City Council - Regular Meeting

Two distinct groups of people. Number one, there's the citizens of Lewiston, whose interest is everyday life, who want a prosperous and beautiful place to live. Then we have another group, the city of Lewiston, who seems to be driven by money. Well, that's kind of your job, but that's not all of your job. Your job is to help the people, not just collect the money. I would like to address my comments to the individuals of the council, not just as a group, but as individuals, each and every one of you, you men and women. Our citizens have been forced into survival mode. Do you realize that? Due to our taxation, You can't deny that that is a fact. We've said it for, this is the third week in a row. Tonight, you as an individual will show by your votes on this budget whether you care about the people who elected you. Will you tax the city of Lewiston that we know and love out of existence? Your vote says it all. You can't say you work for the people or even care about us if you pass higher taxes, because that is not the will of the people. The people don't want it. I love my way of life here in Lewiston, and I will fight to keep it, and so will others. But that should not be the case. A simple solution to this problem is working together to help our community prosper and survive. And we can begin to close the gap between the city and the citizens. Trust. Trust is all important. We've given you a job to do. And you've kind of given us a job to do, too, to trust you. Can we do that? So in order to really understand the issues and things like that, I think we've got all of that. It's done with all that. It just means that no new taxes at all. But the overtaxation has to end. And this needs to happen tonight. The people have spoken already. They've told you what needs to happen for them to live here, to be successful, to feed their kids, to have their grandmas and their grandpas and their older people be able to pay their taxes. They've told you. Do you support the people who elected you? Please prove that by supporting them, not higher taxes.

Thank you.

welcome hello my name is robin weldy and i am running for senate in district six and my properties were assessed quite a bit uh the very smallest property that i had was assessed at four hundred thousand dollars per acre i decided to ask for the comps and here they are wouldn't you know it The comps that they're using are riverfront properties, brand new manicured properties that have brand new sidewalks and gutters and streets, and two properties in Peck. I don't know of any appraiser that would ever use Peck properties to assess my properties in the orchards. So my point is, Is any of us qualified to be an appraiser? Raise your hand if you are, please. That's exactly what they're counting on. I've been in the real estate business for 25 years. I myself have difficulty in assessing property values. But I have taken every property around my properties Two blocks, 100 properties, and I put them all on the Excel spreadsheets. Did you know that properties that are 5 and 10 acres are assessed at about $50,000 an acre? A quarter acre is assessed at $400,000 an acre. The reason they get away with this is because they say it's retail value. Retail value. The poorest of us have the smallest acreage. A single lady with children that can only afford less than a quarter of an acre is paying a tax on a value of $400,000 because they use the excuse of retail value. What would happen if we had an average per acre value each year to calculate our properties based on? And I'm just talking, I'm not talking about houses. I'm just talking about lots, the code 20. Everybody already knows what size those are. They're in our tax records. If we just had an average of how much that were paid for those acreages and took out an average, all of us, even those of us that do not have an appraiser license could calculate how much should be assessed. But no, they have to skirt behind. Your house is a little different. Your house is a little aged. Your house has an upgrade and every single house is different. And they get behind saying well, if you buy a six pack of beer you're paying less per can of beer than if you bought one can of beer and that's how we do these things. it's unfair and it needs to be done differently, and it can be done differently, but they would rather keep it complicated, so we cannot fight back. And I say it's wrong, it can be changed, yes. The legislature can tell you what needs to be done. But it's the local government that gets to decide how it's done. And they're hiding it behind you and I not knowing how to assess our values. And they're right. We don't know how. And you're right. They can discriminate and call you in and tell you, oh, but yours has this and this and this. But you don't know what your neighbor has to do. and they don't either because they don't have the right to go in that house.

Thank you, Robin.

Welcome, Jeff.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members. Last Monday night, I think you guys heard from everybody that said they did not want their property taxes to go up. I didn't hear one person come here and say, thanks for raising them again this year. I would request that you please try and hold the line and see if you can get it to zero. I have two houses in my neighborhood that are for sale for almost $480,000. When those sell, that's probably going to affect my house as well because I'm in the same neighborhood, even though the houses aren't even similar. But I know it will. Try and get the fine tooth comb out and go through all those line by line item pieces and figure out where you can save money. Get the sieve out, sift it out, get down to the fine ore that makes this thing work. You heard from everybody. My wife and I retired a year ago. We're part of that other population. 30 years ago, we were the young people in the neighborhood. Now we're the older people in the neighborhood. And nothing's really changed. I'm not going to paint my house because it'll make it look like I did an improvement on it. Then my assessed value will probably go up when they drive by and go, oh, look at that. It looks nice. Let's add on $20,000. You had some really smart ladies here last week that had gone through this stuff, have taken the time to look at things, and have offered their help, and I think that's something that the city needs to do is look at. Some of these people have some expertise in these areas that might be able to help you guys figure it out because there's a lot in the budget. CUNA has 31,500 people. They're at a 3% rate. Their budget this year is $201 million. In 2024, it was $107 million. Those are growing populations down there. Eagle, the same thing, but they're at $68 million with 0.31%, so 35,000. Those are two cities that are almost the exact same population as Lewiston. But they're growing, and we're not. We've got to figure that part out, too, is getting more people here to spread that tax amongst more people. We could get 1,000 people to come here. I moved back here in 87 because I liked all the outdoor opportunities that we had here. And I don't know why anybody else doesn't move here and do the same thing. You can do everything four seasons a year that you want. So if I can help you guys with anything, please give me a call. I'd be glad to sit down and help you. I haven't talked to most of you since election time. But maybe I'll talk to you sooner this time than election time. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Joe.

Can we please have the gentleman state his name for the record?

He needs to state his name for the record.

Oh, that was Jeff Sayre. Welcome.

My name's Ed Brink. I've been sitting here and listening to everybody. You know, this city doesn't have a money. This city, all these taxpayers, when you guys want it, they give it to you. You know what the problem is? You guys have a spending problem. Bye.

Thank you.

I'm Nancy Kurtz, Lewiston. Thank you for listening to us. I hope the decision hasn't already been made, but I feel like that. I'm going back to my generations before. They used what they had if they didn't have the best, but they used it and made it work. There's one area I read today that your 2027 budget was a 2.5% raise. Drop that. Thank you.

welcome hello city council i'm anna bossart from lewiston idaho 36 years um i've been to the last two meetings and i just wanted to kind of give my observations on what i feel and see and one of the big things that stood out to me so far is transparency I think it's an important step to begin to fix the trust that has been broken between the city of lewiston and its property owners and business owners. Some suggestions that I have going forward. And I did email all of you this so you could follow up with me. disclosures on how many businesses are coming. and applying and then walking away. Start the process and then decide not to proceed and then why? Possibly getting a feedback survey from them would help this. Two, disclosure on any plans to allow a data center build and a required vote by the residents if it is wanted. Three, look into the flock system that we've put in. Recently, this week I read that wilder Idaho just passed a ruling to remove them in their community, I know utah's having some substantial problems with people using the data for their own purposes. and This is an expense that we did not get to vote on, but should have. I ask that you consider removing the cameras if you find it violates our rights to privacy and to help mitigate our budget issues. Four, when asking for an increase in your budget each year, begin mailing a detail of what the city wants to do with the extra tax dollars before the annual budget meeting starts. Five, establish cost-saving waste finding incentives in each department. Six, help to establish a volunteer-led Doge-style team to help with finding fraud, waste, and creating efficiencies like they are doing in Florida now. Florida created a doge style team at the state level, but because of its popularity they're asking city level government to establish their own programs and have created a how to guide that I have found online and I shared with you in the email. I ask you that you plan to utilize this wonderful tool to help our community and reach out to volunteers with the skills necessary creating a special task force. Seven, finally, I would ask that you do a much better job on advertising your meetings, dates, times, locations, so that a larger audience can be informed posting clear language not embedded in a real or a video on facebook that's where i found the ones i was looking such as maybe big country news daily fly pinned to the city facebook so it stays at the top of your feed billboards utilizing for the annual meetings at minimum and possibly all meetings if it's cost efficient and any other locations that could reach the community better. I thank you guys for all of your hard work on this budget. I know you're getting a lot of feedback, but we do care and hopefully we can find some people that can help with these cost saving ideas. Thank you.

Welcome, Spanner.

That's my partner. Hello, my name is Jeff Weiner. I've lived in the Orchard, I'm sorry, the Normal Hill for 35 years, retired Lewiston Fire.

Hi.

Oh, you can't hear me? I'm sorry.

Can you hear me now? Okay.

I've lived in Lewiston for over 35 years. i'm with one of the gentleman that talked about if I knew the money was specifically going to go for one specific object project and that's it nothing else I feel much better about that, but I feel like taxes in some way, or like an insurance policy. Every insurance company i've ever heard of it's delighted to take your premiums, the question is, will they pay out, we have a problem and we all know people who are still waiting for the insurance companies to pay out. My complaint with you guys is I feel like you're asking for a 4% allowance increase and you've demonstrated to me that you haven't handled the allowance you're getting already very well. And what i'm speaking of specifically is, I think you have really let the people in sunset edition down, I know of two families couldn't even stay in their property after that flooded reservoir break and if they still had to pay property taxes. You should have sent your attorney down to Boise, counting on every best possible, and not come home until it gets to settlement where they change the law and get you released so those people can get back in their houses. You should have worked out a deal where they would, we'll take care of everything, we'll make you whole, and then all of your insurance money that comes back comes to us. But in the meantime, we're gonna make you whole. If I brought a friend's car and it got hit in a parking lot, I'm not going to return to him and say, I'm sorry, I hope the insurance is going to take care of it in the next six, eight months. I'd make them whole, and then whatever insurance they got, it can come back to me. You didn't do that. And I will never forgive the city council for how they treated those people who woke up one morning dastardly with water flooding into their homes. So you want an allowance increase? Not for me. Thank you. Thank you.

My name is David Bear and I live in Lewiston.

And I've just been reading your little book here. And there's a couple things that are hard for me to understand. Over here is the general fund. It says the property tax revenue or $18 million goes to that from the property tax from the general fund. And over here it says what is the general fund? And I added up all the property taxes that they listed here, and it comes to $24 million. So I'm lost there. I look at the library fund, and it's probably the truth there. It says 92% of the library fund is made up of property taxes. Now, we all have the library. When I grew up, I went to the library and had books. Most everything in this library is online digital stuff. So sometimes we wonder, why do we need some of these expenses? Then I look at the public transportation fund. It says the budget is $1,700,000. 24% is paid by property taxes. You know, it's not rocket science. I see a lot of city buses driving around, and there are only two to seven people riding on them at any given time. They have the bus drivers, the bus maintenance. You would think that you could probably buy these people that's using the transportation Uber and still come out ahead. So it's just a lot of this stuff We as general people, we can't understand it. And I just wanted to bring that up.

Thank you.

