City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening. Welcome to tonight's 5:30 p.m. Calwell City Council workshop. We'll start with an update from the Caldwell Fire Department who is present in the crowd. We look forward to hearing from the update from Fire Chief Brian Daniels. And thank you for joining us this evening, Chief. It's all yours.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Uh tonight's presentation is just kind of an update about uh the state of the Caldwell Fire Department. Uh the last time we talked was probably around fall of last year and a few things have changed. So we'll walk you through this. Um we're what's called an all-risk fire department. And what that means for us is that we respond to all the emergencies. everything from a trapped dog underneath a a patio to a high-rise structure fire um hazardous materials, technical rescue, auto extrication, um wildland fire, hazardous materials, etc. Uh, as part of that, we are serving one of Idaho's fastest growing communities. And depending on what literature you look at, we're either first, second, or fourth in the state as far as a growing city, but um, probably first or second as uh, the state of Idaho is the fastest growing state in the nation. Um, our population, as you know, is reaching around 80,000 people and we're serving uh, those 80,000 people out of three fire stations. And with the sustained growth that we haven't seen slow down, uh we have a little bit of an increased demand on services and that goes across the system for fire, police, and EMS. Currently, our staffing is as follows. We have 83 full-time employees. Out of those, 69 are assigned to shift work. Um out of that 83, as well, five personnel are assigned to prevention. Chief Perry leads that division up. Uh we have three civilian support personnel, uh three training personnel, one division chief and two training captains and uh one volunteer chaplain who also serves double duty with Caldwell Police Department lately. Um and to include um three additional chief officers, myself

and and Chief Shupe and Chief Gerard who could not join us tonight. Our personnel work a 4896 schedule, which means they work two days on, four days off. And like I said earlier, we deploy with three engines, a truck, battalion chief, and we do have that rural staffing component, which I'm proud to say next month will be one year in operation with the rural fire district. And we typically deploy a squad out of that station. And a squad is a smaller vehicle which has two personnel on it. Um, and they're kind of our sacrificial units in the city limits. I'll get I'll get into that detail a little bit later. Um, and uh, quick update is that we do have four anticipated retirements by summer of 2026. Um, and we do have one vacancy right now. Call volume and demand for service. Uh we're on target for 9,200 calls this year, this calendar year, and we are at frequent minimum staffing conditions. And what that means is we will intentionally uh put the squad out of service to reallocate those personnel to different seats on fire apparatus so we can award our people some days off. Um and we will drop staffing on a fire engine from four personnel to three personnel um to also accommodate those days off without acrewing or incurring overtime expenses. Um and we have to do that pretty frequently based on uh injuries, FMLA status, protected leave, uh paid parental leave, or vacation holiday. Real quick, just some stats uh comparing 2024 to 2025. In the middle of this, uh uh slide, you see some green blobs, which kind of represent within our our jurisdiction a 4minute travel time, which is our benchmark. That's that's what we're trying to

achieve. The faster we can get to your emergency, the the the quicker we can handle it. Yellow's pushing that limit. A red is obviously not where we want to be. Um, between 2024 and 2025, we had about a thousand call or I'm sorry, about 700 call increase. Um, we did improve our turnout time and our response time or our travel time. And that's partially and thanks to um the squad deployment and and letting those units take those lower calls um and unbburden our engines. Um, we still have a ways to go. We're still at 5 minutes and 40 seconds for travel time given our current configuration. Uh we're optimistic that with station 4 and the discussion of station five that we're going to have some some shorter travel times and that that is our goal. Some recent accomplishments since we spoke last uh new fire engine 13 was placed into service. Squad 13 has arrived. Uh we had initially slated that for purchase out of the capital fund. Um but ARPA funding came available last year and that unit uh is due to go in service short order uh for sure by fire season. Um we are planning the order of engine 14 upon council's approval later tonight. Um we do have a fire station that's going to be starting uh uh construction here later this fall. So we're really excited about that. And for us to open that up, we're going to need that fire engine. Um, and we're planning for truck 15. You see the five at the end of there. We are planning for a station five. And maybe this is new. Um, but there are plans. There have been plans for two years, my two years with the city. Um, in fact, my first week was discussion on station five, and I'll touch base on that in a second here. Um, we did uh merge dispatch centers. Nampa Fire

came over to Canyon County Dispatch uh couple of months ago and it's been uh it's been a good venture. We're all all all fire and EMS agencies in Canyon County are now on one channel and one operational center and the efficiencies have already been identified. Um with that came AVL, automatic vehicle location. So we use the closest resource dispatch concept regardless of the patch on your shoulder or the sticker on your fire engine. If you're closer to the call, you're going to that call. That's the right thing to do for the community. Us, Midstar and Nampa have agreed to do that. And since we're all centered up out of one dispatch center with the technology in place, we can do that more efficiently. Um, we hired uh JD Hendrickk, who you'll meet tonight. He's not here yet. Um, he's our new EMS training captain. He came to us from the city of Meridian. Um, and he has been spooling up our paramedic program for the fire department. uh which we hope to go live with uh by this summer. Uh PSTB public safety training building is a joint venture from uh that was um funded through ARPA funds and is a joint venture with Caldwell Police Department. Uh we were able to move Garcia Hill um which is where this building is going to be placed and we hope for occupancy and full functionality on that facility by July of this year. uh classroom that will seat around 50 people. Uh a mat training room for PD to do their wrestling, we'll just call it that. Um and uh um some some classroom uh space for us. Uh we also brought on nine new firefighters um who graduated our own 16week academy uh over the winter. It was the first academy that Caldwell Fire has done on our own for our own uh in quite some time and it was a good success. Engine

11 made the Pierce calendar. You see that photo on the top and we are revamping all of our SOPs. There's a few hundred of them. Uh but with an evolving organization comes some growing standards or some new standards. Future fire stations. Some really cool stuff starting to happen. uh two conceptual uh diagrams there of of what these facilities are going to look like. Fire station one and fire admin will break ground on those April 22nd. If you notice the old city hall has fencing all around the perimeter. Some vegetation has been removed. Uh they are getting ready to start on those facilities for us. We expect occupancy by September 2027 and then soon after or concurrently uh groundbreaking for September of this year for station 4 at the lake and Carter area and we expect uh a one-year build time on that facility as well to go operational next fiscal year or November of 27. And then there's a little bit of information for station 5. Um, the Brighton Development has uh secured land for us in their conceptual plan in the Aviary Heights subdivision at Midland in 2026. This is a project that's been underway for quite some time. And with that they have we have um learned how to term the donation of land to be turnkey ready um with all infrastructure improvements um to that land. And so um that is a discussion that we are having with the Brighton Development still actively uh and they have slated to give us just over an acre in that area uh with all improvements to the site and it will be ours. Real quick budget and financial position. just kind of want to give you

