City Council - Regular Meeting

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Good evening. It's June 16th, 2026. It's 6 p.m. here in the Coeur d'Alene Library. This is a meeting of the Coeur d'Alene City Council, which I will call to order. Renata, will you please take the role?

Evans? Here. English? Gabriel?

Here.

Miller? Here. Sheckler?

Here.

Wood? Here.

Thank you. We are all here, except for Mr. English. Is Chris Laurie from Garden Church available for our invocation? No. Will you please rise and join me in the pledge?

Amy, should you lead? Thank you.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

We are on to... We will all watch Dan English as he arrives one minute late. Mr. English is present. We have a full vote. Item D is amendments to the agenda. Does council have amendments to the agenda?

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to amend the agenda to add consideration of the mayoral appointment of Michael Dominguez as city administrator and to extend Ron Jacobson's current contract through July 10th, 2026. The information needed to include this item on the original agenda was not available when the agenda was prepared as a candidate's acceptance of the conditional offer occurred today. This matter is deemed an emergency because timely action is needed to allow the new city administrator to begin limited hourly work before Mr. Jacobson's departure, ensuring an orderly transition and adequate overlap of training.

And this item will be placed under other business items one and two. Any discussion from council? I'm sorry.

I'd second.

Thank you. Now, this item will be placed under Section I, Items 1 and 2, respectively. Any discussion? Okay, roll call.

Miller? Aye. Averell? Yes. Sheckler? Yes. English? Yes. Wood? Yes. Evans? Yes.

Very good. Motion is carried. Item E is presentations. We have a citizen award to Everest Thompson. And this is from our fire chief, John Fugate, and Captain Dylan Clark.

Good evening, mayor and city council. I'd like to have Everett Thompson come up. Everest. Everest. I'm sorry. Everest. We're honoring Everett for his actions on, I'll get it. I'll get it. For April 20th, 2026, and we have Captain Clark, who is actually on the call. He's going to do the actual presentation. All right. Counsel.

What's going on, buddy?

I was on the call, the fire that you called in. I was the captain that day. So this award of recognition is for Everest. The Coeur d'Alene Fire Department proudly presents this certificate to Everest Thompson, a remarkable... six-year-old who demonstrated exceptional responsibility beyond his years. On the afternoon of April 20th, 2026, the Coeur d'Alene Fire Department was dispatched for a reported fire at 1410 East McFarland. Upon noticing a brush fire developing in his neighbor's home, Evers quickly recognized the potential danger and took immediate action by alerting others and notifying 911. His prompt response played a vital role in ensuring that the situation was addressed quickly helping prevent further fire spread and protecting both people and property. His bravery, attentiveness, and sense of responsibility serve as an inspiring example to others in the community. His quick thinking and willingness to act reflect great character and are truly deserving of recognition. His efforts will not be forgotten and stand as a proud example of how even the smallest heroes can make a big difference. Therefore, in recognition of this achievement, the certificate is presented on behalf of the citizens of Coeur d'Alene, the Coeur d'Alene Fire Department, its officers, and personnel. I'd also like to recognize mom and dad for obviously teaching them well.

Thank you, Everest. We now move on to item F, which is public comments. And the first person on the list is Terry Montagna. Sorry. How do you pronounce your name? Montagne. Montagne. Thank you.

I'm here to speak in support of the Council Bill 26-1011. This is kind of ironic, but this afternoon I got a text from my brother-in-law. He and my sister live on the Upper River Drive area in Spokane, and they were evacuated because of a wildland fire. I find it ironic. Here I am at this city council meeting advocating for law enforcement's ability to cite violators more easily when they break the law and use illegal aerial fireworks here in Coeur d'Alene. All I can say is that it's about time. I live over by Canfield Mountain. Like most forested areas, it gets only the water that nature provides. My neighbor's house is back right up to the mountain. Like them, I worry about the thoughtlessness and illegal use of aerial fireworks and am frustrated when busy law enforcement personnel have their hands tied and must witness, as I have been told, the violator light the fuse to celebrate the holiday or whatever occasion they wish to celebrate with illegal aerial fireworks. I was a volunteer fireman for Micah Kidd Island Fire for about eight years and responded to more than a few wildland fires. Those guilty of setting the fire either by accident or on purpose always respond the same, shock. I didn't mean for it to get this big. I was only burning trash. It was an accident, et cetera, et cetera. Fire is sneaky. A spark can lay low waiting for the right humidity and a puff of wind and off you go. Many people in this area live in the forest urban interface. We can do more to prevent a tragedy. This is one way. Let the police do their job more efficiently. Help protect the community. The other thing is education. People realizing that aerial fireworks are illegal for a reason. You don't have to break the law to show that you're a patriot. As a matter of fact, you're doing just the opposite. I speak in support of passage of Council Bill 26-1011. Thank you.

Thank you, Terry. Devin Weber.

here and speaking to the thing and okay how do I say this I'm hoping that I've noticed a lot of trash around the city in my opinion has gotten out of hand I always try to clean up as best as I can and be a citizen to support you know I'm hoping we can restrict that law as best as we can just as much as the Sidewalks as well, if we can repaint those and add more sidewalks and strict traffic and everything as we want kids to be safe in this county. We want everyone to be safe, of course. I'm also hoping, I don't know if it'll happen, Two, you know, if there's anything dangerous or harmful to the human anatomy, such as alcohol, vapes, cigarettes, and every other substance abuse, I believe it should be banned immediately. As if there are issues with a lot of addiction, you know, if you're constantly using it and your body needs it, it's what I count as a drug and it should be addiction, then it should be banned and elicitized immediately. Because what sometimes kids can get into it, we want everyone to be safe and secure and help, you know. We don't want them to accidentally abuse it, because kids can get in all sorts of things. Just as much as we want healthier choices for everybody, we want everyone to be happy. I personally represent everybody that's a citizen who has gone through a lot of, if there's so much substance abuse, we should decrease that. Same thing with the gas prices. If that's an issue, a lot of people are having that issue, then that's that. As well as there's pollution coming from the vehicles themselves polluting the air. I'm hoping that can be resolved as an issue to decrease any affiliation with any smoke pollution or anything. Again, it could easily get in someone's lungs. If they have an asthma attack, someone might have to call 911. Just as a primary example for me, if we can get rid of junk food, I would hopefully, you know, because junk food does deteriorate the human anatomy just as much as a cigarette would and a vape would. It's identical to it. If we can get rid of marijuana or anything or any other drugs, I'm hoping those could be elicitized immediately because it's an identical effect for if you look at through junk food, convenience stores. Sometimes I've found a parasite in one of the fish over at, I believe it was Watson's Market or Winco, I believe. I see that as a health issue. I'm hoping a lot of food can be inspected before it's preserved in the package to the public. But I'm also hoping while it's preserved, if it's not to be in microplastic, as that does deteriorate a lot of the human anatomy and its health factors, I'm hoping this can all be addressed and arranged, and maybe you all can assist me with this information and go from there personally. I hope that everybody has a wonderful day, and I always wish the best of luck for everybody. I hope this will get accounted for, and I just want to see everybody happy and healthy and live longer. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you, Devin. Matt Wagner.

Howdy, my name is Matt Wagner. I live at 698 Wilbur Avenue, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. And I'm coming to you guys today about the parking here. I work at Coeur d'Alene Resort and it cost me 35 bucks a week or a month to just go to work. And today I got a ticket on my pickup truck for $40. And it's very frustrating. And thank God I had that, the stuff to handle that. But what happens if we have a family that's low income here, like my wife and I? That's $40, that really hurts. And when you're already paying $35 to be able to park and something that you already pay your taxes for, that's really hard too. And it's really frustrating, especially for us locals that do work here. Last year, I took the time to go down to Coeur d'Alene Beach every day and take a look at it, and it was empty all through August. It's busiest time. There are no kids jumping off Tubbs Hill. It's because people don't want to come down here. People don't want to park down here anymore. You know, I was born and raised here. My dad's from here. My mom's from Bonner's Ferry. And they don't even want to come downtown anymore. And that's not how I want my city to be. It's not what I grew up in here. So it'd be just nice if we could get that addressed, especially a $40 parking ticket. That's pretty steep. So especially for a low-income family. So thank God my family was able to take care of it and we had everything put in, but we really need to think about those families that can't afford that.

Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Christine.

Hi, guys. This is my first time here, but I'm sure you're going to be seeing a lot of me. And I just wanted to say that people live in Idaho for the freedom that it has to offer, and it doesn't seem like you guys are really listening to them. And instead, I want to make it like California, where I was forced to live for over a decade while my husband served in the military. I know what oppression looks like and I refuse to stand by while my children's freedoms are eroded 250 short years after our founding. Those who want to pass Ordinance 26-1011 are the very people they wrote about in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. to protect us from. We are a nation of rebels. With that said, I reject this tweak to the ordinance. Instead, let's plant more fire-resistant trees and shrubs and make sure we have measures in place to respond to fire emergencies quickly and are prepared to resolve them before they spread. Why not hire more firemen? Train citizens to help? Instead of trying to nanny the citizens of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, I say we make personal responsibility great again. God put me on this earth for such a time as this, and I won't be keeping quiet. The people are watching closely and will gladly vote anyone who votes in favor for real patriots who will stand by our rights. A sleeping giant is awake, and it's the millennials, and we're rising. Thank you. Have a good night.

Thank you, Christine.

Excuse me, Mayor.

Did we catch a last name on that one?

It's spelled out here. I just did not want to risk mispronouncing it. And we'll go with Brad next.

Hello, Mayor and Council. My name's Brad Gilbert, and I wanted to start out with a thank you for the fuels work that the city has undertaken on Tubbs Hill, Potlatch Hill, and Canfield Mountain. There may be other examples that I'm unfamiliar with, but I really appreciate getting all that work done. I'm here to support the amendment to the fireworks ordinance. I feel like it will help us protect the investment you have made in our forests and our wildland urban interface. I feel like the constraints that are in the existing ordinance on law enforcement has led to a proliferation of these firework displays. It seems like every year there are a few more commercial displays in our neighborhood. And I happen to live on Canfield Mountain. My backyard is Canfield Mountain. And it's very important to me that some of our neighbors do not start a fire on that mountain. I have found spent fireworks on my roof, both sides, and up to 200 feet up on the mountain where it's dry. You know how dry it was last year and they were in full operation last year with the firework displays. So anything that we can do to make the enforcement of the existing ordinance more effective, I'm in favor of. Thank you.

Thank you, Brad. Vincent.

My concern is the parking problem in downtown Core. I live on East Indiana between 2nd and 3rd streets, not far from the resort. There used to be signage there limiting parking to two hours, except for residents who are issued special permits to be displayed on their vehicles. A few weeks back, that signage disappeared. and a flood of haggard on construction workers started taking up all the parking spots. If I should happen to leave in the middle of the day, it's unlikely that I can find a spot when I return. I addressed this issue with the city clerk at City Hall. She said that someone else had recently complained about the same issue and she provided me with a map that indicated other parking spots that had no timeline. When I asked why the limited parking signs were removed on East Indiana, she stated that the city engineers told her that they had made a mistake of having put the signs there years ago, and they were now correcting their mistake by removing them. Yesterday, I received a parking permit, I'm sorry, I received a parking ticket for overtime parking on East Indiana where there is no time limited parking. Despite the fact that there are other vehicles parked there for days without having been moved, where there's a motorcycle with no license plate that will stay there forever since the owner is probably back in prison for parole violations, I saw the Coeur d'Alene police come and take him away. So will the city please reconsider in stating parking limitations on East Indiana for the benefit of residents and possibly also retrain parking enforcement personnel who are more diligent in the performance of their duties. Thank you.