Welcome. City Council. I just want to say that I appreciate the pickle that you're in. I agree, and you've heard us talk about tightening up budgets and things like that. I came to my first city council meeting very sadly, and I can relate to what Jeff said, like 30 years ago. We were young kids. We were thinking about this. And 30 years ago is when we should have been at meetings. because I realized last year that a lot of the problems we have now is because things were neglected for many years, and I know that's difficult, and I know it's hard for you to sit there and just listen to us. You have to know it is helpful for us to be able to vent, and some of it is not directed at you personally. I was wondering, is it possible to ask questions here, or is this only comment?

We just take this in common, sir. This is your time.

Okay.

But I'm happy to get back to you if you have questions or anything else members. I'm sure I'm happy to do that.

Two respectful questions. I know that the assessor is a county employee, but he has a grave effect on what we do. So does he ever come to these meetings, city council meetings or just the county meetings?

I have not seen him at a city council meeting, but I communicate with him regularly.

OK. And I guess the other question I have is, Mr. Mayor talked after the meeting last week, and you said we have been doing audits. But I was wondering what kind of audit, because I know there are different types of audits. We've all been hoping for an audit that would say, how do we cut 1%? How do we cut 2%? So are these audits more like just accountability type audits?

So we of course get our finances audited every year. In terms of internal audit to see how efficient we're being, I'll give you an example from this week. Somebody asked me a question about how much it costs to produce a unit of water. And so I sent an email to our water department and I've asked them for expenses and water produced for the last five years. And I'm just going to do a simple math to bite that in and see what it's costing us per gallon of water for well water and for river water. And then if I need to go into more detail, I will do that to see if there's a trend or other concerns that I may have. OK.

So I guess this is just my general comment on that. Thank you for those answers is you seem very constrained to move or to be able to move money from one part of the budget to the other because of contracts. Maybe some money was given in a grant. So I found out Fenton Gym. We might as well fix Fenton Gym because you can't use that money for other things. And I guess long term, it seems like we should try to not set up those kinds of constraints, just like we're in the golf course and we can't get out of it because somebody signed a contract way down the road. So I'm just hoping that we could maybe think more forward in those kinds of things. And then finally, I know I'm over because of my question. I totally agree with the people who talked about the weed situation. We live on rip on out there and it's big creek land company who from Coeur d'Alene who's doing that build, who we've many of us have been calling and telling them about literally there are 10 foot high weeds all the way down the road. And if that caught on fire, I think it would just kind of rip down through our houses. They don't answer. And our city enforcement people they haven't answered when I talked to them that should be dealt with on rip on Avenue Thank you.

Thank you Can we please get the gentleman's name for the record Oh

We need, did you get it, Jennifer? Could you repeat? Just one minute, please. Could you repeat that?

Trent Lewis.

Trent Morgan.

Oh, Morgan.

Trent Morgan is his name. Thank you. Welcome, Dan. My name's Dan Young. I've lived in Lewiston since 99, and I built houses here. So one of the things that happens on a regular basis is I get people from out of town coming in saying, hey, we'd like you to build us a house. And we talk about lots and show them subdivisions. And I understand the value of a lot because I'm building smaller lots. I have to because it costs so much money to develop the lots. And then the assessor takes the value of those lots and he says they're worth X amount of dollars and then that's the value. And then, as as more houses are built and more lots are developed that value continues to go up so like i've got really small lots. Actually, a small lot subdivision, the city of lewiston and the value of those lots vacant lot it's about 8000 square feet is $70,000. So if I develop 10 lots and the property tax assessment on that is $1,500 a year, then I have to pay $15,000 a year in property taxes on lots that I'm trying to build houses on. So when these people come and say, hey, will you build me a house? They say, what's the value of these houses? And what's my property tax is going to be? And so we go to the Nez Perce County website. We pull up the cost of the taxes. And shocked is the word that comes to mind. It doesn't matter where they're coming from. They have never faced property taxes like this before. So I got up here and spoke about Coeur d'Alene last week, and I spoke out of turn, and Dustin Johnson called me out on it. I said that Coeur d'Alene had a $62 million budget, and they have a $155 million budget, so I apologize for that. And thank you, Dustin, for pointing it out. But the tax assessment in Coeur d'Alene is less than our tax assessment. So our average value here is about $400,000. That's the average value in the city of Lewiston. In Coeur d'Alene, it's about $600,000. So our property taxes on a $400,000 house as a homeowner see $125,000 exemption is about $4,000 a year. If you live in Coeur d'Alene this value up there is about 600,000 so that the value is more in Coeur d'Alene, but the property taxes are a little over $1,200 a year. So we've got a $400,000 house and a $600,000 house and they're paying triple what we're paying in Lewiston. So we're going to try to grow, and we're going to recruit businesses to come here. We need businesses to come. Bring your business here, and we'll tax you to death. And then the people that you're going to bring to come and work here, we're going to tax them to death too. Welcome to Lewiston. My call to action, Mr. Mayor, is we voted for a strong mayor. We got rid of the city manager so you could have the power to go inside the staff and shake it up. And you've heard people say, hold the staff accountable. And we want you to hold the staff accountable.

Hi, Laura Morgan, Lewiston Orchards. I spoke last week and then after seeing the revised or the proposed cuts in the budget, I just had a couple of follow-up things. I looked in the budget guide and I read that and I really wish that there was a line item thing for each department because when you say, well, we're going to cut Police. So we're going to cut fire. We're going to cut the grant writer. That seems very punitive. And then thank you, Councilman Spickle Meyer. He says, well, let's cut the sprayer for the golf course. Yes, there's got to be things like that in there. Those line item things that each department can go through and cut out. Don't. punish us by taking away the things that are really important. So I just want to encourage you to do that. Also, as far as the assessment thing, that was very interesting listening to Robin and then Dan. We were on our walk this morning and I'm like, hmm, I wonder what these huge shop things with a house next to it or attached to it, I wonder what their assessed value is. And Again, it speaks to how the assessment is done. Some of them were listed as one bedroom, no bath, had a huge four shop bay, and there were four cars outside. So obviously people are living there. And the assessed value was way lower than the house next door. That was actually a house that said four bedrooms and two baths. And theirs was way higher. So I think that we do have a very broken system. And it would be nice to be able to revisit that and see if we could figure that out. Dan Anderson has run unopposed for a very long time. And I think that it might be nice to get someone in there who maybe has a little different mindset and could shake some things up and make it a little more fair and equitable. So thank you for listening.

Thank you. Welcome.

Thanks. Kathy Shaw, Houston, Idaho. And I just have one question, or maybe more than one. I want to know, in your HR department, you also have that person who is your risk management in that department, but you have them listed as two different departments. The risk management is 500 and some thousand a year, and HR is 600. How come if this gentleman is in both departments, he's got quite a budget?

He's in one department. He's not in two departments.

I went in several days ago and looked at your departments and they have them listed in HR as well. Anyway, so and my other question is what is other in your budget of 400,000? What is other?

In what department?

I don't know, it just lists under facility improvements, and then the next one is other, 400,000. And then golf, I don't know how many people golf here, but 400, I don't know why we're paying somebody to run the golf department. Or whatever. I don't understand the difference between recreation parks and facilities. I think there's a lot of cuts there. Thanks a lot.

My name is Houston Keene and I live here in Lewiston. I've lived here my whole life, 35 years. I've raised kids here. I've got five kids now and Four of them are old enough to hear and observe what I talk about with my wife, and they don't miss much, like I don't miss a whole lot either. And I've grown up here. I observed Lewiston. It hasn't grown very much at all, and it's sad to see. I wish more businesses would come here. Raising taxes, it's just going to drive people away even more than it already has. I wanted to open up a business here and I don't want to looking at these taxes going up. And I'm considering moving away now that these could possibly go through and My daughter came to me because she heard this and she was crying because she is just going into high school she's. As friends that she cheers with and and my son my 12 year old son came to me. can't they just not spend as much. If a 12-year-old boy can come up with that idea, I think something can happen. So thank you.

Thank you.

I don't have a whole lot more to say because I yacked at the last one.

Patty, introduce yourself.

I'm sorry, you just did. Patty Nielsen. I was just thinking how much all of this is kind of centered around the assessor's office. You know, they have a little too much power, it seems to me. I mean, they're controlling you guys getting bitched at. I mean, maybe you guys are the ones doing it. I mean, you probably are. But anyway, when you think about it, they have so much power over all of our misery. There's something that needs to be revamped in that department. There's something wrong there. Because when I went there, like I had brought up last time, for the little land that we have some property... and um to ask them what the improvement you know you get your paper and it says improvements and it's easy to add whatever number you want there you know i mean add a thousand add ten i mean you know it sounds so stupid because i went there and i said you know and i i'm not one that like goes there every year or anything and i went there and i said um You know, can you just tell me like what improvements I did? I mean, it's a plain piece of land, you know, show me what I did. Why can you add $500 to my taxes? Because you say I did 500 improvement. It's insanity. And he could not give me any definitive answer because there isn't any. And he did bring up one point because we put, um, A container one of those containers on there well it's movable container that's kind of why we put it there to put stuff in and we set it up, so we could move it. And I've heard my whole life that if you put something that is movable, they don't tax you on it. Well, that's a lie. Get it out of your head, because it's not true. It's a lie. I went there, and I asked him about that, because he said he brought it up. And he said, well, you put a storage container on there. I said, how many years am I going to pay for that $3,000 container? I mean, at $500 times how many years, it's not going to go down. And so, I mean, I sat there talking to him for quite a while, and it was just like he kept tripping over his words. And I thought, you know, this is a department there that needs some attention. I mean, they really do. There's something wrong. somebody is not running that department properly, or we've gotten people from another country. I mean, somebody from somewhere running that because their assessments are ridiculous. And I said, so if you have that on the paperwork, improvements, then you better be able to back it up. I mean, it's just common sense. So he says, well, it's not really necessarily improvements. I said, well, then change the wording so people don't come and choke you. Because really, there's other words in the English language. So come up with a different word to write on there. I just decided I wanted to add $500 to you. You know, I mean, how stupid is that? And so anyway, I just wanted to bring that up. That department needs some revamping. And the other department that needs help that I see is the department that, you know, businesses come and they want to have a business here. And they are so impossible to work with. I have talked to people through Olive Garden, Chick-fil-A. All of them have come here to try to get in. There was some people that said they were going to buy Shopko and put an ice rink in there, and they were defeated.

They were pushed down like this, and nobody- Patty, I have to say thank you, because we're a minute and- Okay, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I was going to say a sentence.

