City Hall to Move to Council Guns Building After Swap
On Wednesday, November 19, The City of Council held a special City Council meeting due to the original time falling on Veterans Day. First was an Airport report from Kathy Hughes, who said the pavement project was all done except for permanent paint, which would happen in spring. They were under the anticipated budget and the total city share on the project was $0. They finished the draft bid documents for the lighting project and updated the City Council on the windsock options. Hughes said the cost between the solar and traditional windsock was negligible and airport users and neighbors expressed a desire not to have the lights on all the time. She thought they would have bids ready by the first meeting in January.
Ashley Scott, City Clerk, said three past due water and sewer bills totaling over $17,000 had been paid in full. The annual Road and Street report was submitted. They are still updating the new website and expect it to be finished by the first of the year. The Idaho Blue Cross Foundation Comprehensive Plan Grant was submitted on November 6, and they were recently informed that the city will be awarded $25,000. The funds must be used for health related things. Some items that were discussed included updating the city bathrooms, new garbage cans downtown, and possibly picnic tables. They are working on another $30,000 grant to help with sign replacement in the city limits and will be submitting it shortly. Scott also said that City Hall will be participating in the Chamber of Commerce Take and Make Christmas Craft event on December 6th.
Caleb Shumway with Public Works gave an update next. He said while he was taking vacation last month Justin completed the tedious task of completing the sign inventory. All the sprinkler systems in the RV park are winterized and they are getting the equipment ready for plowing.
Kathy Hughes then finished the Airport update and said everyone in the aviation community around the state was very excited about the new pavement and there have been a lot of smooth landings. They want to plan for an open house in spring after the painting is done. They also will be building the new hangar in spring. They are working on getting the numbers changed for the magnetic heading to 18/36, due to natural magnetic drift. The critical NPIAS survey is coming up and she said she was watching it like a hawk to ensure they maintain their certification. The tank was refilled and they have sold 768 gallons of fuel, 448 in the last two weeks. The tank is already 20% down and they are on the hunt for a larger tank. This year overall, they have sold almost 5,000 gallons of fuel with a net revenue of over $3,200 for the airport. The next Airport Commission meeting is November 24th at 6:30 p.m. at hangar #5.
Next, there was a public hearing on the city’s intent to sell property in the Commercial Park. Mayor Bruce Gardner gave some background on the history of the Commercial Park, and said he wanted to be able to hear comments and answer any questions after. He said over two decades ago the city built the commercial park on land that was gifted by Boise Cascade when the mill was closed. The buildings were constructed using federal grant funding with the provision that for the first five years it had to be operated by the city as a business incubator, giving businesses a chance to start up at attractive lease rates and later move them out to their permanent locations. The lease rates were mandated to be based on three things: The value of the business to the community, how many local jobs it generated, and what the wage scale on those jobs were and there was a complicated formula to determine the lease rate. After those first five years, the federal government was hands off and it was up to the city to run as a regular commercial park with competitive rates. There have been many different businesses that have run through over the years, but now that Starkey Water, who was the last big tenant, had withdrawn their occupancy, there was no real reason for the city to continue being the landlord. Gardner said the business park had been self-sustaining in the past, but not much of a revenue maker, thus the city decided to sell it as smaller parcels. He showed a map of the different parcels and showed which ones Adams County was interested in. Some were being sold to the county and some were being traded in exchange for work on the city roads. Building C the city planned to auction. Building D and the lot behind was being traded with Brian Goodwin, the owner of Council Guns, in exchange for the location that Council Guns currently occupies downtown, which they plan to move City Hall into. (This is 100 Michigan St.) Once that move is made they will also auction off the current City Hall building. Besides the land swaps, and not including the lots to be auctioned, the total expected cash amount so far is $590,000. They will have to do a little remodeling at the new city hall location and add some additional parking in the lot next door. Then the funds are planned to be used for some expensive equipment that is needed for public works, as well as upgrades to the city shop.
The question had been raised about taking some of the funds and applying it towards the water and sewer project. Unfortunately, by law those are enterprise funds, and they are prohibited from taking outside money and putting it into those funds. The City is able to dissolve the enterprise fund from the Commercial Park and move the funds into the general fund to use for a number of other projects though. The only public comment was positive, and everyone seemed pleased and impressed with the plans.
The council then moved on to accept the election results. Bruce Gardner had 69 votes. Channel Sanderson had 9 votes. Gabe Wilson had 135 votes, and there were 2 undervotes. Ashley Scott said “so, Malvin “Gabe” Wilson is elected as Mayor of the City of Council to serve a 4 year term and shall be installed in that position at the first City Council meeting in January 2026.”
Next the council passed Resolution 2025-12, to assist the Council Chamber of Commerce with applying for a grant to help with the 4th of July Fireworks. Chamber of Commerce President, Katie Church, was there and also had some designs for welcome signs to show the council. She said they are trying to do new welcome signs on the north and south side of town and want to finalize and order them by the end of the year to install in spring. They will be around $4,000 for four. (two each of ‘welcome’ and ‘thank you for coming’) and will have a lifespan of roughly ten years. She wanted feedback on the designs from the City Council. The City Council liked the color ones better. Church also said they were planning a Christmas Parade with the Christmas Tree Lighting.
Next, the Council Loggers Jubilee was requesting a special event permit on July 4th at Boise Cascade Park for the Loggers Jubilee events. The Jubilee wanted to move the saw contests to the Boise Cascade Park so there was room to expand the events. They also wanted permission for a vendor to come in and provide alcoholic beverages and said their insurance will cover that. There was some discussion about the logistics of this among the City Council, and they ended up tabling the matter until the next meeting and requesting the Jubilee to come back with a more detailed safety plan. The council also wanted to hear thoughts from the Sheriff. The council was excited and supportive of the expansion of the event but wanted to ensure there was a good plan in place first.
There was a proposal for ongoing rodent abatement at the Council Museum which Councilmembers wanted to hear more detail on regarding the problem and whether the abatement measures were working. They approved the ongoing abatement for a six month contract but wanted to reevaluate at that point.
The City Council passed several ordinances, two regarding transfer of property in the Business Park that were previously discussed, and one ordinance prohibiting public sleeping or camping in city limits. There was some discussion about enforcement and legal justification, as well as the impact on bicycle traffic. The council wanted to make sure they followed up on amending it to exclude certain areas where camping was permitted and to make it easily discernible and enforceable.
Finally, Great West Engineering had a proposal to update capital improvements to help with grant applications. Ashley Scott said it was a big process. The City Council moved to adopt the agreement for professional service with Great West Engineering in the amount of $18,000 to update the City of Council’s Transportation Capital Improvement Plan.
The bids were opened for the water project. Eight bids have been received. All of them were over the budget, however they included several optional upgrades and when they started taking out the additions one was under budget, M2 Construction out of Ontario, OR. It was Great West Engineering’s recommendation that the city accept that bid. The City Council decided to award the bid for the water project to M2 Construction.
