City Council - Regular Meeting

Well good evening everybody and welcome to the Lewiston City Council special meeting. This is the time and place as advertised. Our first order of business please. Thank you. Our first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance. We're going to be led by our Pledge of Allegiance tonight by our fire chief. I don't know why this happens. I've got two microphones on. You still can't hear me, huh? Wow. Is this better if I just hold it? I'm going to do this tonight. Okay. We're going to be led in the Pledge of Allegiance by our Fire Chief, Greg Reitmeyer. Please join us in reciting our pledge. Thank you.

Ready? Begin.

Thank you, chief.

All right, thank you.

We have a full house tonight. Thank you 1 and all for being with us here tonight. Our next order of business is citizen comments. This is an opportunity for individuals wishing to comment on agenda items or other matters. They wish to bring to the council's attention. Excluding those scheduled for public hearing. Individuals are encouraged to speak at this time. Individuals are encouraged to discuss operational issues in advance with the mayor. In consideration of others wishing to speak commentary is limited to 3 minutes. We have the clock going in an operator in the back that will help us with that. Also, Lewis and city council pledges to practice and promote civility within the governing body, advocating for civil engagement, respecting others in their viewpoints. And finding solutions for the betterment of the city. So, with that, I'm going to open citizen comments tonight. We have a microphone in the middle of the floor here. And what we'll ask you to do is just introduce yourself for the record. We don't need your physical address. So if you live in Lewiston, just say, Dan Johnson, I live in Lewiston. If you're from some other place, that's fine too. Just your name, your city of residence, and then we will open it up. So with that, please remember, like I'm trying to do, to speak loudly and clearly into the microphone. You may have to get right up on that. Oh, no, I'm good. Try to enunciate your words. So with that, welcome.

Thank you, Cindy Ball, Lewiston, Normal Hill. Got it? Okay, I prepared something. Good evening, mayor, council members. My name is Cindy Ball and I live in Normal Hill. The city of Lewiston is persistently accused by the public of being the highest tax district in the state. Year after year, this council is left scrambling to justify its expenses to angry citizens. If we are the highest taxed county in the state, the one question I have not heard is why don't we have the resources? I'm here to give you what I suspect is the real answer. We've had the same assessor for 30 years. However, in 2001, Idaho adopted the computer-assisted mass appraisal software Proval. I don't know what was used before, but I can tell you this software algorithm is badly broken. Tonight I'm submitting two independent data studies into the formal public record. The first is a nine year value to tax growth study of 30 homes within my neighborhood, which I personally presented to the county assessor and commission on July 1st. The second is the 54 home study of properties that actually sold in Normal Hill between March and December of 2025. Both studies have revealed that almost 50% of the single family homes are under assessed while simultaneously 20% or more are grossly over assessed. The city has somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 single family homes with approximately 67 occupied by homeowners. Normal Hill is rich with Class 3 and Class 4 homes. Both studies reveal the exact same structural failure. Higher end Class 4 homes are handed massive under-assessment discounts while modest Class 3 economy homes are aggressively over-assessed to pick up the slack. The state of Idaho mandates all properties must be assessed at 100% of estimated market. Without manual correction of the software data, levy increases are not carried fully by all. A more hands make lighter work mentality, if you will. If 50% of the workforce are out to lunch, the remaining workers are overburdened. In this case, the overburdened are the Class 3 economy homeowners. Since the Class 3 homes are the largest and most uniform base with respect to volume and sales data, a small tweak to the software on those homes can harvest necessary dollars far faster. Since Idaho is a budget-based driver, the city, county, and schools still get their budgeted dollars, but it is coming at the expense of our largest base, the economy class three homeowners. Recently, while standing in front of the County Appeals Board, Commissioner Whitkey told me that the state was the actual gatekeeper. I took her at her word and these same figures should now be in the hands of the Idaho State Tax Commission. I felt it important to come before you tonight as you propose an additional 4% increase. If you vote to pass this 4% increase tonight, you are not distributing the burden equally. You are multiplying broken county calculation. You are forcing struggling economy class homeowners to subsidize the other 50%. I would urge this council to turn their attentions to the why behind these ongoing shortfalls table was increased choose not to build even more weight onto this fractured and unstable foundation. Let the state work with the county to find a path forward that returns this county to a fair and equitable revenue base. Your economy classroom homeowners. Well, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. I've read the budget guide and each of your messages and listened to last week's reading and I want to tell you my story and why your taxation strategy is unsustainable. The U.S. property tax has gone from 3,000 to a higher 7,000 in 25 years. That's a 3.5% increase per year and total increase of 133% on the original value of my home. In that same period of time, the U.S. inflation has been 88%. And the assessor told me it was awesome, my property value was increased. Problem is I'm not a realtor, I'm not a house flipper, it's my home. I'm a local state employee with an income well below six figures who the state didn't deem necessary to give any increase in pay this year, zero cost of living increase. My wife and I realized this year we will have paid over half of the 2003 purchase price of our home to the city in the 25 years since we bought it in taxes, $111,000. I do rattle down city roads. I don't have sewer. I don't have storm drain. I've never golfed. I don't use the pools. I rarely go to a local park. I don't play pickleball. I don't get to use the port. And I drive to Pullman now because we lost our contract too. Regarding the golf course, the city's equivalent of buying into a horrible timeshare contract, please start looking at getting out of it. To the budget, the projects you deem important, which are quite a few, it seems like absolutely critical infrastructure, hazard mitigation for our fire, police body cams for our cops are a priority. Parks? gym floors, community centers, that's a big ask in this economy. It would be wonderful to do everything that you want to do and I applaud your vision, but it's time to make really tough choices like we're doing. So next week as you vote, please consider the current economy, inflation, fuel costs, cost of living. We're bearing it all, like the 13 million dollar property tax over billing by the state of Idaho Tax Commission to Idaho Power and Avista. They get to sue for that, and we get to pay them back. We're told local and county tax districts are paying it back out of contingency funds or their budgets, but we all know what that means. That's us. Add stuff like the profit in D'Ali Airport settlements and money going to outsourced attorneys, it's on us. I would also like to note that in your budget guide, when you refer to state of Idaho revenues and state and federal grants, that is more of our money. It's our state and federal taxes on top of everything. I can afford to pay tax increase for now, and I'll pay it because my wife and I have made many financial sacrifices over the years in our personal budget. We've driven beater cars. We don't go on fancy vacations. We live in a house built in the 70s. I've never even taken my kids to Disneyland, which I'm going to hear about for the rest of my life. We sacrificed to finally own our home and our 1.8 acres in the orchards. We don't really own it because if we fell on hard times and couldn't pay our taxes, we would lose our home to the state. So here's what I propose. One, you city council and mayors, you're our elected officials. Decide what percent increase in property taxes you think we can burden and direct your employees to trim until you get there. And two, and I'm not being a smart aleck here, I suggest if you have not taken a Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University course, everybody involved in the budget should do that. It will organize your ability to know what the difference between needs and wants are and You can figure out how to trim a budget and live on what we can afford. I'm serious about that. I've taught it before. I'll schedule it and I'll even teach it. Thank you for your time.

Welcome.

Laura Morgan, Lewiston Orchards. This year America celebrated the 250th year of our independence. A list of grievances against King George are listed in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, one of which is that he, quote, imposed taxes on us without our consent. We know it better by the saying taxation without representation. I'm not saying you are King George ask, but I do want to remind you and encourage you to listen to the people of Lewiston who elected you. We have some valid concerns about the proposed raise in property taxes. My husband just told you how much we have spent over the years for services. We don't even utilize. At the end of this month, I'm officially retired from teaching. Property taxes are such a burden that it will take four months of me saving my entire retirement paycheck just to pay for our property taxes. And that's just one of the taxes that we have to pay. Is there some waste in the city's budget? Take, for example, speed limit signs with the new housing development on our street has become a racing strip. We attempted to get the city to put up a 25 mile an hour sign, but they said it's posted residential rule and everyone should know that. My husband and I got on Amazon and ordered two speed limit signs for $30. We had locates done, so we were safe, grabbed a T-post we had and got a sign in the ground. Pretty economical. A week later, city workers showed up and said we had to take it down and that they would do the locates. and then have a sign erected within three to four days. It's been three weeks and still no sign, but now I'm glad because for the city to do the same project that we did for under $50, it will cost, according to the city, $600. Do we really need to replace the gym floor of a facility that is rented out? How much revenue does spent gym actually generate? Is this worth the cost? Are there bigger priorities? Another issue is all the new builds in the orchards. A high price takes of these houses drives up the quote value of our property, but only for taxes sake. We explored the idea of selling a couple years ago and were told by Reuters that our place wasn't worth as much as we had a home built in the 70s. If you want real growth, as I have heard you declare, you need families who will be in our community long term. But families cannot afford home prices nor the taxes that go along with it. Retirees cannot afford to keep their home, but they have prudently paid off, all because our taxes keep going up. Aristotle said, quote, the ethical use of money is to create the greatest good for the greatest number of people, end quote. I entreat you to listen to the residents of Lewiston and turn the budget so we can keep more of our money for which we have toiled. Thank you.

Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Angela Howard. I live in Lewiston, Idaho. I am here to ask you to reconsider the proposed 4% tax increase. Our community is advertised as a wonderful place to retire. Each year it feels harder and harder, however, for retirees and working families to afford to stay here. Another tax increase may seem small on paper while you're doing your budget, but for those on fixed incomes, every increase matters. It adds to the growing cost of housing, utilities, insurance, groceries, and everything else fixed incomes are trying to pay. Many of us feel we've reached a point where taxpayers simply cannot absorb another increase. Before asking residents to pay more, I urge the city to look for ways to reduce spending, improve efficiency, and make the most of the tax dollars you have already collected. Please keep Lewiston affordable for the people who built this community, who live in this community and want to continue to call Lewiston Idaho home. I respectfully ask you to vote no on the 4% increase taxing. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Joe Mertz, City of Lewiston. Y'all have done a great job. We're not disputing that. But look at this turnout. I hope y'all listen to us. We believe the city needs to take a hard look at wants over needs. We know there's a lot of outdated facilities, but we believe the city is asking for way too much all at once and not looking far enough ahead to how certain upgrades now we may not need down the road If certain projects are funded, I mean, take, for example, the community park. I mean, why not hold off on it till the city can legally sell. A lot of the parks we already have, I know there's legal stuff behind that. Or how about if we don't hold off. Why not make the RV park in the. Um, tournament complexes priority. So it can start making revenue. And why not, I know it's out of the norm, but why not look into investigating naming rights for this park, for different facilities? In this economy, the city needs to reevaluate what they spend, put an immediate hiring freeze citywide. We have a ton of grants out there that have not been investigated because the city has not had a grant writer for some time. And it was out of sight, out of mind, kind of how we feel. We want this position eliminated immediately and start looking for grant firms to work with for the funds. The city needs for their want list and to cut down on the amount of city needs. To the budget for things such as police and fire. I mean, I know I looked the police or the fire. Have a grant writer that does their stuff. We believe property tax should not be the fallback plan vote. No. On property tax increase take this year to evaluate wasteful spending in every department. Then we can revisit this discussion in 28, but for 27, we, the citizens cannot support any property tax increase.

Thank you.