an update on where we're at and and at the mayor's um uh request kind of center uh um some of this discussion on where we're at with the budget. Um as you know, we're funded by property taxes. We do collect impact fees and we do have some grants and rule contracts. Um we've made thanks to your support some significant fleet and training investments. We hope that we keep uh uh receiving that support. Um, and there are some costs that we've identified. Overtime being one of those with our 16week academy. Um, some of the protected leave status that I discussed earlier, we had some pretty elevated overtime increases. Uh, we are the only department in the city that is bound by a labor agreement. And with that labor agreement comes some minimum staffing standards where we must uh staff three personnel on a fire engine and four personnel on a ladder truck and have a battalion chief on duty every single day. We don't we don't get to deviate from that minimum and that creates um an expense. Fuel um we're well aware diesel is over $5 a gallon now. Um, and our equipment doesn't get it's not very fuel efficient quite quite frankly. Uh, we're monitoring that. We're still okay on the fuel line item though. Um, and some of our maintenance is increasing. The larger ticket items aren't. With a modern fleet comes a lesser repair bill. However, with more frequent trips, longer hours, and uh higher mileage, drive time, our our vehicles need to go in the shop a lot more frequently. And so, an oil change on a fire engine, for instance, is, you know, a few hundred. So, um we are seeing that happen a little more frequently, but um overall, the big ticket items aren't as much as they used to be with with an aging

fleet. So, we're very thankful for that. Um, just really quick, uh, where we're at right now, uh, our total budgeted revenue is about 12.85 million. We've received 7.7 of that. So, we're tracking as anticipated. And these are all figures from Spring Brook directly. Um, out of those revenues, property taxes um, make up the bulk of that and and we're right on track at 61%. Um, and the rural fire contract nets the city about $3 million for fire protection services and staffing agreement. Our expenditures so far um we're about 48% spent given six months of the year with 50% of the budget remaining. We're right on target where we need to be. So even though we've had some overtime um increases, we're right where we need to be. Um even a little bit under given our personnel standing right now. Um and and we have spent 88% of that overtime budget, but overall the line item for personnel is is right where it needs to be. Um so key takeaways uh our budget is stable. Um our revenue is maintaining some consistency and we are monitoring uh some of those overtime and premium pays. Um it pained me to put a temporary moratorum I should say on on training and extracurricular training events. There's Captain Hendrickk here. You're fine. You don't have to come up. Okay. Um and and we're doing that to conserve or to stay on target with our overall personnel fund. And this is just from spring birth directly. You can see the far right column represents where we're at given six months of the of the uh of the fiscal year remaining. And like I said earlier, we're we're at or right where we need to be as far as the budget's concerned. Legislative impacts. Um, this past month has been a very busy week for the

Caldwell Fire Department and um, I spent a lot of time at the capital supporting some initiatives for local fire districts. Um, especially those that are um, hindered by the effects of House Bill 389. Uh I'm proud to say that last week this the Senate passed uh House Bill 959 which allows fire districts to uh raise their budgets by up to 15% based on new growth. Uh and that's an increase from 8%. Um that will be that will be something that we're we're going to need to explore as a city and how we can benefit from that. Uh right now the way the legislation is written is that cities are ineligible for that. However, fire and EMS districts remain the um remain the targets to for help there. Um we we also passed another victory um with the Senate by letting fire departments or fire districts collect impact fees themselves. So that'll be a first this year as well that goes into effect July one as well. there's a lot more uh of a streamlined process for fire districts to choose to annex or merge without the complications uh of of bureaucracy really. Um so if two fire districts decide that it's in their best interest to merge, they can do that by by motion of those fire districts without going to the voters. as long as the voters don't encounter an increase and they maintain the same level of services. That's the intent behind those bills. Uh unfortunately, the state did cut uh a number of programs uh $400 million out of the state's budget with uh initially $300,000 in cuts to wildfire preparedness and suppression efforts. They rolled that back to just $150,000.

However, we're going to be we're going to be in a position of competing values when we talk about this year's um fire season. We we fully anticipate a catastrophic fire season in the Pacific Northwest. Somewhere in the Pacific Northwest this year, there will be a major incident. It could be here, it could be in Oregon, it could be in Washington, but it will impact our state. and IDL's uh budget cuts do not help that situation at all. And so we're going to be faced with decisions as far as the operations is concerned with when do we fight fire and where do we fight fire? We have our community to protect but um there is an old adage out there all fires eventually go out. It's just what they burn. And so, um, we know that the funding and the support from the state is going to be pretty minimal. And the last thing that firefighters want to do is let fires burn, especially when we can see them in our backyard. Uh, and we're going to have to we're going to have to design what our operation looks like this summer. So, more to follow on that. Um, I talked a little bit about labor policy and and our our labor agreement with our union. Um, as we talk about bringing on station 4 online in engine 14, that automatically increases our full-time employee count. So, I want I want just to just to throw that out there, make sure everyone's aware of that. Um, and that our demand is still increasing. Um, our police department has done a great job of keeping crime down. Um, keeping violent crime down. However, fires and EMS calls are up in the city of Caldwell, and that this comes with population influx. I want to leave you with some some good pictures and some some feel-good stuff.

Uh met the owner of D&B last year at the rodeo and he said, "If you ever need anything, you let me know." And so I said, "Hey, we need some tools." And um right there represents about $8,000 worth of tools um that they donated to us. and we were able to use uh use their employee discount during DeWalt days and completely outfit our technical rescue trailer for our technical rescue team to get some of those necessary tools and equipment. Um, right now our technical rescue team, uh, if we had an incident, we would have to call NA to come in and help us. Um, and and we do have some tools and equipment on our ladder truck, but this this latest infusion of of assets really helps us. Um, our personnel last uh or a couple of months ago came and asked you for funding for the Seattle Stair Climb. This is them at the end of it. They did great. Uh BC Martinez said he made uh uh his his best time yet. Uh and this is also his last year service. So we thank him for heading that up. Uh this is um us with uh Governor Little at the uh community risk reduction proclamation um where uh Chief Perry, Chief Richard, myself, and Chief Gerard were able to talk with him and discuss uh the the needs for um continuing um funding and awareness for community risk reduction. our nine new recruits who graduated uh over the winter. Uh they're doing well. I believe they're at uh their six-month six-month test. So, they've already been they've already been on the floor for six months. They've been exposed to some some high level incidents and we've talked about those in in some detail here at at council meetings. Um uh I I'm

so proud of these these men, all all the men and women of the Caldwell Fire Department, but uh these young men are the future of the organization. Um and just last week, uh here's engine 13, uh at at a Nampa Fire Station. We we covered their fire station so their personnel could go uh pay respects to Mayor Hogabalam's grave graveside service. And so we we're proud to do that for them. And we know that they would do the same for us. some upcoming events, uh, smoke detector blitz, uh, April 11th in the city of Green Leaf, um, as a contract agency for the rural district, city of Green Leaf. Um, we are also their fire department and they were identified as a as a target that needs some smoke detector updates. So, we've got about 40 volunteers going through Green Leaf with drill guns and ladders and smoke detectors, and we're going to make sure that every house that we can get into has at least a smoke detector in each bedroom. in the hallway. Uh you're welcome to join us on that. Um groundbreaking demolition ceremony April 22nd as mentioned earlier, fire in the whole golf tournament coming up June 6th, national night out August 4th, and and business after hours that we'll be hosting at the end of summer. So, what's coming next? Um station 4 activation plans. council and mayor, you know that we're going to need to staff that station and um we're going to stay with that cadence of of needing personnel um to onboard those folks as soon as we can. So when that station does open, there isn't a delay in service. Um so that's going to include uh requesting up to 12 additional firefighters. Station one and admin construction, as I said earlier, groundbreaking ceremony or demolition ceremony. It will be a demolition and groundbreaking ceremony. you will get to take a sledgehammer to the police annex building if you so

choose. Uh labor negotiations start tomorrow. Uh Councilman Denber is going to be joining us on that representing the city. Um and we expect that to take uh anywhere from one to two months. And next month uh we will have ESCI Emergency Services Consulting International present our finalized strategic plan standard to cover fire station location analysis and community risk reduction analysis to the council and the mayor for for adoption. Um that study was paid for through ARPA funds and gives us a roadmap on where we need to go and how we need to get there. With that, I'll leave you with our updated mission and vision and I'll stand for questions.