MR. Ron, can you check with Vincent about that ticket and see if those signs were removed? He shouldn't have to pay a ticket.

You could just talk to our city. I have no idea why those signs were removed. Okay, but our interim city administrator would like to look into that for you. I'm sorry, say again? Here it is. Overtime parking. A courtesy notice.

Thank you, Vincent. Thank you. Walter Burns. And Hillary.

I'm just queuing it up for him.

Okay. Technologically challenged. There we go. Okay, how do I advance it? Come here.

Can either just do the... Okay.

Now I'm ready. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of council. It's been a lot of rather serious topics discussed already tonight. I'm here to talk about something fun. Um... We're throwing a party. By the way, I am the chair of the City's Historic Preservation Commission, in case anyone doesn't know. We are throwing a party on July 3rd on the lawn of the Quintney County Courthouse. It'll be an old-fashioned, all-American, flag-waving, non-partisan, red, white, and blue Yankee Doodle Dandy event to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence. financed by grants from the state of Idaho and generous donations from local citizens. The event is being sponsored jointly by our commission and the Kootenai County Historic Preservation Commission, with support by the Daughters of American Revolution and the North and North Idaho College. Renowned vocalist Jenny Shotwell will sing the Star-Stangled Banner. We'll have a brass band and a barbershop quartet to provide musical atmosphere throughout. Mayor Gookin will speak. along with County Commissioner Leslie Duncan and our keynote speaker, Justice Cynthia Myers of the Idaho Supreme Court. There will be a slideshow, videos, and fun activities and giveaways for the kids. A handful of Model T Fords will take you back to the time of 1926 as we also celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Kootenai County Courthouse. As part of that commemoration, The county will unveil the contents of the mysterious time capsule was placed. Wait a minute. There we go. There it is. Mysterious time capsule was placed in the cornerstone of the courthouse when it was dedicated in 1926, which we successfully removed two weeks ago. You can see. where it was and how it looked when it came out. There's a little damage from the removal, but it's pretty much in great shapes. A sealed copper gasket that's been there for 100 years. And in the interest of historic symmetry, we're putting together a new time capsule to be opened in 2126, and we'll be reviewing its contents as well. One of the items that will be placed in the new time capsule will be the winning entry from a special kids coloring contest. So please help get the word out to anyone you know who is 12 years or younger. Coloring pages, rules, and event details are available online at cda.org slash hpc. They're available at City Hall, the Quarter Lane Library, and the Kroc Center. The formal program will end with the Freemasons rededicating the building's cornerstone, just as they did a century ago, and will be followed by an ice cream social and more entertainment from our musical guests. In a run-up to the event, look for two full-page and two half-page ads in the Coeur d'Alene press, plus an ongoing series of related articles. I'm talking to everybody in the room here where I say this is going to be fun. I hope all of you and your families can attend. Thank you.

Thank you, Walter.

Oh, and we have on the back table here, we have flyers for the event. We also have copies of the coloring pages for the kids. So, you know, feel free.

Okay, thank you. Thank you so much, Walter. I do appreciate that. Is there anyone else who would like to make public comment who did not sign up? Okay, we're going to move on to... We're going to move on to a swearing in and pinning ceremony. Would our fire chief, John Fugate, and his family please come forward?

All right, I'm going to get you to raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, John Fugate.

I, John Fugate.

Do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the laws of the State of Idaho that I will obey the rules, regulations, and ordinances of the City of Coeur d'Alene and its Fire Department and faithfully serve the residents of

The residents of.

The city of Coeur d'Alene.

The city of Coeur d'Alene.

In the discharge of my duties.

In the discharge of my duties. As fire chief. As fire chief.

To the best of my knowledge and ability.

To the best of my knowledge and ability. So help me God. So help me God. Congratulations. Thank you.

Chief, if you want to make any comments, feel free.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I'm humbled and honored to stand before you today as the new Fire Chief of Coeur d'Alene Fire Department. First, I want to acknowledge the people who made this moment possible, my family, including my wife, Laura, and our children, Brooklyn and Connor, and my parents. Everything I do in this role, I do beside, you guys do beside me. Your patience, your love, and your sacrifice have carried me here. I could not do any of this without you. Thank you for sharing me with this department and this community. Thank you. To the friends and mentors who have pushed me, believed in me, and picked me up when I stumbled, and I'm grateful for every one of you somewhere in this room right now and watching online. All the way from my firefighter journey began in the early 90s to my departure from the Fullerton Fire Department. I want to express my sincere gratitude to City Administrator Ron Jacobson, interim, for leading a thorough and thoughtful selection process, one that gave me confidence that the city takes its public safety seriously. And to Mayor Gookin and the city council, thank you for your confidence you have in me. I do not take that trust lightly. And I work every single day to be worthy of it. I also want to take a moment to acknowledge something bigger than any one person in this room, the legacy of this department itself. The fire department has been protecting this community since 1889. That is 137 years of service, 137 years of men and women answering the call through two world wars, through floods and wildfires, through the growth of a small lake town to its remarkable city it is today. Every generation of firefighters that came before us built something worth protecting, and I do not take that lightly. The department motto says it well, driven by perfection, steered by knowledge, tradition, and integrity. Those aren't just words on a piece of paper, they are the DNA of this organization, and I'm committed to honoring them in everything I do. I come to you from the Fullerton Fire Department. For almost 25 years, I climbed every rung of the profession, from firefighter to deputy chief and every rank in between. I've responded to countless medical aides, and me countless, structure fires and wildland conflagrations. But today, this is my community, and I intend to learn it deeply, its culture, its neighborhoods, its people, because you deserve a chief that is all in. It is truly the city of excellence. To the men and women of the IFF Local 710, I see you, I respect you, and I want you to know that from my very first conversations with your leadership, before I ever walked through these doors, I felt something important. Trust, honesty, and a genuine desire to work together and to be led. That kind of relationship is not built by accident, and I don't intend to take it for granted. A strong labor management partnership is not just good policy, it is foundation of a healthy, functional fire department. Your voices matter and I will listen. I will be transparent. You are the heart of everything we do and we are the public servants that make up the fire department. I must now speak of something that weighs heavily on all of us. On June 29th, 2025, Battalion Chief John Morrison and Battalion Chief Frank Harwood of Kootenai County Fire and Rescue answered a call on Canfield Mountain. They went as firefighters always do. without hesitation. On that day, they made the ultimate sacrifice. Engineer Dave Tisdale was critically wounded and continues to fight his way back. We are grateful he is with us. This department has been through something no one in this profession should ever have to endure. Grief like this does not have a timeline. and I want every member of this department, active, retired, support staff and family to know that I see the weight you're carrying and I will never rush you past it. What I know with absolute certainty is this, the men and women of the Coeur d'Alene Fire Department show the world who they are those days and weeks after the events of June 29th. They are dedicated, they are strong, they are good, deeply genuine, good public servants. and it is a solemn privilege to lead them. And finally, to the people of Coeur d'Alene. This is a beautiful city and everything I've learned that is a community that shows up. First neighbors, first responders, and for one another. I want you to know that when you call us in the worst moment of your life, when the smoke is filling the hallway, or the chest pains won't stop, or the car is upside down in a ditch, we will respond every time without hesitation. Keeping this community safe is not just a job description, it is a promise, and I'm making that promise to you today. Let's get to work, and thank you.

Now if we could have Fire Marshal Craig Etherton come forward for pinning and swearing in, and feel free to bring your family with you as well.

He brought a big crowd, too. They just didn't all come up.

Raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, Craig Etherton.

I, Craig Etherton.

Do solemnly swear.

Do solemnly swear.

That I will support.

That I will support.

The Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution of the United States.

And the laws of the state of Idaho.

And the laws of the state of Idaho.

And I will obey.

And I will obey.

The rules, regulations, and ordinances.

The rules, regulations, and ordinances.

Of the city of Coeur d'Alene.

Of the city of Coeur d'Alene.

And its fire department.

And its fire department.

And faithfully serve.

And faithfully serve.

The residents of.

The residents of.

The city of Coeur d'Alene.

The city of Coeur d'Alene.

In the discharge of my duties.

In the discharge of my duties.

As fire marshal.

As fire marshal.

To the best of my knowledge and ability.

To the best of my knowledge and ability.

So help me God.

So help me God.

And Marshall Atherton, if you would like to address us, you have that opportunity.

Wow, talk about a setup by the new chief, huh? Big, powerful speech like that. I don't have that. Sorry. I've been here for quite some time. I know each and every one of you, and we've done a lot of good work together. and I look forward to continuing to do that good work. I thank you all for your continued support of public safety and of our fire department in particular. We went through a little reorganization here and I'm one of the first pieces I guess. So I look forward to seeing how the rest of it plays out and I know that we'll serve the city and our community to the very best of our ability and I know that we will always do great things as we move forward. Thank you all for your support.

Excellent. Thank you, Craig. We are still in section D of the agenda, which is announcements. Does city council have any announcements?

Kenny? Mr. Mayor, it's been a very busy two weeks for our family. It started in Kalispell, Montana, where both of my grandchildren were. Granddaughters were playing in the tournament over there, and they both made the finals. They both got second, but they were there representing Sting Soccer in the city of Coeur d'Alene. The next week to Spokane, where they ran for North Idaho Blaze Track Club, where Our 10-year-old got first in the 100, second in the 200. Our 9-year-old got second in the 200 and first in the 100, something like that. But they did great representing North Idaho. And then off to Boise, the first teacher of Idaho cities. And great conference. And did Hillary leave already? I wish she wouldn't have because she'll be back.

There you are.

In the board meeting, which is where I went to, A lot of great things were said about people doing good work for legislation. Hillary, they spoke about you many times about your professionalism and your expertise, and they were very thankful for what you did. There's a lot of groups that have their meetings at the same time, and one of them is the Idaho Municipal Lawyers Association. And our Randy Adams, won the Will Harrington Career Service Award, which is their group's highest award. So to our staff, well done. You make us proud. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Kiki.

I'm going to segue on that. I attended the rest of the conference, and there were some great workshops that came out of that. I will tell you that I want to throw out a challenge to all of our city department heads in that our city is doing so many great projects, and we just forget to nominate and submit one of those for an award at Idaho Association of Cities. So for the next year, if you've got something, please come to Kenney. Let's get it nominated for the conference because Coeur d'Alene deserves to win. Another thing was I learned a lot of interesting stuff about municipalities and AI and how that's being used. I know that Renata had told me that they're still looking at policy for the city, but I think that's something we need to, as council, make sure that that's top of mind so what's coming down and what's changing is rapid. So there's a lot of people taking a look at how municipalities should create policy around that. So hopefully it comes to us soon. Thank you.