Welcome Gary Anderson Lewis and orchards for thirty eight years. I'm going to take a little different angle. I don't have a fancy prepared speech, but I've just seen my property taxes double. Several years, and the 1 that's going to most negatively impact is the retired people. They don't get a big increase in in their wages. Social security might go up 50 dollars a month form 100 dollars a month, but that's stripped by other costs. And and we're just pricing out of their homes. And then it also impacts our young people who are trying to rent. And their rentals go up because the taxes go up and kids can't make it anymore. I mean, it's terrible. I've heard story after story. And I think we're, we're missing the boat because we need to look at where the real problem is. This, this city has 0 growth. It's flat. If not negative and and we need to and I know that because I've talked to commissioners and everybody. About this in the past, and I think, you know, that Dan, I mean, I've known you for a long time, but. We're not business friendly. We've lost so many businesses in this community. If we could attract good businesses, but I've heard from very prominent people, business people that the zoning and planning is. Not easy to work with and it's white sir is a good example. They were going to build a big expansion here, but because it. was going to be too tough to deal with all the red tape, they went to Pullman and they're building a huge infrastructure there. And they went to Moscow and built an infrastructure there. You know, we could have used that here. But we're not business friendly. They make it hard on businesses to try to come in. And we have lost so many businesses. And if you want to increase taxes, let's get some good businesses in here. And then we'll track more people and then we'll have more people to help pay taxes instead of just. Falling the burden on us and just raising our taxes to where we can't, you know, I'm 71 years old. I'm looking at retiring next year, but I'm scared. Because it's going to take a big chunk of my. My retirement every year, just to pay taxes along with the other taxes and you say, yeah, your property values have gone up and you can sell. Great if you don't buy another place and now you've got capital gains tax and you're going to get hammered that you're just tax to death. So I encourage, you know, let's look at ways we can make this community business friendly. Instead of unfriendly, and I know we have the. Oh, the organization in town here, but we're really not adding many big businesses at all. And so we need to look at that and then we can then we'll have our taxes supplied for us. Anyway, thank you.

Thank you.

I am city attorney, but I'm also a Lewiston resident. As you consider the city's budget and look for opportunities to reduce expenses, I would ask that you also consider certain special projects that departments like the Lewiston Police Department may need additional funding to continue. One example is the removal and disposal of RVs that are unlawfully occupying the public right-of-way. These situations can create serious safety concerns for law enforcement, the individuals occupying the RVs and surrounding neighborhoods. Addressing them safely also comes at a significant cost. It costs approximately $250 to tow an RV to a location where it can be safely stored. If it is not reclaimed within the required period, about 30 days, the city must pay another $250 to have it towed for disposal. Disposal has historically cost around another $2,000 per RV. While the city hopes to reduce that amount closer to $1,000, the actual cost remains uncertain. As a result, each RV can cost the city approximately $1,500 to $2,500 to remove and dispose of. At this point, we have towed around seven RVs, which will cost an estimated $11,500 to $17,500. Currently, the Lewiston Police Department is using seizure funds to cover these expenses, but those funds are limited and can be used for other eligible law enforcement purposes. Recovering these costs is also unlikely. the people occupying these RVs often do not have the resources to reimburse the city and frequently are not even the registered owners. I would therefore ask the council consider allocating a portion of city reserves specifically for these costs or identifying another appropriate funding source from revenues the city already collects Such a certain public record request fees or right away permits more broadly, I think that this highlights an important issue as we discussed budget reductions. When the lowest in police department is asked to cut costs preventative and Community oriented policing activities are often among the first areas affected. Limited resources understandably must be prioritized towards responding to emergencies and investigating more serious crimes. But removing unlawfully placed armies is also a public safety issue. If we want officers to continue addressing these problems proactively, rather than waiting until they become more serious, we need to make sure that the Lewiston Police Department has the resources to do so. As you consider where the city can save money, I respectfully ask that you also consider where relatively small targeted investments can help the Lewiston Police Department continue their important work. Thank you.

Welcome. All right, thank you, Jim.

I'm going to ask you to step back, put the mic stand like everyone else. Yeah, thank you.

1st of all, I probably have the highest. Everybody in here, I would like to see a show. Over 10,000 dollars a year. And.

Anybody that pays over $8,000 a year, stand up. Anybody that pays over $7,000 a year, stand up. Because property taxes are based on the value of your house.

Do you use city services or not? Everybody uses the same city services. Everybody uses the same county services. My property taxes is approaching $12,000 a year. Probably in the top 10 of everybody in the city of Louisville. My research has shown that even in the county of Mythpurse, property taxes for Mythpurse County people are peanuts compared to what I have to pay for county taxes because it's based on the value of your house. There's people in the county that hundreds of acres, they pay less than $100 a year. I have 1 acre because the city requires me to have a 1 acre to have a subject. We are not in the suits. And because of that 1 acre, my county taxes. Are almost as equivalent to the city. Now, with that said. Why do I have to pay almost 10 times amount as most people in the city looked for the same services, the exact same services.

Thank you.

Excuse me, can we please have the gentleman's name for the record?

My name is David Bear. I live on Duffy Boulevard and we built a house in 2018-2019 and the assessor really loves our house.

So thank you.

Good evening. I'm Larry. No strength. Welcome Larry. I live in the orchards. I think we'd be, or we haven't beat it to death, but the tax issue. Is significant the other thing that goes on the heels of that. Is wise spending of those tax dollars. And my meager observation is. Given the failure of the reservoir. given some of the other things that are going on now, there needs to be more attention paid to maintenance and maintenance surveillance to cut some of these extraordinary, if you will, emergency expenditures. I seriously, have not seen in the now almost eight years that I've lived in the city any evidence of real pipeline and overall pipeline inspection of all the sewer system. There's not been to my knowledge, a real assessment of the corrosion corrosion issues that occur with treated water passing through pipes or I mean, valves, elbows and teas. And if we want to run into some of the experiences. That you see in some of the eastern cities with acidic soils. It's time to start doing real ongoing evaluation and real ongoing maintenance and preservation of the infrastructure we have. Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome.

My name is Debbie Fries. I've lived in Lewiston around 70 years. Not going to go any higher than that, but around seven. So I operated a business in this town, a million dollar business for 27 years in the private sector. I had to meet my budget. Some years, the company I worked for would say, no increases this year, Debbie. Find where you can cut. I found it. and we still delivered good service and good product to our customers. My staff was also well taken care of. So what I'm trying to say here is if the private sector can do it, so can you. Get your pencils out and make them go to work for you. And I'll tell you what, I'm with Mr. Merck. He says, take a year, no increases, take a year, analyze where you're spending our money. And if you need a volunteer to help you, I'm your gal. I can help you find the waste. I can help you analyze what your workers are doing and where you are overextended, where you are under extended. It was pointed out to me by 1 of the council members that. Yes, Debbie on every job that there's a whole. There is an official whole watcher for safety purposes. Okay. I buy that I understand safety, but 3 or 4. Like, I say, I have sat and watched. A work site for a half hour. And observe these kinds of waste going on, and that's just 1 portion. So I know in years past, the county was told no increases. You elected officials and you department managers find a way to cut 3%, and the county did it. So I think the city can do it. I'm just here tonight asking you to please take heed to what I said. I know that we all feel the same. I thank you for the good jobs that you do do, but we need some improvement. Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome to good evening.

Mr mayor council members. My name is Jeff Sarah live on Brighton Avenue and the beautiful green Lewis and orchards. Um, in 2023, zero property tax in 2025, zero property tax. 24 was 0.37. This is the economy in the United States and here in the valley is in pretty tough shape. I just came back from four days on the north fork usually cost me 60 bucks in gas. It was 130 this time. I didn't even hook it from the trailer. Just walk to the correct instead of trying to look for a cut through with my truck. Every person that works for the city of employee can come up with ideas on how they can cut costs and save the taxpayers of this city money. My wife and I just paid our house off in June after 30 years. And now we're going to, well, you'll never really own anything because you guys are constantly coming back. More taxes, more taxes. Accounting wants more taxes. Your property taxes go up. Your driver's license goes up. Everything goes up. You'll never really own anything in this country anymore. That's what it was kind of founded on was private property and owning things by yourself and not being taxed by the English. So the rest of us are here tonight. You had 10 people last week. There's a lot more than that. So encourage every employee to try and figure out how they can save their department money. Everybody's got ideas on how to do things. Try them out. See if they work. That's all I got.

Thank you.

Thank you for doing the job.

My name is Robert Clark, living in Lewiston Orchards, going on 67 years. I got to say, I'm not very pleased about a 4% increase, doubling my taxes. I most recently retired from the state of Idaho as a state worker for the university. We don't get paid very well up there, so our pension doesn't get great. You know, when they decide our pay rate at the university, they look for every name they can think of to call the duty that we're going to do. And then they pick the least paid name. Then they take that name and they look at the national register on those names and the salaries, and they pick the five lowest states in the nation for they paying for that name. When they do that, they average it. That's what your maximum wage is going to be for the job you do. Except for the fact that at the University of Idaho, you're only allowed 80% of that wage. Your pension is based on that wage. I was making approximately 45% less than I was as a union employee when I was doing basically the same jobs. So what I'm saying is we're on a fixed income, we're retired, I'm looking around here, we're all retired. If we get something, we get a 1% or 1.5% cost of living increase when the cost of living increase was seven or eight, we can't afford more taxes. Uh, respectfully, Mr mayor and council, you were hired as. Employees or servants to your own knowledge. You willfully went into that knowing that you are our employees. I, I request that you do your jobs, please. And find what it is to make budget work and they got to work within your means. Just like, we have to all work within our means. Our meetings aren't getting any better. Better means to me and have been investing more wisely. I just had tensions. So, I'm not getting anything else. That's it. You are asking for more, you know, I don't know what to say. There was a T revolution once some 250 years ago. I would think about that. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Corey James Wilkinson. I live up in Waha. And I'm not going to talk about my taxes that doubled, but my father has lived here most of my life. I was born here. And he bought his house for $25,000. They're saying his house is worth a half million dollars because he lives on Sunset. Every six years he buys a house over again. I told him I was going to show up tonight and he wanted me to tell his story. So, you know, he just got a $20 raise on his social security and you guys are going to up his taxes another 4%. I don't want him in one of those RVs parked alongside the road because that's what's going to happen to a lot of seniors. Y'all ought to be ashamed for even considering raising our taxes.

Welcome.

Thank you. Honorable mayor. and council i want to first of all thank you you guys have so many balls that you guys are juggling they're in the air all the time you're kind of trying to balance these things make them work i give you kudos for that thank you for your service to this community i honestly believe that you are each one of you there because you are concerned about this community and want to see the very best for this community so kudos to you guys i have a real quick couple points here Um, 1st of all, I got 3 things that I think are mandatory. I would like these to be baseline to any request. For an increase in taxation 1 is the need now with most budgets they send out to the heads of the departments, figure out your budget, submit it to us. And then without too many cuts, it goes through and that's the budget. But that allows for an awful lot of expenditure that's not necessary. So I would say, first of all, assess the need. Is the need really there for these increases that would impact our pocketbook, take money out of our pocketbooks in taxation? How desperate is that need? Secondly, is affordability that has to be a huge consideration. I heard about it from so many people here tonight affordability. Are you doing an affordability assessment? How does this impact our community? And the 3rd, 1 is the 1 that I've heard an awful lot about waste. I don't believe at this level of government that we're experiencing any fraud. I would be hard pressed to believe that. But I think that in any government agency, there's going to be waste. And so finding that and eliminating that is something that is the responsibility of all government servants. And I would encourage you to do a deep dive into those three areas. Number one, need. Number two, affordability. Number three, is there any waste associated with request? And if you can do that, then you come together and maybe next year you say, we got good news for you. We're reducing our budget by 4%. Anybody here like to hear that? How do you accomplish that? You know, there's, there's all kinds of thoughts on how to do it, but I would really recommend that every 5 years, or maybe less. That independent auditor never having before been affiliated with the city of Lewiston come in and do a deep audit of the entire department everywhere. Money's being spent through the department and determine. Ways of improvement is there areas where money is going out that it doesn't need to be and how can we be most proactive with the needs of our community? Thank you guys very much.