Uh, thank you, Chief Daniels Council. Councilor Tada. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Chief, uh, could you go back to the legislative side slide you had there? Just a couple questions there. So, what it tells me is that we're going to have to raise property taxes to meet all the needs that you have. Is that correct? Well, um, just a yes or no answer. No in between on this thing. So, yeah, there really isn't. There isn't an in between. Uh, we're going to have to find the funds somewhere because impact fees won't pay for it all. Right. And they're already not.

Yeah. Annexation reform. Uh, what can you explain that one to me relative to having county come into city limits or what are we talking about there? uh with new legislation passed, it basically gives uh let's say a path for the city to be okay with the Caldwell Rural Fire District annexing in over the city and drawing new boundaries and setting a path for a new larger fire district where the city would then relinquish um fire services to the fire district. Okay. Wildfire funding instability. What's that? Uh again, um outside city limits or inside

outside city limits. Yes, outside city limits. It strictly affects um IDL resources and state resources. The state did uh make some drastic cuts this year, $400 million from the general fund. Um they did cut IDL's uh wildfire preparedness uh funding from 300,000 and they they gave them back $130,000, but they took away bonuses for recruitment and retention for wildland firefighters. Um and they're also not getting colas this year. So um what what does that mean for us in the areas where we do border um state response area? We're going to have a decision to make when it comes to to suppressing those fires in in the wildland realm. Um we can let those burn to our city limits or we can engage a little more quickly. And so, um, the state's already told us that they're going to be limited on resources this year and that they're going to be heavily reliant on municipal and and fire district help to get them through the year.

So, that's a state issue, right, with the state legislature? It is, relative to funding, it is. Okay. Uh, relative to uh demand increasing faster than revenue, is there a possibility that we might build a station and not have labor for it? Um, that's a conversation that we can discuss during budgeting. Um I I suppose that's always a possibility. Right now um our our property tax revenue do not support those additional 12 personnel

because it's pretty obvious to me that again our ratio of subdivisions are way out of whack compared to our commercial industrial tax, you know, brackets. We just don't have enough commercial industrial. Is there um if we didn't service all these smaller towns and I don't I don't know how they reimbur do they reimburse us for what we do for them or is it just uh

the the rural district basically funnels their their collection uh of fire protection or fire district dollars to the city. Um and so all property owners in notice and green leaf in those cities plus the unincorporated areas that we serve contribute to the fire district and the fire district gives us or forwards us those those funds for fire suppression and a little bit extra um for staffing and notice. Does do those contributions though are they do they match our actual expenses? Yes, they they more than cover it. So how do we how do we track that? Do we bill them or do we bill somebody for that? Say we spend x amount of hours and all that.

No. Um we're the the the personnel and the fire service uh agreement are two separate things. They pay us for actual expenses when it comes to personnel. And the fire services agreement is an agreed upon $2 million per year that that we are the fire department for green leaf notice in the unincorporated areas. And that's just they they get it all. They get everything. Um we it is a win-win situation for both sides. They get a fire department that's that's um four apparatus deep with leadership um equipment etc. We get an extra engine that we can rely on or an extra piece of apparatus and two personnel that are funded from the rural district for for for use at our disposal.

Well, my thinking was when you talked about response time, if we didn't have all these smaller towns to respond to, wouldn't our response time be a lot better just within Cwell? No. uh in city limits. Right now, we're still at that that five minute um uh response time. If you go back to before when we before us executing that agreement with notice, you can see our travel time was 6 minutes and 6 minutes 12 seconds. So, it's gotten better since we added that extra unit. Um and we still served notice in Green Leaf when we had a higher travel time. Um the more stations, the more apparatus we're able to put online, the usually the the circumstances are our our travel times will go down.

You did mention that we also service Star and Middleton, don't we? No, those don't account in in there. We don't service them at all then. No, through through automatic aid or mutual aid agreements only, but we don't track those times to to get to those jurisdictions. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome, sir. Thank you, Councelor Stok. Councelor Williams. Correction. Councelor Denber.

Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Chief. This might be a comment in general, and I don't think there's anything for you to answer, but several uh several weeks ago, I mentioned that the budget cuts at the state would uh be balanced on the backs of the local organizations. And so we now have this difficult decision, like you said, whether or not we want to help fight wildland forest fires outside of our jurisdiction because the state no longer wants to fund those. The same will happen with law enforcement as they cut down on health and welfare home visits and as they cut back on the mental health services in our community. Our public safety will have to step up to uh balance the backs of the state budget. So, no question there.

I agree with you. Thank you, sir. Great point made, Councelor Denber. That is very true to fact. Um, any other questions from council. All right. Real quick, can you just mention um the price increase when we're talking about costs and stuff? Um, especially councelor Stodd's question, the increase in fire trucks. Sure. Fire engines.

Yeah. 10 years ago, a fire engine fully loaded was around $650 to $750,000. Um 15 years ago it was around $500,000. Today $1.2 million for that same piece of apparatus. Um tariffs uh materials increases um all the way to mechanical and emission controls um have contributed to to fire engines increasing by 50% in just 15 years. For the record, I mean a Honda Civic hasn't doubled in price. Um but fire engines have. And uh um there's a challenge right now at the um legislative level to ask the big three manufacturers of fire engines why. We feel that we're being quite frankly taken advantage of, but we have no other choice.

Uh thank you for that, Chief. Did you have anything else? Councelor Sto. Yeah, one more question. I just, you know, the good buy we made with the Washington State folks. Uh are we uh you know they figured they figured they bought a they bought an engine and they figured out it was too heavy for their bridges or whatever it was. Isn't that correct? That is correct. Yeah. Now are we open to I mean do we do any searches to see whether we have any more opportunities there because we saved quite a bit of money buying that apparatus versus a brand new one?

We do. Those are those are very competitive though. Um and some don't meet the bill. Uh another alternative that we're looking at is refurbing a fire engine. So, we've got some some fire engines with good bones still. Um, and we refurbished engine 18 that serves the notice area uh for about half the cost of a brand new one, but it gave us pretty much a brand new fire engine. And so, there's some there's some economy that we that we can look at, some savings that we could look at. We just have to have the right candidate. But, we do we do periodically look for some best value. Um, but again, we don't want to inherit somebody else's problem and not have a warranty, things like that. Yeah, I understand. Thank you.