Thank you. Good, Amy? Good. Good. Okay. How about down here?

Any council comments? Dan English? Well, just a couple of reflections on tonight. One on the parking. I mean, that's a long-term issue. And, you know, we keep trying to work on it and get it right and balance, you know, the cost of things versus the value and all of that. But we, you know, we need to keep working. The other thing is on the fireworks. That's been something that's been in process for, I mean, a couple of times. We've done a few things. We've gotten better. And, you know, each time my dogs have told me, don't come home unless you've got, unless you pass that thing tonight. So tonight we're going to tighten up a little more. And I imagine down the road we will do more. But it's a work in progress. But, you know, the fire danger, I mean, that's very real. Everything else. But a lot of us, I mean, really care for our dogs. animals and they really pay a price for it too and some of the seniors and things so it's just it's a tough thing that we try to balance and and we'll do the best we can.

Thank you, Dan. Anyone else? Yeah, I have a couple of things, a few things. So Matt, I would like to talk to you about your parking situation with Hagedome Corporation and you getting a ticket. So if you could leave your contact information with someone or just send me an email tomorrow or call City Hall so I can get in touch with you and I can hear more about that, I would like to. We do have the America 250 thing coming up. One of the things is this is one of those rare months where we have five Tuesdays and we only have two city council meetings. So it's three weeks until the next city council meeting, which is after July 4th, which is why I'm bringing up, I had Walter come here and talk about it. and why I wanted to bring that up. I also wanted to mention that we have an opportunity to put some stuff in the time capsule, and I have council people who have supplied me with material that will go into the time capsule, and I have council people who have not yet supplied me with something to go into the time capsule. So please expedite your little, write up a little thing that people will read long after we're dead. And I also wanted to mention, so Juneteenth is this Friday. It is not a city holiday. It is a holiday in the country. It is a holiday for the county. It is a holiday for every city except for Post Falls, which just got rid of it. And we would like to have that here, but we have employee contracts and I read over the contracts and we just even though council and mayor can declare a holiday, it would mess up our contracts. So hopefully when we renegotiate our employee contracts, we can put that in there and have Juneteenth to be an official city holiday. Also wanted to mention that on June 29th, which is the one year anniversary of the tragedy on Canfield, there will be a memorial service in McEwen Park right behind everyone here. It's going to be at 10 a.m. in the big pavilion in the center. Then unrelated to that, at noon there's going to be a workshop here in the library on June 29th at noon to deal with or to discuss some of the noise going on in the downtown area. This is not a council workshop. This is a citizen workshop. Council is invited to attend, and if there's more than three of you, you need to be quiet. So I would also like to thank Juanita in our legal department. Juanita put together this packet and the agenda because Renata was down having fun in Boise, and Joanne was in the Philippines, and there was a point in time where it was just Ron and a computer guy in the administrative wing of City Hall. So Juanita really did a great job putting this together for us. Finally, I have some appointments to the International Board of Appeals, which has, I don't think it's ever met, but we'd have to appoint these people, and I would like to nominate Richard Colburn, Brian Longwell, Nicholas Nick Ebner, Justin Miller, and Tyler Dreschel. We need a motion for that.

Mr. Mayor, I would move to confirm the appointment of Richard Colburn, Brian Longwell, Nicholas Nick Ebner, Justin Miller, and Tyler Dreschel to the International Board of Appeals.

Second.

Motion and second. Any discussion?

Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion is carried. We're on to item H, which is our consent calendar, and it's up there on the screen.

Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve the consent calendar as presented. including resolution number 26-050. Second.

Motion and a second to approve our consent calendar. Any discussion? Roll call, please.

Gabriel?

Yes.

English? Yes. Wood? Yes. Evans? Yes. Sheckler? Yes. Miller? Aye.

Very good. We're on to item I on our agenda, which is other business. The first item is the mayor's request, council confirmation of the appointment of Michael Dominguez to the position of city administrator.

Mr. Mayor, I would make a motion to approve the appointment of Michael Dominguez to the position of city administrator for the city of Coeur d'Alene. Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion? Okay. Roll call, please.

Evans? Yes. Miller? Aye. Gabriel? Yes. Sheckler? Yes. English? Yes. Wood? Yes.

Motion carried. Second item, Michael is not going to be able to start until the middle of July, so we're going to make a request for the extension of Ron Jacobson's contract for another week through July 10th to help Titus over. I would like a motion to approve that as well.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to approve an extension the contract with Ron Jacobson to perform the duties of interim city administrator for the city of Coeur d'Alene.

Second.

Motion and a second.

Any discussion?

Just a question. Are there any changes to this contract extension or is it just pay prorated by the days he's here or any other amendments to it other than the end date?

Ron, do you have any details?

my understanding there's no change it's at the rate that uh... my original contract wasn't just the extension for basically ten days now ron i thought we bought you a new car no i'm i'm waiting for that as well as the all the graph that i was supposed to have received at the city of pulse falls and i haven't seen any of it yet all the developer money that we're we're looking forward to any other uh... legitimate questions for the item all right we'll do a roll call please

Miller? Aye. Gabriel? Yes. English? Yes. Wood? Yes. Evans? Yes. Sheckler?

Yes.

Very good. Now on to item three, which is approving the hiring of three additional firefighters for the fall 2026 Probationary Fire Academy. We have a staff report from our fire chief, John Puget. Please.

Thanks, Mayor and City Council. Sorry to hijack your meeting tonight. Seems like we have a lot of items for the fire department. But I'm here to... to pose the question or decision of hiring three additional firefighters for the fall 2026 fire academy. We have a fire academy scheduled for the fall of 2026. We're currently doing the recruitment right now. We just did three days of chief interviews. We have a list established. We currently have eight open positions with anticipated retirement in July. So we're requesting additional three temporary positions within the fire department to add them to the next academy. Originally we were going to do this during the budget cycle, but because of the start of the academy and the process to hire firefighters is rather prolonged, and to get them the proper uniforms and PPE, their turnouts takes a little bit, so this is why we're bringing it to council right now. So the firefighters, The three extra firefighters, the plan for them is to be assigned one per shift, red shift, blue shift, and green shift. As constant staffing or vacancies occur within the fire department on a day, those extra positions will fill those reducing the need for constant staffing, thus reducing the amount of overtime within the department. Also, Academy and the probation is rather arduous. It's difficult, so usually we'll lose a couple people during that process as well, and these would also add a buffer to the ranks if you lose anybody to make sure that we're fully staffed. The three additional firefighters will also reduce our need to conduct a probationary fire academy in the future. The cost of putting on a fire academy is roughly about $50,000 in overtime, and it lasts approximately 12 weeks. It's the current schedule that we have planned right now. There will be no changes to the Coeur d'Alene firefighters, 710 CBA, and the minimum cost of staffing each day will stay at 19. So once we backfill with the extra firefighter on shift, if there is an additional vacancy, that's when we will still do the constant staffing, pay a firefighter overtime to fill the vacancy. As far as the numbers, the average constant staffing overtime that we pay our firefighters right now comes out to $64.78 per hour. Typical shift is 24 hours for overtime. And the cost of probationary firefighters for the first year is $29.26. So obviously you see a big savings right there in just the hours that we pay the firefighters. With the estimated constant staffing hours of this year being close to 12,000 hours with an average of 1.4 vacancies per day, potential savings of $249,000 in $249,477, so much a quarter of a million dollars in savings in the constant staffing budget moving forward. So if you take the $50,000 for reducing the need for additional academy and the cost savings for the cost of the overtime, we're looking close to about $300,000 in savings to the constant staffing budget moving forward. The top bullet point there, while these firefighters will not reduce the current structural deficit, approving the positions would help limit additional constant staffing costs and avoid a potential $50,000 cost for two probationary academies. And with that, I'm here for any questions you guys might have.

Any questions for our chief? Kristi.

Thank you, chief. Thank you. Good presentation. I just a quick clarification. Um, the three firefighters, will they, the new ones that we would bring on, would they be in a float type position that would actually impact the constant staffing?

As an impact in the constant staffing, if there is no vacancies on a shift, they will still be working that day. We'll put them at the fourth person on a company, either the engine or one of the engines or the ladder truck. So it would increase our operational efficiencies if we do that. Having four people is always more efficient. But once that first vacancy occurs, we will take that extra firefighter spot and backfill that vacancy, reducing the cost of overtime.

OK, so I guess what I'm envisioning is if they're not really assigned to a specific shift, they're floating.

They're assigned to a shift, one per shift.

Right.

Yeah. So yeah, they're floating on that shift itself.

OK. Because the biggest issue for council for the budget is the constant staffing, which we know is critical and necessary with injuries, illness, training, what have you. But it is something we need to address as far as the expense. So these three, you've kind of laid out that this will impact quite significantly. I'm very impressed. But how long do you foresee them being kind of in a float position where it would impact constant staffing?

So we've done a projection on anticipated retirements here within the next five years, and we have another big group coming. I think I would assume that with the recent incentives from the city to entice firefighters to retire, we had a bunch of firefighters retire, so I think that might be a gap. Originally, we were only going to do seven firefighters in the academy, and we just got notified last week that we do have an eighth firefighter or captain that's going to be retiring next month. So it all depends on retirements, how many probationary firefighters you get through the academy. So it just depends, but hiring those three will be beneficial to the fire department to reduce costs of the constant staffing and also reduce the need for an academy here in the future.

Well, we've always said that our priority is public safety. So thank you for your presentation.

Appreciate that. Kenny.

Mr. Mayor and Chief, if I may, if I'm overstepping, let me know. But this was actually said in motion many years ago when there were three extra firefighters hired specifically for what the chief wants to do right now. But when EMS 34, the ambulance from Station 4 came on, that's how the city helped to subsidize that. So those three firefighters got moved to that ambulance. So with the EMS system now going to fund the city 100% on that, we're kind of back to square zero, which is exactly what I think the chief is taking advantage of.

Thank you.

The questions. Very good. Well, I appreciate this. I looked at the constant staffing budget, and it was way over by a million dollars. And so last budget, we hired two firefighters, and apparently that was effective at reducing it. And it's really funny because when I ran this through the online AI that I was using, it suggested five firefighters to bring that number under control. So we would be up to five firefighters added to help with our constant staffing budget, which continues to get up. This is not a savings as far as reducing our overall budget, but constant staffing budget, which is just ballooning every single year with injuries and all that. So I think this is a great move. The reason that we're doing this in the manner that we're doing, which is we're going to do the firefighters here. The next item is going to be to give them something to wear. Yeah, correct.

So full disclosure, we do have to outfit these firefighters. So the next item is outfit the firefighters. So the cost outfit, one firefighter. with all their uniforms and their proper PPE, personal protective equipment, is $12,903. So if this is approved moving forward, the total cost would be $38,710 to outfit them, which is the next agenda item. So the actual savings would be $260,737.

And we're going to do it in two steps. And then coming back, there will be an item in the future to go ahead and fund this. So this is just the way that the city decided we would approach this. So three items coming up. One right now we need a motion for.

Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve the hiring of three additional firefighters for the Fall 2026 Probationary Fire Academy. Second.

Motion to second. Any discussion on the motion? Roll call.

Evans? Yes. Sheckler? Yes. Miller? Aye. Gabriel? Yes. English? Yes. Wood? Yes.

Motion carries. Back to you, Chief. Okay, he already gave his staff report, so you know that the next item would be the, let's see, I am on the wrong page. One moment. The next item is to approve the unbudgeted purchase of firefighter turnouts for the new firefighters, as firefighters seem to enjoy being clothed when they go to a fire.

Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve the unbudgeted purchase of firefighter turnouts for the new firefighters entering the Fall Academy. Second.

Motion and a second. Discussion? Roll call.

Sheckler? Yes. Miller? Aye. Gabriel? Yes. English? Yes. Wood? Yes. Evans? Yes.

Motion carries. Thank you, Chief. And we'll see you again. And enjoy the evening. You're planning something fun tonight, right? Celebrate? Yes. Yes. Yes. Very good. All right. Item five, we're going to be looking at approval of a bid for the tiny amount of $4,366,950 for a new water tank that our Water Department Director, Kyle Marine, is going to tell us all about.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you very much for having me. And as the Mayor stated, I'm here before you to get approval with a contract with Apollo for a 1 million gallon water tank for $4,366,950. Which, as the Police Department pointed out to me, that's less than a cup of coffee per dollar per gallon. So... With our 2012 comp plan, our engineers that we work with identified that we're gonna need additional storage and wells throughout the city as the city grows. We continue to look forward as a future and try to stay ahead of the city's needs because it takes time to put this infrastructure and these facilities in place. So with this graph that's up here, it identified several needs throughout the city and we time those needs as the city grows and where the demand is. And as you can see in this photo, this is the location of the proposed tank site. We have multiple other tank sites that are needed throughout the city or wells as the city grows. It doesn't exactly say that's where it's going to be. It just says that needs to be the general area. So the 2012 zone boundaries identify two pressure zones within the city and we've talked about this before but we have an upper zone and a lower zone. They're basically two different water systems because of the elevations and the needs within the city because elevation creates pressure. So we have the upper zone up here that has wells and reservoirs and then we have the lower zone that has wells and reservoirs as well. So currently we have pressure issues that have been identified in the upper zone in the eastern quadrant. As the city grows, we try to accommodate those needs and the plan was to put that tank in that area to feed those customers. The city looked in multiple areas for a probable tank site. We identified a tank site at the end of Thomas Lane, worked with the property owner, and they gave us a very efficient price on acquiring the property. We also looked at transmission mains and everything to get those lines out there. The location was selected. We made an agreement with the property owner, purchased the property. This is a little bit closer picture. Tank location is approximate, not exact in this picture. We started working on preliminary designs, different locations of the sites. We started working on a trail system as well because the property owner wanted that to connect to the trails up above for the community as part of the agreement. We also worked on a design for a transmission main to get out to the proposed tank site. So we worked on design plans from bringing a transmission main, a 16-inch main, down 15th Street, down Thomas Lane, and to the end of Thomas Lane to the proposed tank site, which we moved forward with. We went to bids in 2024 with the engineer's estimates to move forward with the project. We went out for bid for that project and Alpine Northwest got the bid project with Schedule B for a total of just over 2.3 million. We moved forward with that to council and we're fortunate to get approved for that transmission main. That transmission main continued to go in from 24 to 25 and was completed last year. These are some pictures of the active project that was going on up there the 16 inch transmission main. Once that got completed or mostly completed we worked on getting some final design plans with trail access up past the property to the upper areas. This is the proposed location of the new water tank with the trail access. No parking will be allowed up on this property. They'll have to access it by bicycles only. This is a layout design from the engineers of the tank. The tank is approximately 100 feet tall. Now there was a little bit of concern, and I'll dive into that a little bit, on the actual height of the tank. The elevation that's needed to match our hydraulics throughout the upper zone roughly goes around from 60 feet to 80 feet. That's so the tank can float appropriately with our existing system to make sure that we can match pressures and that it won't overflow or it won't empty out. So the tank was estimated to be about 100 feet tall. You gain or lose a little bit depending on the design because that comes from the final design of the engineer for the dome of the tank. So the tank could be roughly 110 feet when it's done or 102 feet depending on the height of the dome. These are some renditions of the tank after construction is built. This was early on in the process. This road won't actually be there because we got an alternative access through the property in the back to limit the amount of disruption of the hillside so we can try to save as many trees as possible and limit disturbance to the public and neighbors. and try to hide the tank because ultimately we want everybody to use the water, but we don't want to be seen. We try to stay out of sight. Tank would be painted OD green color to blend in with the hillside, similar to Best Hill Tank. If you've seen it up there, some people don't even know it's there, or the two tanks up behind us up on the hill as well. A lot of people don't know it's there either. So those are a couple pictures of different areas from the view, some of the neighbors that may see when the tank first gets in. And then as it moves forward, it'll fill in with the picture on the right as trees come back into place. So we went out to bid and were very successful and got multiple bidders. We came in with an original low bid of just over $3 million, which was quite a bit less than the rest of the bid pack. We reached out to that bid company, which was Dennis' group, and discussed with them. And they had, there was some confusion on the actual height of the tank. And the design and bid that they submitted was on a much shorter tank that would not work. We discussed with them in details to see if they could accommodate. They could not, so they pulled their bid because they could not meet those needs for the actual height of the tank and their dollar value would drastically increase. So the next lowest bidder was Apollo Incorporated at 4.3 million, which is more in line with the rest of the bidders and they have the actual height of the tank and size of the tank that is needed. How are the projects funded? These projects are funded through cap fees, which is through new houses and services that are bought through the water department. Anytime somebody buys a service or a connection, they pay into that account. That account pays for these facilities, these tanks or wells or whatever's needed or transmission mains. to help accommodate the system and pay back into the system and buy your way into the system. So the dollars that are there, we have cash value in our cap fee account to pay for this project, and it is budgeted. With that being said, I will stand for any questions, but I'd ask for approval to move forward with approving a contract with Apollo Incorporated in the amount of $4,366,950 for the installation of one million gallon water tank at the end of Thomas Lane.

Any questions for Kyle?

Not a question, a comment. It's a lot of money, but your presentation was so thorough that we don't have any questions.

Perfect. I was asked to put a lot of pictures in there, so I did my best.

Very good. Seeing no questions, we can request council action on this item.

Mr. Mayor, I'd make a motion to... Approve resolution number 26-051, acceptance of the bid of an approval of a contract with Apollo Incorporated in the amount of $4,366,950 for the installation of a new 1 million gallon water tank at the end of Thomas Lane. Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion? All right. Roll call.

Wood? Yes. Evans? Yes. Sheckler? Yes. Miller? Aye. Gabriel? Yes. English? Yes.

Motion carried. Thank you, Kyle. Thank you. I look forward to seeing the tank get set up. Off to item I6, resolution number 26052, which is acceptance of a bid and approval of a contract with Stewart Consulting, or Contracting Incorporated, for the amount of $249,964 for the 2026 McEwen Park Playground Turf Replacement. Here is our Interim Parks and Recreation Director, Adam Rouse. Adam.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Making it a. regular occurrence to be here with some of these projects. So just again as stated in the staff report, we've been looking at this turf for quite some time. Our playground inspection team that we have on staff looked at it and has recommended that it is time for replacement. So give you a little slideshow here, but as most of you know, some of you have been on council for quite some time and definitely part of the community. So this park is roughly 12 years old. You can see in this first photo here, a little circle patch, which is a repair that had to be made just from some wear and tear. If we go here, artificial turf and the pad came with a short term warranty. lifespan of 10 to 12 years, which obviously were right there. And you can see in the foreground of that photo, some of the seams coming apart. So you start to see the pad and the under part of the turf, you know, which then kind of creates some uneven surfaces. The turf's wearing out and a lot of these highly used things, which obviously if you've looked out there when the sun's out, it's all highly used. So you can see where the turf is worn through, especially down at the end of the slides. One of the interesting things that we're gonna do, if given approval, in a lot of these high traffic areas, we're gonna we're gonna have some replaceable sections. So I don't know how familiar any of you are with, say, a turf ball field, but the way that they would handle, say, a batter's box in a turf ball field, because it's the highest traffic area, it's actually got industrial Velcro underneath. So as that wears out, you can go in with a little tool, you peel out that specific section, replace it with a pre-cut piece, So it's a lot cleaner and then it helps out a bunch with preventative maintenance, you know, so we don't end up with it looking like this. Again, more pictures of the seams kind of separating, creating porosthetics, unevenness in the surface. Again, with patching, our staff does the best they can, but again, going to those high traffic areas where we have some ability to patch it better, where it's actually going to attach underneath and hold it down with those Velcro patches. And so new artificial turf, new more durable surface so that the artificial turf game has changed a bunch in the last 12 years as we've talked with some of the people that are vendors at some of the conferences that we've gone to. I mean, it's constantly evolving. So what we're going to get now is going to be a far more durable product than what we got 12 years ago. It's also replacing the pad underneath, which again is alleviating any concerns about fall zone stuff. And then again, we talked about those removable sections in some of the high traffic areas and fall zone areas. I'd point out in this photo that was taken pretty close to when it opened obviously that's you know probably a typical summer day but if if you notice all of the green in there is actually artificial turf and in this photo when it was brand new it looks like real green grass so if you think back to some of those photos that we showed previously it just proves the the wear and tear on that so Again, what we'd like is, you know, seeking approval to award that contract to Stuart Contracting to install ATS Turf, which is the company that they're getting the turf from. They now have a local office. So that gives us some confidence and accessibility to the company itself, the turf company itself. And it also is coming with a much better warranty. It's coming with an eight-year warranty. So far better warranty than what we had previously. So again, seeking approval to pay for it from Parks Capital Funds in the amount of $249,964.

Thank you, Adam. In your staff report, you said that you will be starting this in late August and that playground is going to be closed for 14 days.

Roughly yeah, and and the the lead time to order the product they told us initially would be say two to three weeks Once they get approval to order and then it would be a matter of fitting it into their schedule if we could do it sooner We'd like to but you know juggling that with as busy as it is in the summer I'm not certain how well that would go over if we had the busiest park in town We would look forward to those phone calls Right? Right. So, but yeah, certainly something that needs addressed and hopefully we can take care of it as soon as possible.

Very good. Any questions for Adam? Mr. Sheckler.

I just really appreciate the effort you put into this. I think it's important that the playgrounds are well maintained. You know, this is where our youngest members of our community recreate and certainly it attracts people to come visit downtown to have good parks and spend their money in small businesses. But I really appreciate the efforts you're putting into this to maintain our parks. I think it's important. I think our children are our most precious assets in our community. So thank you.

Kenny.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

What do you do with the old stuff? Under normal circumstances, say like sports fields, they'll repurpose it. This is so worn out that it wouldn't shock me when they go to remove it.

We played heck fine in it for Lake City's baseball facility. We just had a heck of a time. And if there's anything salvageable, we just approved literally building an indoor facility. Maybe something could work for them.