Please get the gentleman's name.

Sorry, I thought I gave it. My name is Randy squires.

Thank you.

And I live in the sunset area. Um. We were talking about the cost and our property taxes and the 2 years ago a lady came by and she was telling me what my costs were and she said, you know, you have an electric door for your shop at 600 dollars. I've never had it. Electric door for my shop, so are you guys giving me that 600 dollars that I've already paid 15 years of. It was, it was not a cost. I didn't have that. How many people are paying things that they don't have. I think they need to go in and look at each property. I also have another thing on the 17 or the 17Million that you guys have extra. That was from last meeting. I looked at it. You want to buy a new swap vehicle? Is that right? Was that in there? 524,524,000 dollars. How about we do the SWAT? How about federal grant for the water? Well, if it's a grant, why are we getting charged for that? How about the airport improvement? We give them $330,000 and you guys want to give them additional $3.400,000, $3 million more dollars. Was that in there or am I wrong? Because I missed the last meeting, but I read what you guys want to put this money towards. It's extra money. It's not extra. We don't have extra money for you guys to buy a new SWAT vehicle, airport improvements, fleet structure improvement, transportation, federal grant, $2,500,000, a fire grant. I mean, there's something you guys might need, but there is not. This is ridiculous. It's not extra. $17 million extra dollars.

Welcome.

Hi, thank you. Councilman and. I'm Nancy Curtis and I'm brother. But I had a different approach. I, I'm not into money or figures, but I was thinking the last few years I've been thinking of my grandparents, the World War 1, World War 2 era. And I couldn't understand why I was thinking about it, but it was the fact that. They dealt with what they had. Sometimes we're just such greedy people. We have to have everything great and beautiful and great. And sometimes we don't get that. And I also have friends that have very limited income. We're talking $1,500. This 4% will kick her out of the house. This is absolutely not right for Lewiston, Idaho. And I think we need a little bit more thinking like our elders in the, back then where they used what they had. And yeah, we might not have the most beautiful things all the time, but what we do have will make it work. And that's my point.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Dan Young.

I'm a local home builder here in Lewiston. I've been here since 1999. I've raised my four kids here and I love this town and there's great people that live here and they're very giving generous people. If you look at the auctions that we have and people in trouble and houses burned down this community just rallies around people that need help and. You as our leaders managing our budget, which is 117 million dollars so there's 34,000 people in in the city of Lewis and according to the census Bureau. And we've got 117 million dollar budget, which is it's it's mind boggling at that much money to serve 34,000 people. And the roads that we have in the sidewalks that we have in the infrastructure we have, and we're spending 117Million dollars for so it's 3400 dollars per person, which it just. It's mind boggling how much money that is so, but these people are, we're forgiving people. I mean, we'll forgive the water thing and the 3Million gallons that ran over the town and the lawsuits that you're involved in, because your employees make bad decisions. you need to hold your city employees accountable they need to be responsible they don't get in trouble nobody's been reprimanded for any of the stuff that's happened nobody lost their job I think that's wrong. We, we hired a strong America because we were tired of the system that we got for 50 years and we want a strong mirror and a strong council. To shake things up, they can't stay the way that they are. It has to change and you've heard these people say they're worried about the 4%. What they're worried about is you're wasting our money. and not holding the people accountable that are spending it and it's a hard job i know several of you personally and i do not envy the position you have but you have to go line by line person by person which is a ton of work and figure out how to fix the budget and i think a 10 is a great goal we're going to reduce the budget by 10 percent If you want to get the people of this town behind you, come at us and say, we're reducing the budget 10%. We got problems with campers. There's all kinds of tired guys. Put a little deal together. They'll go pick up the campers. I mean, that's the way we work in this town. So just try harder. That's all I got to say.

Thank you. Thank you, Dan.

hi um my name is julie jones and i live with my father up in the orchards and um i've been back here since 2019 i graduated from high school here way back when um and don't hate me i'm from california i've been living i'm not from california like i said i was here yeah um but being back here and my father and taking care of things he's currently on hospice i am shocked and i mean shocked at the cost of things here um my home taxes in california in a home that's i sold it but is worth a lot more than his was were eighteen hundred dollars um a year And that was with Melrose. And now I have a lot of things I don't like about California. But you hear about the cost of living there. And just about everything I have tried to do to fix my father's home or take care of things costs more here. It is shocking. And I don't know how many of you know that, but I think you need to be aware. And that, um, his taxes, which went up by, like, 700 dollars this past year. Um, are twice as much more than twice as much as my home in California. Um, and and then, um, you're coming up with another 4% increase that you need. Um, you're already way out of line on property taxes here. So. now i'm planning on staying here but you're going to see a lot of me because the costs and what you're spending and even compared to what it was in a very nice suburb in california is more and i every day you know i i i'm trying to get a sidewalk to the backyard and I did commercial property management for 30 years in California. I dealt with construction. I dealt with all sorts of things and property taxes for commercial buildings in my own home and everything. And I, I have been nothing but shocked. Here and costs and there's a. Just to say about business and stuff 1st of all. The town is only, I think 2000 people more than when I was here 50 years ago, which is that should tell you something about. about business and that sort of thing here. And what little bit of business was here when I came in 2019 to help take care of my parents, a lot of it's gone. And like I said, I am just totally shocked. I think that, like one gentleman said, you need to become a lot more business friendly. You need to think about the people. A lot of them, yes, I'm a senior now. A lot of people who have lived here and love this town and contributed to it in so many ways can't afford the taxes.

Thank you.

The lady in green back there had her hand up while ago for a question. The blonde ma'am land by you. Yes.

Oh, I think she was asking to speak twice and I was waiting until we get folks. Thank you. I don't know what you're what you're standing up for. What's the question?

I think.

And a welcome commission, good evening.

Commissioners for counselors forgot where I was at. First of all, I want to say how proud I am of the community tonight. Way to show up. I'm not going to lecture you, but September 8th, there's a meeting at the county. There's still work to be done there. There's work to be done tonight. I hope you stay for the whole entire time and hear the conversation. What I will say is I've been up there. and the decisions are hard. And I heard a lot of good things. I actually took notes. I'm probably gonna grab you guys to ask you some more questions. But what I can tell you is that there's open board member seats on our Chamber of Commerce. Our Chamber of Commerce used to be active in negotiating businesses. We need people to get actively involved in our Chamber of Commerce. We need people to get actively involved in planning and zoning. There's an open seat at the city. We have an open seat at the county. There are commissions available for you to serve so that you can get your voice heard on a regular basis. I know it's hard. We all work, we all work very hard. But if we hear more from you, we get to put your ideas to work. Tonight, there was a lot of really good things to be said. Also, I would encourage you, I want to say thank you to Cindy Ball for the research she's doing. mass evaluations and the tax law in idaho needs to change we need to go to our legislators our districts six and seven legislators and tell them to push back on the leadership in boise to say you're making rules that don't work for us we need to get involved and we need to pressure i'm trying to pay as much attention but i'm one person but boy if we showed up together they would start listening to north central idaho because we are getting left in the dark We're already, you know, daylight savings times. We're already an hour ahead of our decision, or excuse me, behind of our decision makers. We can make change. But I do commend the work you guys have done. I can't wait to see the budget that you ask to be brought forward. I hope you make smart decisions that don't risk the safety of these individuals and those that are living out in our city. But I hope that we take the time to really dig in. But again, the county is not done. I ask you to come to our meetings, ask these same questions of the assessor and his staff. Find out what we can do, what laws need to change, how we can go and drive some change that affects north central Idaho in a positive way. Let's support the developers that want to come and build. Let's support the businesses that need to go through tape. Let's do the things that we need to do to be good neighbors and support our decision makers because leadership is hard. But we need you to help us to keep us accountable and to share your ideas because we can't know any everything. So, thank you appreciate it.

Thank you. Welcome.

I i'm just thinking pretty soon we're going to have a skeleton city, instead of having a nice city, because there is multiple people that i've heard of that. You know they're living on social security that's why we kind of advertise our city as a retirement heaven, you know they're not going to be in heaven very long because lewiston has the highest tax rate. Of any city in Idaho that seems ludicrous. I mean, it sounds insane to me because you'd think Coeur d'Alene, you know, Boise, some of these other places would be higher. And that's not the case. It's insanity. There's no way that our costs. Could be more than I mean, it sounds ludicrous. I mean, it really does, but there is so many people that. You know, that I spoke to that they can't, they're going to have to sell their home. I mean, it's insanity after they've lived there forever. Raise their children there and then have to sell their home because taxes are not doable. I mean, you're going to live in a camper. Here we go again. We're going to have another camper on the street. It's insane. It sounds so stupid. And when we were looking at houses at one point to upgrade, we were looking at this house and it was really cool. And we like, oh, wonderful, good deal and everything. Well, I went looked at the at the taxes. It was mental. I mean, it was it was insanity. It was $1,000, actually over $1,000 a month just for the taxes. It's insanity. I mean, you have to at least at some point you would think have like a A drawing line, like no higher. I mean, you have to do something. This is stupid. I mean, you can't even people like the people that are building houses and stuff. How are they going to even sell the house? Cause like I didn't buy that house because I'm not paying. Once I pay the house off, I'm not going to pay a thousand dollars a month for taxes. It's mental. It's absolutely insane. In fact, we have a little piece of property and, um, and, uh, I actually went to the assessor people this spring, because I said, okay, on the on the bill, it shows improvements. I said, you know, I'm not here to be a bitch. I'm not. I'm not going to do that. I'm not doing that. But tell me what improvements. Raised me another 500 dollars, so I'm paying for I mode that piece of land. So I'm going to pay an extra 500 bucks every year. How stupid is that? I mean, it really is mental. And so he could not come up with anything. And then he goes, well, you know, you put a container on there, like, 1 of those shipping container things because we put storage. I said. The reason we put it there is because it can be moved. We put it on. They realized they said, because you can get under there and pick it up and move it where we would want to put it. And he goes, well, we don't look at it like that. It's there and we had had it there before anyway. And so they. I don't know what his problem was, but he wasn't he was going in circles like crazy. I finally figured I was there for nothing. I was wasting my own time. That's valuable. And because he said, well, you have this. That stupid container there and I think, okay, how many times am I going to pay for a 2 or 3000 dollar container that we plop there to put stuff in?

Thank you Patty. You have to introduce yourself for the record though.

You already know me, but anyway.