Mayor Mrakas, Welcome Mario filipucci lewiston orchards i've been living in lewiston for the last 30 years. i'm listening to people talk here tonight. And what i'm getting out of it is. they're really concerned about this 4% and I understand. i'm. The other thing i'm getting out of this is the property taxes and seem to be based on anybody's ability to pay it. Even reading through your little pamphlet here that's very nice color pages and everything so that must have cost. But it's not based on anybody's ability to pay, you know I look around I see there are retired people, I see some young people um. I don't think that anybody's asked them, the assessor especially, how much can you pay? They always ask you that when you buy a car. How much can you pay them? But then they carry out the payments for eight or 10 years or whatever. We pay a lot in property tax, not as much as some, but more than others. I'm paying for sewer. I don't have that. We live up on rip-on. I'm still pooping in my own backyard. That's the 21st century. So there needs to be some work on that stuff too. I know that we purchased some new street sweepers. Seems like those were pretty expensive. I don't know if it was 600,000 for one or if it was 600,000 for all of them, but I never see a street sweeper on my street. I don't know if anybody else has. Anyway, I think there's more that you guys can do. My wife and I, we do a zero-based budget. So every dollar is accounted for because we live on a fixed income. Maybe you guys can be doing the same thing. A zero-based budget. Produce that list of things that you have to... put money into and then you put money into one of the big things that we have is emergency in case the sewer goes out you know the septic system so i have to account for all those things dog food cat food insurance city taxes all of that stuff i just wanted to share that with you guys and be a strong mayor thank you guys

All right. Well, here we go.

Good evening. I'm Jackie Bear Lewiston. Lived here my whole life. And my husband and I retired about three years ago. We're on a fixed income. And we live in a really nice home that we built ourselves. And we struggled and struggled to get to our dream home. And it seems like if we're going to paint our trim or keep it up, We're going to get taxed on it. So if our home is all peeling and you're not going to raise their taxes like you do us. So you guys really think about this 4% because I know you guys are going through the same thing. So I don't think that this is a time to do this. Thank you. Thank you.

Welcome.

Hi, my name is Henry Larson. I'm here to talk about the flock cameras. So I just want to give an example. So my mom, she takes my phone at night. And I don't got anything to hide, but it feels like just an invasion of privacy. Like what does she need to find on there? Just makes me feel very uncomfortable. But with these flock cameras, I mean, why does the city of Lewiston need to know when we're going to Clarkston, when we're coming from Clarkston to Lewiston? Why do they need to know on all three of our bridges? I mean, it's just extra income. It's basically just a Ring camera with AI. And, I mean, who else has access to this info? Who? I mean, they could be selling our info to China, like, for all we know. And, I mean, they just basically take your face, put it in a folder, say, hey, this is all the times. Henry's coming to Lewiston. Henry's going to Clarkston. Like, what's the purpose? Why do we need to block cameras? If you're just doing it for like speeding or stuff why don't we just get some speed cameras we don't need some foreign some foreign place or Ai to know where we are going, we just need somebody tell how fast we're going so thank you, thank you.

Welcome.

Thank you, my name is Robert Clark. live in lewiston i've been a resident of lewiston for all of my 67 years um just some observations we've got a dying community we're aging out not growing not bringing families in we're not bringing business in for the family men and women to work in we got a taxation problem they run out because we charge too much tax I know you've heard all of this over and over again, but it sounds like from especially from what I heard last week that we have a understanding of budget problem. We can't live within our own means, so we keep raising it up. And it seems like to us anyway, at least it does to me, that our taxes keep going up, and if there's a vote or the people push back and we don't want those taxes, we don't want that bond, whatever it is, oh, well, we have another assessment value raise. Our property just went up, so we got that 1.5% that they wanted. That's just an observation. Anyway, I think that It's pretty clear that it's not popular. You're in a tough spot. And I'm not coming down on any one of you personally. But as a whole, this was what you got hired into. You ran for election and got voted in, got hired. So it's your job to keep this in a budget. And there needs to be that accountability for public employees. You know, you fail once, you get another chance. You fail twice, you get chewed out in a reprimand or a suspension for a while. You fail three times, you should be gone. The city needs to be run like a business would, and that's pretty much how a business would be done. So, you know how I feel about taxes and I kind of came late to the party tonight, so I didn't get to hear what everybody said, but I just came down to see the boat tonight. Look in your eyes and see if you all have the courage to vote it in. I hope you don't. Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Thank you. JD Boguslawski. My parents are in their 80s. They do not ask for help. They need help. My father probably should not be driving. He says he gets a single finger way more often than not when he's out driving. They have riverfront view. It's little. They're being taxed out of their home already. They will not ask for help. We have tried to help. They've got eight kids. They will not accept help. They're in their 80s. I remind you, you are taxing them out of their home. You're taxing me out of my home. I work for the federal government. You can do more with less. You have to make that conscious effort. I'll put it out there. I'm a conservative. I manage my lifestyle on a budget. If I can't afford it, I don't buy it. I don't fix it. I don't whatever. I live without it. This community can live without some of the things in this budget. I know you guys can make it happen. Don't tax my parents out of their home. They do not accept help. We do what we can. I want them to stay here. They like it here. They will not move in with one of us. We can barely survive ourselves. How are we supposed to make that happen? Don't raise my taxes. They're not the only taxes I pay. I have other taxes to pay. And again, I work for the federal government. I went through Doge. I did manage to be certified. But I've worked for 20 years with the federal government. You can do more with less. You have to make that conscious effort. I know where taxes come from. My pocket. And I'm telling you right now, my damn pocket's not that deep. And I know people like to think so. Oh, just raise the taxes. We'll raise taxes. That's my pocket. My parents' pocket's not that deep either. Manage your budget. The city, the police, the ambulances, okay, they can do fundraising for some of this stuff. I don't like to see that stuff cut either, but again, If it's not necessary, then we don't need it. Again, everybody likes to say things for safety. It's got to be for safety. There's some things. We all drank out of the water hose when we were kids. Well, I mean, most of us in this room. Are we dying? Now kids aren't supposed to drink out of the water hose. Manage your budget, please.

Okay.

Do you have second comments, please?

Hi, I'm Julie Jones. I live in Lewiston in the orchards. And first of all, I have to say I'm so glad all of you are here. And you bring such good information and and good comments and that is great um i did go on after your instruction not instruction but suggestion last week to listen to the meeting before where you discussed the cuts that you were making etc and um Basically, I wish this were for questions, because all I have is more questions after listening to that meeting and I hate to say it, but. The explanations and the budget and the questions that were asked and were given are so typically. government it they were just you know no direct answer walk around some very uh... very good questions and it was it was more frustrating than good uh... so I wish I had had more time, but I printed out a couple of the years of budgets and printed out some quarterly reports and wanted to have this nice list of things done, but I do work and I take care of my father. And so I didn't get to that, but like I said, you guys bring some great stuff and I really like the lady who had the list. That was wonderful. But I want to know, what is your intention for Lewiston? You are driving people out. That's obvious. You're not letting business or encouraging business to come in. What do you want to do with Lewiston?

You have three minutes. Go ahead. I don't agree with your comments, but go ahead. Use your three minutes.

So, like I said, I have more questions than I do anything, but I do agree that you are taxing way more than this city and the size and everything can possibly stand. And again, I do have some comparison because I come from living in a very expensive state and it is, It is shocking to be here and it's understandable why lewiston has not grown and but just a couple thousand people, since I was here 50 years ago, so I really, really hope that you. don't. vote in the 4% tax raise and really think about you know. The people here who want to be here, who want to make this place work and to make it a better place and enable some of that a little more Thank you.

Joe murt lewis and orchards. Sometimes responsible leadership is making the hard decisions now, even when it's not popular. As you can tell, the citizens are tired of the budget. I know the 4% has come up a lot about suggestions about what we can do to limit that budget. Well, I think you need to have the courage to stand up and say no to the community park this year. Let us redo this budget or re-evaluate stuff next year. Maybe next year or the year after. But until we can get the spending down and the spending cut, I think the community park is just a frivolous expense at this interjunction.

Thank you, Gerald.

Anna Bosshart, I just had a final thought, and I don't know if anybody else has thought it, but when I moved here, all of the companies, it's a working class, you know, we have all these hard workers in the community, and the companies were owned by fairly local people, I believe, but now we have Vist Outdoor that's owned by a foreign company. Clearwater Paper is owned by a foreign company. Has anybody considered what would happen if they left and how that's going to impact our economy? I think that we're kind of in more vulnerable position than we've ever been since I've lived here. I don't know how other people feel. Thank you.

Angela Howard, a rebuttal comment, please. I live in Lewiston, Idaho. I think we've talked a lot about the assessor tonight and what he is doing. And trust me, Dan and I have butted heads for hours on the way he assesses things. But I do know that some of the things that I would like for him to change are going to have to start in Boise. I mean, there's two or three laws out there that have tied his hands. We've tried two of them. We've tried to push two of them through. And so I encourage our taxpayers to pay attention to what Boise is handing our county that they used to assess our properties. It may not be his lack of knowing what to do. It might be his hands are tied and he may not understand a way to change it without taxpayer support. We need to pay attention. Thank you.

okay do we have any last comments before we close you down jeff welcome thank you mr mayor jeff sayre bryden avenue the beautiful green lewiston orchards when i came here the first time in 1984 you could fly to boise on empire for 99 bucks round trip now you can fly from here Let's see, Spokane to Paris, cheaper than you can from here to Denver, Colorado, if that's even possible. Trying to look at a little vacation trip, but I'm going to staycation and stay where I like to do things. Going to friends' basketball tournaments in Boise over the years, probably 20 years ago, we stopped at New Meadows, and I saw a crowd of people on the side while everybody's getting their snacks and going to the bathroom.

I went over and I said, what the heck's going on here? Oh, they're auctioning off properties.

Like, for what? Tamarack. That ruined every small house and retired person's property on both sides of that highway that go to I-84 in Boise. The little old people couldn't afford it. I mean, going to drive this lady's folks out of their house where they want to live? I want to live in my house until I'm gone, too. I plan to have my ashes at the Snake and the Salmon River. But I'm not going to be able to do that if I'm somewhere else. This lady moved from a really nice little community to come to Lewis. Now she's talking about leaving again. We've got to keep people here. We've got to keep our young kids here. figure this thing out i'll be sending you guys all I did a deep dive into how much the Pullman airport has gotten federal grants compared to what Lewis has got over the last 20 years. it'll make your jaw hit your table I guarantee you somebody's not doing their job up there and trying to get securing federal. Grants I used to do that when I worked for Senator Craig, it was easy I could do is ask for it ask your Congressional people for it, and you can get tons of money it's just sitting out there waiting for hands to reach out and and be filled up with it so. Appreciate you doing your jobs. I know it's not easy, so thank you very much for your time. Thank you.

Dan Young, Lewiston. So we've talked about Boise. We've talked about the county and we can do stuff about that, but What you guys have to focus on is what you can do here in the city of Lewiston. And I apologize, Mr. Mayor, for coming after you again. But why did Mr. Spickelmeyer have to find light on things to cross out when that's your job? So if you can get us back to a 1% levy, stand up here and say, I want you to get a 10% raise or a 20% raise. I mean, if you can get us the levy and get our taxes down, I honestly think as a mayor, based on the other people on staff that are getting paid more than you, you're being underpaid. But you have to get rid of these line items and get money out of our budget.

