City Hall Closed for Training
Last Tuesday night, September 10, the City Council met for their monthly meeting.
Ashley Scott, City Clerk, reminded everyone that the clerks will be out of town September 17-19 for a training seminar and that the City Hall office will be closed during those days. The office is also scheduled to have some remodeling done during that time.
There was a public hearing for Lauren Harris regarding a conditional use permit. She is wanting to open a massage office in her home in an attached room with a separate exterior entry. The motion was approved.
Jack Wright discussed his ideas on opening an RV park in Council and was wanting to know if the City Council Members had any requirements or issues before proceeding further. The Council Members wanted to make sure that the city guidelines were followed and that he would need the plans engineered and approved by the city engineer and that it would be permissible in an industrial location, but if he wanted to use a commercially zoned land, he would need to apply for a conditional use permit.
The University of Idaho requested permission to use the downtown City Park on October 26 for a city trunk or treat event and they requested blockades around the perimeter. This action item was approved.
There was a discussion about the upkeep and maintenance of Cascade Park. The park seems to be run down and has had vandalism, dry grass, dog waste, and other issues. The park is managed by Parks and Recreation and Lana Wessels attended in their behalf and explained that they would love to be able to keep the park maintained better and want to do more with the park but their budget is small. It was mentioned that they have considered including a swimming pool addition to the park. They have been wanting to put in sprinklers for the baseball fields, but the bid came in at $56,000. So they are currently setting aside some money for sprinklers and to do more with the park, but it’s going to take some time. It was decided that the Council Members and Parks and Recreation would get together to see if they could work together to improve the park’s upkeep at the minimum.
Sheriff Ryan Zollman is concerned with the way the Council City laws are written regarding homeless people and how they choose to reside. There seems to be too much flexibility in the current law and Sheriff Zollman is concerned about future problems and wants to have better laws in place before Council has a problem. The Council Members agree and are working to change the current law.
The Council Members approved renewing the Building Official Agreement with a privately contracted building inspector of Adams County.
The Prosecution Services Agreement was updated to read as a month to month contract for this next year.
The city property that City Hall sits on and the property adjacent to it are being split up into three lots. The area just east of City Hall that the old Starkey office building was in will be separated into a lot. City Hall will be its own lot and the land across Council Ave with the three warehouse buildings will be a lot.
The next City Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, October 8, 2024, at 6:30pm.