Welcome I've lived here for 52 years. Um. We just drove up through Coraline this weekend and the growth up there is phenomenal. Um, have we ever thought about having somebody from up there come down and see what we're doing different than them? Why do we fight growth here so much? Because I mean, when I drive up 21st street. We've done all these raw handicapped accessible rock things that don't even look safe to me anyways. And I've. I've yet to have anybody that I know in a wheelchair, even go down the road. It doesn't seem safe anyway. And it seems like we spend money in areas. I don't understand. Where the Lewis and orchards doesn't see a lot of the money that's going on. I mean, I see brand new courthouse. I see all this stuff. And it took a cover coat on the strip between Thane and Brighton that had 27 patches. We joked around all the time and called that patch street and they did a 2 inch layer of stuff on it. They're not fixing them. We used to, when I was a kid growing up, it was almost like every 5 years we've seen. Asphalt grinders come in and new roads paved and curb and gutter crews and whatever happened to all that stuff. Another thing, why do we have 2 people driving around and grab tricks? I mean, what is the other person doing? I mean, I don't understand. I witnessed 1 day down there and there is food and we had a safety truck. We had a gravel truck was dumping sand out. So the sweeper truck can come behind it and pick the sand back up with another safety truck behind it. I've done construction my whole life and that's a 2 man job. Like, we don't for 3 man 1, driving the truck 1, throw in the sand and the other 1 pick it up. If you want to know what cost and waste is. Go look at the programs and how they run why the city guys have to go back for break and clean up every day. Extensively, there's, there's waste everywhere. I have friends that work for the city. And they talk about how easy it is because we don't have anybody in charge of dictating it in the right way and we contract out everything. We don't do anything ourselves and the contractors are just posing us. Because we have no choice, so I just love to see the city be beautiful again, drive around and be proud of it. Like, when you drive through Coraline, and that's my concern and I've been here my whole life and I plan to stay here and. I would love to help that. There's a lot of people in this community that step up and help out if you just asked. For sure. Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, I hope better known as Mr. Napa anyway, so gentlemen couple 3 before me was talking about maybe the independent council to help with the budget. I nominate Debbie freeze. She's offered help. So.

Thank you.

Welcome Tom Nielsen and that's my wife anyway. Something that hasn't been brought up. Yeah, sure. I go again. You know what? I see fires everywhere. Crops being destroyed. We have all kinds of war going on. We better wake up. you know we got money that we can spend but it's not going to be there it's going to get tight everywhere i'm sorry to say and i think everybody sees it when you don't have food and the food prices are going up we don't have fuel because we're in a war oil's up what are we going to do i mean we need to start looking at a few things and taxes right now is not a good idea we've got we've got a storm coming towards us and we better get ready it's not going to be a good thing All you have to do is look around and watch. We're going to have to work together. It's a big deal. Think about it. There's a lot of people. I've got an 89-year-old mom. She's having a hard time. She's looking at, well, should I cancel this in my insurance so I can pay this? I mean, everybody's doing that. It's going to get worse. Oh, I've got to say it.

Thank you.

My name is Trina. I've got some little bit of acreage up with our house up in the orchards. Do you ever notice all of the orchards used to be a little house with a little bit of land. Then all the homeowners figure out I'm paying all this property tax just to have a little bit of hand land behind me with a horse and some chickens. So, what do they do? They lot it off because their taxes are too high. We got our property tax on our. Pastor for 8 lots. not just vacant property with some a few horses and donkeys and chickens no building lots we're being charged by the lot i know the city would make a lot more money if we decided to throw the towel in and sell our property and build have someone build eight houses in there of course the city's going to make a lot more money off of that it's totally out of control Our taxes go up. We don't even have a place to shop in Lewiston anymore. I mean, there's no place to go. Amazon, everyone, I bet you everyone orders from Amazon because you sure as heck can't buy it in Lewiston. You guys need to reconsider this 4% tax that you want to raise it because we can't afford it. I'm retiring in May. I worked for the state of Idaho for Lewis Clark State College. They had cutbacks. We didn't get a raise this year. They fired a whole bunch of people at the college. They did, they figured out how to save money. Get there's out there someone needs to take the time. To apply for those grants, if the college can do it, and they can get revenue in from grants, there's no reason why the city can't either.

My name is Mike Taylor, I'm a local builder. I own a couple companies in the city of Lewiston, and I've got problems all over the place. I could talk about from. Community development, you guys already know the problems you got to, but. What I want to nobody has mentioned we, we own a rental company and we have a lot of rentals and. I don't see any renters coming up here. We have a lot of renters that. are gonna be severely affected by this. Cause tell me how I'm not gonna be able to, I have to raise my rents when this happens. I mean, I have to, you know what I mean? What am I gonna tell them? I mean, city of Lewiston, that's gonna be the primary discussion, right? You gotta know. I mean, I just thought I'd get up here and talk about, you know, all the renters that we have between, I mean, seriously. I'm sure I'm not the only one, but that's, outside of all the issues that I could sit here and talk about for three hours, that's gonna be the one, so.

All right, those are good points, thank you. I'm going to sit here until everybody has had their opportunity to speak, so we're not in a hurry. So if you'd like to

Welcome Thank you. My name is Tara Fowler and I live in the orchards. I've lived in the valley my whole life. I've never been to one of these. I've never paid attention. And it's gotten to the point where I have to pay attention now. I wish I didn't. I should have a long time ago, but I am. I have two kids. We're a family. We make decent money, but it's hard for everybody right now with how expensive things are. I'm here tonight because I think we need to have an honest conversation about how our tax dollars are being spent. Families in our community are struggling. The cost of groceries have gone up. Insurance has gone up. Utilities have gone up. Everything costs more. People are being forced to stretch their household budgets further than before. And yet, while families are being asked to pay more and more in taxes and fees, it feels like our local government keeps finding ways to spend more. We're paying higher property taxes, higher fees, and our infrastructure needs some serious attention, roads, drainage, water systems, and other basic services that people depend on every single day. The police and the firefighters and all that I support all the money for that and the water and infrastructures, we support money for that, but the Fenton gym. The part I just feel like there's just not important things that can be put on the back burner for now there's things that I believe are tax dollars should be focused on. Instead we're seeing money spent on projects that don't seem like priorities so basic needs are being neglected and. I'm not against the park, I'm not against recreation, I'm not against having nice facilities for our community, but there's a difference between wanting something nice and being able to afford it. We've already paid for the new high school in the gym. I'm not really sure why we have to focus on the Fenton gym and the new floor right now, especially. Families are cutting back on groceries, delaying home repairs, not going on vacation, struggling to keep up their own bills. Why is this city or community spending money on projects that could wait? about being against our communities it's just about priorities before we spend another dollar on something that's nice to have shouldn't we first make sure our infrastructure is functioning properly fixing the roads we should be addressing the drainage and flooding issue which i think you guys are working on um should be looking for ways to reduce financial burdens on people who are paying these bills most importantly shouldn't we be asking ourselves whether every expedition is truly necessary because taxpayers deserve more we have because taxes are taxpayers deserves more than we have the money in the budget do we need to spend it a budget isn't a permission slip to spend every dollar available it's supposed to be a plan for the responsible stewardship of the money collected from the people who live here and those people are hurting We shouldn't be raising taxes and fees while also spending money on projects that aren't essential. We shouldn't be asking working families to tighten their belts while government loosens its own. I'm asking our elected officials to please step back and take a hard look at priorities. Let's focus first on the essentials. Let's maintain what we already own. let's repair the infrastructures that our community depends on limit and then let's limit unnecessary spending let's question every budget for every project not because we don't want a better community but because we want a financially responsible community that people can afford to live in our tax dollars aren't limited thank you welcome to

I'm Tobe Finch, resident of Lewiston, Idaho. I'm also a businessman. And I will tell you what's just in my heart for this community is that it would grow. And I would say for the last, I don't know, I probably kind of woke up to this dying to a dying community or shrinking community or 1, you know, I've lived here my entire life and I. And I go, it's just about the same population as it was when I grew up here and I've just scratched my head. Like, why is that? And I'm not a big person to bring accusations against anybody. It's just. It would probably show up with ignorance and maybe arrogance of my part, but I would. I, I do believe in creating an invitation and it is an invitation between the city. And and the regulations, the code. How the whole system works. I believe that the people that work here are good people, right? They're part of our community. We care for them. We respect them. But something's broken where we don't have new businesses coming here, you know, or the businesses that did come are almost sorry they did because of the process that they went through. And these are people that I've talked to personally and I've, oh, almost thinking like, hey, you came here for something special and they said, It wasn't what you think and we may not have come. If we would have known what was what was awaiting us. And and I don't know all I don't know all the ins and outs, but I would create the invitation for the city and even on this budget and how we're trying to make all this work is. How do we actually create a budget that causes growth? How do we look at from a city perspective of of what this gentleman was saying? something that attracts businesses. Because all we've done is kept the same kind of tax base and it's bearing a greater load. Whereas if we could expand the tax base, which is just a mutual, it's a mutual space between business owners or developers in the city to go, how do we streamline this thing? How do we make it easy? When projects get delayed, people spend more money. And when they spend more money, they run out of capital to even get off the ground. And we just see all these little small businesses start and then start and then start and end. Instead of creating a place that just says welcome, we thank you. We respect you for taking a risk on our community. and for putting your dollars in there and saying this is what's in my heart to do and how do we make it grow and so i would extend to the city i'm part of the chamber and you know and i know there's nobody i love so many of the people i respect them and i believe for a great time that we're in but i believe that is where it is it isn't growth how do we make this thing grow thank you thank you

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. My name is Nick Woods. I live in the Lewis Orchards. I read the budget guide, and there's one line in the budget guide that really hit home for me. In my opinion, city government has outgrown our tax base, and taxpayers simply can't keep up. And that was said by Councilman Specklemyer. I feel that. I appreciate that. And I appreciate your motion last Monday, the 0% property tax increase. I think most of us probably do. So thank you. I know Mr. Wright seconded it. I hope the rest of you understand our pain here and follow that lead. Thank you.

Welcome. My name is Carrie. I live in the orchards and I work at a local hospital. One of the big things I hear almost daily working with my patients is elderly people who are about to lose their homes because they have to decide between paying their taxes or buying their medication. This is wrong. You all have parents. You need to think about these things. Do you want your parents suffering and having to go to the hospital because they can't buy their medication because they have to pay taxes that are way too high? This is Lewiston, Idaho. This isn't California. My mom moved up here from California. She pays more taxes here than she did living in Modesto, California. This is ridiculous. She pays more for groceries. She pays more for everything except gas. Not okay. You guys need to live within a budget like everybody else. Thank you.

Welcome Marcus 18 years in New York. Back in the 90s, I did pretty seasonal years with Park and Rec under Lynn Moss Corky Fazio. I did three years with Rod Clark on Street Crew. And I'm going to give you a little heads up on how this works. When I first got hired for my first season, I got $250 for shoes and shirts and clothes. So then the next year I come in and I say, I wanna work here again. They say, okay. They give me another $250. And I'm like, I don't need it. Oh no, you need to spend this, else we won't get it in our budget. So when these people are saying there's waste, there is waste. Granted, this was in the 90s, but I'm sure it's still going on to this day because nobody's held accountable. So parents that are retired, I hear all the time from my folks over at Clarkson. It's no different. You guys need to figure it out. We got to stop kicking these retired people out of their homes that they've been in their whole lives. It's ridiculous. Would you like us to come to you and say, you got to get out of your house? Because you're not doing the job. No, you wouldn't. So you've got to understand where the people are here. They're saying, look, we're going to kick you out of your house just like you're kicking us out of our house. And it shouldn't come to that. Get your budget in order and figure it out. That's all I got.

