LOGAN – The Logan City Council is scheduled to meet at 3 p.m. on Tuesday to consider a request from city officials for a closed session to discuss potential property acquisition.

That request may be good news for downtown business owners who are opposed to a city plan to relocate the Logan City Fire Department’s aging Station 70 into the heart of the Federal Avenue business district.

City officials are staying mum on the purpose of the proposed closed meeting. Even council members have not been informed in advance about what property the city may be eying for acquisition.

“The purpose of a closed meeting is not made public,” Council Member Amy Z. Anderson explains. “What we have been informed is that (the requested closed meeting) is to consider the administration’s request to discuss potential property acquisition.

“I cannot confirm what or where that might be at this point.”

The last time that the city council members publicly discussed the relocation of the fire station was May 19.

In a public hearing at that meeting, several downtown business owners condemned the plan to locate a new fire station to city property on the corner of 100 East Street and Federal Avenue. That facility, they argued, would deal a death sentence for their nearby enterprises because it would occupy a significant portion of the existing parking lot there.

Even before that contentious public hearing, Mayor Holly Daines had acknowledged that city officials needed to devote more time and research to the station relocation issue. The city council members also requested that city officials provide them with alternative relocation options for the fire station.

But Kymber Housley, Logan City attorney, cautioned that discussing alternative relocation sites in an open meeting could escalate the cost of any property acquisition.

The city’s July 1 appeal for a closed meeting with municipal council members is the first such request since the fire station relocation controversy erupted in early May.

The members of the Logan City Council will gather in their chambers at 290 North 100 West at 3 p.m. on Tuesday.



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