Ord. 2025-01 Approved, Ag Building Fees Removed, Oxbow Bridge Maintenance
The Adams County Commissioner met for their second public meeting of the month on Tuesday, January 21st. Commissioner Daren Ward was not present. The meeting started out with a public hearing for building Ordinance 2025-01. The commissioners had requested some changes and Building Inspector, Kody Williams, had made them. One of the previous comments was about over regulating Ag buildings, so Williams rewrote the section to read in more layman’s terms. The Commissioners had some concerns about having a cost for Ag permits. Williams said it was just to pay for their time to make sure the setbacks were appropriate and have the assessor sign off on it that it was an Ag exemption. Commissioner Joe Iveson said he had an issue with the fee and thought they would get pushback about it. Commissioner Viki Purdy thought they also needed to address the setbacks which they currently don’t agree with and also said “I don’t support the fee.” They approved the ordinance but took out the section about the fee for Ag buildings.
Meredith Fisher talked about ways they could alter the ordinance on the right of ways. The ordinance currently reads that new buildings must be 80 feet from centerline of right of way. Fisher asked if they wanted to change it to 30 ft. Commissioner Joe Iveson thought they needed to wait for Commissioner Ward to return before looking at that and all thought he needed to go out and measure some roads and get an idea of what it actually looks like. Fisher asked about 20 ft from the property boundary or if they wanted to shrink that too. Iveson thought they needed to think about that as well. The current ordinance was passed in 2006. Any changes made would only affect future construction. Commissioner Viki Purdy thought that if the setbacks were 20 ft from the property line all the way around that is a big chunk that couldn’t be used. Iveson mentioned they need to consider snowfall too. Fisher said she would look at other jurisdictions and see what theirs were. She thought the current one may have been adopted from Valley county, which gets a lot more snow.
They moved on to talking about the Brundage project. They asked Peter Donovan, the new County Prosecutor, for his thoughts. There was some confusion about billing. Commissioner Purdy asked about whether they were charging them time when they were talking about costs. Fisher said yes, anytime they are working on the Brundage project. She said if the commissioners want that to change they can tell her. Commissioner Purdy wondered how it was different for regular people. Fisher said she normally just chalks that off as taxes and the building permit fees, but with a project like Brundage the time is so significant and only the applicant stands to benefit. “The scale of it takes considerably longer,” said Fisher. Donovan said the extent of the hourly billing should be in the contract, but also that Purdy raised good concerns about treating them differently than other taxpayers, unless it was specified in the contract, which he said he hasn’t read yet. Fisher said “Give me some direction on that, I’m more than happy to change course.” She added that it’s either Brundage paying for her time or the taxpayers.
Steve Shelton, with solid waste, arrived and they set interview times for the open positions. The Commissioners talked with Adam Balderson with Road and Bridge about what funds were allocated for specific things. Balderson said they did get a water truck. They spoke about the Oxbow Bridge that the Oregon Department of Transportation wants to perform maintenance on and wants Adams County to split the bill. Steve Shelton said they wanted to chip the paint off and were asking about bringing it to the landfill and he said no, it is lead paint. Idaho Power plows the Adams County side of the road. County Clerk, Sherry Ward, said there’s never been any discussion about the maintenance of the road, they just do it. There was a meeting scheduled for later in the day between Idaho Power and Oregon department of transportation but Idaho had not confirmed the zoom invite. The agreement about the bridge is from the 1950’s and says that Adams county is responsible for half of the maintenance IF they agree to it.
Sheriff Ryan Zollman said there are 20 state inmates and two county. They lost another detention deputy who was having problems with the stairs in the jail because of his knee and leg for Washington County which has a flat jail.