Thank you.

And I heard what you said, and that's okay too. Uh, we are going to have a 3rd reading next Monday. So. Um, if you don't get a chance to speak, or if you don't like the outcome of tonight's meeting, you'd have another opportunity next Monday to come and address the council before they take final action. Um, yes, we could ask you to stand to the microphone. I just need you to introduce yourself for the record. Please.

My name is Ed Brink. Is there any way to take the burden off property owners for taxes so everybody pays? You can't put up like a half a percent? So anybody that buys anything in this town goes towards the budget?

Sir, that's a good question. And we heard from Commissioner Littke earlier, and it's really your state legislators that can help us with that. We did do that a while back. There was a half cent on the sales tax, which paid for the jail here in Lewiston. So we don't have local option taxing authority here, really in the state of Idaho, with the exception of franchise fees and some of the resort cities like McCall. But no, we don't have that here.

So you can't. go to the state legislature and say, hey, we're trying to take the burden off of our property owners because, I mean, people that rent.

I get every year we talk to them through our associations to get that authority.

I don't know. It just it don't make sense because the property owner always gets stuck. That's right. They always get stuck. I got one rental house. And I got a gal in there. She's been in there for five years. It's a two bedroom. And I told her, my daughter said, hey, what are you going to do with the little rental house? I said, I'm tired of it because people don't take care of it. I have to go in and I can't get the rent. So I boot them out. I got to redo the bathroom, fix all the holes. I go in the hole. I go in the hole. So I got this gal and her daughter. And she's been in there for 5 years and I said, all you gotta do is pay the rent so I can pay my taxes and all my utilities. And I'm not making a dime. They've been in there for 5 years and they paid the rent.

I understand. Thank you. We take it very serious. We're not going to take questions from the floor. Okay. That's what the microphone is for us that we could have some down the record. Yeah. Anyone else? I would like to offer testimony tonight. Welcome.

My name is Delinda Mefford. I live in the Orchards. I'm actually Trina's neighbor. So my husband and I lived in Idaho County for 23 years. We owned our home. We paid $500 to $700 a year on 10 acres. I sold my home. I moved to Lewiston. When I moved into my home, my home, I paid $1,700 the first year. The next year, I paid $3,400. This year they want 4,000 dollars from me. I've lived there for 5 years. That is ridiculous. I should not have to pay 4,000 dollars for a. Tiny tiny hole on a 2 3rd, a 3rd of an acre. Not even 2 thirds. I had 10 acres and I paid 700 dollars at the most. This is ridiculous. My husband and I are considering moving out of town because we can't afford it. And if we try to retire in 10 years, we won't be able to pay our taxes. And that's why you guys need to look at your budgets. You need to fix this and you need to reduce our taxes, not to flatten them because you are taking advantage of people. And when you're talking about kicking old people out of their homes, because they can't afford their taxes. That is insane. That's insanity. People should not have to. Decide between medication and learning. So this shouldn't even be a question of 4%. It should be a question of how are we going to save 10% and give these people a chance to survive.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Hi.

Hi, my name is Dulcy McCone and I just want to give a different perspective as far as your younger families here in the valley. We recently bought a home last year over in the orchards coming out of state, not California. And we moved here because of the laws that we very much love the freedom Idaho had as well as the state we came from. However, we were really shocked even a year and a half ago when we moved here at the amount of taxes there already were in place. It really floored us. You know, a lot of the laws in Idaho feel very freeing, but man, taxes will shackle you real quick. For young families, even single moms, right? Day to day already is really expensive with children. I know we had a lot of people retired here, right? But you have a 2 fold the retired and then the younger starting families. That if the interest rates of housing won't kill you, the taxes definitely will. And man, that's going to be really hard for your young families here in the valley. A 4% increase on property tax. Uh, I don't even want to know what it'd be like for my kids if they try to own a home. In the valley, but I just wanted you to consider the younger families. That if they try to buy a home, will they be able to maintain that home? Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome to I told my wife, I wasn't going to do it, but she's not here. So I. So, Joe Rodriguez, I live in the orchards, the neighborhood that I live in. Elderly people that live in that neighborhood. 3 years ago, we watched our neighbor. Have to sell part of her land to her kid because they can afford property taxes. I look around the room at all these people, and I agree with them 100%. Some of you know me, some of you don't. I was in your guys' shoes, and I was an elected official, and I was in charge of a $7 million budget for eight years. Posted year-end reports, budget, spending, everything. eight years, I was able to reallocate over $2 million of taxpayers money instead of spending it. So I'm not here to tell myself on the back, but I'm saying if I can do it as one person, I think all you guys should probably think about putting your heads together and figuring it out. Because I joke with my wife, she goes, you need to retire. I'm going to work up to the day of my grave digging the And that's what a lot of these people are going to end up having to do. I mean, you know, you're going to start seeing kids moving back home with their parents because they can't afford it. You know, I mean, seriously, look at what you're spending taxpayers' money on and how you're spending it. I could have fixed 10th and Borough with four stop signs instead of $75,000.

Thank you, Joe.

Welcome, Mark. Thank you. My name is Mark Losh, LC Valley Chamber. I live outside the city. I've had many conversations with business owners, developers, and contractors over the past 14 almost 14 months. There's a prevailing message that I hear from almost all of them. Clarkson does not, excuse me. Lewiston does not want to grow a project to be presented to the review board. And afterwards I'm being told that the person presented was told all the reasons why they shouldn't do it instead of someone saying, well, there's a challenge there, but we'll help. And there's a challenge here. It will help really want your business to come to town. What we said earlier about the last two major companies that came to this town that afterwards said they're not sure, one of them is actually telling other businesses, don't bother. We have a mentality perception. I don't know what the facts are, but we have a perception out there that Lewiston doesn't want to grow, don't bother going. There are people in this room that have had experiences and have brought people here to present projects that after they presented the project, walked out and just said, I'm not even going to attempt it. There's a reason why there's new SEL buildings up north and not here. We need to change the perception to become a community that says we want to welcome people and we want growth. And that changes at the city level. And it changes in the departments. And I think that needs to be looked at and analyzed. Thank you.

Thank you. My name is Dick Ostellar. I live in Lewiston. I had a question. How much money did the city of Lewiston lose when Shopko, Kmart, Pennies, Macy's, and Safeway closed their doors. How much money did the city of Lewiston lose? I walked right out. But anyway, just curious. I had another problem here about three years ago by some business president for my grandkids. You know, you couldn't buy Legos in the city of Lewiston.

You couldn't buy Legos in the city of Lewiston.

Anybody who's Legos for the kids, we have them back in town again.

We live pretty close to Heron Park.

And we go there quite a bit, walk our dogs, just walk ourselves. And we noticed a couple of years ago that the tree trimmer was there. And this was in maybe May or June. I can't remember for sure. Oh, great. They're getting the trees trimmed up. They can look nice. It's a really nice park. And the city does do a good job of taking care of it. Within July came still there. Obviously they weren't there every day, but there were three vehicles or three, three piece, two vehicles and a chipper. And these two, if not three people there. And August came, they were still there. How can the city, why can't the city, which is up here. what bids did the city get to get a local contractor to do that job in probably a week at the most, instead of having these guys go back and forth, back and forth. Sure, they had other jobs to do, but they were up there for three months in their job. three months back and forth. I'm just kind of curious what that cost should be. I'm sure that there should be records of what those people, their time, how much it costs, how much it costs for the equipment, for taxes on it, but for maintenance, for fuel, for insurance, for the people and all the guys that were working up there. I think that a local business could probably get that done a whole lot faster. And I also kind of wonder, we have five monitors. Another thing I had, the building. I've got a question for you. What are the fees that new homes are charged with the city for inspections and for permits?

Thank you.

Sorry, we're going to hold off until everyone's had a chance to speak for the 1st time.

Thank you.

That's fine. Okay, we've been at this about an hour and a half. If there's no one else wishing to speak at this time, again, I would invite you to come back next week for the third reading. And with that, I will open it up to the floor if anyone would like to speak for a second time. Welcome.

Thank you, sir. I would like to tell you a little bit of history. I'm an investor in the city of Lewiston. Oh, can you hear me?

Okay.

Yeah. Um, back in 2015 I bought a property by the high school and we went in, we got all the permits, we've done everything right. And we, it took me two years to build this property, a rebuild property. We didn't increase the square footage. We didn't do anything besides what in the footprint of the house. When we bought the property, we bought it from an estate. The lady that owned the property before, I'm not gonna mention names or I'm not gonna do an address, but she paid less than $700 a year. We rebuilt that property. We put in new kitchen, new bathroom, and we did a wonderful job to rebuild that house. I wasn't expecting the same property taxes, so I had to pay more. I understand that. We paid about $1,200 for the next two years. Today that property taxes is $4,777. The house was not increased in size. I would like to approach the council with an address.

No, you're you're okay if you do have some, of course, I'd ask you to give it to our city clerk and she'll.

Yeah. And researching. So, we sold that house in 2017. And I think we paid 12 or 1300 dollars. A year for that property tax, like I said, it's 4777 dollars. It's on the county website right now. I looked it up. So, as the general. Thought that's what everybody's talking about. When you increase the value of your house. You get penalized for doing. So, thank you.

All right. Thank you. Gary, welcome.

Thanks, Dan. Gary Anderson again. I've been on the advisory board at the college for the diesel program since 1990, and so I've dealt with you when you were a legislator. I've been flowing down, talked to legislators and everything, and I've gone through the college budgets, and they got real nervous when they gave it to me because I said, well, you give me... 3 codes and I'll tell you wherever penny on this college goes and then they funded our program. Um, but what always floored me was this use it or lose it mentality. We want to save up money from 1 year to the next to buy a. The capital expenditure for a training, but we weren't allowed to do that. You're not allowed to carry it forward. And I don't know if the city has that same mentality. I know that seems to be the state mentality. You use it or you lose it. So I'm just curious, does the city operate that way too when you have your budget? If you don't spend it, you lose it?

We don't have that mentality.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Gary.

Very brief dan young, um, it's 13 to 20,000 dollars to. Pull a permit and do the buy ins in the city of Lewiston. I just, I just paid it and I got the canceled checks to prove it. And, um, I think I think. Everybody's made it clear that the property tax increase can't happen. But the big thing is the big takeaway. is you have to reduce the property taxes. Not keep it the same and don't increase it, but it has to go down. So, Coeur d'Alene has 58,000 residents and they have a $62 million budget. Write those numbers down. 58,000 residents, $62 million budget. Lewiston has 34,000 residents and $117 million budget.