Sure, yeah. I mean, we can make a note with the contractor to preserve whatever's... I'm not sure that there's a bunch of it. Likely maybe more of the stuff that's under the play structure, because it didn't get as much traffic. But that might be salvageable. But yeah, we can make that note with the contractor for sure.

Thank you. Any other questions for Adam? Any council action, please?

Mr. Mayor, I'd move to approve resolution number 26-052, accepting the bid of and approving a contract with Stewart Contracting Inc. in the amount of $249,964 for the 2026 McEwen Park Playground turf replacement.

Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion on this motion? Roll call.

Wood? Yes. Evans? Yes. Sheckler? Yes. Miller? Aye. Gabriel? Yes. English?

Yes. Motion carried. Thank you, Adam. Look forward to that new playground. Thank you for changing the slides, too, because that old one really chafed. Moving on to item I-7, which is Resolution 26053, approval for the police department to purchase and upfit three Ford Explorers for marked patrol car use pursuant to Idaho Code 67-28031, utilizing remaining personnel budgeting authority from the department's existing general fund appropriation. Police Captain Dave Hagar has our report.

Great. Thank you, Mayor and Council. The simple request to ring for you is to purchase three new patrol vehicles, but there's some history to this. Every year, we have to replace numbers of our unmarked cars and our marked police vehicles. And over the years, we've had some of our marked vehicles that were taken out of the budget, and we kind of kicked that can down the road. And something that most people don't think about is for every mile that you put on your car, you have your odometer, and a car gets to 120, 130, 140,000 miles. That's a lot of miles. Well, figure another 45% on top of that with our idle miles. When we're sitting at accident scenes or the vehicle's on to keep the computer and the lights running, that's the equivalent of miles that we're putting on those cars. We have to be careful not to kick things down the curb. And at this point in the year, we have one quarter left in our budget, and we always look at what our savings is, whether it's our commodity savings or our personnel savings. And we try to offset that so that next year we can come up. And our goal this year is to have a zero request for any increase in commodities or personnel at all. And we've looked at the savings that we're going to have. And again, from talking with Katie, yes, the savings would go back to the general funds. We're not requesting anything out of the general fund. We haven't gone over our budget. We're just requesting to use some of that budget savings. Police vehicles are unique. They build police vehicles for about two months out of the year. And so Ford thinks, hey, this is how many we're going to produce. And this year they're also changing. They're going to produce a limited number. I'm not a car guy, so I'm going to use the car terms that I was given, aspirated vehicles. I think it's carburetor and things like that, but they're doing some hybrid stuff, and they're going to do more of those. And we're told that increase is going to be $4,000 to $8,000 per vehicle. So if we can offset that, we're saving between $12,000 and $24,000 just in the cost of the vehicles if we can buy them early. Plus, with the model changes, some of the guts, the police equipment doesn't always fit in those. So we have to estimate a little bit high because we don't know what the cost of that accoutrement to add in there is going to be. And so we've been using a place called Dana Safety Services. And they have vendors all over. They have their service stations all across the country. There's one in Idaho Falls and one in Livingston, Montana that we use. And they will buy in bulk. And occasionally they'll have a city or a county that says, hey, we can't fulfill our contract and we still have vehicles on the lot. And right now we're told that there are six vehicles on the lot down in Idaho Falls. And so if we can jump on this now, we can say, because we're estimating next year's vehicle costs are going to be about $110,000 per vehicle. which would be $330,000. And with all the quotes that we have, we believe we can get these vehicles for its $282,300 for those savings for the guts of the vehicles and things like that moving forward. So again, we're not asking to go over our budget. We're just being asked to use some of our vacancy savings to offset that so we can come to council with a balanced budget. We know that by 2030, 2031, the forecasts are very, very horrible for our city. So we're trying to be good stewards of the city's money to do this. And to that point, with our unmarked vehicles, we have access to what's called DERMO, the Defense Reuse Military Office. And law enforcement can do that, and we can get defense vehicles. And they're not tanks or anything. They could be a Chevy Trailblazer. They could be a Ford Explorer or a Dodge Durango. They may only have 30,000 miles on it that we get for free. We just have to pay transport. And we've been able to use some of our commodity savings over the past couple of years to where we have a very good unmarked fleet at this point. So now we can just focus on our marked vehicles and try to save money in the long run by taking good care of getting those vehicles at a cheaper amount. So with that, I would stand for any questions.

Any questions for Captain Hagar? Yes, Kiki.

My question is this. The wrap is what you call marked vehicles.

Right.

And then your unmarked vehicles are the ones. So I just want to be clear, and just for the general public too. Sure. Is the marked vehicles are the black and whites?

The black and whites with the lights on top that we're going to use for patrol purposes. The unmarked are detectives or We don't have any true undercover, but some of our specialty units that might need to do surveillance, something like that. So they're still generally all-wheel drive because of our snow up here, those types of things, but they're not marked. Anybody that's really a look at them can probably tell they're a police vehicle if they really want to look, but we don't make it obvious.

I was just mentioning this because I've had a lot of really positive comments about the black and whites, and it's not. Nobody can mistake the fact that that's a police car, and it makes it look like there are more people out there because they're so visible. So I was just hoping that that's what you were intending to do.

That's exactly what it is because it's a force multiplier, especially from people from around the country that may live in a jurisdiction where they kind of have the subdued vehicles or they don't have the best markings. Everybody looks at this, and some people call them the pandas, right, because they're black and white. They see the pandas driving around town, and it feels like we have a lot more officers on duty than we actually do, which is good for us. Good strategy. Thank you.

And I appreciate the colors, too, because it allows me time to hide the open containers.

That's why I didn't bring any pictures, because people get nervous around cop cars, so I didn't want to bring those up. And I just went over the open container thing to give you a cover. Any questions?

Dan English.

Well, I would just say I'm always amazed that between my office down there at 11th and Mullen, And when I go up Sherman, 15th Street on the freeway, and then out on Ramsey, it's a very unusual drive that I don't see four or five of the units. Now, maybe it's because I'm on the main route, the PD, but it just seems like we have a good saturation level. I don't know if that's accurate.

Depending on the time of the day and You know, we have our, like the fire department has their basic staffing, their minimum staffing numbers. We have that as well. And so on a weekend when we don't have our SROs and our traffic unit and things like that available, during the daytime, you may only have five marked units on the street in the entire 17 square miles of the city of Coeur d'Alene. And on grave shift, it could be three officers and a sergeant over that period of time. So, again, we have enough to get by, but having that color the way it is makes it seem like we have more. Mr. Steve.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would just, keeping in line with our priority of public safety, we know that our officers can't walk to these crime scenes. So I would make a motion to approve resolution number 26053, approving the purchase and upfit of three Ford Explorers for mark patrol use by the police department pursuant to Idaho code 6728031, utilizing remaining personnel budget authority in the department's existing general fund appropriation. Second.

Very good. Any discussion on the motion? OK. Good. We'll do a roll call, please.

Miller? Aye. Gabriel? Yes. English? Yes. Wood? Yes. Evans? Yes. Sheckler?

Yes. Motion carried. Item I-8 is Council Bill Number 26-1011, which is approving amendments to the City's Municipal Code, Title 8, Chapter 8.12, regarding enforcement of the Fireworks Code against owners or occupants of properties within the City who knowingly allow illegal fireworks to be deployed from private property in violation of the Code Captain Hagar, it's you again.

So again, I appreciate your time. And this is something that is obviously with the comments that we had earlier this evening and the comments that we get during this time of year from our community, it's very heavily charged. I think it's a little bit lopsided on the people that don't like it. And it's not just from the fire standpoint, but you know, they had the fire that started over on the west side of Spokane today. And with that wind, if we have one of those things that happens just from here, we can look over at Tubbs Hill and Chief Gabriel can tell us how bad that would be if something took off there. So it's the fire safety standpoint, but we also have veterans, people with PTSD, and they say, we're hearing fireworks going off from mid-June through mid-July, and it's all hours of the day and night. It's scary for that. And we've had residential fires throughout our county every year with fireworks that go off. And so we bring out overtime staff just to search for this. But the problem that we run into, it's kind of chasing a rainbow, if you will. We can see the fireworks going off on the street over by the time we get around, Those mortars could be sitting in the driveway, they could be sitting out in the street with a bunch of people standing around it, and we know that they were the ones that did it, but we didn't see it happen. And under the current ordinance, our officers have to actually see that to identify the person that did that. Well, if they're sitting in a driveway and you have adults, the homeowner, a tenant, an occupant that's there, and it's happening there and they're all standing around when we get there, Well, they were aware that it was taking place. So the main change that we want to bring to you tonight is to allow, and I'll just read the wording here just so I don't misstate anything since it's in the ordinance. It's unlawful for any owner of any property or tenant in possession of said property to knowingly allow another to possess, use any fireworks other than non-aerial common fireworks on said property. When fireworks other than non-aerial common fireworks, whether used or unused, are found on the property, it shall be evidence that the owner of the property and any tenant in possession of said property knowingly allowed possession or use of said fireworks on the property. And while we're putting this into the ordinance, we're hoping that through an education piece, and again, enforcement isn't the greatest tool that we have. If we can educate, we can give people warnings, and we seek voluntary compliance. If we go out and talk to somebody, and maybe they're here in an Airbnb, and they're from Oklahoma, and they didn't know we had this, and we can understand that, look, We've told them they're not going to do it again. We've seized the stuff and we're getting voluntary compliance. It doesn't mean that we're going to write tickets, make arrests, anything like that. But it does give us the option because we do have repeat offenders in the city that constantly have these and they boast about it online, social media, that they're going to have these shows and then the HOAs. and their neighbors call us, and again, unless we can be there right at the time, it creates some issues for us. Another section that's here is talking about where they're found. When fireworks, other than non-aerial common fireworks, whether used or unused or found within the public right-of-way, it shall be evidence that the owner of the abutting private property and any tenant in possession of said property knowingly allowed the possession or use of the fireworks. And again, there's an area in there that I'd be kind of willing to change after we've read it a couple times. Instead of the shall, possibly a may. I think it softens that a little bit. Because we still have to show evidence of that. I just can't say just because it's there it was something else. We have to connect the dots to make sure that it's there. But again, what we're trying to do is give us a little bit more opportunity to be able to take that action to protect our city, to protect our community, where we're really hamstrung right now. So with that, I would stand for any questions.

Any questions for Captain Dan English?

Well, just again, this is kind of an incremental thing. And as you were saying that, I'm wondering, are you aware if some places prohibit the, you know, the possession of those illegal fireworks? Because I'm thinking if you came and they were like second offenders, I'd rather have you scoop up everything you see. Is that right?

And that would be allowed under this ordinance, that the simple possession of that would be, and we've had those before, where it's not just a one-night event, it's a multi-night event. The neighbors will say, hey, it's them, so we'll go out during the day, and they open up the garage, and it looks like a firework factory inside, and we'll work with them and say, you can't have these things, and we're going to seize those. And again, it doesn't mean that we're going to issue tickets if we can resolve that problem.