Carl Walker? You know, we're talking about the 4%. I just happened to bring my utility bills with me. We're talking about money. We're talking about the money that you take from us or that you procure from us, okay? The raise in our fees or our utilities is astronomical, yet you have to have more money. from other areas and other venues. Why hasn't this been enough? People are talking about being taxed out of their houses, but who here can afford to water their lawn? I'm thinking about probably peeing twice before I flush. Now that sounds like a joke, but just think about it. People have to almost go to those kind of extremes. You know, if it's not you versus us, we need to form a co-op or some way that we can communicate back and forth. Now it's give and take. And these percentages, you know, they average way, way up there monthly. They don't stay the same. They go up.

Robin Weldy, I own rentals. If the stores here cannot afford to hire people because the people that they need cannot afford to live here, why would companies come here? I have a friend that owns a company downtown. She found a perfect candidate. He goes to look for a place to live because he loved the idea of working for her and that was the dream job. He came back and told her that he could not afford to live here. If my property taxes are going up, so does my rents, and less people can afford to live here. Maybe we need to focus on economic workforce housing so that we can have people that can afford to live here.

Thank you. Welcome.

name is josh fuchs uh good evening mayor and council members um i took some notes and i think a lot of people here have a lot of the similar concerns and i want to start with number one lewiston's population and forgive me if my numbers are slightly off but this population i was born and raised here but i was one of those kids that could not wait to leave when i graduated And I've lived in big cities, I've lived all over the place. And having experienced that and coming back here, because my family's here, it was a very important thing for me to be there for my parents. A lot of people are here are concerned about their parents and their livelihoods and being able to stay in their properties. The one thing that hearing what everybody's talking about is a concern about our growth. in this city and in clarkston as well the growth is about 13 since 2000. it's about a half a percent a year and in that same window our city's property tax revenues climbed from 23.8 million to 25.9 million in just the last two budget cycles alone that is not growth paying for growth that's actually existing homeowners absorbing the difference year after year I say this as someone who's invested in this town, and I recently built a property here, and I know several builders who are actively working in the Lewiston area right now. Residential growth is happening, but commercial and business growth is not keeping pace. People brought up employees, employers, businesses being chased out. These are all correlated to the end problem, which is why we're all here right now of having to have the tax discussion. The other thing is i'm asking for three things tonight first transparency public publish a plain language breakdown each cycle. How much any increase in the statutory CAP how much is new construction, how much is a foregone taxes. Second, address the urban renewal agency Commissioner havens raise this in August increment captured there never reaches the general fund and if that money exists, while asking homers for more you know I want a public answer. Third, support Councilor Spicklemyer's alternative budget, which limits this year's increase to new construction revenue, like the growth I've personally added, rather than piling across the board a hike on taxes on top of it. Make sure that every eligible retiree knows about the state's property tax reduction program, because the city gave its own employees a cost of living raise this year, but our retirees didn't get any. So we want to track the businesses that will actually solve this problem until we stop asking our homeowners to solve it instead. Thank you.

Lauren Beauchamp, candidate for County Commissioner, Nespers County. I live in the Lewiston Orchards. I work for interlink small nonprofit here in the valley that uses volunteers to help seniors. You may have seen some of my data in the paper in the past talking about the growth of the valley. It is extremely slow. The only age cohort that is growing is that of senior citizens. And I'm still working on putting together the data from various sources. But the only group of people we are importing are wealthier seniors retiring out of the coast, out of big cities and moving here. That is the primary driver of the increase in property values and then the taxes that are on top of that. On the other end, the median household income from 2023 to 2024 increased 2.5%. Same time period median property home values went up 14.7%. That in theory should leave a 14.7% surplus of property taxes received if assessments kept up that the city should have available. haven't had a chance to look over the budget as deeply as some of these folks have, and I appreciate them for doing it. But where did that difference go? That is my question. Thank you very much.

Okay.

Well, thank you for sharing with us tonight. We're going to be voting on it soon. You have the chance to stay with us tonight. I also want to say to any of you, if you'd like to come to City Hall and visit with me, I'm available. So anytime, doors open, so please come down. All right, we'll move on to the consent agenda, council.

Mr. Mayor. Councilor Wright. I'd like to remove vouchers payable. A couple of questions on it.

Second.

It's been moved. OK. Remove vouchers payable from the consent agenda. We'll do that. Councilor Wright, do you have a motion?

Motion to approve the consent agenda. Yes Yes, I moved to approve the consent.

Yes, I'm in the agenda. I'm in there I'm moved by councillor right second my counselors put the mark to approve the consent agenda less vouchers payable Rockies Counselor right.

All right councillor Forsman. All right. I Councillor Klein. Aye. Councillor Morey.

Aye.

Councillor Spickelman.

Aye. motion carries thank you council next we move to the active agenda item a supplemental agreement number three for tr036 bryden avenues reconstruction stage one considering approving supplemental agreement number three to the local professional services agreement with david evans associate incorporated for the tr036 bryden avenue reconstruction stage in the amount of two hundred eight thousand four hundred seventeen dollars and authorizing the marriage to sign the agreement this is an action item we have our public works director with us here tonight dustin johnson welcome director

Good evening mayor city council, uh, Dustin Johnson public works director. I'm going to try and thread the needle here. I know we're about an hour and a half into this meeting and everybody wants to stick around for the budget. But, uh, these couple items here, I think, further kind of demonstrate the challenges of the city face. Uh, and so I will try and do my best to fill out the details, um, as best I can while at the same time and trying to. Expedite the process. The, uh, supplemental agreement that you've talked about, uh, is specific to Brighton Avenue. So this is the section between 4th and 7th. Uh, and I, in May, I believe I gave an update to the city council. So I went back to the presentation. And so I'm just gonna kind of. Summarize. Brighton Avenue as we've faced it in the last 40 years. And so the Southway Bridge opened in 1982. Bright Canyon opened in 1999. The traffic volume being generated up on Brighton Avenue has increased significantly since then. It's kind of plateaued. But as we experience development going out in the East orchards, connect to, uh, Clarkston and downtown, Brian has experienced exponential traffic volume from what it was originally designed for when it was built in the probably sixties. Uh, I mean, bright and far exceeds that, but pavement in the sixties or whatever it was. Um, in 2014, the city of Lewiston. receives a surface transportation allocation from the federal government. As it is currently today, that's roughly $600,000 a year. That decision the Council made in 2014 was we're going to pay for Bryden Avenue with our STP allocation. Currently, Snake River Avenue is a project that was in front of Bryden. That is being constructed with STP fund money. So that's that's federal allocation. There's a 7.34% local match. But the majority of that 90% project is paid for by our federal allocation. Well, the current estimate for Brighton Avenue, just from 4th to 7th. Uh, today is 15Million dollars and so you can start doing the numbers and I've reported to you. I've been here for 5 years reported to you. That's an unachievable goal. If you're expecting the federal government to pay for Brighton, and you're only putting 600,000 dollars. Of course, uh, you had cobit inflation, you're actually losing ground every year because you're only putting away federal or that federal allocation. Uh, in roughly 2020. Make sure I get my number 2022, the city started putting away what we call the arterial reconstruction fund, uh, at that year, uh, was 700,000 dollars. 23 was 700,000 dollars 2024, 2.3, 2025, 2.3, 2026, 2.3 and then it's up for discussion tonight of how much more you want to put into that. And so the emphasis was the deficient arterials that we have in our community. So we've talked about Main Street, 21st, Thane, Bryden, and then Snake River Avenue and Bryden Canyon into all that. So we talked about the arterial loop. Currently, we're sitting at roughly $7.5 million in that fund. Some of that stuff has been paid for other designs and is allocated for other projects that are also grant funded. That is kind of the picture where we're at. We're moving forward on Brighton in the budget for the 2027 that you're considering the night is a part of that arterial reconstruction. Program for, uh, right away acquisition for bright. Since this project receives federal dollars, it's what we call federalized. So every dollar that we have spent up today, and let's say we say we don't want that money, we don't want to do Brighton anymore, we would have to pay that money back to the federal government. So when you federalize something, you've got to be really committed to that project. Not only does that commit you to the dollars, it also commits you to the process. So in this, this is an addendum to the original design contract, and this addendum is for... Sorry, my glasses. I want to make sure I get the dollars right. This is $208,000. With that allocation from the federal government, the URA is picking up a portion because there is a Brighton Avenue URA that was funded, I think, in 2000-ish, somewhere. The city's portion of this agreement is $617. Bryden has not gone nearly as fast as we would like to do it because of the process, the funding available. And we've had conversations with the council to try and move this project along faster. The only way you're gonna make this project faster is either another grant or funding it yourself. So I think I've said before in front of this council, you're not gonna get federal grants for everything and you're not gonna fund everything locally. You have to diversify how you're going after it. and work through all of the process. There's been some great comments talking to your delegation, talking to Boise, all of those other things. And so this is another example of it's a challenge to try and fund infrastructure, especially as we've experienced in the last three or four years. Everything is costing more money and so as we try to be more responsible with the dollars. It becomes more of a challenge to say, I told you it was 10Million dollars. Now it's 15Million dollars and it's going to be 20Million dollars if we continue to wait. So that's a long story to tell you about Briden in general. This is just an agreement to wrap up the environmental and the right away process. You got to get the federal right away documents. buttoned up, approved by the feds, then we can go out there and start acquiring right away. So with that, I'll stand for questions.

Thank you, Director. Councilor Spickmeyer.

So, Director, I'm curious here. I noticed in the agenda listing it states that the right-of-way purchases would start in 2030, correct?

Yeah, that was the original timeline before we met. I knew you would pick that up. We budgeted it for 27, so we could speed that up. Because if we waited for that $600,000, that's when we would be eligible to start right-of-way acquisition. We've already had conversations with Federal Highways that we will use our own money to just move faster through the process. You're right that that is a bit of a typo, but right away is. I can predict design. I can usually predict construction, but right away it's, it's a, it's a transaction. And so that sometimes takes time, but we're going to start on it as soon as we wrap up the, the, the right away document.

Yeah, kind of answer my questions. You got 3Million dollars in this.

budget proposal for right away acquisition yeah yeah and realistically i don't see any way that we would be able to spend that three million dollars just because of the process but we put it in there so it'd be available that will roll forward um into future future budgets okay thank you counselor klein what's the process when people don't want to sell that is the uh negotiation um we we can there's i've done a couple different projects where we have some latitude in pricing. If they are far beyond what is reasonable, you can change the design of the project and go around them. You've seen that before. I think everybody's listening for the word eminent domain. The City of Lewiston, I don't have the authority to do eminent domain. That is not something I'm ever interested in ever participating in. I think every project that I've ever worked on that has right away acquisition, you just, you work out the negotiations or you change the project, you change the course of the project.

Councilor Wright. Mr. Mayor, motion to approve the supplemental agreement number three to the local professional services agreement for the TR 036 Brighton Avenue reconstruction stage one between the city of Lewiston and David Evans and Associates Inc. in the amount of $208,417 and authorizing the mayor to sign the agreement. Second.

I move by Councillor Wright second by Councillor Specklemark to approve the supplemental agreement number three to the Local Professional Services Agreement for the TR 036 Brighton Avenue reconstruction stage one between the City of Lewiston and David Evans and Associates incorporated in the amount to $208,417 and authorizing the mayor to sign the agreement. Clerk Rockey.