This tax deal, you guys don't understand if you lose the other part of your income. Please introduce yourself for the record. I'm James Lixkey. Thank you. But if you lose the other part of your income, now you're just down to one income and you're still paying more in the property taxes. I'm like everybody else. I paid off my house. I'm ready to retire. but I can't retire because my wife got hurt, she lost her job, and now I'm down to one income, and I'm paying just as much on that house as I did. And my house is very old. I mean, it was built in 1846 or something like that. I mean, it's old. I never touched it. The house is not worth nothing, but the property underneath it, it's worth a lot because I live on 1222 Warren, right next to the city shop. I got a beautiful view, but am I going to be able to pay for that You know, I'm looking at working for the rest of my life and still paying on the house that I should have paid for. And I have animals and other stuff like that that, you know, I'm like, where am I going to give? I'm going to have to start giving up some of my pleasure stuff and feeding my animals. So it cuts back, you know. So I'm kind of trying to figure out where you guys are coming from. If you guys, nobody's mentioning it, people are going to get old and then the other one dies, loses that income. You guys keep on raising the income. You're only down to 1 person. How is he going to afford to stay in that house? You know, and you guys, like I said, my house is very old. The properties work more work, but it just doesn't make any sense when I paid it off 2 years ago and I'm still making the same. Put away in the bank, and I'm worried about every year you guys keep on wanting to raise it. The sewer water got raised. I go, you guys just keep on kind of chewing on me. And I'm just a work right work with my hands. That's all I got. I didn't, I didn't do any investments because I had no money to invest. I started out at five bucks an hour here in Lewiston, you know, and I bought my house here. I wasn't a person that's supposed to buy a house, but I did cause I worked hard on it. And now it just looks like, you know, you guys are just don't understand when you lose that other person, my income staying the same, or do I get another job?

You know,

So that's where I'm standing now. I just don't figure out . I work next door to the city shop. I see what goes on there. There's got to be a way to cut some of this money down. I mean, I don't know what else to say to you guys, but there's got to be a way to do it. You can hear from everybody else, but nobody's mentioning that you lose that other person. Because all this wants to . Everybody wants to die . But, you know, you can't, you know, because they'll take, you know, you can't give your house to your kids because now you're in a home and there. So, it's, it's constant.

Thank you.

I got one thing to say, and I'm starting with your name, please break. I'm already on record. Okay, you guys stop. We don't. We're releasing it from this city. I'm going home, but.

Okay, before we wrap it up, I would like to just share with you that if you go online, you can watch last week's budget hearing and we shared a lot of examples of how we've changed. Doing business in the city where we're saving money, where we're saving time, where we're lowering costs. So if you want to get kind of a flavor of that, go back and watch that from last week and then give us all see if you have some other questions. If you need to talk to me, you need to wear the microphone, please.

Okay.

but there's a lot of good information on there about past budgets, past property tax increases when we didn't take an increase to our property tax budget and your taxes still went up. So there's a lot of things that go into that. So it's not just the city, it's all the taxing entities, it's valuation. So, and it is frustrating. And I understand that we all do. Okay, well, thank you for coming tonight. We're gonna move on with our agenda.

One sentence, how does Coeur d'Alene and McCall do it then?

They have to do a text stoop. There is something wrong. Call me.

Council, why don't we go at ease for five minutes if you need to get a drink of water or use the restroom or something. The city council will come to order to say the council will come to order. Prior to going at ease, Council is insisting comments. Council will next move to the active agenda, Roman numeral four, item A, ordinances number one, second reading A, 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, and our Finance Director, City Treasurer Amy Gordon is with us here tonight. If you have questions for her, Elsa would entertain a motion. This was the amendment for the last meeting, Council.

Mayor.

Councillor Klein.

Motion to approve the second reading of ordinance number 4973. Again.

It's been moved by Councillor Klein, seconded by Council President Kleberg to approve the second reading of ordinance number 4973. Is there discussion on amendments?

Mayor. Mr enforcement, just a discussion and we talked about this is the 1st meeting that we had last Monday about this. What we're proposing right now, the ordinance that we're going through and the monies we spent and where we can. So, for instance, the police grant money can only be used to narrow narrowly. We don't have the ability to just put it wherever it's grant restrictions. And they decide where that money goes. So. That's 1 of the reasons that that went towards that and then please see your funds again. All of these have very strict guidelines of where they can go pretty much anything with a grant. And the, and the, some of these were. Already saved dollars that were put in the budget from last year and we were unable to maybe to get. The equipment or whatever to be able to spend it within that last year. So then it moves into this year. So, um, well, we go in a lot more detail that into that and the 1st meeting. So I highly suggest going back to reading and listening to that. So that you can get a more in depth explanation of where your money is being spent and why.

Thank you, council, council comments. If not those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed. Question carries. Clark rocky.

approving the 2nd reading of 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 and the sum of 17,315,900 dollars directing the city clerk to file a certified copy of this ordinance with the Nez Perce County Board of Commissioners and providing an effective date.

Thank you. Thank you. Council. Next we have item. 1, B, ordinance 4974 to be termed the 2027 annual appropriation ordinance. Considering appropriating sums of money authorized by long team necessary for all general and special municipal purposes of the city of Boston for the fiscal year, commencing October 1, 2026. And ending September 30, 2027 again, this is an action item. Our finance director, city treasurer Amy Gordon is with us here tonight. And council, she will stand before you and explain the motion before you, the budget before you. Director Gordon, welcome. Please introduce yourself for the record.

Good evening. Mayor remember the council, Amy Gordon city treasurer normally I went to a presentation during the 2nd hearing, but tonight my presentation is at the direction of council. They provide a direction to staff to reduce the budget as proposed to eliminate the increase in property taxes with the exception of the taxes related to new construction and annexation. So I'm here tonight to walk council through those reductions. So, if we take a look at what our certified. No, I don't need it. Thank you. We take a look at what our 2026 certified tax. Taxes were that's 25,000,004,240 dollars. From that, I reduced the judgment levy. There was a judgment levy included in last year's certified taxes related to the. A vista judgment through the state of Idaho. Um, added in the new construction and annexation. So, that would put the targeted 2027 certified taxes at 25,000,095,770 dollars. If we look at the tax certification ordinance that was presented to council last week and. The looking at the amended amount. That would be a proposed reduction of 766,000 dollars. The mayor, and I met with. Several department has throughout the city to look at where we could find these reductions. Here's the list of them and we'll walk through those together. It does include eliminating several vacant positions. The 1st, 1 being our grant writer position in the absence of this position, we have been. Unsuccessful and multiple large grant applications because department lack the staff. Department of staff, like the capacity data and attention to detail required for the high quality submission. When our grant manager was in place. Some examples of the last 2 grants they were able to secure for the city. Was the playground and the ADA improvements done at pioneer park. The library lighting project here at the city of Wilson library. Uh, in addition to finding and applying and obtaining grants for the city, this position also managed our program as well as our opioid program. But it is currently vacant and it is, um. Up for a potential reduction by council. We also have a vacant administrative position. That has not been filled the intent of this position. The assigned duties would have included day to day support of. The mayor's office and managing municipal operations. Special projects and ensure that policies and council's directives are carried out and provide follow up with heads. Department has other staff and allow the mayor's office more time for public engagement and to advocate for the city and overall increase the capacity of the mayor's office. Uh, the 3rd position position is the vacant is a vacant police officer. Uh, limiting this position, the police chief would either leave the community oriented policing positioned vacant unfilled. Or they would reduce their motor unit from 2 positions to 1 position. The motor unit was created to handle all traffic request, enforcement and accidents while on duty as well as conduct community outreach. And presentations regarding drivers of behavior and safety. Reducing this unit to just 1 officer will impact the effectiveness of this unit that was established this past year.

This is, you know, last year we added 3 positions. This would be taking 1 of those 3 positions away.

The next 1 is legislative travel. We just went through the budget and we looked for anyone was significantly under the last 2 years of their spending of their actual budget. This was 1 that had been utilized less than 50%. So, that's the amount. underutilized the last two or three budget years. Please some fire you we have 2 line items that reference turnover savings with police. I looked at they've had several reservations in the last. Couple months since we wrote the budget, so I just went through and I calculated out what that turnover savings would be in those positions. Potential impact of this reduction is just being able to fill those positions. Competitively, or getting in more seasoned staff into those positions. Fire the turnover savings as specific to, um. The fire chief position, and then. Being the our deputy fire chief into that role and then vacating that position. This also takes into consideration that we would likely not fill that position until the end of November. Um, we did capture the majority of the savings of this, so that is will restrict what we can hire a new division fire chief at what position we build to bring them in. To the city, and then we looked at cola reductions across the board. So we had a 2 and a half percent. Cola programmed into the proposed budget and each of these line items that are showing cola reduction that would be taking the. Um, from 2 and a half percent to. 1%. And so we have employees that reside in several funds that are supported by property taxes. So you'll see that listed. A few times throughout this list here. And then finally, we had 1 more vacant position that we reduced from the. Would potentially reduce from the budget and that's a vacant street technician position. Potential impacts of that position is in regards to winter response. We'd be splitting. If we have 10 street positions, supervisor, a lead, and that leaves 8 in our. True, we split that 8 person filled crew into 2, 12 hour shifts during winter response event. With this without this position that would leave a 0 redundancy any staff absences. Um, such as an illness or emergency will break that 24 hour rotation, leading to delayed emergency response times. For our snow and arterial routes as well as our emergent. And that's right, it would. Create more of a shift from preventative maintenance, such as. Crack ceiling drainage, cleaning to more reactive emergency repairs, such as. filling potholes, responding to damage incidents, and potentially creating long term financial liability from the destruction from preventative maintenance. In regards to COLA, we do struggle in certain areas to fill those positions, specifically in streets and police, which is why we do have vacant positions. Here, those are often vacant, they rotate, they'll get get them filled and then we'll see new vacancies. We struggle in these areas and we're competing with the private sector or our neighboring jurisdictions. Um, if this were to lead to higher turnover, longer vacancies and key roles, this could impact our service delivery. Whether it's delayed and processing permits, slower response time for non emergency calls. Or deferred maintenance under staffing directly correlates to a reduction in the speed and quality of service. With waking wages, we have looked at other. Um, ways to address that we've gone through and re, evaluated our job requirements, um, reducing the minimum qualifications to be hired. An example of that is we used to all of our operators required or required to have. That's no longer a minimum. Qualifications, but when we do hire employees who lack qualifications and experience. It does require additional training and staff time to bring employees up to the minimum qualifications for the position. Hiring under qualified employees has contributed to more. Documented accidents and equipment damage, legging wages. Does play a role in our hourly and seasonal positions, which. Contribute to our inability to fill our park pool and street positions and limit our service delivery. But this is what we have presented. To fulfill the request of counsel from last week. that's all i have unless you have questions from me or any of our staff members or tonight thank you director gordon uh counselors council enforcement how long have these positions been banked how long have we been struggling to fill these positions um police was fully staffed up until about two or three months ago maybe a few more months before that i thought we got you fully staffed for a couple months okay We were really close. So, um, but we, we still, as I mentioned, we see a lot of turnover and please, it seems like. We get fully staffed and then we're right back to a vacancy. Same with streets, we have a hard time keeping the street positions filled. We can we work fully staffed going into. Winter last year, and then we didn't have a winter storm event, but that's streets has been another area that we struggle with.

Follow up. I'm supposed to are they both police and streets giving reasons why they're leaving why we are getting such a turnover rate.

I'm not privy to the exit those interviews, but I know streets. We struggle even filling the positions because of wages. Um, so I'm going to defer.