Yes, sir. Uh, thank you, councelor Sodic. All right. Anything else from council? All right. Well, with that, this concludes tonight's Cobble City Council workshop, and we will start here in just a minute. Does anyone need a quick bathroom break? All right. And now that we're back,

and thank you for the outstanding service, Coal Fire Department, you provide to the city. All right, I will call tonight's Cole City Council meeting to order and welcome those who are joining us. First on the agenda is the invocation with tonight which tonight will be offered by Pastor Brian Dyer of the Eustic Road Church in Nazarene. Please stand if you're able to join us in prayer and we'll follow with the pledge of allegiance.

Precious, kind, loving heavenly father, I thank you dear God for your blessings upon us as a people. I pray dear God that you would grant our mayor and our city council clarity to discern what is right, courage to act with integrity and humility to listen well. Help each voice to contribute to a greater good and add to their collective wisdom. May their differences become a source of strength rather than division. Shape them as servant leaders that their decisions may reflect justice, compassion, and responsibility for those they serve. May all that is said and done here tonight bring about peace, progress, and unity in the city of Codwell. and glory to your name. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen.

To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. You may be seated. Thank you Pastor Ryan for that. Um all right. Next item on the agenda is roll call. Madam clerk, please call the role. Tilman here. Councelor Stic here. Councelor Register here. Councelor Williams here. Councelor Algood here. Councelor Denberg here. All right. Thank you counselors. All counselors are present. Next is the conflict of interest declaration. Are there any members who have a conflict of interest to declare related to any item on tonight's agenda?

Mr. Mayor. Councelor Register. Um, I do have a conflict with item number 11, which is a resolution authorizing the Sea Drain Sunset South um, HOA encroachment agreement uh, due to personal business and representation of a client in that business that will prevent me from participating in the decision on the matter. And therefore, for ease, I will not vote on the entire consent agenda out of an abundance of caution.

All right. Thank you, councelor Register. And just to clarify real quick, anyone that's here for items one and two on new business, those have been continued to the April 20th city council meeting. So, if you're here for either number one or number two on new business. All right, the next item on the agenda is a special presentation by Haley Hart, our interimmal city public works director and the current city engineer on permitting and deciding road closures. Haley.

Mr. Mayor, council members, we receive a large amount of questions as regards to what is going on in our excuse me, what is going on on our roadways here in Caldwell. And so we thought it would be good to just provide a little bit of information on how the engineering department evaluates right-of-way permits, the different criteria that we use once we've accepted those permits, and then how we enforce permits to make sure that construction in Caldwell um has minimal impact to the residences, although I know it doesn't feel that way often. So, who needs right-of-way permits? large subdivisions that come into city council for approval for plant uh preliminary plat have to come through the right-of-way process when they do frontage improvements um roadway improvements extend utilities to their project single family homes if there's a resident who has a well and a septic and well goes dry and their septic fails they want to connect to city services they apply for a right-of-way permit to complete those service taps commercial and industrial projects. Similar to those large subdivision projects, it's going to be um developers who are coming in and needing to do frontage improvements or connect into our roadway um system or the utilities in the road. Sometimes we have other jurisdictions who need to do work in our rightway. Um I just worked with Nampa recently. They were working on an irrigation project and that project came into city of Caldwell. So, I worked with them on their right-of-way improvements and permit public works team. Believe it or not, the engineering department does require our own city staff to fill out right-of-way permits. We do this because we want to make sure that we're tracking contractors, even if it is our own team so that we know who's where at all times and what's going on in the roads. Event closures, typically you see this in the downtown, more so than you see elsewhere in the B or in the city. But really, it just comes down to anytime anyone's

doing work in the right of way, whether it's on sidewalk, the road, curb, gutter, storm, water, sewer, anything. If they're doing work inside of city right away, they need to come to the engineering department for a permit so that we can track their timing and their construction. We have various types of permits that are very dependent on the type of road and the type of closure. And we have our fee schedule associated um accordingly. Uh so you can see here for full road closure we do charge more and we do that per day. If we just have a sidewalk closure we'll do that as just a single cost. So depending on what type of closure people are requesting is how we charge and evaluate our permits. Oh, I did want to mention um you will notice that we have again various types of closures. There's benefits to some versus others. So, for instance, we have lane closures with flagging where one lane can still be open, people can drive through versus a full road closure. We often have contractors debating between these two that they want to do. I do want to mention that there's benefit to both. When a contractor does a full road closure, he is often able to complete work faster because he has control of the whole site versus if he does a lane closure with flaggers, it often takes longer for him to complete the work. So, I know that there's often times where people will see a construction site going on and ask, "Why is this full road closed? It looks like I still have room to sneak through." It's because we've worked strategically with contractors to weigh out the cost and the benefit of whether the full road should be closed or just a single lane so that they can get in and get out quickly for the community. So, when contractors submit for a rideway permit, we do have standard items that are required. First, we want

to know where the project is going to be located and a description of the project work. Additionally, they request uh dates to either close or be working within the right of way. These are requested dates at the time of permit. It is our staff that evaluates those dates and determines whether those will work for the city or not. We require a traffic control plan which is required to meet national standards through the MUTCD and I can get into that a little bit more later on. We need to know who is all going to be working within the right of way. So, not just that in general main contractor, but we also want to know any of the subcontractors or subconultants that are going to work in that area so that we know that in a year and a half if something in our system fails, we know who to kind of go back to and ask. I know that you worked on our curbing and it's failing, you need to come fix it. So, we need to know everyone who's working in our right of way. Anyone working in our right of way does is required to have a public works license. These are issued through the state of Idaho as well as a certificate of liability. And then as I me or And then we do have a 2-year warranty. So anytime anybody does work on our infrastructure, whether it be utilities or roadways, we carry a 2-year warranty where they have to come back and repair it if we have any issues in those first two years. They are all required to meet specific standards. We have the Idaho standards for public works construction. You'll see that denoted often as the ISPWC and our supplementals to the ISPWC. Our supplementals come first and then if we don't have a specific standard call out, contractors will then lean back on the ISPWC. And then I mention and our traffic control plan, those are to follow the manual on uniform traffic control devices, which is the MUTCD. These are national standards that control things like taper leng taper

length, excuse me, cone spacing, um number of flaggers required, these types of things outside of just right-of-way permits, traffic control, they also do just control everything you see in um your streets. So space um the spacing of lines um the the signs that you see again taper lengths. The METCD really controls all of the safety concerns in roadways. And then for larger projects, we do require construction drawings. If somebody again is just a single family resident wanting to tap into the water system, we don't require them to put a full set of construction drawings together. They can just follow a standard detail. But larger projects, we do make sure that they follow our construction drawings. um through and get those approved through the engineering department. So getting now that I've kind of gone over what those permits are, I think this is a little bit more of the bulk of the presentation of what is it that we consider when we receive these right-of-way permits that come in through our door. Um as you can see in this graph, we receive an enormous amount of right-of-way permits in the engineering department because this previous this winter has been so mild. Uh, I know that one asphalt plant never even closed. And so we were receiving record high numbers of rightway permits this winter. In fact, last month in March, we received 111 permits, which is more than we have ever received, even during our peak months in previous years. I don't know if this trend will continue. Like I said, it was an oddity with winter being so mild. So, we'll see if this trend continues through the summer or not. So when we get these rightway permits, we do still take the time to review them very carefully. Safety is the utmost importance to our engineering technicians who intake these. We look at the type of closure. So that again going back to if it's going to be full road