Next there was an update from the Forest Service. The New Forest Supervisor, Matt Davis, was there and said he was glad to be there in person and to meet everyone. Much of the leadership within the Payette National Forest are retiring or transferring, including New Meadows District Ranger Dana Harris, who is transferring to Florida, Council and Weiser District Ranger Jeff Jones, who is retiring, Deputy District Ranger Noe Reyes, who is going to be a district ranger on the Panhandle, and Fire Management officer Dave Vining and his deputy Tom Schultz who are both retiring. There is a new acting Fire Management Officer. They will be moving into a hiring pause for a bit while they get things rolling with the new administration and they are waiting for the details about changes going forward. He expects staffing to be a little short for the forest and stressed how thin they were multiple times during his update. Davis talked about timber, recreation, mining, and fuels reduction. He said there’s a lot of interest in the minerals on the Payette. He said they were working on the fire impact areas from last year. They don’t have anyone in special use permits currently. He said to give him a call if people were trying to get things resolved.
Commissioner Viki Purdy right away brought up the ongoing issue with the road in Indian Valley that the Hearlds have been having problems with. Davis asserted that this was not the venue to have that conversation and they should schedule a separate meeting. Mr. Hearld, who was in attendance, said that was his intent from the beginning. He was upset that they don’t have the emergency access currently. Purdy asked if it was the county’s road if they wouldn’t be required to even have the special use permit. Davis said he didn’t know, but if they could take a look and see if it had five years of consecutive use and if they had a letter to prove that information then they should bring it. Hearld mentioned the previous owner thought he was a fool for applying for the permit to begin with because he had used the road every day. Davis asked them to bring in what the road looks like during all seasons and also mentioned the lithic site. The Hearlds asked to have the Tribe’s concerns about the site forward to them because they had not heard from anyone at the Tribe directly. Commissioner Purdy also wanted to see documentation about what the Tribe said. They agreed to set a meeting to discuss the road.
Dana Harris, with the New Meadows District, said they are still logging the Lost Timber sale. She gave an update on the Lost Valley Reservoir expansion project and said they received all the information for the permit requests needed for the reservoir expansion over the summer, except for the squirrel survey, which they are still waiting on. Commissioner Iveson confirmed that the approval for the reservoir expansion was not finalized. Harris said no, they are still going through the NEPA process.
Council District Ranger Jeff Jones said they have one timber sale working over the winter, they are wrapping up now. Three quarters of it was lost due to the fire, primarily because of bridges that are out. There are still road closures in the Lava Area, they will be reevaluated after the winter. Two different companies are interested in mining exploration. They are working on reforestation after the fires.
Before leaving, the Forest service representatives scheduled a four hour block to discuss the road issue with the Hearlds on Tuesday, February, 11th. Commissioners Iveson and Purdy were thinking they would attend.
After lunch, there was a Zoom meeting scheduled with Idaho Power and Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) to discuss maintenance on the Oxbow Bridge, which they are wanting Adams County to pay for half of, totaling over $150,000. ODOT does the inspections on the bridge and wants to do repairs. Idaho Power originally agreed to meet on this date but they did not respond to the Zoom invite and they did not show up to the meeting. Burt, with ODOT, said there were three separate projects they wanted to do including replacing and removing the asphalt and addressing the steel piling and paint blistering. They may need to lower the water level to do some of it. He said he sent Idaho Power a list of what they wanted to do but he hasn’t heard back from them. Commissioner Purdy told him to just send Idaho power the bill. The commissioners both agreed they didn’t have any more money, and both parties needed to talk to Idaho Power.
After the meeting the commissioners joked that they needed to just keep reminding everyone that they were broke, “we’re like the second poorest county in the state of Idaho.” Said Iveson. “Not trying to become the first!” Added Adam Balderson, with Road and Bridge. Commissioner Purdy said it seemed to be Oregon that wanted the work done and wondered what would happen if it didn’t get done, would they shut the bridge down? They thought they should have asked. Commissioner Iveson thought they were in a fantastic position because they didn’t have the money and they weren’t the ones who wanted the bridge to stay open. Resident Danna Barnhart, who has been researching the issue, mentioned she has never found documentation or any legal document that was filed in the courthouse between Adams County and Idaho Power.