That's the Johnson public works director. It's a, uh, those who voluntarily leave, uh, that it's a, it's a wage issue. Um, I mean, it's just especially now during harvest. If you have a CDL, you're making almost double what you, we can pay you for a year round job with the city. The other is under qualified, um, candidates that we've, we've let them go. And so that's why those vacancies are there.

Chief of police. Uh, we've had 5 vacancies in the last 6 weeks or resignations. I know 2 in particular, they cited wages and went to a agency not too far from us. Uh, 1 left for another job that if that would be much better at, and then the other 2 are just, they left the state. It's just the last 5 we've had before we've had some other off the site for financial reasons.

Comes to the right.

Thank you. So regarding the, the budget that we would need for owing RVs can can money be taken from the reserves of the general fund to fund that in this budget? Is that an option?

It is an option. The only thing council is prohibited from doing is increasing the budget. Over what it was published at at the proposed budget, you can always bring the budget down. You just can't increase it with this.

You have other reductions if you were to make.

Some reductions tonight, you could add back. An appropriation within the police department, and then the funding mechanism at that point. We can determine, but reserves would be an option. Your appropriations can't end up being higher than what you publish the budget at right? And your certified property taxes cannot end up being higher.

Either got you, but as far as where I move the money from, that is, it can be moved.

You can reallocate funds, make a reduction on another area to make an increase in another area. I will add, because I didn't finish answering the question on vacant position, the grant manager position we have recruited for. But we've had an unsuccessful recruitment, so we put a pause in it so that we potentially would. Help us in the next recruitment if we were to recruit for it again. Sometimes that helps to wait to pull a different pool of candidates.

But just counselor, thank you Mr. man. The amount that I had written it down I believe was around $17,000 that we were estimating was the cost this year, what we think the cost would be this year. What would be the appropriate amount of money for the police department to be towing these RVs when they come up? Do we have a rough estimate?

Jennifer city attorney counselor, right? We currently have all those vehicles in our possession right now. The location that we were going to take them for disposal is currently closed. So we're still holding on to those vehicles. Our understanding of what the process is going to entail. This go around is going to be a cheaper process. So, we don't know the full estimate, but based on our historical costs, it was about 2000 dollars just for the disposal cost itself. With the premise that it's going to be cheaper because there's a new process. I wouldn't anticipate it being any higher, but those are constantly coming into town. And so it's a continuing problem. We don't know what the costs are ultimately going to be and it's going to be a year over year. I know that I've been working with the mayor. to help propose or suggest legislative changes to some existing state code that applies to cities over 100,000 to reduce that population limit down so that cities like us can have stronger enforcement mechanisms instead of relying on public right-of-way state codes because otherwise cities are preempted and prohibited from

making certain regulations relating to these vehicles it's entirely occupied by state code and without these changes we won't be able to do anything more than we're currently doing oh can i follow up mr mayor councillor wright thank you so would at the moment because i think if we get ahead of this um it becomes less of a i i hope Less of a destination for these if it gets known that we're serious about. Towing them up them away, so would 20,000 dollars and this might be a question for the police chief. Is that enough of a buffer for your budget? Do you think.

I don't want to speak too much on Jason before he get a chance to, but 20,000 dollars is roughly 8 vehicles and we took over almost that much in 2 months. So, if you think about, and that's for this fiscal year, that money will come out of this fiscal budget. It is not anticipated for next fiscal year what the cost would be. And I don't know how much of those. Those. Judge the judgment funds that they got how much that would actually go towards that.

Basically, chief, please. Yeah, I would 2nd that. Yeah, which right now. We've pulled in those. How many more keep coming in? We don't know because we ended. More likely people probably know we're from Clarkston. I think it's other people that are just bouncing around and now we're just playing playing some catch up. I mean, 20,000 is a great start. Absolutely. Uh, but could it exceed it? Yeah, reasonably it could exceed that amount. So. But it's, it's going to be the cost of trying to make sure that the city has a, you know. we're not exactly like i said trying to invite you know people we're trying to be empathetic and like i said we are spending a lot of time working with people within the situation trying to provide them resources first but this ends up coming this is the end result where we have to tow and remove vehicles like this so but i can't give you a ballpark because this is probably the first time that we've really got serious about it because it's just there we're not getting any assistance from the residents of these rvs so Forward, we're just going to start addressing in a much quicker manner. With the help of the city attorney's office.

And I would note too, and I don't know how many residents here are from North Lewiston, but our North Lewiston community has been very deeply impacted by these RVs and the rights of way. And it's essentially making certain parts of the town inhabitable for those residents. And it's affecting business owners, it's affecting property owners, and it's even affecting people's desire to walk around the streets or be in their houses. We have received and I don't know. You know, everyone's opinions about this, but I read every email that gets sent to me, even if it's sent to the city council. Sometimes those emails get to me and I read every 1 of those emails. I'm not always in a position to respond to them, but, you know, that's why I took the time to make the ask during this public meeting that we consider. Finding funding mechanisms for even these kinds of things, because when we do consider reducing our budgets, this type of preventative policing is 1 of the 1st things to go because it's, it's a little bit more of the icing on the cake. And it's not necessarily responding to the criminal activity in and of itself because those people. That are committing those crimes. Yes, they might get arrested, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the police department or the city has the resources to tow and get those vehicles that are also problem hubs in and of themselves out of those neighborhoods. And and making sure that we preserve some kind of funding mechanism for those is important because it'll address the crime and the other problems that come along with that. I don't know how many of you pay attention to the news, but there was. Um, a new story about 1 of these, um, mobile homes, having a big bonfire in the middle of the street that potentially threatened, um, the itself and some of the, the nearby structures, if it got out of hand. And so there was a big response from the fire department and the police department. Um, and it was a very dangerous situation too. And so, you know, we want to try to avoid that as much as possible by ensuring that these types of programs are still funded.

Thank you just a couple of additional comments. You made a motion tonight to redirect some funds to create a funding mechanism for the removal of these and say, it wasn't sufficient enough. You could always utilize. So, when we're into the next year budget, you could always utilize your council contingency funds. Um. You know, the city attorney and I, we spoke earlier today. It might be possible to create a. Revenue for these items, if that were the case, and we were to find a revenue source for these in the next year, that would. Meet the qualifications of an amendment, because it would be a new revenue. So, I think tonight, if we, we had a starting point would be nice.

Here. Councillor Forsman would be able to give just a brief explanation that, like, the community park proposal. And my friend Jim, and those are not part of the general. Budget and so that cutting those would not actually assist in cutting taxes.

The property taxes are not being used to fund those projects. So, within the general fund, there is a fund called the assigned building fund. It has a very narrow scope of how those funds can be used and those funds are intended to only be used for. The construction or the improvement of city owned facilities or land. They are not new revenues. These are monies that are already sitting in a bank account with this. There are defined scope of how they can be used. So this would be putting those dollars into action, but their dollars at city already has within their accounts. They were put there to fulfill what the city code says regarding that. Assigned fund balance, but it does have a very narrow scope of how they can be used. So it is. For the improvement of city on facilities and land.

I'm serious. Further questions for director Gordon counselor.

I get more of a comment. I wanted to thank the director for the short notice working up this alternative budget for us. I know you're quick and you have a lot of other stuff to do, but I appreciate it.

Welcome. I should add, because I didn't include this last week when I did my public hearing presentation. I feel bad because I forgot to think my staff to help assist me in creating the budget because we do this in addition to our day to day duties. I have a great staff at finance. They put in a lot of time specifically my. Accounting supervisor, Claire blew it as well as our payroll specialist, Carolyn Monday, and they put a lot of time into calculating. Um, budget numbers with me, but also our department has, they spend a lot of time meeting with myself and the mayor. And talking budget, and so it is a city wide effort and it starts in March and we go through August working on the budget.

I had this question and I was going to ask it and then it went right out of my brain. For our auditing, just for the public's information, we have an external auditor come in and audit our books and what we're doing and our dollars, correct?

That's correct. We have the audit completed. It's also a state requirement. We couldn't choose not to have an audit, but we do have an audit every year.

Journal nothing to do with Lewiston.

It's an external auditor.

Counselor right like to make a motion to approve the 2nd, reading of ordinance number 4974.

I can't removed by counselor right? 2nd, by counselor client to approve the 2nd, reading ordinance. Number 4974.

Elsewhere right would you like to speak to your motion yet just I would like to add some discussion here I'd like to see 20,000 get into get to the police department's budget for these are bees is a starting point. But we can. Uh, consider that in our amendments and maybe I'll just add it now and we can adjust. So I'd like to make an amendment to take 20,000 from the. General reserve fund and move that to the police's budget specifically earmarked for towing RVs, campers, recreational vehicles that are, um. meeting a crime based on our ordinances.

Did a motion?

That was a motion, Councillor. I need a second. Second. Thank you, Director Gordon.

So, within the appropriations ordinance, I understand you want to add 20,000 to police departments line item, but I would need to know which department you want to deduct those funds from. Because reserves, they're not a department, they only exist in the budget if you budget to use them. So it would have to be a reduction elsewhere.

Um.

I, and I guess they could clarify if your intent is to use the general fund reserves. I, that can be a revenue source for this. But I can't add it to the budget at this point until there's another budget reduction, because you can't exceed what you published your budget.

Right? So, should I hold off on this or we put it into another amendment, a reduction amendment with that?

Potentially, you could see what happens this evening and then you could come. Back and do an amendment, or you can make an amendment next week based off the events of tonight. But I can't increase the budget at this point. Because we're still at what we published the budget act.

So, why don't I pull it back then? And that'll make it a little easier. I'm, I'm thinking so. I'll pull back my motion motion.

I'm sure enforcement sorry, and you also mentioned we can, we could also pull these dollars from the council contingency fund. Correct? I might not be getting that. Right, right.

Yeah, if you wanted to now, as a budget stands, you could increase police. Budget by 20,000, and you could reduce council contingency by 20,000 and that would have 40,000 and their contingency budget. And that would level it out to an even 0 that would make you would end up with your budget would be, um. The overall budget amount would be the same as it currently is. It would just be that reallocation of funds. Thank you.

That's what thank you for discussion. I guess my, I'm going to make a motion, but I want to kind of explain it beforehand to get maybe changes to it or whatever, but. Um, my proposal is to accept the alternate budget proposal, but make some changes. Um. I would like to, I'd like to increase the call up to 1.5% before you discuss it.

I need a 2nd on a motion. What motion you have a motion or.

Okay, discussion please. Um, to increase the cola to 1.5%, but with that reduce the transportation from the arterial transportation fund, the 2.22 million, $250,000 to $2 million. And that would fund the. The 0.5% increase in cola plus remove the golf courses spray rig, which is 55,000 dollars with all that together. I think we could fund the coal increase and we could also. Keep 1 of the positions, either the grant writer or police position, whichever 1 we decided on and still keep a 0% property tax increase. Question don't like it.

Mayor?

Elsa Wright?

I like it. I think your approach is a good idea and I'd be in favor of it. I would like to add the $20,000 for towing RVs. That's my only input.

And you said we're reducing from one again and then cutting out both cores.

Removing the spray rig for the golf course, I think it was $55,000.

And then remove from transportation, I think you said?

It's within the capital projects I tried to get. Director Gordon tried to steer me on how to say it, but I'm too stupid to remember basically take it from the arterial reconstruction fund. I think it's called 2.25. No, you just reduce it down to 2Million and that would fund the other items and we could decide on what, um, which 1 of the vacant positions we wanted to save police or. The grant writer, whichever is more important.

