City Council - Regular Meeting

Hope you're okay. Good evening. It's September 1st, 2026, Deja Vu. I'd like to call this meeting to order of the Coeur d'Alene City Council. The clerk will take the role.

Gabriel.

Here.

Miller. Here. Evans. Here. Wood. Here. Sheckler. Here. English.

Here. Very good. Is our pastor Jason Lowry here from the heart? Okay. Are you good? We'll rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Council Member Sheckler, could you lead us? Sure. Next item D, amendments to the agenda. Are there any amendments to the agenda this evening?

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to amend item K on the agenda to read executive session pursuant to Idaho code 74-206A1A to consider a labor contract offer or to formulate a counter offer. Second.

Motion and a second to amend our agenda for executive session. Any discussion? All right, roll call. Well, no, let's just, all those in favor?

Aye.

Okay, we'll change that on the agenda. Thank you so much. The next item is E, presentation. We have a proclamation for Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month. Council Member English.

Sure, I would be happy to read this. Whereas suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States and the leading cause among individuals ages 15 to 34, and whereas in 2024, Idaho had the sixth highest suicide rate in the United States, and suicide was the seventh leading cause of death in Idaho, claiming 437 lives statewide, And whereas Idaho's suicide rate is 1.6 times greater than the national average, and whereas Kootenai County recorded 34 suicide deaths in 24, the highest number among the five northern counties. the highest number among the five northern counties. And whereas up to 90% of those who died by suicide were experiencing symptoms of a diagnosable and treatable mental health condition, that may have gone unrecognized or untreated, and whereas calling or texting 988 connects anyone in crisis to the Idaho Crisis and Suicide Hotline, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, year-round, and whereas organizations such as the National Alliance on Mental Health, NAMI, Coeur d'Alene Suicide Prevention Action Network, SPAN of North Idaho, and North Idaho Crisis Center, Kootenai Behavioral Health, First Responders, the Mobile Crisis Unit, and many others are committed to saving lives and providing hope through research, education, advocacy, awareness, and support. Now, therefore, be it resolved that we recognize suicide as a preventable mental health, public health issue and declare suicide prevention a priority, encourage alignment with the 2024 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention 10-Year Plan and the 24 to 28 Idaho Suicide Prevention Plan. Now, therefore, I, Dan English, on behalf of the mayor, Dan Gookin, mayor of the city of Coeur d'Alene, do hereby proclaim the month of September 2026 as National Suicide Prevention Month in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and encourage all citizens to work together to raise awareness, reduce stigma, and support those in crisis and bring hope to our community. In witness, therefore, I, as Dan Krukin, have herefore set my hand and cause the great seal of the city of Coeur d'Alene to be affixed this September 1st, 2026.

Thank you, Dan. We have a presentation by Kate Dolan, who's the president and family support group facilitator for NAMI. Dan, if you want to go hand her the proclamation.

And as coming up, I would also just say, as a lot of you know, we have a mental health clinic here in Coeur d'Alene. And one of the myths that is out there that I keep being discouraged is that people can't get into counseling. And We are a Medicaid provider, 80% of our clients are Medicaid by our choice and if you called today we would get you in this week so you know maybe some of the other ones can't but people sometimes you know what we hear is we thought oh we could never get in or whatever or we have medicaid and you don't do that but they are out there we are out there so you need to just try that and i'm very happy to bring this so we're delighted to spread the word about that um councilman english because that is something that we hear very often in our support groups that people can't get in

if you could Kate can you can you go up to the lectern please guys you're not being picked up by the mic right now I don't know Thank you, Kate.

Good evening, council members and Mayor Gookin. My name, again, is Kate Dolan. I'm the president of the Coeur d'Alene affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. And we are so appreciative of this time tonight to share not only some of those rather alarming suicide statistics, but also to tell you a little bit about the work that we do here in NAMI Coeur d'Alene. So I just wanted to introduce our board members, Chris Barton and Skip Fuller right here, and our executive director, Jill Ainsworth. So delighted at the work and involvement that they're putting into helping people have better lives while living with mental illness. Those board members who are not here tonight are doing the incredibly important work we do of running a support group. So it was an unfortunate conflict, but a very important thing for them to do tonight. I'd like to share a very brief slideshow explaining what NAMI is and what we do here in our community to make the world a better place for people affected by mental illness.

Each year, one in five U.S. adults experience a mental illness. And 17% of youth ages 6 to 17 experience a mental health disorder.

I joined NAMI because I have two sons that live with a mental illness and I didn't want any other families to feel alone like I did.

