Council amends fee schedule, approves seasonal field access for SWAT Soccer at $7,000 per season

The North Ogden City Council on Jan. 20 unanimously approved a consolidated-fee schedule amendment that includes a seasonal agreement allowing SWAT Soccer to block specified fields six days a week for $7,000 per season.

Council action matters because it sets how the city charges for park and field use, updates a range of administrative fees and establishes a standing partner arrangement for a high-volume youth sports provider.

Staff framed the item as a cleanup of several line items and a discussion about athletic-field fees. City Manager and Attorney John Call told the council that staff had added a $10 charge for USB flash drives for public-records requests, aligned solid-waste rates for nonresidents, and updated the street-cut penalty to match the street-cut fee in the code. Call said staff’s larger operational question concerned how to charge organizations that use multiple fields for league play.

On athletic fields, staff presented two approaches: (1) charge per field, or (2) mirror a neighboring jurisdiction (Pleasant View) by charging per park (a flat figure for an entire park even if it contains multiple fields). Staff noted the arithmetic produced substantially higher fees than SWAT expected under the per-field calculation. In discussion, council members and SWAT representatives debated weekday practice access, the effect on recreation teams and whether partners should receive a discounted rate.

Representatives from SWAT said the group's competitive teams rely on weekday and weekend access for practices and games and asked how weekday reservations would be handled. Council members raised concerns that a rigid reservation system could limit citizen access and asked staff to keep operations administrable.

The council settled on language that (a) gives SWAT priority access to the four frequently used parks (Orton, McGriff, Mountain View and Wadman) for the season and (b) charges SWAT $7,000 per season (the staff motion specified $7,000 per season). The agreement allows SWAT to block the fields six days per week during its season and preserves the ability for SWAT to schedule midweek games and make rainout reschedules without a separate midweek charge. Staff also committed to prorating or refunding the seasonal fee if fields are unusable for extended periods (for example, prolonged flooding), and to managing scheduling so that games take precedence over practices.

The fee-schedule amendment also addressed several non-athletic items: a $10 fee for USB flash drives for public-records requests, clarification of solid-waste nonresident rates, and an updated street-cut excavation penalty to align with the code (the penalty is double the street-cut fee, per staff). Council members asked that the implementation date and seasonal billing be clear in the ordinance language so spring reservations already completed would not be charged retroactively.

Council Member Severing moved the resolution and Council Member Watson seconded. The council approved Resolution O2-2025 by roll call (Severing, Pulver, Watson, Dalpez and Barker voting yes). No members voted no; the motion passed unanimously.

Implementation notes: staff said a flat per-season charge is administratively easier and recommended that the council set league partner fees by ordinance language and allow future adjustments to return to council if necessary. Staff will publish changes to the consolidated fee schedule and notify park users of the new reservation and blocking rules before the next season.