. In the end the council decided that an all-weather surface should be used rather than the words "permanently paved." An all-weather surface includes any permanent pavement as well as gravel.

"The main priority is mud. We're trying to keep homes from looking like a disaster area, where every time someone backs up they bring mud onto the street and no one else can drive on it without four-wheel drive," Adkins explained to a citizen attending the meeting with a troop of Boy Scouts.

A fourth ordinance was discussed but will not be approved until the next meeting. It involves pretreatment of wastewater policy and procedures. The council was apprehensive about agreeing to an ordinance they hadn't yet looked over. The document came to the city in a format that needs to be modified to fit Richmond's needs. The state Division of Water Quality will be inspecting Richmond's water treatment and procedures during March. The council is still waiting for this inspection before deciding on a new treatment facility.

At the end of the meeting Hall signed a letter for Adkins to take to Sen. Bob Bennett's office while visiting Washington D.C. next week. The resolution is in support of the Rural Water Association of Utah and continued funding thereof. Adkins, along with other members of this association are heading to the Capitol in hopes of generating funding.

"I'm going to be a poster child of how rural water saves the lives of small communities," Adkins said as he explained his trip to the council.

Other items the council discussed during Tuesday's meeting included:

-- RAPZ tax requests for improvements to the park's pathways, bathrooms and the American Legion building used for cooking during Black and White Days.

-- the qualifications for receiving funding for a traffic light or crossing guard signal on Highway 91 near the schools.

-- possibly forming a planning committee including members of the city council as well as members from the community for Black and White Days.

-- approval for funding a new splash retaining wall at the culvert near 500 South and 100 East.

The next city council meeting will be held on March 21, at 7 p.m.

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