closure, lane closure, shoulder, sidewalk, parking, um, and we evaluate what that impact is on the area. Again, like I mentioned, sometimes it makes sense to allow them to close a full road down if we know that it can speed up the construction by a month or by a couple of weeks. Um, but often, normally what we do is if the work can be done with a single lane closure, we push contractors in that direction to try and minimize detours so that people can still get through. We look at the length of permit. Oftentimes contractors will come in requesting more days than we think is necessary and we will tell them we know you can do this job faster. You need to shorten your window and they will accommodate us and they will shorten their window time when we tell them. Uh notification period depending on the type of roadway. We do have different notification periods um for closures. So if it is a major or or a minor arterial or if it is a roadway that we know experiences significant traffic, we require longer notification periods to the public so that people can start planning accordingly. For smaller roads, we only require a couple of days of notification. Um we also look at all of the other ongoing construction projects and this is really the big one. We've got a right now we do it all by hand on a really big map and a really large spreadsheet um checking all of our different detours. We are working towards getting that online. We're using um a system with the planning and zoning department called Tyler Technologies and this will be available to us next year to be able to track these clo closures through an online web map that will also be able to be public to the um public. Um, but we do we do always want to make sure that if we have a closure that the detour does not route somebody through another construction zone. I know that's frustrating. I know we make mistakes.

We're human. Sometimes it happens, but we always do try to avoid that. We also want to make sure that when there is a road closed that people are being routed down like roads. A good example is when Farmway was closed last summer. We routed the city routed people down 10th. I know that seemed like a really far route to detour for Farmway, but we did that strategically because we wanted to make sure that the trucks that are typically two trailers long can make all of the corners and can the road can handle those vehicles. So, we try and do our detours based on like roads. And then we recognize that general public and residents in the area, they'll find other detour routes, but we want to make sure that like roads are recognized. We look at the traffic control plan. Not only do we make sure that it meets the MUTCD standards, but we also review it to make sure that we don't see any safety concerns um and that we are very familiar with our city. And so we want to make sure that the traffic control plan actually works for our city. um sometimes national standards don't always work for local government. So we do check that and make sure that the plans are safe and they are effective in Caldwell. We also look at what nearby schools could be impacted so that we can notify schools of any closures whether it be full road or lane. um when there are nearby schools we do restrict construction so that they will not be impacting drop off and pickup times for schools. Similarly for impacted roads we look at what significant roads are going to be impacted by construction and we restrict contractors so that they cannot be working on some of our significant corridors during rush hour traffic. So, we limit times that they can work on our

roads to try and minimize the impact to the public and then we start monitoring the permits once they get approved. Uh, we do publish a exhibit every month. I put an example on the screen here. This can be found under the Caldwell website. If you go to the engineering page, ride-of-way permits and then road closures, you'll see descriptions of all the road closures, full road closures that we have, as well as an exhibit depicting the locations. We update this monthly. Um, and we do this to try and help the public be aware of what's going on in the city. We do also publish this to social our social media page. But as far as the staff time that actually goes out and is tracking these, there's a lot of people involved and it depends on the scope of the project. So we have our engineering technicians who monitor that the traffic control devices are set up properly and consistently and that if there's flaggers that they are actually on site. Sometimes people get approved with flaggers for four flaggers and then we find that there's only one on site. So we do go out there on site every single day and make sure that all of those devices are set up properly. If it is a small construction project, our engineering technicians will also monitor the construction and make sure that it is per standard. If it is a larger project such as a large residential neighborhood um or commercial or industrial project, we also have our inspectors. Our inspectors are the ones who will go out and monitor the construction itself within the right-of-way permit, but they will still keep our technicians involved. Um and our technicians will still monitor the uh traffic control devices. And then we have our public works staff. Um and I say the public works staff as a whole just because our whole team is very aware of the importance of keeping traffic moving safely. And so anytime anybody in the public works department

sees something that they think doesn't look right or they weren't aware of a project in that area, they call the engineering department and we immediately send someone out there to make sure that one, they're approved and two, that they're operating safely. Um, and then along with that, we also do get a lot of calls. So if a resident sees something that is unsafe or that they don't think is permitted, they call us and we go check it out. So we monitor all of the permits very closely through many different groups. And when we see issues in the field, we have no problems with issuing violations and penalties. So the last couple of years, we've been getting more and more strict with issuing these penalties to contractors. We have various types of penalties whether it's traffic control devices are left out on site for too long. As part of that we have told we have it in our ordinance that we will take your traffic control devices because the city will use them for our own projects if you don't come and take them. So that has helped um those traffic control devices can be expensive. So the $50 cost the fee might not be very high but people don't want to be losing their cones and their signs to the public works department. Um, and then we also have uh work that's being performed outside of the permit date. This one's a little bit more common. They want to start try and sneak in and start early. Um, and so we'll find them for that. And then very very often we have work being done without an approved permit. Uh, we recently also have started taking note of who the common violators are. So, if we have people who are violating four times in a month, every single violation moving forward, we add an additional 25% to their fee. This has helped us quite a bit um catching some of those repeat offenders. And again, with some of those repeat offenders, if

we see too many violations in a short period for 3 months, we will stop issuing them rightway permits altogether. We have a couple of people who are on that list right now um who I won't mention on public record, but we we do use that uh ability as well as stop work orders when we think people are working too unsafeely in the city of Caldwell. Oh, and just to note, in February we um charged about $8,500 in violations. So, I did just want to go over the questions that I am most frequently asked because I'm sure that these are the questions that you were asked to. A lot of these I touched on briefly, but I wanted to just have a little bit of time to dig into them a little bit more. Who monitors the ongoing permit? As I mentioned, really, it's the whole public works team that monitors it. Whether it's the technicians who are looking for traffic safety and traffic control devices, the inspectors who are just making sure that it's constructed properly, or the public works department as a whole to just help us keep a good uh a good rhythm on the city because our whole team is out on site every single day. Do you penalize contractors? Yes, we are not afraid to penalize contractors and we do penalize them. You don't always see us penalizing them because oftent times as soon as we tell them we're about to hit you with a fine. Amazingly enough, they're able to get those three extra flaggers out on site that they said that they couldn't get earlier. So, we always do that. We do that warning first, give them that chance, and if if it's not rectified right away, we slap them with a fine. A big one, why can't work be done overnight or with multiple shifts? There's there's two types of projects that we have in Caldwell. We have private sector projects and we have public sector projects. Um both of them