Councilor Wright.

Aye.

Councilor Forsman. Aye. Councilor Klein. Aye. Councilor Morey.

Aye.

Councilor Spigelmeyer.

Aye.

Motion carries. Thank you, council. Next, we move to item B, local professional services agreement. For project number A024680, considering approving the local professional service agreement with Council for North America Inc. For the TR 072 a street bike and pedestrian path improvement project and the amount of 149,000. $895 and authorizing the marriage to sign the agreement, this is an action item and once again our public works directors with us here justin Johnson welcome director good evening mayor city council dustin Johnson public works director.

So this is another one, this is a to give you a little bit more background on. City of Lewiston, one of the primary funding sources that we've received, at least in the last three years, is LSIP. It's a state program. It's a safety program. It's not an award that you necessarily want because it's based off of fatalities and serious accidents. So we've received money for the overlay of Bryden Canyon, and we're in the process of working on that one. because of there being multiple fatalities on that. This is 8th Avenue, 8th Street, sorry, that also has had a fatality. So it rated higher for a lighting project. And so this lighting project goes from the top of the grade, 9th Street grade, 8th Street grade, whatever you want to call it, at 5th Street and runs all the way to Brighton Canyon. It is a 1.8 mile project. That is the LSIT project. On top of that, this is the grant that we're considering tonight, which is a TAP, Transportation Alternative Program, that funds, this grant will fund the sidewalks. So the other project, other grant will fund the lighting improvements along that entire corridor where this one will fund, the ADA ramps, the sidewalks. If you ever drive down 8th, I hope Eric Peterson out there is watching who has been a volunteer on the Disability Advisory Committee to see. He's constantly always reminding us, if you look down that street, there's all kinds of telephone poles, retaining walls, Block sidewalks corridors that are nowhere near compliant. And so that's what this would do. Open that up. There's, uh, multiple, uh, elementary school, a college, a hospital, uh, and then the connection into downtown. And again, this is also in the kind of the same. Vein, as the previous grant, we just talked about where, uh, the, the grant pays for 92.66%. The local match the city will cover, uh, is 7.34%. This goes through, um, the local highway technical assistance council. That's the, uh, state agency. So they help administer that project. Um, and so this is, you know. When you get the grants, you pay the, you pay to play the game. Uh, and so there's overhead and costs that go with that. Uh, and that's what this grant will pay for. And so the overall total. Is 149, 895. For the design of this, I stand for questions.

Thank you director council. Council, right?

yeah so on other roads that we've redone we've made these bike paths out on the actual road and this road seems pretty narrow in some spots like how are we are we going to do that are we planning for that to make it. Yeah, I'm still enough road.

I thought that myself. I don't know what that. Bike lane component design will look like, um, the primary focus is obviously the lighting and then the sidewalk. So I'm not, I can't speak to that tonight, but that would be part of the design process. Uh, and we would obviously have a public outreach component to ask. The users of what they felt more comfortable with.

Got you does okay and this is all. All right. Um, just 1 other thing. Mr. Mayor. On the steepness of it, because I was seeing a lot of the ADA stuff with the ramps, and that's really steep. Can a wheelchair go down?

Yeah, this project actually starts at the top of the hill and then goes south. So the other project that I talked about is it will take on that ADA component. And there's some ADA laws of how you deal with steepness. And there's usually like you have to have refuge islands where there's a stop in grade. But if you've ever been to, say, Seattle or San Francisco, there's nowhere to build those. And so there is areas where you just can't build that into it. So this one I don't know has many components that will not have to ask for a variance, but the one that's coming up the grade will. Okay. Okay. I got you.

Thank you. Councilor Spicklemeyer.

Thank you, Mayor. So, Director, on these grants like this, they have to follow a specific qualification to do it. The city couldn't decide to use this money for a sidewalk anywhere we wanted?

No, when you apply for this money, you're agreeing and so it's administered by and so there is a full agreement. Uh, and there's, I actually read through the agreement. It was, it's like stereo instructions of everything that you're required to submit. Uh, and there's some stuff that, I mean, smaller stuff that, you know, we have done in house. But a larger project like this, that's, it's going to be, you know, several 1Million dollars with the lighting and everything else once it's all said and done. Um, that we just can't manage in house with the, you know, I don't, you know, the cumbersome, the cumbersomeness of the, of the ground. Okay, thank you.

Yeah, a motion to approve the local professional services agreement for the 8th street bike and pedestrian path improvements project between the city of Lewiston and consort North America Inc. in the amount of $149,895 and authorizing the Mayor to sign the agreement.

Second.

It's been moved by Councilor Spickmeyer, seconded by Councilor Forsman, to approve the Local Professional Services Agreement for the East Street Bike and Pedestrian Path Improvement Project between the City of Bloomsdale and Councilor North America, Inc. in the amount of $149,895 and authorizing the Mayor to sign the agreement. Clerk Rockey.

Councilor Wright.

Aye.

Councilor Forsman? Aye. Councilor Klein? Aye. Councilor Morey?

Aye.

Councilor Spigelmeyer?

Aye.

Thank you, Council. Thank you, Director. Thank you, Clerk Baraki. We have one more coming up here. Council, next we move to item C1, first, second, and third readings. Item A, ordinance 4971, considering amending Lewiston City Code 17-1, adding the definition of temporary project. amending Lewiston City Code 1719 relating to the ownership of solid waste and recyclable materials, enacting a new Lewiston City Code 17-25 relating to the regulation of temporary project service, and amending Lewiston City Code 17-26 related to licensing and restrictions on operations. This is an action item. And once again, Director Johnson, welcome.

Good evening mayor city council, Dustin Johnson, public works director. Uh, so there has been some conversation about, uh, Boise, uh, earlier today and what the legislature does or doesn't do for us. Um, in this particular case, there were, uh, SB, uh, Senate bill 1073 in 2025 and house bill 661 in 2026. That specifically, uh, uh, required cities to allow. temporary projects when it comes to sanitation collection. And so, you know, working with the attorney's office trying to define, of course, when they write the laws, they don't tell you what a temporary what they intend by temporary project and how that would dovetail into our existing code. So working with, you know, going through the what was adopted by those two bills in twenty five, twenty six, what's already within our Chapter 17 is our sanitation section. So we basically define what a temporary project means and how it would amends to create an exception to the local government, our local government's exclusive solid waste franchise. So all it is is basically outlining how we can allow residents or commercial uses for temporary dumpsters. And there's been some other issues, other things that within that chapter 17 Uh, talking about right away permits, um, and, uh, where to place them, who's where you can dump. You can't take these large dumpsters to transfer station. They got to go to a, uh, approved, you know, basically a landfill. Um, so that's what this does. If you have any questions, I stand for them, or if you have any more in depth legal, uh, the attorneys over there.

Thank you director counsel. I would come up with 90 days.

Temporary well, essentially, you know, what projects. Uh, you know, you know, the intent would be, it's, it's a, uh, an event for construction. So, 90 days, uh, it seemed like a window in which you would want to need a dumpster in front of it because if you're just doing a demolition. You know, you 90 days seems like the, the, the standard. Length I know projects, uh. Probably go much longer than that, but who's to say you couldn't apply for another 1, but you need to have some sort of when you apply for a permit. Defined start date and date in 90 days was the date in which we picked. I don't know if Jennifer has anything to add on onto that.

Well, just what oh, sorry Mr. Mayor counselor. What happens so after the 90 days, it says. Require the person carrying on the temporary project to use solid waste collection services provided by the city's franchise or otherwise. Permitted by this chapter, and maybe I miss is there a permit process where if I'm going to exceed the 90 days I can. fill out some paper and say, hey, this is actually going to take me another 90 days. I still need this.

Yeah, and the intent is if it's truly, you know, something happened in the project or the event, if it's an event that lasts more than 90 days, that's a permanent, that's more than a temporary function, and that's in which the franchise, the sanitation contractor should have right to take service that property if it's a project and let's say it got mothballed and then they come back that is you know that's the intent that they can pick up for a temporary project but if it's somebody just saying i want garbage service but only want it 90 days a year that's not what that is intended for yeah and and i'm just thinking from if you're a developer and you've got you know the big how they have those big containers that they're throwing all the garbage and stuff in

I don't want to give them one more thing that they have to remember to do. so they don't get, you know, in trouble. That's the only thing I'm worried about.

A lot of what we were considering is, you know, these dumpsters, you know, as we can ask Mr. Dan Young of how things function as you're trying to finish houses and move people in. And a lot of times these dumpsters may be sitting in people's houses, in front of people's houses, in the rights of way. And so trying to keep that obstruction clean. So as we're moving through a newer subdivision or even a resident, it doesn't have to be a newer subdivision, a residential neighborhood where you're, THIS DUMPSTER HAS BEEN THERE FOR FOUR MONTHS AND THERE'S BEEN NO MOVEMENT, AT SOME POINT WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO SAY, OKAY, THAT'S BEEN MORE THAN 90 DAYS OR 120 DAYS OR, YOU KNOW, THAT WAS THE TIME IN WHICH WE PICKED. THREE MONTHS SEEMED REASONABLE.

OKAY.

COUNCILOR KLEIN.

JUST FOR CLARIFICATION, SO IF A PROJECT IS Going over 90 days, um, they're required to use the cities. City sanitary department, they can't go with whoever else they choose.

If it's a use, that's. Be not temporary, which would be over 90 days then. Yes.

Councilor, you have ordinance number 4971 before you. Councilor Klein.

Motion to read ordinance number 4971 by title only and to dispense with the requirements that an ordinance be read on three different days and that it be read once in full.

Second. And moved by Councillor Klein, seconded by Councillor Spickemeyer to read Ordinance Number 4971 by title only and to dispense with the requirements that an ordinance be read on three different days and that it can be read once in full. Those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Your discussion or amendments? Councillor Klein?

I just have a comment. I don't feel like I can agree with this just because I feel like people should have the ability to choose who they want to go with for their disposal needs.

Mr. Brown? Councilor Wright.

Just a discussion. I'd like us to just keep a close eye on this 90 days piece. And if it's causing challenges, let's adjust it. But for now, this seems fine.

Yeah, and I guess I didn't say, you know, this, this does give city, um, uh, clarity in that. Uh, you know, we have sunshine disposal, who is our franchise that, uh, has the contract to clean, you know, take, collect the waste, call it and dispose of it. Um. There's there's been other another booming industry of these dumpsters recycling whatever else and sunshine doesn't necessarily want to have all of that. And so this allows us the ability to to kind of Not regulate it, but to not regulate it to say, you know, this is the, this is the market just follow our right away code and we're good. And so if it's 90 days, this seems to be causing more problems. We're actually more concerned about the impact of the streets because they're dumping those dumpsters on hot asphalt or backing into the curbs or whatever. So I'm amenable to come back if this needs to be adjusted to 120 or whatever is not deemed temporary. Okay.