Yeah, we've got to turn up the heat a little. Okay. Christy.

Thank you. Well, I... I think this is necessary because I was in your shoes for a long time and it is very difficult to enforce. As much as you want to make a difference to the people that are calling at 3 in the morning when the show is still going, it's really difficult to. It really comes down to people just being good humans. You know, if there was a neighborhood, and it seems like every neighborhood has them now. It's like Little Beirut sometimes in my neighborhood. But if you just had a little show with safe and sane fireworks and came down and enjoyed this big show with the aerial, everybody would be happy. But instead, this goes on and on for days and days and days, and people are exhausted by it and terrified of the fire. Some people are up all night with their water hose on. So we have wanted to address this better. A couple of things in the ordinance though, I like that you agreed that maybe it should say may instead of shall. I thought that was a bit of an overreach on public property, so I agree with you on that. What about wanting to seize them? Should that be spelled out more in the ordinance?

You know, I think we could go either way, and I may defer to Mr. Hunter on that. I think the ordinance, since having possession is illegal, would give us the opportunity. I think having a sentence in there that says fireworks that are found in violation of this can be seized may make it clear, because sometimes people do get frustrated because they just spent $400 on that. So that may be helpful, but I would defer to Mr. Hunter.

I think anytime you take the property of an individual that is not inherently contraband, which although it's identified as a lawful, um, at the state level for the aerial fireworks and we've declared it as such at the city level, having a clear statement that that is deemed to be contraband, um, it found and uh, in the context of, you know, unlawful possession of it, always better to be clear. So I think it would help. Would it prohibit it in this circumstance? I would say no, but again, it leaves open the ability to challenge and contest that and say, no, that's still my property, even though it's not something that I'm supposed to be lighting off within the city.

And then my other question is what about the adults that are responsible for the children? as far as if the children, are we going to cite the adults for the children having?

There's some possible ways we could do it through some state statutes. But if we did have a sentence in here that adults are responsible for any damage caused by their children, I think that would be beneficial to this. I think that would help with that. And again, there was one of the speakers earlier talked about having personal accountability. Well, not everybody's the one that says, hey, I'm sorry I burned down your house. But if we have that ability to take action against the adults, and it puts the adults on notice that says, hey, don't let your kids do that. Because it may not just be the house that's burned down, but you want to have all five fingers on each hand at the end of 4th of July season.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you, Mr. Kenny.

Thank you. Two things. The first one is please. Give them some tools. to do what they want to do, and this is just a great step forward. And the second thing is for either our fire marshal or Captain Hagar, the problem with seizing fireworks is now you have fireworks.

Right.

And disposal of fireworks is not exactly a simple thing, correct?

Well, we've made it. I don't want to say it's simple. It's a mess for us. We have a 32-gallon barrel out in the back of our building that we fill with water. And we dunk everything in there, and it smells like what you would imagine it smells like for a while. And then we get out the soppy, folded-down fireworks, which, I mean, it does make them safe. It'd be nice if we had something different, but we'll make by because it's a cheap way to do it, and we can make it happen.

You don't have a show?

No. I'm thinking back in the 70s, the stories I heard from my forefathers in this profession. I think they probably did, but we don't do that. Very good.

Dan Checkler. You had mentioned blowing off fingers or something like that, or if a fire got started, or if somebody had grave bodily injury. It wouldn't just be a misdemeanor at that point in time. It could be charged as a felony too, correct?

Under the arson statutes, yeah, we could charge it with a felony. Again, there's the reckless, there's the intentional. We have to prove kind of what their mental state was, what their intentions were. But yeah, it could be a felony depending on the value that was damaged, those types of things.

And then this may be a question for Mr. Hunter, but if a firework was discharged by a homeowner and it caught their own house on fire, could that potentially jeopardize their insurance and and caused their own financial devastation for doing something like that?

That's going to depend largely on their particular homeowner's insurance policy. But I would imagine that most have a preclusion that reckless or grossly negligent conduct is not covered under the policy. So I think the short answer would be almost certainly yes.

Thank you. You know, I think this makes a lot of sense to do. I think there's a danger that's presented by aerial fireworks that are already illegal. I think this gives the tools to law enforcement, but I also agree that maybe that word should be may so that we don't cast with too wide of a net.

Suggestion. Kiki is next.

Thanks. Kevin, what have your discussions been around education here? I guess I'm going with we got two weeks till 4th of July. And this language says that the owner of the property and any tenant in possession. So that's going to include short-term rentals, long-term rentals, occupied homes. But if you have that going on, how are they going to know that this is what's in place right now? What else can we do to put the deterrent out there prior to the 4th of July?

Well, I'm hoping he's still sitting behind me over here.

Jack, wake up.

Mr. DeWitt with the Coeur d'Alene Press. I saw him when I came in. And if you vote in favor of this, my plan is to speak with Mr. DeWitt before we leave, because the first place is to get out there in print media. Jared Renaud, our PIO, we're going to put something together to get out, and we will be happy to do live interviews with any of the video stations that are out there. It'll be on our Facebook page. It'll hopefully get shared on the city's Facebook page. And even though we don't have the great viewing of North Idaho News or some of the other social media pages do, I'm sure that they'll pick this up. and we'll try to get that out there. We used to be able to use the roadside information signs that the streets department had, but there was a new law in Idaho that says it can only be for street informational, so we're not allowed to use that for mufflers or this type of thing, so we can't use those anymore. But I will tell you, we will make every attempt to find whatever outlet we can to get this information out. Because again, if we don't have to go to the calls, our officers can be doing other things. And if we can get that out there to save houses, save fingers, save damage, that's what we want to do. So he's going to be my first stop in about 15 minutes.

And I think we still have a short-term rental database available to us. So it'd be great to get something out to that group of people too.

Yes, Christine.

Well, I can get you a billboard, but that's a side deal. I want to know by Mr. Hunter, how quickly could, if we agree to it, could you add additional language that addresses the seizure of the illegal fireworks and the parents' responsibility for the damages?

I don't want to speak too much out of turn for Mr. Adams, who, uh, I think would be, uh, take primary lead on that, but I would imagine we could get it done, uh, ahead of the next council meeting.

Um, that won't be soon enough.

And I understand that, um, as far as I think we could probably get it done sooner than, uh, end of the week at latest, if not within the next couple of days.

Could we approve this with the under, if we agree to that language, could we approve it with that language by the city attorney's office?

Sure. Yeah, you can modify it and add things if you want to, but I don't know what is the procedure. So if council decided to add another paragraph in here, do you have to review that? Or how does that work before we can go ahead and codify it?

My understanding is I believe that the modified statute would then need to be on the agenda for consideration. I think any modifications to the language currently provided would require a new action item.

Even changing Shell to May would require that? That would be a pretty significant substantive change.

Do we have a committee meeting scheduled next week for anybody?

I don't think so.

If council wants to, you can always do a special call meeting if it's that urgent for you.

Or we could go with this language and then bring back, after the holiday, better language. I think that's a better idea, Christine.

Take the best shot.

It's a little half-baked, but it's better than nothing. So we won't forget it. Quite a bit, yeah. We won't forget it.

I think we're good. Can I ask a brief follow-up, please? Are you saying that we can't change even a word of the proposal because it would violate the public record or the open meeting law? Or what would be the problem? with changing from shall to may.

That would be my understanding, and I'm taking it from an abundance of caution approach. I think we would be worse served to approve it through an improper procedure than to approve the language knowing that there's some fixes needed that we can quickly make ahead of the next council meeting. So this is maximal risk management minimization approach.

I want to follow up on that, too.

Go ahead, Christy.

Ryan, you're filling in. You're doing a good job. But we tweak this all the time right here, and we don't have to wait for review or another meeting.

We've tweaked ordinances when it has to do with property. I know that. I don't recall any time we've actually made a... law enforcement ordinance like this where we've changed anything to it. And I don't know. I still think council could go ahead and do it. I know that would make you extremely nervous. But I don't, my opinion is it would not be out of character or wrong just to change one word to add a paragraph, to add a period or a comma somewhere. I don't think that's, I don't think that would cause us too much trouble. I know you want to keep us all out of prison and I appreciate that, but Changing shell to mate, I think, would be in order.

Absolutely defer to council on it. If they'd like to proceed that way, then we absolutely can proceed that way.

I guess what's the consequences if we proceed that way? What are the potential negative consequences that we could experience?

Prison. No, that's a drive-by. No. The main one that immediately comes to mind is just invalidation of the statute. Now, if somebody were to have potentially been charged and prosecuted under it, there could be additional consequences that flow, but that would be getting into speculation at that point.

Mr. Mayor, I think we'd be safer, and it sounds to me like legal was that this is a substantive change, but we could move forward with it the way it stands. And like Christie said, bring it back to lighten that up after the holiday. And that's what I, and add the additional language. Yeah.

Kenny is asking permission to speak very briefly, sir. Are you okay with leaving it the way it is knowing that your officers will do a may versus a shall anyway?

Well, I guess the other thing that I would offer to make it easier, because even with that section, since we're going to plan on doing them, we would still have to connect that evidence to it. And under Section B, we're having to establish evidence anywhere. Is it in the driveway? Were they standing around it? Where was it at? And so I don't know how Mr. Hunter would feel about this, but if we were to completely cross out Section C, if that was an uncomfortable section, and just go with the Section B and then bring back C with the other request at some point, then it's a substantive change that we're removing it, but we're not adding anything to it. And I think we would still, that Section B is the biggest part for us. That's the 99% part. And so I would be comfortable if we remove Section C and then brought back that through amendments later, if that would make council feel better and if that works with Mr. Hunter.

Seems so.

One thing I'd also note on that point from Captain Hagar is subsection three or section three of the ordinance does allow for severability. So if for some reason the subsequently pass as is, subsection C is found to be invalid, unenforceable, et cetera, that's severable. It doesn't invalidate the remainder of the statute. Same thing for any single line. So if there's a single, if the shall be evidence is deemed to be overbroad, vague, et cetera, whatever it might, could end up being, that would be severable as well. It wouldn't eliminate the enforceability of the entire statute.

And I can also tell you that we would- Before we go on, does everyone understand what he just said?

Yeah.

Okay, good. Please, Captain.

And I would also tell you that in the training that we would put out to our officers that we would say, this is planning on being amended to this, so please read it as this. And so we will be within the confines of that. I wouldn't see us going outside of that.

Very good. Where are we? Mr. Sheckler.

One other question was also about the wording of it was the owner and the tenant in possession. Mr. Hunter, what about changing that to an owner or tenant in possession? or possibly changing it to simply occupant in possession. I just am concerned about an absent owner. Any arguments? But just making that more clear. I mean, if we were going to come back later with it, do we need to do anything like that? Or what are your thoughts?