have their own concerns with overnight work, but really a big one, it comes down to bandwidth. We all know that not just Caldwell, the whole valley is growing at a rapid pace. And while our state is growing, our abled-bodied men and women who want to go do construction is dwindling. our trades are dwindling. And so people who are in the trades, they have their the the pick of what contractor they want to work for. If they are told that they're going to have to work 24-hour shifts, swing shifts, overnight shifts, they're just going to go work for another contractor. And those contractors are going to know that and they're going to stop wanting to work in Caldwell. So we haven't historically required overnight as our standard. Now, that being said, we have required overnight on specific locations that we know cause significant concern, but we do this um fairly infrequently. Additionally, when you're looking at multiple shifts, it goes back to we're trying to be cognizant of rush hours and school zones. So, we try to not have multiple shifts working so that it's 24-hour construction because we do want to make sure that people have a break from construction during those hightra times. Anytime there's work near residences, um we do restrict hours um so that they cannot be working when people are trying to sleep. So, I have had contractors who have wanted to do overnight shifts in heavy residential areas that I have restricted because I don't want them I don't want them tearing up concrete at 1:00 a.m. and waking up those residences. So, we try and be very mindful that there's impacts other than just people driving on the roads, but people who are living near construction

sites. Uh, additionally, cost again with bandwidth. If you're having a hard time getting staff to want to work for you, your price is going to go up. On the private side, I would say that this isn't the city's concern. However, for public projects, if we start increasing the cost to do construction, we are going to see a significant increase in the crop cost of our projects, which we are already seeing a significant increase of. So, my recommendation would be that we don't do something that'll continue to increase those costs. Last, I have the staff considerations. My own team, um, you know, many people who work for the city work for the city expecting to work a standard 8 to 5 job. Uh, they are willing to work overnight and overtime when it's required. But my I expect that my team would have difficulty accepting that their job description would be changing where they suddenly have to work overnight shifts. um it would not be limited to them only working overnight and not during the day because they would still have daytime projects that they have to monitor. So their workload would significantly increase unless you wanted to double the engineering department so I can have a day shift and night shift which I'm guessing we don't want to do. Uh uh next is why can't we make contractors complete work faster? We can provide incentives and we can provide recommendations but we can't force anybody's hand. As I said I have we have evaluated the times that contractors have requested to work in our rightway and we have told them no you can get the work done faster but as far as our own public projects are concerned the fear with forcing contractors to work faster is that the work gets sloppy. We have a significant amount of work going on in Caldwell. I'd

love to say that we can have a project manager or an inspector out on site during the whole duration of the project, but we just don't have the bandwidth for that. And so when we're not on site and if they're trying to work faster, things can get sloppy and we can get poor infrastructure in return. Um, we have tried doing an incentive in one of our recent bids where if the contractor completes the work two weeks early, we will provide them with a bonus. This is our trial period that we're doing for this project and it's because um we want to make sure that our water system is fully functional before our peak season starts in the summer when people start using the water more for their lawns. So we are testing this out having an incentive. What we are finding is that you know we often see change orders come through for costs where an unforeseen issue or condition pops up on a construction site and so a contractor wants to have a change order to be recuperated for those costs. We're now seeing change orders come in for their time as well. And so there's more administrative project management work associated with that. That's not the end of the world. But it is just something to note that historically contractors were more willing to work with us with their time and now um they if we have incentives they may be more reluctant to just let some of these issues go. They'll want to have change orders for all their time so that they can try and grab that incentive. Um so do you offer rewards for early completion? I kind of just went over that. And then penalties for late completion. So if it's a penalty for late completion for a private sector work, we do um either they'll request to extend their ride-of-way permit so they have to pay more or if they work outside their ride-of-way permit, they get fined. Um if it's for a public project

uh and they go over, we have the ability to charge for liquidated damages. We don't charge liquidated damages on every single project that goes over. we're willing to work with a contractor. You know, if they're over by a day or two because of unforeseen conditions, we're not going to hit them with a liquidated damage. Um, but kind of going back, if we start being more stern with charging liquidated damages just for every single project, you'll start seeing more paperwork associated with every project, which means that my guys aren't able to get boots on the ground as much and actually watch the work get done. And then lastly, the big one, why is there so much road construction? I know there's a lot of road construction. I grow tired of it, too. Um, I drive the interstate every day and ITD is never going to be done with the interstate, I feel like. But we are a very, very desirous place to live. And with that, it's not just economic growth that we're seeing, but it's the ongoing maintenance that we're seeing. Um, in fiscal year 25, the engineering department received 48 permits. This is just engineering permits. So, this doesn't have anything to do with the building department. This fiscal year, we have already exceeded that number of permit applications. Um under construction we are managing 55 projects for residential subdivisions just through engineering and we are managing 60 commercial projects. This is between these nearly 120 projects are being being managed by four inspectors. Um, additionally, we have roughly s 60 60 public works projects that are either in design or under construction that are being managed by the engineering department.

So, we just have a lot going on and it is because people want to be here and we have to keep up with the existing infrastructure because we owe it will owe it to our citizens to make sure that new growth doesn't hurt them. So, we feel passionately about being able to keep up the maintenance with our roads, with our water, with our sewer. So, that's why you're seeing so much construction. Um, and I guess with that, I will stand for any additional questions.

Thank you, Haley, our acting public works director and our city engineer. Any questions from council? All right. Thank you for that. All right. Next, uh, we're going to have four proclamations. We're going to first start with child abuse prevention and sexual assault awareness month. So, with that, whereas children are vital to our community, future success, prosperity, and quality of life, as well as being our most vulnerable assets, and whereas all children deserve to have a safe, stable, nurturing homes and community, they need to foster their healthy growth and development. And whereas systems of oppression such as racism, sexism, classisms, classism, agism, etc. contribute to higher rates of child abuse and sexual harassment, assault, and abuse. Whereas child abuse statistics estimate that about one in four girls and one in 13 boys experience child sexual abuse before age 18 in the United States. Whereas freedom from child abuse and sexual assault is a basic human right. And whereas communities that provide individuals with the social support and knowledge of the prevalence of child abuse and sexual assault in concrete resources needed to cope with these horrific acts of violence. And whereas effective strategies and prevention of awareness uh and awareness for both child abuse and sexual assault succeed before or because of partnerships created among citizens, human service agencies, schools, faith, communities, healthc care providers, civic organizations, law enforcement agencies, and the business community. Now therefore, I, Eric Phillips, mayor of the city of Calval, do hereby proclaim April 2026 as child abuse prevention month and sexual assault awareness month. Moving on to proclamation week of the young child, and this is through the Idaho Association for Education of Young