Hey, Clark Brockney.

approving the second or first second and third readings of city ordinance number 4971 an ordinance of the city of lewiston amending lewiston city code section 17-1 adding the definition of temporary project amending lewiston city code section 17-19 relating to the ownership of solid waste and recyclable materials enacting a new lewiston city code section 17-25 relating to the regulation of temporary project service amending lewis and city code section 17-26 related to licensing and restrictions on operations and providing an effective date thank you thank you council next we move to third readings

C2A, Ordinance 4973, considering amending Ordinance 4950, the annual appropriation ordinance for the fiscal year being October 1, 2025, and ending September 30, 2026, appropriating additional monies that are to be received in the sum of $17,315,900. This is an action item. Our finance director, Amy Gordon, is here tonight. Council, otherwise I would entertain a motion. We've seen this twice before. All right, that's their Maury motion away the third reading in full of ordinance 49 73 and approved the reading by Second I'm moved by councillor Maury second by councillors pick mark to weigh the third reading and full of ordinance 49 73 and I've proved the reading by title only those in favor. Please signify by saying aye opposed Motion carries council. I'm gonna assume there are no amendments. I To that clerk rocky.

approving the third reading of city ordinance number 4973, an ordinance of the city of Lewiston amending ordinance number 4950, the annual appropriation ordinance for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2025 and ending September 30, 2026, appropriating additional monies that are to be received by the city of Lewiston, Idaho in the sum of $17,315,900, directing the city clerk to file a certified copy of this ordinance with the Nez Perce County Board of County Commissioners and providing an effective date.

Thank you. Thank you, clerk rocky council. Next, we move to item B, ordinance 4974 to be termed the 2027 annual appropriation ordinance, considering appropriating sums of money authorized by law and deemed necessary for all general and special municipal purposes. City Lewis for the fiscal year commencing October 1, 2026 and ending September 30, 2027. This is an action item. Again, our finance director, Amy Gordon, is here. Otherwise, council, I would entertain a motion.

Mayor.

Councillor Spicklemyer.

Motion to waive the third reading in full of ordinance number 4974 and approve the reading by title only. Second.

It's been moved by Councillor Spicklemyer, seconded by Councillor Wright, to waive the third reading in full of ordinance number 4974 and approve the reading by title only. Those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye. Excuse me, Mayor. Did you want to provide for any amendments, if possible?

I do, thank you, council.

Councillor Spickemeyer. Can't hear you. What's that? Did you have an amendment tonight, Councillor?

I did not. You did not, OK. I had discussion, no.

OK. Are there any amendments or discussion?

I guess just for clarity, basically for the public, that this final vote will be for a reading. It'll be the property tax revenue limited to the 2026 budget with the exception of the new construction and annexation. It isn't the 4% property tax.

Councilor, if there are no amendments.

Discussion there?

There is discussion, Councilor.

I've heard quite clearly that people want to see a reduction, that we have had people who came forward and spoke that said that I will volunteer to do this. Collaboration versus competition is how we're going to solve these problems. I didn't run to get elected to sit here and take heat, but I knew that that was going to be part of it. I'm not the smartest man in the room, and I'll tell you right now, I'm not. I expect people to be willing to help, to step up, step forward. My neighbor who was speaking about the weeds has been on me for three years about the weeds. He owns a weed eater and a lawnmower. I don't. I've got rock around all of my property for a reason. The neighbors that have the weed problems also have health problems. They're in their eighties. We should be helping 1 another to solve these problems. Another thing that I've learned since I've been sitting on the council. And mayor correct me if I'm wrong, but this is your budget and our job to approve or. Reject is that correct?

The mayor sets brings you the initial, but at the 1st reading, and then from there, the Council puts their fingerprints on it and designs the budget that they would like it to be.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Likewise, the citizens that have made comments have also had their input as well. And I've not other than Joe Merck saying that he would. support a small increase, and Dan saying that he would support a small increase, nobody has. My pockets are just as shallow as anybody else's. I'm wearing clothes that are almost 20 years old because I don't go buy new clothes because I don't believe in it. I do live within my means, and I do live within my budget. I have not taken Financial Peace University, but I do follow Dave Ramsey, and I do follow a lot of his principles. Yes, it's just like the Bible. If I only follow part of it, it's only going to work part way. But we need to make sure that we have the citizens' input, cooperation, and collaboration to get these problems solved, to identify the problems that we have, to make the cuts that need to be made, and to move forward in a way that's going to benefit the community and not tax people out of their homes. I put a home project on hold because of the equity buy-ins, simply because of that. It's more than I care to spend. I'm having a hard time with your Facebook post about over the last four years, you've only asked for 3%, and I'm not attacking you personally, but I'm sharing with you how I feel and how others who have spoke with me feel. You led on early with this being a tough budget cycle that we were going to have some tough choices to make, and then we come out and ask for a 4% increase. I'm not saying that you and the department heads didn't do your fair, job and didn't do your job well but that's not what the people of the city are hearing and that's not what they want to hear if they want services cut i don't know who decided to cut the sunday service at the transfer station as a cost savings measure But why not? Let's do two days. Let's do Tuesday and Wednesday. You know, we've got two days during the work week that maintenance can be done to the transfer station. So the county landfill is open. We still have curb service. That's the type of feedback that we need from the community that we need to have in order to make good decisions. I make bad decisions all the time and my wife engages me afterwards and lets me know that it was a bad decision because I didn't collaborate with her ahead of time. But That that's all I got to say. Thank you.

Thank you counsel.

Further discussion council.

hearing none all for the motion so clerk rocky I'll ask you to read the title please you still need a motion or the vote sorry did I miss the vote there the

The vote was what was halted. So you have a motion on the table to waive the third reading in full of ordinance 4974 and approve the reading by title only made by Councillor Spickelmeyer and seconded by Councillor Wright.

And we had a motion by Councilor Spicklemyer, second by Councilor Wright to waive the third reading in full. The ordinance 4974, approve the reading by title only. We had our discussion. No amendments. Those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Ms. Brockie?

Approving the third reading of City ordinance number 4974, an ordinance of the city of Lewiston to be termed the 2027 annual appropriation ordinance, appropriating sums of money authorized by law and deemed necessary for all general and special municipal purposes of the city of Lewiston, Idaho for the fiscal year commencing October 1, 2026 and ending September 30, 2027, directing the city clerk to file a certified copy of this ordinance with the county commissioners and providing an effective date.

Thank you, clerk rocky. Thank you, council. Thank you public for the discussion. Council, we next move to Item C, Ordinance 4975, concerning fixing and establishing the tax certification on all taxable properties situated within the corporate limits of the City of Lewiston for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2026 and ending September 30, 2027, for the purpose of providing and raising monies for municipal and corporate purposes, providing for certification to the Board of County Commissioners of Nashville County, in the amount of $25,095,770, providing a certified copy of the 2027 Annual Appropriation Ordinance to the Board of County Commissioners of Nez Perce County, Idaho, as adopted by the City of Lewiston for the 2026-2027 fiscal year. This is an action item. And again, our fiscal, our finance director, city treasurer, Ms. Amy Gordon, is here if you have questions. Otherwise, council have to entertain a motion.

Mayor.

Councilor Spickmeyer.

Motion to waive the third reading in full of ordinance number 4975 and approve the reading by title only. Second.

And moved by Council Spickmeyer seconded by Councilor Wright to waive the third reading in full of ordinance number 4975 and approve the reading by title only. Is there discussion or amendments?

City Council Chambers and City Council Chambers just for the public information, because I've not been here for everyone, or I might get confusing with the numbers. Original number was 26,000 26,000,085,000, or sorry, 85,940. And now the new proposed that Council Spickman brought it's 25,095,770. So that was the decrease just to make sure that that was clear.

Councilors, further discussion or amendments?

Mr. Mayor.

Councilor Wright.

I'd just like to thank Councilor Specklemyer for his work on finding a way to reduce this budget. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Councillor.

Those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. Clerk Rockey?

Proving the third reading of City Ordinance number 3975, an ordinance of the City of Lewiston fixing and establishing the tax certification on all taxable properties situated within the corporate limits of the City of Lewiston for the fiscal year commencing October 1, 2026, and ending September 30, 2027, for the purpose of providing and raising monies for municipal and corporate purposes, providing for the tax certification to the Board of County Commissioners of Nez Perce County, Idaho, in the amount of $25,095,770, directing the city clerk to file a certified copy of this ordinance with the county commissioners and providing an effective date.

Clerk Crockett, would you read the total dollar amount one more time for my benefit, please?

$25,095,770. Thank you.

Council, next we move to item three, adoption and approval of ordinance summary item A, ordinance 4971. This is an action item. Please.

Mayor?

Councilor Wright?

Motion to adopt ordinance number 4971 and approve the related ordinance summary.

Second.

It's been moved by Councilor Wright, seconded by Councilor Forsman to adopt ordinance 4971 and approve the related ordinance summary. Clerk Rocky?

Councilor Wright? Aye. Councilor Forsman? Aye. Councilor Klein? Nay. Councilor Morey?

Aye.

Councilor Spickelmeyer?

Aye.

And carries. Thank you, council. Next, we move to item four, adoption. Item A, ordinance 4973. Item B, ordinance 4974. Item C, ordinance 4975. Council.

Mayor.

Councilor Speckemeyer.

Motion to adopt ordinance number 4973, 4974, and 4975. Second.

And moved by Councillor Spicklemyer, seconded by Councillor Wright to adopt Ordinance Numbers 4973, 4974, and 4975. Clerk Brockie?

Councillor Wright?

Aye.

Councillor Forsman? Aye. Councillor Klein? Aye. Councillor Morey?

Aye.

Councillor Spicklemyer?

