Water Project and Parking Lot
On Tuesday, March 10, the Council City Council held their monthly meeting to a full room at City Hall.
The first item on the agenda was a report from Great West Engineering. A new representative, Kasey Ketterling, introduced himself and said he would be providing engineering services for Council after a staffing change at Great West. Ketterling said he had been in the industry for over 20 years and had served many small towns and cities like Council, and had spent time already looking over the water project. “This project, as you can imagine, is going to impact everybody in town,” he said. They also introduced another Great West employee who served as funding advisor. The city council asked when the project was getting going. Ketterling said the next step is to issue a field directive to the contractor. He said it would be in contractors hands in a week, then they would have time to look at it before starting.
Kathy Hughes gave a report on the airport via zoom and said the airport open house was scheduled for May 2. There would be a pancake breakfast, and a short runway take off and landing clinic. The entire public is welcome. This will be the third year they host an open house. Hughes said she sent an email to the FAA about updating the runway markings. They sold 600 gallons of fuel and have 1000 gallons in the tank and will have a delivery Friday. It was a slow month. They are hoping to have the lights finished before the open house. Tyler Power was helping them with the sign design. The Idaho Airport Management Association conference is in Boise next month, Hughes said she was the current president and would be voted out of office soon due to one year terms, but would continue to bring best practices back to Council. They are looking to get the carport build submitted for approval to the FAA. The next Airport Commission meeting is March 23 at 6:30 p.m. in Hangar #5.
City Clerk, Ashley Scott, said the city closed escrow on Building C so City Hall is the only remaining city building in the business park. The City Park restroom remodel started the day before the meeting. Next, she talked about the museum. The County building inspector looked over the building and had a list of things to fix. The roof needed work. Scott asked the Council if they would prefer to paint and re-screw the roof or replace all the tin. Council members wanted to get prices for both but were more inclined to replace it all.
Caleb Shumway with Public Works said they hosted a class on proper fire hydrant maintenance and use which was also attended by representatives from nearby cities. He also attended a class by DEQ on the updates to drinking water rules for lead, copper, and CCRs. Moving forward they will have to submit more information to stay in compliance for lead and copper. He has been working with Great West Engineering to stay ahead of the contractors.
Next, there was a public hearing for a conditional use permit for Adams County Health Center for a parking lot in an empty lot next to the clinic. The first person to speak was a neighboring resident in opposition who said she would like to see alternatives to the empty county lot being used as a parking lot. She was worried about paving over the last green space in the neighborhood as a parking lot when there were already three parking lots and one was rarely used. She also had concerns about the fence as described in the application and wanted to see a stormwater management plan. She said they currently deal with runoff issues onto their property from piling snow from the other unused parking lot (that is still plowed in winter). There is also runoff from the county property that creates large pools at the bottom of their driveway and she is concerned that it will get worse with compaction.
Another resident rose in support of the parking lot because of public safety. He said that clinic staff currently park along the street which causes traffic and safety issues. He was concerned about the current bottleneck the cars caused for fire and emergency response.
At the advice of the city attorney, the public speakers were given more time, and the first speaker added that the neighborhood also was concerned about what the plan was for the old clinic building as it was concerning for homeowners to hear things like a fire discussed in hopeful tones when there were asbestos issues. “Let’s come up with a real durable answer to our challenges here,” she said.
City Council Member Mendy Stanford had recused herself from the city discussion and voting on the topic due to conflicts of interest as she is the CEO of the health clinic. She spoke on behalf of ACHC, the applicant, and addressed some of the concerns. She said the plan was not rushed, the fence will be to code and of quality material. She said the lot was the original location of the hospital and was always deemed “for healthcare” by the county. She said right now where the staff are parking was not safe, so the county was going to go through there and do compacted gravel and that they would fix drainage. The new lot would have signs saying for employees only. She said they are looking for a grant to demolish the old clinic because it is full of lead and asbestos so they cannot use it for anything. The patients park in the lot in front of the new clinic. “We just want to provide a safe spot for people to drive around that area,” she said, “that’s why we’re doing it… for safety.” She said the city and county were working on the drainage issues.
Caleb Shumway said he has spoken with Adams County on how they would like to address drainage because there will be more water. Mayor Wilson also expressed concerns about the drainage issues in that area.
The resident in opposition reiterated that between the morgue and the hospital there already was a parking lot and there were only one or two cars in it “Could that be evaluated as an alternative?”
Stanford said they constantly talk about parking at staff meetings and they have said to park where they used to because they all used to fit over there, “Nobody parks over there,” she said, indicating that employees didn’t want to walk from over there.
Council member David Tubridy thought that they needed to address the problem with the county first and find out what the plan was to address the drainage issues before they could make a decision about the parking lot. Mayor Wilson also said he thought they needed stop signs in front of the clinic. The council decided to carry over the public hearing until the next meeting date.
Next Katie Church, president of the Council Chamber of Commerce, gave an update on the directional signs. She talked about the budget, legalities on where they could put the signs, and design. They decided to collaborate with the city on the design as the city would also need to change their signs after moving city hall. Church was also looking for more guidance from the city, because it was important and she wanted to do it right. “We’re trying to bring people off that highway and into the downtown area so they can make commerce,” she said. The council was hesitant to give more work to city employees but did want to collaborate. Mayor Wilson said he’d like to help however he could to get the ball rolling and another resident also volunteered to help.
Caleb Shumway wanted a thumbs up to purchase a new blade. They had previously been approved for $200,000 and they found one for $135,000 that was older, but had low hours and had work on the transmission already. Mayor Wilson said he was going to look at it. The Council approved the purchase.
Next they talked about the city hall remodel. The water issues have turned out to be worse than anticipated and the contractor is not willing to finish the interior until they are addressed. Part of the problem is the stucco and finding a qualified contractor to address the problem. They received one quote for $89,000 to replace all the stucco on the building. A stucco contractor is coming next to look at it. Stucco is a highly specialized trade and there aren’t very many contractors who work with it. The City Council mulled over some different ideas and decided to table the matter until they heard back from the stucco contractor.
Finally, the City Council addressed the city clean up day. Ashley Scott said the mayor wanted to go hard, and though they needed to start with asking the county commissioners about a free dump day. Mayor Wilson said they are looking for compliance, they don’t want to send out tickets and collect money, they want to help residents and find out who needs the help so people don’t feel attacked. They proposed getting dumpsters and monitoring what is put in them and seeing if they could get dump fees waived for three times over the summer. They also mentioned bringing in a metal recycler or a contact for junk cars so residents could make some cash getting rid of things.