Children, also known as Idaho. Whereas the IDO Association of Education for Young Children and other local organizations and are celebrating the week of young child April 11th through the 17th, 2026. Whereas these organizations are working to promote and inspire high quality early childhood experiences for our state's youngest citizens that can provide a strong foundation of learning and lifelong success for Idaho's youngest citizens. Whereas young children thrive when they have access to developmentally appropriate, affordable and high quality early care and education cities settings. And whereas early childhood educa educators and those who work with or on behalf of young children birth through the age of eight who make a meaningful difference in the lives of young children in Caldwell deserve our thanks, support, and recognition. Whereas public policies that support early learning for all young children are critical to young children's futures and the prosperity of Idaho families, communities, and our economy. Now therefore, I Eric Phillips, mayor of Calwell, do hereby proclaim April 11th 17th, 2026 is the week of the young child in Cwell, Idaho. And here do hereby recognize that when our community invests in early childhood care and education, we also invest in our children, families, and the future of our community. Moving on to the National Fair Housing Month, the next proclamation. Whereas April 2026 marks the 55th anniversary of the passage of the title of the Civil Rights Act, uh, popular known as Federal H Federal Fair Housing Act. Whereas the federal Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing based on race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, and disability, and commits recipients of federal funding to affirmally further fair housing in their communities. And whereas the laws of this nation and our state seek to ensure

equality of choice for all in transactions involving housing. And whereas only with a cooper cooperation, commitment, and support for all the residents of the state can barriers of this enjoyment of this and other aspects of equality, opportunity for all be removed. Whereas the city of Cville is committed to the mission and the intent to provide fair and equal housing opportunities for all. Now therefore, April is hereby proclaimed National Fair Housing Month, and the city of Cowbell and all its citizens are urged to learn more about stalking, recognizing it as a serious crime, support those affected, and work together to create a community where everyone can live free from fear and harassment. And last but not least, whereas April is the month of the military child, an opportunity to recognize military children for their resilient spirits, personal sacrifices, strong character, and courage. And whereas military children are part of our nation as they support and encourage their service members with a fierce patriotic spirit. And whereas these children are a source of pride for the great state of Idaho and to us all. And it is only fitting that we take the time to recognize their contributions. And whereas military children continue to make significant contributions to the family, to their community, and to the nation as they endure prolonged and repeated absences of one or or both parents. And whereas a month-long salute will recognize the military child served two and citizens of Idol will be afforded the opportunity to dawn the color purple every Friday of April in support of these children. Now therefore, I Phillips, mayor of city of Calvo, do hereby proclaim April 2026 to be month of the military child. And are any of those groups present in here? All right. Would you please stand up? Yeah.

and as you heard we sacrifice it's for what the what the kiddos do when their parents honor our country and right now we've got some things going on and so lots of troops are getting deployed right now so we really want to take time and and honor those kiddos for the sacrifices that they haven't chosen to make that they are making we also wanted to present a t-shirt with for you. Uh, Mayor Phillips, we just need to know what size you are. Really? Okay, we'll get you one. Yes, we'll get you one. I think we have an extra large. Thank you for that. Any questions from council? Any questions?

Right. Thank you. And a military veteran myself, retired. I appreciate, you know, I know a lot of families deploy either one or both parents. So, we don't want to forget about those children and what they have to go through missing their family members. Absolutely. Thank you for your service, sir. All right. Thank you. All right. Next. Are there any amendments on tonight's agenda, Mr. Mayor? Councelor Denber. Maybe this is uh not the right place to amend the calendar, but uh I'll ask. Is it the consent calendar? Is it later on in the

Okay, Mr. Mayor. Uh I have obviously didn't read my instructions that carefully, but I do have them here in front of me. Uh, I make a motion that we amend the uh, calendar to remove from the consent calendar item 20 for further discussion, remove old business items number one and two, and continue item number one in new business to the April 20th, 2026 meeting. All right, we have a motion. Second motion and second. All right, with that, take a vote. Technical difficulties. I'll just call this one.

Madam clerk. Denenver. Yes. Tilmont. Yes. Stoic. Yes. Register. Yes. Williams. Yes. All good. Yes. All right. With that, we have those items from councelor Denber that were motioned and the second from councelor Tilmont. And with that, thank you. All right. Next is on the agenda is audience participation. Um

yes, council. Sorry, not not until after that. Yeah. All right. We have no one signed up to speak tonight, so I won't which instructions. All right. Next on the agenda is approving the consent calendar. These are routine items that are grouped together to be approved in one motion unless a counselor moves for one of the items to be removed from the consent calendar and considered separately. We'll now entertain a motion to approve the consent calendar as amended. Mr. Mayor, councelor Algen, I move we uh approve the amended consent calendar.

All right. Do we have a second? All right, we still have a motion to second. Do we still have technical difficulties? Hallgood, yes. Tittenberg, yes. Tilmont, yes. Stoic, yes. Register, abstain. Williams, yes.

All right, consent calendar passes. And we have one abstaining. All right, there's no more items under tonight under old business. The next item under new business is an appeal request. This agenda item will be continued to the April 20th city council meeting. Give me just a second. All right. Okay. The next item of new business was a public hearing for case number SP25-0000009 and 025-0000005. The applicant all ALC architecture on behalf of the Bennett Forest Industries is requesting a reszone matters being continued April 20th um for the city council meeting. That's items one and two for those in the crowd that we weren't that weren't uh didn't hear my announcement earlier. The next item in new business is case A26-0000002 request for reconsideration of denial decision by the city council at the February 17th, 2026 public hearing for Summit Grove annexation and preliminary plat. And we will hear from our city attorney.

Mr. Mayor Council, reconsiderations in the city of Caldwell are considered under the city code section 10312 sub4 subg. As you all are probably aware, it's a bifurcated process for reconsideration. The first step in the process is for the council to decide whether or not it wants to take up the reconsideration and hear it on the merits. If that is consider if the council decides to do that, the next step is to have a hearing to hear the relative merits and decide on the reconsideration. In this particular um in this particular request, we were in that first stage. So before the council tonight is the limited consideration of whether or not you want to hear the merits of the reconsideration. Um the so the denial the current request is for a denial uh of the consent to annexation and it's based on new evidence and a change in circumstances. Uh the new evidence that's reported in the request for reconsideration is a re is are revised project documents that include a down zone, a reduced density, increased open space, larger lots, and a reduction in building mass. Uh the Caldwell City Code provides that except in decisions on annexation being legislative decisions, they do not and do not qualify for reconsideration and are not required to be heard by the council. So what that means in this case is this was a annexation that was denied. So there the council is well within its rights not to take up the annexation, but there is ambiguity in the language of the code that says that the that makes it appear that the the council could could hear that if they wanted to. They're just not required. You're not required to. Um, in addition, I would note that the stated conditions may not really constitute new evidence or a change in circumstances as essentially what has

happened is the application for annexation is now being revised to essentially downsize the project and create more open space. So before the council, you may decide to grant the reconsideration and set it for a hearing or the council could deny the reconsideration now and have it done with. With that, I would stand for any questions. Thank you, Mr. Claus. Um, councelor Denver.

Mr. Mayor, uh, Oscar, thank you very much. And maybe this is a question for you or for Robin, whoever decides to field this. So, we have a request to reconsider, but it's basically a new project. What defines something as a reconsideration and what defines something as a new project?

Mr. Mayor, Council Dentur, um, so the the city code has a list of items which reconsideration can be taken up. Uh, sometimes those are errors that that occurred that it's asking the city council to relook at something. here in particular it was new evidence and the new evidence being cited by the request by the applicant is that they have these revised project applications. So in in one sense this this could be viewed as the council as a as a as a new application on the annexation because it is so different. I I think um that would that would be that would not be out of line to be able to look at it that way. uh which you know if if the council did deny reconsideration there is still a way forward for the applicant to be able to reapply for annexation with the new project specs and and and go forward in that manner rather than reconsideration. Anything to add director Collins?

Uh thank you councelor Denber. Councelor Williams. Thank you Mr. Mayor Robin. A question for you. If we were to even consider this, is there an advantage to your team in reconsidering it or having a new project or or is it the same difference for the work you do?

