NORTH LOGAN — The Green Canyon Farms corn maze is confusing by design, but a planned boundary change could prove difficult for its operators to sort out, maze owners told the City Council Jan. 20.

The space the maze takes – near the George S. Eccles Ice Center – is between the boundaries of North Logan and Hyde Park. Now plans for a road at 200 East have been approved, the county land may be incorporated into Hyde Park.

Maze owners Nancy and Ron Jensen said Hyde Park and North Logan have been discussing the fate of the property for about a decade.

“We just kind of have to go with the flow and see what happens,” Nancy Jensen said.

Jensen asked the council to delay the exchange of property until work on the new road begins.

Since the unincorporated county land they use for the corn maze has no address, the Jensens use their home address in North Logan for business and tax purposes. Once the land is annexed by Hyde Park, the Jensens will likely need to change the business address to Hyde Park, she said.

“We’ve had to fight with the IRS and the state about where we belong,” Jensen said. “Finally we got it settled. I don’t know if I want to go the Hyde Park way, because it’s just a huge pain for us to have it transferred over.”

The Jensens take care of the land and the maze is a community asset, North Logan Mayor Lloyd Berentzen said.

The council did not consider any motion regarding the land at the meeting. Berentzen said a workshop meeting for the council’s further discussion of the matter should be possible.

In other business, North Park Police Chief Kim Hawkes presented plans for a possible new building to house the police department. Currently, the NPPD offices occupy the basement of the Fire Department building. Both departments have outgrown their current spaces, Hawkes said, and a new police building would allow both departments to expand to better serve the community.

Fire Department officials would like to keep a volunteer firefighter at the station at all times to decrease response times, but currently lack the accommodations, Hawkes said. A decrease in response time could mean a decrease in insurance rate for residents, he said.

The fire station was designed to accommodate volunteers overnight, but the police department is using the space, Berentzen said.

“We’ve had some firefighters, just so everyone is aware, that have actually volunteered to bring their trailers and set them there in the back and stay, just so they can be there when there’s a medical call,” Berentzen said.

The design included a public meeting room for the department’s defensive driving courses and other community outreach programs. The library’s meeting room is over-scheduled, Hawkes said, and the police department has been asked to move their classes to another location.

Construction of the proposed building may be in the neighborhood $950,000, Hawkes said. A design the department proposed earlier cost around $1.8 million, Berentzen said.

Berentzen would like the project to be funded without taking on debt. The city’s proposed budget for 2012 sets $400,000 aside in the capital improvement fund for the project, and money could be borrowed from within the city to cover the difference, Berentzen said.

Published in cooperation with the Hard News Cafe. Original story is here.