Aye.

motion carries thank you council council next we move to roman number six public hearings related action items item a is a public hearing on foregone taxes accepting testimony on the consideration of utilizing a portion of foregone taxes for maintenance and operation expenses and consideration of accruing foregone tax that is reserving the right to recover foregone tax for the fiscal year ending september 30 2020 Kevin, this is an action item. We have our finance director and city treasurer, Miss Amy Gordon, with us here tonight. Counsel, I will ask Director Gordon to give you a presentation on this. Before doing that, I'll open the public hearing. We'll accept testimony from the public. If there is any tonight, you'll have three minutes to provide your testimony. Counselors, just as a reminder, no additional... evidence or testimony may be received once the public hearing is closed so this is the time to ask questions you might have with the public the applicant and or the staff and then i will close the public hearing so council with that i'm going to open the public hearing and turn it over to amy gordon welcome director

Thank you, Mayor, members of council, Amy Gordon, city treasurer. So each year, as council works through their budget process, they have a couple of options in regards to foregone taxes. What foregone taxes are is any amounts that the city chooses not to levy that year that they had the ability to levy. So any available taxes that they did not levy, they have the right to reserve that to levy in a future year. In addition, if council were to utilize foregone taxes with the support of their upcoming budget, they would also by form of resolution need to make that declaration that they were utilizing foregone taxes. Based off the budget that council just approved, there are no foregone taxes included in the budget. And they had taxes available that they could have levied that they did not utilize to support next year's budget. That amount is because you did no additional amendments to your budget tonight, the amount that is available to reserve is the one that was the same amount that was in your Council agenda item, which is $559,181 um. Typically the your foregone amount available to reserve would equal the unleveled unleveyed 3% base allowance Should you not have? Utilized at all. However this year the city's personal property tax replacement allocation from the state increased by approximately $200,000 so that's the difference between your 3% allowance of 750,000 and the 550,000 that's stated in your council agenda item and The resolution that was provided to Council in your packet is we leave that amount blank because we don't know what Action Council will take tonight on the budget. But because you didn't make any additional amendments to the budget tonight, that $559,181 is the amount that's available to Council to reserve. and then what that will happen is those monies will get reported to the state tax commission they'll make a record that the council did not utilize those taxes in support of their budget and it will add into your foregone balance that would be available to a future year i also want to point out that there are some restrictions on how council can use those in future years they can't go and pull their whole balance of foregone taxes to put into a budget year You're restricted on how much you can take out of foregone taxes in any given budget year. You're restricted to 4%, but you're only allowed to use 1% to support operational needs. If you ever utilize the 1% to support your operations, those dollars will stay in your tax base. They'll be an ongoing amount within your tax base. If you utilize it for capital you're allowed to take 3% you get to use it one time and then it drops out of your tax base. But that's just for information, so that the public understands what foregone taxes are and so that both the Council and the public understand any restrictions that you have in using those taxes and future years. Unless you have any questions for me that's what I have for you tonight.

councilors.

And Mr. Mayor.

Councillor Wright.

So just to make sure I understand, because it's been a year, the insert, the dollar amount, is that saying we need to insert a dollar amount in case we want to use it in next year's budget?

Yep. I should have been a little more clear. Council has the ability to reserve up to $559,181. Council can choose to reserve that full amount. They can choose to reserve a lesser amount. They can choose to reserve none of that.

Mr. Mayor, can I follow up? Yes, you're right. And what is reserving that amount do? Is that just letting the state know we could get foregone taxes in next fiscal year? We're reserving the right to do it. Or does it have some kind of an impact on the way people are taxed?

So the city has a history of not automatically increasing their property tax base by the 3%. So they have had many years over their history where they have reserved taxes within the available foregone balance at the state. What that means is you're going to report the amount that you didn't use in your budget that you would reserve for the future. And we're just making a record with the state tax commission that says, here's our tax certification form. This is what we did not utilize. Please make a record so maybe in a future year we could utilize those taxes. So state tax commission takes a record of those. And then we have the ability to include those taxes in a future year within those restrictions. But it's not, you're not adding these taxes to the levy this year. These are taxes that could have been added to the levy that you did not add to the levy. Now you have to decide if you want to reserve those to levy in a future year.

Mayor.

Councilor Forsman.

And or choose not to levy it, right? Where we basically say we don't want to use it. We're not going to.

Yeah, I mean, what this council's decision would be is, do you want to give a future council the ability to utilize those taxes in a future year?

What is our current foregone balance?

It's 3.4 million.

I'm sorry, how much?

3.4 million.

The air conditioning.

Which we can only pull 4% of that. And one person then that's a one time for all and then the 1% to our tax base correct.

know if you can use 1% to support operations that would be ongoing in your tax base and then 3% for capital that's a one time levy.

It would take a long time to get through 3.4 million. On that other.

Mayor.

Councilor Morey.

Amy, whenever this foregone taxes is sitting there and we don't utilize it, it's just in an interest-bearing account.

No, it's not real money because you're not levying it. So you haven't levied it. We haven't collected it from taxpayers. It's just a record with the state of Idaho that says, here's our tax certification. These are the dollars we did not levy. Please make a record so we have the potential to levy in the future.

Thank you for the clarification.

If you have no question, I would invite any testimony from the public. Same rules introduce yourself for the record city of residence and then you'll have.

up to three minutes to uh present your information your comments to us so welcome yep travis makes lewiston it's more of a question for amy amy so um if tonight it doesn't matter how that they reserve the foreground taxes do they have to say it's for operations or do they have to say it's for capital tonight

So what council is doing tonight is making a decision whether they want to reserve taxes or not. If they reserve them tonight, then in the future years when they are considering utilizing them in support of their budget, that's when they would determine if they're going to use it for operational or capital needs.

We get the gentleman's name again. We couldn't hear it. Thank you.

Tobe Finch, resident of Lewiston, Idaho. So just a quick question, because I don't know if I'm fully understanding that a future 3% is of the total that's in there, of the $3.4 million. Is that right?

If Council reserves the full amount they have available, it would add to the $3.4 million. So they would have roughly $4 million that they could utilize in a future year budget. Based on the restrictions, they couldn't utilize all of it in one year budget. They would be able to utilize 1% of their current tax base, which is about $250,000.

which is similar to what was asked for here. We were limited to a 3% increase, but because of foregone, there was an ask for 4%. Right.

Yeah. The original proposed budget had the 3% that you can grow your base plus the 1% of foregone.

So based on what's currently in the foregone base or whatever, what would be the most that the council could ask for?

So they're restricted to 4% in total on foregone, which is roughly about $960,000.

In addition to the 3% that they could get just on a normal average. Correct.

Just have a historical question. Has the city ever utilized foregone taxes? And if they have, when was the last time? Just curious.

I think we utilized them last year. We utilized 1% for operational needs last year. It we've utilized it before. I think believe 2018 or 2019 the rules were different at that time, and they took a pretty good chunk of foregone taxes, I think, in excess of $1,000,000.

Thank you.

Can we please get the gentleman's name for the record?

Trent Morgan in the orchards Lewiston.

Councilor, do you have questions for Amy or for any of the comments we received? Yeah, Mr. Mayor. Councilor Wright?

So if I'm understanding this correctly, the risk I guess that kind of two sides of a coin. If I make a motion to reserve the right to recover the full $559,181, if there was some sort of an emergency, I'm helping put more money into that foregone taxes, although we have enough now to get... The 4%, but I don't know, maybe some point down the road. The other side of the coin is if there was some council that wanted to spend a whole bunch of money, there's some more money that they could spend given enough years of spending 4%. Am I summarizing the

My risk decision here, I would probably agree with those statements yeah I mean you have the ability to give you some additional funding if you needed it for capital or operational needs, but then you also have the ability to restrict. What a future Council can do in regards to growing their tax base.

And follow up Mr. Mayor, you said roughly 3.4Million is currently in the current balance.

Yes.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Oh, I should to give you the exact amount is 3,490,688 dollars.

City Council, Mayor Mario filipucci loose and orchards quick question, just so my tiny brain can understand. Are we, these are taxes that have not been collected. So, but we're banking debt on the taxpayer. That correct.

There are taxes that were decided not to levy, so they were never levied, collected. There's no real dollars being held anywhere. There's no money the city would ever have to pay back on those. But it is definitely money that the city can levy in a future year to add to your tax bill.

Okay. Thank you.

Mr Mayor, councillors dan young what would be a circumstance when that would happen like last year, why was that 1% used.

Last year, the budget included. 1% foregone taxes that went to support the new positions added at the police department. And that was operational so those money stay in the budget because they're supporting operational needs that are ongoing.

Tope Finch, Lewiston. So did we hire that person? Yes. We did. I thought there were some vacancies on that police.

So we added three police positions last year. We filled all the positions. Police was fully staffed. When we were looking at making reductions to the budget this year, we had vacancies in that department. So of the three positions we added last year, one was removed.

OK, if we had not hired somebody to fill that, could that money have been used for something else?

Can you speak this way? I cannot hear you.

I'm sorry. I just, it feels weird.

He can hear you if you talk into the microphone.

It feels weird talking to you, and she's behind me. But anyway, well, I just want to know if we, you know, would you say if that 1% was for a position that we didn't hire, this is just for my own education, and we didn't hire, could that money be used for just general expenses inside the police department, maybe just reallocated for a different purpose?

Once the budget is set we have you know we have our personnel budget terry accounts, and then we have our operating budgetary accounts in our capital staff, meaning directors. We don't have the ability to move money from our personnel budgets down into our offering budgets or capital budgets without the mayor's approval. Usually when we see that happen is if we have vacancies and we choose to outsource the labor. So, for example, we might use laborers, the Department of Corrections. So we rather than hiring seasonal staff, we transfer that down to contracted services and contract out the labor.

Mr. Mayor, just one more question so I can be absolutely sure here. So if I made a motion reserving the right to recover and I said zero dollars of fiscal year 2027, seven's foregone tax increase, if an emergency situation was on the horizon and we're in budget next year, we say, okay, we've got to take some foregone taxes. We still can do that because of the three point, close to 5 million that's already reserved.

The 3.4 million that you already have reserved at the state tax commission would remain.

Perfect. Okay. I understand.

Mayor.

Councilor Forsman.

It probably a rough match or rough math and it's probably not totally right because I probably maybe have any starting number not right but on a rough number from what I can tell it would take 33 about 33 years to go through our foregone balance pulling the maximum I believe of the 3%.

I think it would be 1% is equivalent about 250,000. So if you included 4% of foregone and you're budget each year, that would be roughly $1 million, so you could utilize it in less than four years. Less than four years. Four years' time.

It's 3% of the budget.

And it's 3% of your base budget, so it may not be $250,000 next year. It might be $255,000. Right.

It's not 3% of the million.

Right. I think that's where my math went wrong. Okay. That's what your property tax base is. Right.

Okay.

Okay. Anyone from the public that would like to provide comments? Speak loud and clear into the microphone, please.

Travis Meeks, Lewiston. I think saying no to this or keeping it zero is basically telling this council and future councils that we want to tighten the budget. We want to slow down the taxes.

Councilor's last opportunity.

Amy, do you have any closing comments for us? Oh, okay. I'm going to close the public hearing. Thank you. Councilors, that takes us to item B, resolution 2026, staff. 48, considering whether to reserve some or all of the current year's allowable foregone amount for potential use in subsequent years, according to Idaho Code 63-802, sub 1, sum f. Again, this is an action item. We've heard from our city treasurer, Amy Gordon. So you can make a motion to approve all or none of it.

VICE CHAIRMAN MILLER?

Councilor Mori?

I can make a motion to approve Resolution 2026-48, reserving the right to recover $0, a physical year 2027's foregone increase in the subsequent year.

Oh, okay. I think we got this. I got this wrong, Councilor Moore. Jennifer, you want to have a sound?

Mayor Jennifer Tingano, City Attorney, if the Council would like to not reserve any foregone taxes, then this resolution should fail and we will not need to pass any resolution because our opportunity to pass the resolution will pass. So if the intent of the Council is to not reserve any foregone taxes, then we should just let the resolution fail. And nothing will be passed.

Yes, sir.

Withdraw my motion.

Thank you. Counselor, do we have a motion? Hearing none, we're going to move on. Thank you, counsel. That brings us to roll number seven, items moved from the consent agenda. Counselor Wright.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Let me scroll up. All right, I had three questions on here. So on page two of two, this was for the police department, if they could just help me understand this.