Um, Mayor and Councelor Williams, it's it's pretty much the same because regardless, we would have to re-review the project because it's been redesigned. Um, typically on a reconsideration, you're reconsidering the original project that was brought before you. Um, which he has redesigned this project enough that it and legal can correct me if I'm wrong, but it would be my professional opinion that they would need to go back through P&Z commission and start all over. Okay, that's kind of what I was looking for. Thank you.

Thank you, Councelor Williams. Any other questions? I'd entertain a motion, Mr. Mayor. Councelor Tmont. Um, due to the fact that I'm not really interested in setting a precedence for this, um, I move that we deny case 8 PP26-2 request for reconsideration of denial decision by city council at the February 17th, 2026 public hearing for Summit Grove annexation and preliminary plat. Second. All right. A motion from councelor Tilmont, a second from councelor Stodd. That madam clerk. Tilmont. Yes. Stoic. Yes. Register. Yes. Williams. Yes. All good. Yes. Denber.

Yes. All right. A unanimous for the motion for denial. All right. Thank you. Um, next is going to be the finance report on the agenda.

Mr. Mayor. Councelor Tilma. I make a motion to approve accounts payable in the amount of 5,768,48345 cents represented by checks number check numbers 1 192095 through1 192536 and electronic payments and payroll for the amount of 1 million684,5324 represented by checks check numbers 40745 through 40762 and direct deposits be accepted, payments approved, and vouchers filed in the office of the city clerk.

Thank you, councelor Tilmont. Do I have a second? Motion a second from councelor all good. All right, madam cler. Sorry. Yes. I Yes. All those in favor vote I. Are we calling? I don't know. Well done everyone. You're many days. All right. With that, the um financial report is approved. All right. Now, we're going to move to council comments and I believe I had owed Councelor Williams a first.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um I I see a lot of friends in the room tonight. Uh a lot of people I know. Um, I also see a lot of people that had concerns about this week. It was it was a tough week and I want to address it, Mr. Mayor, just briefly if I could simply from the standpoint that while we are elected to do the bidding of the people who voted for us, and I think every one of us on this council truly does their best to serve the city. No one No one up here has a nefarious agenda. No one up here has some sort of a uh uh backward plan to somehow stick it to the city. And uh we're we're doing our best to do the things that we believe are are right for the people that voted for us. And so that's what we did. Unfortunately, whether it was through confusion or whether it was through um a deliberate choice, I know a lot of people got their hopes up that there was another decision to be made. And the reason that those items got pulled was simply a matter of rule of law. And especially in Idaho, we particularly subscribe to following the rule of law. And so in this case, um, not allowing a veto of an ordinance was a question of rule of law that u was discussed and and I thought understood. But I want to make sure everyone knows that we're not happy about the ongoing uh consternation, but we are here to make sure that we do

abide by those laws and rules that govern us. And we're happy to serve the citizens of Caldwell who voted for us, each one of us. That's it. Uh thank you for that, Councelor Williams. I appreciate that. and councelor all good. Nothing tonight. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Councelor. All good. Councelor Denver.

Uh Mr. Mayor, thank you. Just to uh kind of uh pick up where councelor Williams left off. I appreciate everybody who shows up and who participates in these meetings. Everybody who takes a little bit of time out of their day to learn a little bit more about what government does each and every day. I appreciate everyone's effort to educate themselves about this process that we call uh making sausage. And one of the things I need to assure every single one of you is that nobody here has given up. Uh when I talk with my esteemed colleagues on council and even the mayor, nobody has given up. And having said that, we all strive to make sure that we do what's best for the city. And sometimes we come up against some disagreements in the way things should proceed. And when it comes down to what happened this last week and uh and a and a legal opinion, a legal opinion doesn't mean that there are winners and it doesn't mean there are losers. It just means that there's a legal opinion and it provides guard rails by which our government functions. And so having said that, I am very proud to uh of what the city did this week. I'm also proud of what my fellow council members did this week. And I'm also want to say that I'm uh optimistic that uh out of this we will find a a new direction and a new future and we will we will come together and do what's right for uh for the city. It's a tough process. Uh some days are good, some days are bad, some days we're on autopilot, and then some days we uh we have to flap our wings just a little bit hard to stay in the sky. So, uh, having said that, I appreciate everybody who is involved in this long process.

Thank you, councelor Den for your words. Councelor Tmont.

Um, just real quick, I've had a lot of people comment um from the last workshop that we did on the um school capacity workshop. Um, I just wanted to make it clear since I've had a lot of people ask me that was not the code that I wrote when I ran. And I did run on the fact that I was writing a code. Um I don't know it all. I worked really hard for probably close to a year on that. Um working with other people. I would really like to request that we continue that. My hope was that we would bring it to council or bring it to the city and have it to where we could maybe sit with the schools, sit with the builders, sit with even city staff and go over the whole thing as a package, maybe even county and possibly even invite in Nampa like we did at the morning session when we were working with transit authority. um and find something that would work for everybody, not just any one group or any one side of it. Um I thought I had worked out a lot of the bugs, but I know I didn't work them all out. I would like to see us maybe try to take some time and actually work that as a project so that it is correct or so that it serves as a tool which is what it was originally meant to be across the entire board and works for all the people involved instead of just any one group or not against certain groups or other things. So that was just my slide.

Thank you for that councelor Tilmont. to clarify, you would like the code as written to go back to your original intent or just not necessarily. I'd like to see us be able to sit down and go over possibly some of that. Okay. Maybe look at some of that, but also sit down with the schools. I'd like to sit down with all of us. I only did it by myself.

So, I didn't have those kinds of inputs from other counselors, from other opinions that were coming in. It was basically mine. Um, and working with those entities. I would like to sit with some of our other groups, whether it be other municipalities such as county, such as Nampa, and see if they would like to come in on board. See if it's not something that would only be us and see if it's something that we could do to help the schools out and have it as a tool. That was my goal. So, that's it. Um, thank you for that, Council Toma. I'll talk with Miss Collins and we'll see what we can do. Uh, thank you for that, Councelor Stodd. I have nothing.

All right, councelor Register. All right, with that, I just want to give a shout out. Um, our new economic development director is finally on board with us. He's in the back. If you wouldn't mind standing up real quick, Mr. Doris, thank you. Um, I also want to thank our police in the left corner, depending on where you're sitting from, or your right corner. Our fire department and of course security and all of you um for being here tonight to include our staff. is a time out of their life. Also want to congratulate um from information technology. This this last month's employee of the month is going to be Emanuel Galvan. He's works very hard on our graphics on our uh website uh in addition to just a variety of other things. So we have a city hall parking spot and he'll be able to use that for the remainder of April. Uh, I want to thank councelor Dintenber for being willing to enter into the fire negotiations. I know that's time out of your life. So, I want to thank you for that. And for those that were able to attend the Easter egg hunt at Memorial Park, I truly thank Parks and Wreck. It's awesome to see that. Um, you know, that's a lot of work that goes into that. So, I want to thank the staff that uh put that together and it seemed to be very successful. So, with that, All right. Thank you for uh joining us tonight for tonight's meeting. And with that, we're here.