Mr. Mark.

Uh, to speak to councilor point, uh. And also Councilor Wright's point, I do believe that the 20,000 for the remediation and removal of the illegally parked travel trailers and RVs in North Lewiston needs to be dealt with. In order to do that, I would say, I would suggest, as Councilor Spickelmeyer laid out, but the 20,000 would come out of the COLA. So if it's a 1.5 increase in COLA, it would be the 1.5 minus the 20,000 in order to fund the removal of that. and that would still keep us at a zero percent increase.

Can I ask a question? Is there a concern with taking it currently out of the council fund that is currently $40,000, sitting at $40,000, which I believe we don't pull from very often, and funding it with that?

Well, my concern would be we just had a windstorm and that we spent all of our contingency this last year.

I need you to speak up. So the public listening can hear what we're saying.

Apologize. Thank you. Mr mayor. My concern would be if there's a storm or something that comes up that that money is. Potentially going to get used.

Um, can I ask a question for me? Sorry. Um, when was the last time we spent money out of that and what is the. Typical reason that we'd be pulling from that 1 contingency funds.

Um, those are particularly yeah, those are in place, um, to give counsel the ability to respond to an emergent and unplanned circumstance. I council's probably used them and other mechanisms before, but, like, this year, you guys use council contingency funds when we had the. The high winds this winter, and it took down trees throughout the city. We use those funds to help respond to that winter storm event.

Counselor, we also use them last year to increase value reasons.

Remember that. Yeah, yeah, previously either council contingency budget was 50,000. It's now 40,000 because of that redirection to value vision. Got it.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah. So, a question, I guess, to counsel Maury is that I think that the contingency funds already within the budget. So, it would just be reallocating money from the contingency fund. It wouldn't change the budget. It would just be reallocating the 20,000 from the counselor's contingency fund.

Okay, and with that, we're going to reduce it from 40 to 20. From 40,000 and 20,000 in the counselor's contingency fund. Is that what you're saying?

I will say I do kind of agree with counselor rights concern with if we do have a net disaster happen, we are taking from that. Pool of money, so I can see the concern there. But also go ahead.

I'm I'm all for moving that twenty thousand from the contingency contingency fund only because I feel this is kind of an emergency and the faster it gets dealt with the hopefully that'll that'll reduce the need for it in the future. It is kind of emergency thing for the public. Eliminating violent dogs and violent situations for that community.

Well, and with the other proposed cuts, it might be within that too. You know that with my math, it was. There, I think director board and was going to come up with actually what it would look like, but if we've made the proposal, and then on the 3rd reading, we might have to adjust it then. If it went over, am I wrong?

Okay, counselor.

So if everyone agrees, I'll make the, uh, motion.

Oh, uh, when you do that, I'm going to ask you to just state it 1 item at a time so that our city clerk can capture that or legal team can capture it and Amy can capture it to make sure we get it right.

Okay. Okay, I'd like to make a motion to amend ordinance number 4974. with the amendment be to accept the alternate budget proposal that has the 0% income in the property tax revenue. With that, an adjustment would be to reduce, get this one wrong, reduce the, from capital projects, the transportation arterial reconstruction fund from $2 million 2.25 million. I think it's not the actual number. Reduce it to $2 million. Next. And remove the golf course spray rig, $55,000. Increase the coal to 1.5%. and keep the vacant grant writer position and that $20,000 to what to the police fund that additional $20,000 to the police. That's it.

Second. Thank you. I will see if I captured this.

There's been a motion to

amend ordinance number 4974 by accepting the alternate budget

Mayor city attorney, Jennifer may we go at ease just to make sure that we can run the numbers so that as a counselor speaker Myers motion is. Quickly reviewed that it doesn't result in a net increase because once we adjust all the numbers, it might not necessarily have the same effect that you anticipated. This way we can make sure that it does have that effect before we pass the motion. And if there's any additional amendments that need to be made before the second reading is finalized, we can get that taken care of.

Thank you, Jennifer. I think what I'll do is I'll ask for a second on the motion and then we'll go at ease.

Mayor, there's already a second on the motion. That was Councillor Wright.

I have not read the motion. Thank you. There's a motion by Councillor Specklemark to accept the alternate budget, reduce Well, I may need to stand corrected here. Councilor Wright, did you understand the motion and second it?

Yes, Mr. Mayor.

Okay. Thank you. Well, then I stand corrected. Jennifer, thank you for your humble response and smile. So I'm going to put the council at ease and we're going to double check our numbers. This is important work. So thank you. The City Council will come to order. Councillor Spickemeyer.

I'd like to withdraw my previous motion.

Just a second. Yes, I'll withdraw my second.

Go ahead Councillor Spickemeyer.

I'd like to make a new motion to accept the alternate budget with the following revisions. Reallocate $20,000 from contingency to the police fund. Add back the grant writer position. Move the golf course spray rate. Increase the cola to 1.5% by reducing arterial street budget. By 153,440 dollars. 2nd. Okay, counselors, you heard the motion.

And we're going to vote on this one if there are other amendments that they can be made after that are there any questions on the motion.

Wait for you to repeat it so I can write the numbers down after horseman. I just wait for you to repeat it like right the numbers on I missed some of the numbers that he mentioned said.

OK, do you need me to repeat the motion or do you understand the motion?

Can you repeat it one more time?

OK, it's been moved by Councillor Spickelmeyer, seconded by Councillor Wright to accept the alternate budget with the following revisions. Roll back $20,000 from contingency to the list in place, add back the grant writer position, remove the golf spray rig and increase COLA to 1.5% by reducing the arterial street budget by $153,440. Councilors, if there's no questions, those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. Are there any other motions?

Okay hearing none.

Those in favor of approving the second reading of ordinance number 4974 is amended. Please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Clerk Brockie.

Approving the second reading of ordinance number 4974 an ordinance of the City of Lewiston to be termed excuse me sorry 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 bracket council next move to item C, ordinance forty nine seventy five, considering fixing and establishing tax certification on all taxable property situated within the corporate limits of the city of low center for the fiscal year, beginning October one, twenty, twenty six and ending September thirty, twenty, twenty seven. For the purpose of providing and raising money for municipal corporate purposes, providing for the certification to the board of county commissioners from this 1st county in the amount of Amy, please follow along 25862130. Providing a certified copy that, uh. Our finance director and city pressure, uh, Amy Gordon.

Sure, uh, Amy welcome based on the, um, amendment to the appropriations ordinance. It would require amending the tax certification ordinance as well. And I think about the best way to help you with that. If we were to accept the alternate tax certification ordinance with the following revisions, which would be to increase the general fund amount by $134,020, to increase the public transportation amount by $3,930, to increase the library amount by $5,280, to increase, I'm gonna have to do some additional calculations here, but to increase the streets amount by $9,840, increase the cemetery amount by $370, but then also reduce the streets amount by $153,440. your net impact to that alternate ordinance would be $0. You would still have the total at the bottom of $25,095,770.

Councilor, questions for Director Gordon? Mr. Mayor? Councilor Wright?

The correct amendment then would be to amend the amount to be $25,095,770. Correct. Thank you. Mr. Mayor. Councillor Wright. Motion to approve the second reading of ordinance number forty nine seventy five.

Who's the second on that? Please tell me. Okay. Moved by Councilor Wright, seconded by Councilor Specklemar to approve the second reading of ordinance number forty nine seventy five. Is there discussion or amendments? Mr. Mayor? Councilor Wright?

I would like to amend the amount from $25,862,130 to $25,095,770. Second. It's been moved by Councillor Wright, seconded by Councillor Forsman to amend ordinance number 4975, reducing

The amount down from $25,862,130 to $25,095,770. Is there further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor of the amendment please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Council now will vote on the main motion to prove the second reading of ordinance number forty nine seventy five those in favor please signify by saying aye. Opposed. Motion carries thank you council clerk rocky.

Proving a second reading. Of ordinance number 4975, an ordinance of the city of Lewis and fixing and establishing the tax certification on all taxable properties situated within the corporate limits. Of the study of listen 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.

Thank you, Clerk Brocki. Thank you, Council. Thank you, Legal Team, Finance Director, and everyone. Thank you. Council next we move to room number 5 on finished new business item a city councilor comments comments shall not be related to an item currently for the council or an item that may come before the council in the foreseeable future. They shall be limited to comments, not discussion.

Council president, thank you, Mr. Well, first off, I just. Well, my sincere thanks to everybody that took the time out of their evening. to come to this meeting. We're always talking about come on down and see what your council is up to, but this is a big town. I was really frankly glad to see you. So thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Forsman.

I would echo that contrary belief. We do like when the public shows up regardless of it to tell us that they don't like what we're doing and we need to change or we need to improve. I mean, that's. That's why we're up here is to make it better for everybody involved, including ourselves. Right? We also. Pay property taxes and so I know for me, I. I've seen my property taxes exponentially rise and, um, I will note that the last. Not the Latin here before, but the year before those, the 3 years before that we didn't, we stayed at a 0% increase. And unfortunately, you still saw an increase in your property taxes. Um, so we're aiming for this right now to go towards a 0% again. Um, but you still might see an increase and we still have a lot of work to do trying to figure out what that is. And part of that's going to be getting businesses. I hear you guys on the red tape. If you know, any businesses that are struggling or, um, having issues, I would highly encourage you get a hold of the mayor, um, share the staffing issues that you're having or the. snags that you're running into so that we can address those because we want to be a city that is thriving. I know for me, I'm going to meet with a couple of different cities and have met with and talked to other city leaders to try to figure out what they're doing and what their successes are, what their struggles are. Um, I'm going to continue to try to reach out, uh, for instance, the mayor of Moscow, I'm going to try to meet with and kind of get. Pick her brain and where they're at and things that they're doing to try to improve. Uh, because it because it affects me too, and affects everybody here. So, uh, we do listen to you. We do care. Um, also, those that didn't get to speak can email us and we do, we get them and then I also read them. I try to reply if I can. So it might miss some because sometimes it gets a lot of emails through there. So if I miss them, I apologize. You can always email me again and say, hey, I would like a response. But I just want to appreciate everybody that came here. Everybody stayed very cordial and respectful, which is great to have engagement with that. And we just still have a lot of work to do. So please continue to reach out to your council and let them know where you're seeing issues or things that need fixed.

Thank you counselor further council comments.

I just wanted to remind everyone that the. People voted for the school bond a few years ago, and that's a 3rd of our taxes. If you really look into it. That hurts us as well. And we still have failing infrastructure on main street that we need to figure out a way to pay for. We. Refuse the bond that would have had a nice and nice low.

interest rate so we got to figure out something thank you counselor further council comments i'm okay uh item b mayor comments well i just uh first of all just want to say lynn thank you for the use of your library we're keeping you up late tonight um We appreciate it very much. And then I just want to say, thank you to to all of the staff in the city of Lewiston. They are professionals and I'm very proud to work with them. I just appreciate their dedication and their work and their services community. Everyone. So, thank you.

With that Council will move to Roman over 6.

Motion to adjourn.

Thank you. Council president. It's been moved by Council President Kleberg, seconded by Councillor Klein to adjourn. Those in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. We are adjourned. Thank you, Council.