I think that would certainly be within the purview of council to make that change, to clarify it. I will say just to note that there's the difference between You know, as Captain Hagar's indicated, there's going to be, I think, some restrained enforcement, maybe for lack of a better term. There's also just the limitations on what we could actually prosecute, what we could actually establish in court. Would we be able to successfully prosecute an absent homeowner? Highly unlikely. And the point, I think, of the shall is to just clarify that those items would not just be detritus. It wouldn't just be litter. it would be counted as evidence towards that, but would not suffice to establish that element in and of itself. And so I think that's worth clarifying that, you know, those two particular points, as far as enforcement goes, we're going to take a, again, a... you know, a cautious approach and a, we're not going to be pursuing a homeowner that's just not there and has no actual idea. It's just this, it eliminates the ability of someone to say, I had no idea what was going on out there or I'm just in here watching Wheel of Fortune. I don't, you know, they're doing whatever when they have a stack of fireworks lying on their, you know, front lawn and, you know, hand smelling of used fireworks. Are you? That's good. Okay. Kiki.

Dan, I had the same thought, and that's why I brought up the short-term rental conversation, because I thought that can work both ways, though. The bulk of the short-term rentals in this region are owned by out-of-state people. That's really what's happening. So they're in Seattle, and they have no idea it's going through a property management company. So I at first thought maybe that should be and or the tenant. But then I realized it is upon the property owner to assure that their guests who are short-term rental behave appropriately and follow rules and understand that that law is in place. And on the other hand, if you go and just prosecute the occupant, which is a short-term rental person here just for the weekend, they could live in another country. So how is that going to put any teeth in this for somebody who's just going to be here until the 5th of July? So I think it does need to be the property owner needs to be on notice that they're accountable for it and making sure that their tenants know. And the tenants need to understand that that law is there, and that's the best way to get that information to them.

Captain? If I can address those points, and I don't think that probably the short-term rental is the biggest one that we're going to go after the owner, but the one that I'm aware of that we want to go out and meet in person and do some education with, it's a owner that is aware that they have a relative that lives at the house that is doing this. So we would put both the owner and the relative that's living at the house, even though the owner is somewhere else, they are fully aware that this is going on. So again, ahead of time, we would give them the warning. So it's not like they're going to get something out of the blue. We're telling them that you put on this master show that you document and post out on social media, you're both going to be held accountable for this if this happens. So again, we want to use restraint, but I think that's the case use that we would use the and or. and English.

Well, I would absolutely want to keep the property owner. I mean, if I had to give up anybody, it wouldn't be them, because if you make, it's a very deliberate choice to be a, you know, have a rental property for whatever basis, and And that just comes with the territory. So, yeah, they need to have skin in the game and risk for that. And so, yeah, I wouldn't want to give that one up.

But how is a property owner, like, put yourself in the shoes of the property owner. How could they do anything? I mean, you know, if you are a short-term renter or a short-term rental landlord and you've leased out your property, how can you stop the tenant? I mean, you've already leased it out. You can't go barge in and grab the fireworks. You can't.

No, but you can predict what times of the year are going to be New Year's and Fourth of July, and you have very clear rules.

They have rules and penalties to tenants and tenants. If somebody who's egregious, they can be kicked off of the platform.

Sure, they could stop it perhaps after the fact. They could say, well, you breached the lease agreement. Here's a clause you breached or something like that, and they could enforce it. But I don't know.

They could be kicked out of the VRBO platform. So a lot of things could happen.

I'm very concerned about the possibilities of expanding what it means to knowingly allow Christy Wood.

Thank you. Well, you've heard from the defense. That kind of is a segue, really. We don't direct up here to the police who to write tickets to. And we don't direct to the city attorney what prosecution to follow up on. But clearly... It matters that if you're writing tickets that you are pursuing these in court because one half can't be doing it and the other half doesn't. So I wish you both well. I think this is a good first step.

Thank you.

Okay. Are we done making sausage? If we could go to a motion. This is in two parts. We will first dispense with the rule and then we will move on the council bill.

Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion to dispense with the rule and read council bill number 26-1011, once by title only. Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion on this motion? Roll call, please.

English? Yes. Wood? Yes. Evans? Yes. Sheckler? Yes. Miller? Aye. Gabriel?

Yes. Motion is carried. The clerk will read the title.

Council Bill number 26-1011, an ordinance amending section 8.12.020 of the Municipal Code of the City of Coeur d'Alene, Kootenai County, Idaho, repealing all ordinances and parts of ordinances in conflict herewith, providing a severability clause, providing for the publication of a summary of this ordinance and an effective date hereof.

Very good. Now we'll take a motion to adopt the Council Bill.

I'll make a motion to adopt council bill number 26-1011. Second.

Motion to second. Any discussion on this motion? I will. Roll call. Wait. One second. Mr. Sheckler.

Mr. Mayor, I move to amend the motion to include that we revisit this issue at the next council meeting for the amendments discussed tonight.

Good idea. I'd second that.

Okay, so let's just make that a separate motion and just revisit it since it doesn't really modify the ordinance. Is that okay?

That's fine.

All right, so we're just going to go back to the original motion, which is to adopt the council bill. Any discussion on that? Roll call.

English? Yes. Wood? Yes. Evans? Yes. Sheckler? Yes. Miller? Aye. Gabriel?

Yes. And now, Mr. Sheckler, if you could make your motion.

I'd move to place this on the agenda to discuss amendments to this at the next council meeting.

Second.

Motion and a second to put this on the July 7th council meeting. Any comments on that? All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Okay. It's set for the next agenda. Very good. Thank you, Dan. Moving on to item I-9, which is Council Bill number 26-10-12, approving an adoption of a new chapter in the Coeur d'Alene Municipal Code, Chapter 9-15, entitled Chronic Nuisance Properties. Staff report by Ryan Hunter, our Chief Deputy City Attorney.

Ryan. Thank you, Mayor Gookin. Council Members, the decision point before the Council is whether to adopt that new chapter in the Coeur d'Alene uh, municipal code, not chapter 9.15. It is entitled chronic nuisance properties. First question, uh, is to, uh, what is a chronic nuisance property? There's an extensive definition included in the proposed statute. Um, I won't go read through that, but it, uh, has a definition that identifies a property that has, uh, a certain number of nuisance activities that occur with, uh, at that property. within a set period of time and there's two different levels of that. So there's three nuisance activities within a 60-day period or seven or more nuisance activities which have occurred within a 12-month period. Allows for some flexibility in addressing really quickly emergent properties or those ones that have been kind of more of a long-term issue overall. what constitutes a nuisance activity. There is the nuisances that are defined by Idaho state law. Those primarily, as far as public nuisances go to, at least for the moral nuisance category, go to things like houses of ill repute, if you will, places where sexually explicit Videos, movies, things like that are shown. Obviously, houses of prostitution, things like that. Things that are already well known to be illegal. And then this statute or this ordinance would expand to include places where there's offenses described under Title 37, Chapter 27 of the Idaho Code. That's the Uniform Controlled Substances Act. So that's drug activities at a particular residence. Firearms violations, again. Same thing there, just persistent violations of that nature, assault, menacing, stalking, or harassment, and then lewd conduct, again, encapsulating or capturing that same definition of a public nuisance property or a moral nuisance that's identified in Idaho Code, and then also gang-related activity. Going back to a bit of history, this statute was originally, or this ordinance, was originally proposed back in 2020. There was a request by then Mayor Woodmire to address this. It actually had to do with, it was brought up during a council meeting, I believe it was in September of that year. It had to do with the chicken coop, a lady that had it. Some chicken coops and the issues that that was causing. And so this particular ordinance was drafted by staff and proposed or provided to council. There was never any action on it. I think just no action was ever taken on that. There was a request to revisit that at the June 2nd meeting. of Council and the General Services Committee voted on June 8th to, with a recommendation to approve this new chapter and the language that's provided in it. The ordinance, the proposed language of the ordinance that Council has been provided includes some additional adjustments to the language of the statute since that original draft was made. Largely minor, I think of most significant note would be clarifying under the nuisance activity the Uniform Controlled Substance Act instead of just identifying it by title and chapter. There's also, in addition to the procedure section in terms of mailing, essentially what to do if a mailing address for a property owner is unknown. It allows for just mailing the notice to the property itself. And then I think the most significant addition was as far as the abatement or enforcement abilities under subsection 9.15.050. D is the authorization to demolish the chronic nuisance property if justified by persistent and uncontrolled use for illegal activities. I would deem that certainly a last resort. That would not be the first option under any circumstance. It would be only a step only taken under extreme circumstances when no other efforts to abate or stop the nuisance activities have worked. The ordinance itself was drafted based on language that is already in the codes of other Jurisdictions both in and outside of Idaho, there's Garden City, Idaho, Liberty Lake, Washington, and Seattle, Washington, but this is certainly not confined to those jurisdictions. Many, many places around Idaho and the country have similar statutes that allow for abatement of these chronic nuisance properties. It's an additional tool in terms of public safety and law enforcement help identify those places that seem to be recurring locations where there's drug activity, firearms activity, other illegal acts taking place and then documenting those and allowing a procedure for starting to try and address that with the property owners themselves. Sometimes the owners are the ones best situated to stop the activities, even if they're not the ones in possession of the property. In fact, usually they are. Tenants aren't always inclined to stop, say, selling drugs at the location, but if the property owner continues to rent to individuals who seem to engage in that type of activity. Now this helps us to focus on potentially the main source of the issue at that point. As far as one point to be aware of is who will make the determination as to what property constitutes a chronic nuisance property under the current language of the statute, that power would be provided to the chief of police or his or her designee. That's how other jurisdictions handle it, but that can be changed or it can be expanded to include additional individuals who can make that declaration. As far as financial impact, it's difficult to determine at this time. There would obviously be costs involved with enforcement and with potential abatement. If it got to the point of demolition, there's obviously costs involved with that, though some of that could be recouped with the sale of the property if it gets to that point. Unclear how many. properties would constitute this, where it's not an in-force ordinance at this time. There's no reliable data on how many properties this might encompass. In fact, I think it would be just more of a case-by-case basis use, only in those situations where it becomes clear that all other efforts to try and abate what's happening at these properties has effectively failed. With that, I would stand for any questions from council on this proposal.

Any questions from Ryan? OK, Christy.

I can take turns. Ryan, when I look through this, and I know the history of why we've asked the city attorney's office to prepare it, when I look through it, though, almost all court decisions are determined based on due process. And so I looked for due process, and I thought I saw pretty lengthy due process. But I would ask you to elaborate on that so that we can be sure We are allowing due process. There is a court hearing before there would be any abatement. I'll let you elaborate.

Correct. That's an excellent point, Council Member Wood. It's built in that there are layers upon layers of notice. Not just notice to the property owner that this is now going, you know, we're declaring this to be a nuisance, a chronic nuisance property. but it also provides extensive notice on what the procedure for that looks like, what the steps are that be taken in that process. It provides notice and a clear delineation of what the notice itself must contain. It also provides notice to the potential property owners that would be involved in this as to what the agreement, so there's a provision allowing for a correction agreement that can be reached between the city and the owners of these properties in order to facilitate the abatement of whatever nuisance is taking place. It's an extensive list of the specific requirements that must be included in that agreement, just at minimum. There's seven identified. It certainly allows for even more detail to be built in. But as far as notice, which, again, procedural due process goes to the concept of notice and the opportunity to be heard, as you indicated. This would require court action. It's not something done unilaterally through the city. The declaration itself is based on evidence, reliable evidence that is accrued. That's usually going to be police reports, could be neighbor reports, could be photographic evidence of the state of the property or activities taking place. But it always requires evidence to first even get to that declaration that this is a chronic nuisance property. And then from there, it requires action from the city, notice to the home property owner, and then for any kind of enforcement actions, including the most significant and severe of potential demolition, if it gets to that point, that would have to go through a court hearing.

