Town attorney details termination notice and redline negotiation with water company

Town attorney Jamie Blakesley told the council that Smith Harvickson, the law firm representing Boulder Farmstead Water Company, sent a September 4 letter terminating the town’s 1984 agreement and proposing fees for hydrant access.

"In your packet and your materials is a letter dated September September 4th from the law firm Smith Harvickson. They represent the water company. And in the letter, they indicate that they are terminating the 1984 agreement with the town and imposing a fee of $2,500 per incident for each occurrence in which the town might need to use the fire hydrants that are within the town and maintained by the water company," Blakesley said. He described responding with a firm but collegial letter and providing a redline of the updated contract language that the water company’s attorney reviewed and presented back as acceptable.

Blakesley summarized the substantive edits the water company proposed — an annual fee (the redline sets $3,000 per year), allocation of snow removal and vegetation-clearing responsibilities, and indemnification language limiting the water company’s liability to its own negligent acts. He said Utah law constrains indemnification language and that the changes reflected typical mutual indemnity language. The attorney also confirmed directly with the company’s lawyer that hydrants would not be shut off while negotiations continued, but that the company intended the per-incident charge for calls to the water source if no annual agreement were in place.