Find it. For the delay, numbers are a little different on my other computer, I think, maybe. Ah, there it is.

The Celebrite Inc. The subscriptions to the... I n s e y ETS the $10,740 so I looked into that and it seems like a cell phone decryption we got evidence collection. Do we have anyone from the deplete police department that I could ask a question to.

Can answer the phone sorry.

Captain Reese welcome.

Chris Reese with the Police Department. To answer your question, to best my knowledge, yes. Cellbrite is used for our forensic digital evidence. So if we have evidence on a cell phone, such as CSAM, child pornography, anything of that nature that we need to extract, it's that Cellbrite software that we use to extract that information.

Gotcha. Is this something that and maybe it's a good candidate for a working session? I'm not sure. But is this something where we can partner with the county or. We send the phone off up to Spokane to there. I think they've got, uh. They've got a, or the FBI cart lab. There seems to be a couple of different options where. changing the subscription. I was just curious about pricing, if there's a way to.

To be very transparent with you, that's not my forte. That is something that my supervisors in the investigation section will be able to answer more for you. I know that we use Sellbrite a lot. I know that it is a valuable tool that we do use. If there's other options out there that we can explore, I'm sure that we have done that.

Jennifer Tingano, City Attorney. I just want to add on to that. One of the primary concerns would be chain of custody for evidentiary purposes. So once that cell phone were to leave the custody of the Lewiston Police Department, the ability to use that as a piece of evidence, including any information contained on it, could potentially be destroyed. So if there is a mishap in transporting that, then that item and any information it contains would be useless for the purposes of prosecution or seeking to assess any charges related to any information that may be or is believed to contain on that device. Typically, when you see that kind of information transported between agencies, it's in person and not through any kind of mail. So we have had partnerships with Moscow Police Department in the past related to sharing some of their I don't remember the name, but the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. And my understanding is that they have to physically transport the devices back and forth and do the chain of custody to maintain it for prosecution purposes. So also there's limitations on the information that we share with other departments. So with our systems that we use, it's called Spillman. We have a system called CC Dems as well. That's also a part of Spillman, and that's how we keep evidence. But even that information, we keep control over it. and we don't let other agencies just have free access to it they have to be certified to have criminal information criminal justice information systems access and there's a variety of different levels even the access that i have to those systems is limited to the specific purposes of prosecution and i don't have free reign access to that system because it's very limited and it's controlled gotcha okay i'll i'll follow up i don't want to

take up too much time on that that's great thank you the the next one that I had was well let me see let me I'll skip down since this is another just police question I was just curious about this when I saw the saw the amount so it's page page six of ten here And it was, let's see, $7,036 and change. And it was the animal shelter contract. And so I was just curious, is that, is this yearly? Just kind of end of year, end of fiscal? We're tying things up here? Or is this a...

City Council Chambers, Jennifer to go city attorney, this is actually a contracted service that the city has with the animal shelter, and so, when we have animals that are seized through. City Council Chambers, Animal control they we pay them this base fee. For them to take the animal from us, because otherwise we would be tasked with housing and sheltering those animals until the owners come and pick them up and we don't have those kind of facilities. At the city at this time, I can tell you that this contract is a yearly contract and it's very likely that it'll come up within the next year for renegotiation and renewal.

Gotcha. And that that's mainly what I wanted to check that this was because I hadn't seen it before.

It's just making sure it's not such a low value contract based on the purchasing policy that the city has. It's not typically a fee that would go to the city council for consideration because it's less than $10,000 annually. And it took about two years just to get to the $7,000 figure. My understanding is that the animal shelter, their own costs to provide these services and even the city's asks of them about having a veterinarian on staff and some other different aspects does increase their costs. And so as a result, it could potentially increase the cost of the service, but in trying to find a mutually beneficial We've been able to keep the costs very fairly low and they're also able to recoup some of their costs from the pet owner themselves.

Perfect all right, and then last one, I promise is is not for the police department. it's page four this one is probably for. For dustin. This was 7,985. This was Guardian Plumbing, Heating, and Air Conditioning, Fitness, ADCOPE, Service Line Replacement. And I was trying to understand, why am I reading ADCOPE and fitness? Do we have some kind of setup where I didn't understand why it was even on here.

For water.

No, for water.

I don't know. Um, all I'll say is, uh, typically. The city is responsible for the lines, you know, obviously the water, the water main in the street is the responsibility. City is also responsible for the service line as it comes off the main. And then into the meter and so anything. From the meter into the house of the structure is the property owners. We handle everything from the meter to the main. So that may be a replacement of the. meter pit the service line that goes to that address a couple times a year and do we like i thought we did this kind of work no but no a lot of times it requires a plumber and i think actually this one this may have been the fire service line I remember it a little bit, but we don't do plumbing. I mean, it's funny. We run a water system. We do water mains, but yeah, you get some of this stuff where you have pressures and valves and private property. And so if it's a fire service line or something into the meter pit, we will hire a plumber for those specific instances. We get probably a half dozen, maybe not even that, a year where it's just... Coming off the main and a lot of times, especially downtown, we did one for the Lewis and Clark Hotel probably three years ago where that service line was coming in right there. It was leaking. You don't touch that, but the meter pit was inside the building, and so we don't touch that. I got you.

Okay. That makes sense why we'd see the name there because it is specific to there. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for allowing me to do that. I would make a motion to approve the vouchers payable.

Second.

I move by Councilor Wright, seconded by Councilor Forsman, to approve vouchers payable. Clerk Brockley.

Councilor Wright. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Councilor Forsman?

Just for clear transparency, when we're walking out of this room today, we obviously went for a zero percent budget increase, but that does not mean your property taxes aren't going to see an increase due to the way the assessed value works. And I think the system, and many have said it, the system is not working for us and it is broken. And it needs work to how can we make it so we can get a hold of taxes for everyone involved. I personally have looked into other cities and other states that do taxing ways. We're on a levy system. The city of Utah, for instance, is on more of a transparent type of taxing system where they raise your taxes. You know who does it because they send it in the mail. They tell you why it's raising. And it only raises when that taxing entity raises it, not based on assessed value. Some other cities go every five years they assess your property instead of yearly, which I think is a huge, would have been a huge help, especially that spike we saw during COVID. I have personally wrote my legislators with the idea of why we don't adopt Utah taxing system. From what I've gathered, some of the discussion was the cost of sending the mail to citizens. was against it. I still need to look more into it and continue to advocate and write, but I also encourage you guys to ask your legislators why they're not looking at other taxing systems and ways of working the budget. This is kind of a huge portion of why when the city of Lewiston didn't raise our taxes for three whole years, you guys still saw a huge increase in your taxes, and we are still living on a very tight budget. So this is a kind of fix us all by continuing to go zero. It's not going to fix you guys and it's not going to fix us. And so we need to see growth and we need to work on the way our taxing is working. I will say for a final note, we have seen some growth. It is slow, but we have seen a couple new manufacturers come in. Hobby Lobby came in. was a Denny's came in by below. So we're seeing we are seeing growth, maybe not as fast as the amount of assessed values going. We're not getting that, but we are slowly seeing growth and I know. Our Council very dedicated on trying to make sure growth is happening and hearing you guys out. The last thing i'll know is the county and the city are working more together now several this counselors are working directly with the county finding ways we can share resources. and working through our budgets, I know other cities have been successful and sharing resources with their county and have worked on ways that they can cut the overall budget for the citizens, so I will continue to do that and i'm. Work on ways to help make this work, so I know we're not the only city facing this all the cities in Idaho are facing this problem and are having to figure out how to stress their dollar more and more so. or to work on so appreciate all you guys for being here for coming and speaking your mind. And I understand the need to just express your frustrations, and that is why we have public comment we want you guys to be here. You know we don't take offense to it just means we have more work to do, so I appreciate you guys being here, especially this late late night so. You guys all have a good night after this.

Thank you, Councillor. Further council comments? City boards and commissions, liaison updates.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We had the airport board meeting last Tuesday. Some of the main topics we've got the city county meeting on the MGR. So this is very specific to the airport will be on August 10th. That'll be at the courthouse or August September 10th. Apologies. And we are continuing to see that we have more employment or more passengers. And this is the third month in a row that we beat last year's numbers. One of the stats that's jumping out is that we have a 15% higher arrival than departure. This has a lot to do with the cruise ships, is what I'm told. If we had a later night flight, we would be able to do the departures of those cruise ship passengers as well. So, I mean, it is something the airport's aware of, and just got to find a way to get that later flight, and then we can capture that, those passengers as well. Other than that, it was kind of regular business approving some contracts and that's all I've got.

Thank you, Council. Further comments? Councilors, boards, commissioners, layoffs and updates? Councilor Forsman?

URA mainly went over their budgeting and assigning or approving their amendments and budgets similar to what we were doing today and right now. So that was very clear meeting and discussion. And then the Disability Advisory Board went over, well, UGM, Union Gospel Mission came in and spoke on their services and how they do them and what their criterias are. That was a pretty good in-depth discussion on how they run their facility, and we were able to ask a lot of questions. I believe at either the next one or the next one after that, we are going to actually go to the facility and get a tour of how it's going. And that's basically the reason the Disability Advisory Board was interested in that, is to see what kind of services do they offer disabled that are experiencing homelessness or rough times. So that was where the main topic of the Disability Advisory meeting.

Thank you, counselor. Next up is item C, Mayor Cummings, and I, too, would just like to say thank you for everyone's participation. It's your government, and it works best when you show up and you're part of that. So I appreciate that. I appreciate the opportunity to serve you. Again, you're welcome to come down to City Hall. I'm there most days, and you don't need an appointment. Just walk up, they'll find me, and I'd be interested in hearing from you. Councilor, that brings us to item D, agenda topics. Councilor Klein?

I'd like to move to add the potential for electricity cost savings to the agenda on September 7th.

Second.

Councilor Klein, I don't think we have a meeting on the 7th. We do not.

Next work session, then.

It'd be the first Monday in October, so I don't have the date.

Oh, in October? OK. Do I need to amend my motion?

Just give us the date.

October 5th.

October what?

October 5th.

OK. And would you restate the motion, then, please?

Yep. I move to add the potential for electricity cost savings through the agenda on October 5th.

Second.

OK. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you.

Can I do another one?

You may do another one.

Can I also move to add a presentation from staff about our flock cameras? Second.

Do you have a date for that, counselor?

October 5th as well.

Did you get that?

The motion was to add a presentation about flock cameras to the October 5th.

October 5th, yeah.

Question?

Those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Mayor? Councilor Spickemeyer?

I'd like to make a motion to add the Bryden Avenue planning and funding discussion to the October 5th work session. Second.

Councilors, you heard the motion. Did you capture that, Clerk Rockey? Those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Councilors, further agenda topics? If not, we move to Roman numeral nine. I move to adjourn.

Second.

It's been moved by Councilor Wright, seconded by Councilor Forsman to adjourn. Those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye. Opposed? We stand adjourned. Thank you, Council.