Standing room only for a packed Logan City Hall on Thursday night, Dec. 5, 2024 at an informational public meeting about the First Dam tank and water project.
LOGAN — It was not a public hearing – but residents packed Logan City Hall on Thursday night trying to make their voice heard about the First Dam tank and water project.
One resident was initially invited to get up and speak, but after speaking for about a minute and a half was interrupted by Logan City Mayor Holly Daines who clarified this was not a public hearing. She invited him to sit down and write down his question.
“Let me speak, I’m not going to let you pull it back,” the man said to the mayor. “I tried to call your office four times today — you hung up on me!”
The meeting was meant to be a question and answer informational meeting. JUB Engineers, the firm hired to do the project, presented for about an hour. Then it planned to take some of resident’s written questions and answer them, but that didn’t last long.
At one point, when residents persisted to ask the presenter from The Langdon Group – who was hired by the city to facilitate the discussion and help with public involvement – what the cost of the project would be they were told to “just relax.”
“Chill out, oh my gosh, we are going to get there,” said Dan Adams with The Langdon Group who was the facilitator of JUB Engineers & Logan City’s presentation of the First Dam tank and water project.
Zan Murray with JUB Engineers and project manager on project told Cache Valley Daily afterward he thought “the meeting went well.”
The tank and water project is happening.
“The purpose (of the meeting) was to answer questions people had about the project and educate them about the process that we have gone through to get to this point,” Murray said.
The city needs more water storage to meet a state requirement and it has been out of compliance for several years. The First Dam tank pipeline project will fix that. The plans include installing a 10-million gallon water tank, a 42” water transmission line to the west side of Logan, and making improvements to Canyon Road.
Murray said at this point, the city wants input from the community on the design of the roadway and thinks like, “How wide of a sidewalk? Where should the sidewalk go? What kind of bike facilities do we want to put? Do we want to do bike lanes? Do we want to do a combined pedestrian and bicycle path?”
Public Works Director Paul Lindhardt confirmed to residents the budget for this project, $20 million, was approved eight years ago.
Murray said it recommended the alignment that met the city’s goals for the “most benefit for the community.”
Just before Thanksgiving, Logan City published a summary online of JUB’s analysis for each of the seven alignment alternatives that were reviewed and an explanation for why the Canyon Road alignment was chosen.
“It’s what the city council wants to do, it’s what public works wants to do, and that’s what we want as a company to try to facilitate,” Murray added.