Great. Thank you. Mr. Sheckler.

My question is also about due process. And the notice, the original notice that's provided can be by personal service or by first class postage mailing. And my concern is that... The notice should be sent by certified mail so that it alerts the person that receives it that this is significant. I don't think an average letter just with a 75 cent stamp would give them notice that something important is inside of it. I also think that in the event personal service is not affected, that there should be publication in the newspaper for three consecutive weeks. in the legal section of the newspaper to give them that sufficient notice that their property could be declared a chronic nuisance property. And I just wanted your thoughts on whether or not you thought adding any of those additional procedures to give them notice would cause problems with the city if we went that route.

I don't think I could say it would. cause problems. It potentially adds some cost. I don't think it would be significant in terms of I don't think there's going to be a lot of properties that will be deemed to be chronic nuisance properties and then require the certified mail that we're talking in dollars, single dollars here. For the cost of that, the publication gets a little bit more expensive, but again, this is not going to be something that I think would be commonly used. It would be more of that extra tool for those particular instances that we don't currently have good means of addressing when it's really the owner of the property who is allowing this to occur. I think that adds layers of protection. It adds additional layers of due process. It certainly, I think, would strengthen enforceability on the back end if the publication was, you know, if there was a requirement for publication or a certified letter. I think council can proceed as far as a legal basis, can proceed with the notice that's provided here. Would it open it up to potential challenges that these other options would eliminate. Yes. Do I think that would be a significant or really a flaw in the statute itself? I don't think so. I think it's, and again, if that's something that experience quickly shows is not going to be a workable option, we can amend that to add in those provisions.

My other question was for a landlord. who's got a problem tenant somehow who's breaching their lease agreement causing a chronic nuisance. How long would it take a landlord to use legal process to remedy the situation and evict the tenant? And are there procedures in this ordinance that allow for the landlord to go through those processes?

If I understand your question, so saying, Does this essentially account for the ability of the landlord to take steps to remediate it without any additional action from the city after it's been declared a chronic nuisance property?

Correct. As I understand it, there's kind of a two-step process. There's the initial notice that's provided to the owner, and that can be done simply by a letter that's sent to them by regular mail. And then if the owner doesn't respond within a certain period of time, the city would then bring an action in court to declare it by court order a nuisance property. So there's kind of two ways that it could go. So I guess it could certainly be done in the first instance. And so if it were done in the first instance, What's the owner to do once they're alerted to the fact that maybe they're vacationing in Hawaii. They don't know what's going on in their rental properties. And once they're alerted to that, how long does it take them using ordinary legal processes to evict somebody that's in breach of their lease agreement.

So the eviction process is all spelled out I think by current prevailing law. This doesn't preclude that. I think what this allows the city to do is for those landlords who have yet to take that step despite maybe having anecdotal or just clear evidence themselves already of these properties being used for those purposes. I think most landlords might get some wind of the fact that there's police presence at their property on a regular basis. I think neighbors will mention it to them, that sort of thing. And so this is for that late step where there's I think you could say, been reasonable opportunity for them to have taken reasonable measures already up to this point. And that's where that timeline of requiring that there be three nuisance activities within that 60-day period or on the longer scale, that seven or more nuisance activities within a 12-month period, those I think account for the fact that if the landlord hasn't taken action to evict the tenant by that point, then maybe they're not going to, and that's where the problem comes in. And then it still builds in the ability through that negotiated agreement, that written correction agreement, for them to do so if that's identified as That's what needs to happen here in that discussion that the property owner would have with the chief of police at that point or their designee.

Does the owner get notice after the first violation from the city that there was a nuisance incident or is it the third violation that they get the notice after which?

Well, they don't get it per... violation. So the nuisance activities themselves don't generate any notice. This just identifies what can be a nuisance activity. So let's say Coeur d'Alene Police Department responds to a firearm offense at that residence, you know, on week one. Three weeks later, they respond to report drug activity. Three weeks later, they respond to a report of say, you know, assault or menacing harassment. There's a, you know, physical violence disturbance that takes place there. And then any additional ones at that point, then it allows that information to be used by the city, by the chief of police who's going to have most access to it to identify those properties and say, hey, there's been a lot of instances that have occurred here. I think the chief of police will work in consultation with city administration, with city attorney's office to determine is it appropriate to take this step now to provide the notice to this property owner that we're deeming this a chronic nuisance property. I imagine this would be like any other tool in the tool belt for the city where it won't necessarily go right to the formal process. We can still simply send a letter, an informal letter saying your property has had X number of nuisance activities. We're concerned it may end up being a chronic nuisance property. We'd like to start the conversation outside of formal procedure. And so it adds that layer of if that fails, this can be a next step. And then within the process itself, it allows for those additional steps of giving the property owner the ability to take eviction actions. And that can be all that needs to be done, depending on what the negotiated agreement, what the written correction agreement states.

I think I'm done for now.

Thank you. This is great conversation. This has got some good teeth in it. I've been a landlord and had to evict people before, and the state code spells it out very clearly how you have to notify the tenant. It has to be written service a certain way, a certain number of days. They have to have this many days to remedy the problem. But I also wanted to say this nuisance ordinance would deal with the property owner that isn't really interested in correcting the problem. But Our police force, in my opinion, has demonstrated that they would already have intended to do the footwork to say, I'm going to find that property owner, inform them of what's going on in this property, give them the opportunity upfront to rectify it quickly, and then tell them, here's the steps that could happen before it ever even came to being declared a nuisance order. If it got to this point, it would be really the last ditch effort like it was in this last one. So that's the way I'm reading this. seeing that there's got to be some teeth in it. The one question I did have, and this happened a long time ago. Kenny might be the only one who's been around long enough to remember it, but there was a property here in town that the occupant definitely had some mental health issues going on. So the property had an upstairs that had no windows in it, and feral cats were coming and going. There were cars all over the yard. I mean, it was just a derelict property, but somebody still lived there. I don't know under the nuisance activity as defined by Idaho state or city law occurring would include something like just that type of situation. And if it doesn't, we should probably include that. I mean, I wouldn't, I would hate to have to re go back and revisit this for those kinds of things, but there are places around town and Chris, you probably visited them back in the day that, that, you know, that, that if this just said, this isn't just the listed firearms, drugs, gangs, these things, but also something that's, you know, just a health hazard in a neighborhood or a fire hazard, something like that.

That's a great question. I would note that this, there's still the state code. There's a state code under Title 52, Chapter 1 that addresses public and private nuisances. And the state code would encompass exactly that situation. So the definition for nuisance defined is anything which is injurious to the health or morals or is indecent or offensive to the census or an obstruction to the free use of property so as to interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property. or unlawfully obstructs the free passage or use in a customary manner of any navigable lake or river or stream, not really anything that we need to address on this particular part, but once it reaches a point to where that singular house is in such a derelict condition that now it's impacting the other properties surrounding it, that's when it crosses into a public nuisance and can be abated under that standard state level

So it doesn't need to be part of this one because it already exists.

Okay. This fills a very particular need. It got popular with gang kind of enforcement actions to try and address properties where there was a lot of gang activity. But again, the landlord themselves was not taking appropriate action to try and get whatever the tenants were out.

Okay.

Thank you.

And English.

Well, and we've got quite a wide ranging here, but, you know, back to Mr. Sheckley's, it seems like what he's talking, it seems like what the tenant landlord is more into the civil action versus what you're talking about with the city is, like I say, specifically, then we're narrowing down on a criminal action versus a, you know, civil landlord. Tenant, is that accurate?

It does include, it gives, again, additional tools. So it would include the tools being able to cite the owners if we go that direction. So it expands it from just civil action under standard abatement procedure, standard new certs procedure to include, this can be declared a criminal.

So another layer.

Well, right. So it gives those added tools to try and be able to address this. And I think it was well stated, Council Member Miller, that it By this point, when this comes into play, I think we'll be far along in the process. It'll be no surprise to any property owner that their property, when they get that letter that says you're being declared a chronic nuisance property, it will not be a surprise to them. Christy.

Thank you. And some of the things that Kiki mentioned are enforceable through code enforcement, through other ordinances, the CATs and stuff. I guess I would just like to finish off with we know there are neighborhoods in the city, certainly. I used to do a lot of the neighborhood watch programs, put those together. And there was always a drug house, chronic drug house. that we would repeatedly just tell the neighbors, well, just get the license plate numbers for us and call this in and call it in. And we've just got to have more tools to deal with it. And that's why we ask this to come forward, because it is the neighborhood that suffers. And it can go on for years and years. And so I think this is a good first step. If we find down the road that it isn't going to work for us, we can always amend it. But with that, Mr. Mayor, I'd make a motion.

Yeah, let's do it.

To adopt. Dispense. Oh, thank you, Kiki. To dispense with the rule and read Council Bill number 26-1011, ones by title only. Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion on this motion?

I think this is 1012.

Did we get the number wrong?

Did I? No, I did. I'm up here. Oh, where is it? That's because that's what that says.

Okay, way down here.

Okay, thank you. I'll amend that. I'll say it over. I would make a motion to dispense with the rule and read Council Bill number 26-1012. Once by title only. Okay. Second. Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion on this motion? Good catch. Thank you. Roll call.

Gabriel? Yes. English? Yes. Wood? Yes. Evans? Yes. Sheckler?

No.

Miller? Aye.

OK. The clerk will read the title. Motion carried.

Council Bill number 26-1012, an ordinance of the city of Coeur d'Alene, Kootenai County, Idaho, adding a new chapter 9.15, chronic nuisance properties to the Coeur d'Alene Municipal Code, providing for the repeal of conflicting ordinances, providing for severability, providing for the publication of a summary, and providing for an effective date.

Now we move on to the council bill itself.

Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to adopt council bill number 261012, approving the adoption of a new chapter of the Coeur d'Alene Municipal Code, chapter 9.15, entitled chronic nuisance properties. Second.

OK, motion and a second. Any discussion on this motion? Mr. Sheckler.

Mr. Mayor, I would just say that I disagree with this. I think that the notice provisions, I think, are inadequate given the property rights that are at stake. I also think there needs to be safe harbor provisions for landlords. actively engaged in efforts, in legal efforts to coordinate this. I think the provisions are inadequate that are in the ordinance to adequately protect owners. I think this significantly affects the property rights of the citizens of Coeur d'Alene and for that reason I'm voting against this motion.

Thank you, Dan. Any other comments or discussion? Very good. Roll call.

Gabriel? Yes. English? Yes. Wood? Yes. Evans? Yes. Sheckler?

No.

Miller? Aye.

Motion has carried. Off to item J, which is our adjournment.

Make a motion that there being no other business, this meeting be adjourned. Second.

Motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? We are adjourned. Everyone have a safe 4th of July. Happy 250 America.