At NAMI, the first thing we want anyone to know is you are not alone in your mental health journey. I just really want to talk about so people know that you don't have to go through it alone. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, is the nation's largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. We started as two moms gathered around a kitchen table in 1979 and today we are an alliance of more than 600 local affiliates and 48 state organizations who work in your community to raise awareness, build advocacy, and provide support and education. NAMI envisions a world where all people affected by mental illness live healthy, fulfilling lives supported by a community that cares. Every year we are expanding, no matter race, religion, age, or sexual identity. We are people with lived experience, families and loved ones, survivors and advocates. And together, we will fight the stigma surrounding mental health and create a better world for the sake of all of us. We have resources for you and can't wait to become an extension of your family. We are here for a healthier world. We are here for better mental health. We are here for each other. Join us.

Just a quick, I will not go over all of these numbers. We can all read here, but just showing across the United States the prevalence of mental illness. And the two most prevalent mental health conditions are anxiety disorders and major depressive disorder, and then co-occurring substance use disorder and mental illness as well. So just very, very prevalent, not only in our community, but countrywide. Nearly one in four Idahoans live with a mental illness, and about 6% of those Idahoans live with a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or schizoaffective disorder. And in 2024, there were 48,824 deaths by suicide nationwide, and as Councilman English read in the proclamation Idaho had the sixth largest, or sorry, highest suicide rate in the U.S. And in Kootenai County in 2025, 49 people died by suicide, Kootenai County residents, and so far through July 2026, 18 of our community members have died by suicide. One person dies by suicide every 11 minutes in the United States, and it can happen to anyone at any age. Children as young as 10 years old, some even younger than that, have so sadly found themselves in such pain that they have chosen to end their lives by suicide. But importantly, up to 90% of those people were suffering symptoms of a diagnosable, maybe it wasn't diagnosed in that person, but a diagnosable, treatable mental health condition. And perhaps had they had some supports in place, we could have prevented this tragedy. And suicide is indeed preventable. We can all learn through things like QPR training, question, persuade, refer. We can all learn to recognize the signs of someone who may be struggling and perhaps contemplating suicide. The main thing that we do here in Coeur d'Alene is in addition to raising awareness with events like this and with tabling and outreach community or outreach in the community is we hold weekly support groups for people who themselves live with mental health conditions and also for those of us who are family, friends and loved ones. of people who live with mental illness because that in and of itself is an enormous challenge and can be very isolating and we support each other with weekly support groups by trained peers. And so that's one of the main things that NAMI Coeur d'Alene does for this community. Another thing that we do is we hold what we call NAMI nights out for folks who live with mental illness because a lot of times those people don't get out. and perhaps socialize with people in the community, maybe have limited opportunities to do that. And we provide fun events for these people. And this month, it's going to be bowling. So join us on September 25th at Sunset Lanes. Another thing we do in terms of outreach and education is we are actually putting on a mental health series that will go from September actually all the way through April. We don't have a room yet at NIC for the January through April presentations, but on the second Wednesday of each month, September through April, we will address a different topic on mental illness. The first one is next Wednesday, September 9th, and it's going to be about mental health literacy. It's going to be at room 103 of the Meyer Health Sciences Building on NIC campus. Our third annual NAMI Walk, which is our major fundraiser of the year, is going to take place at Riverstone Park on Saturday, September 19th. And we're going to have a lot of community resource vendors there at our walk to promote awareness about mental health, and very importantly, in the months of September, suicide prevention and awareness. And just a little more information about us, cdanami.org is our website. And please like and follow our Facebook page. So thank you so much for the opportunity.

So are there any questions from council to Ms. Dolan? Yes.

I don't have a question, Kate, but I just want to say thank you for all the work you do in our community and throughout the state. Thank you. I know you work tirelessly at this, and I so appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Thank you for what you do, and thank you for being here tonight. Item F is public comments. And there's a sign-up sheet. And we'll go in this order. So we first have Greg Keim. Please come forward.

Hello. Yes, I'm Greg Keim, K-E-I-M. I live at 4108 on the famous Appaloosa Road in Coeur d'Alene.

I was here for last night's meeting

Um, for the record, that was the appeal hearing for the core tear two subdivision. Um, I didn't speak last night. They were presenting the appeal. I thought I'd let them do their thing. I was hoping that they'd touch on the item that I'm here to talk about today. Um, it was, um, it was lightly touched on, but, um, I think we need to talk about it, um, some more. Um, so I'm retired. I live on an acre. It's nicely landscaped. I'm a do-it-yourselfer, so I'm outside all the time working on my property. And while I'm doing that, I'm seeing all my neighbors in Indian Meadows out recreating throughout the neighborhood. And so I wanted to list some of those things that I observe while I'm out there doing my thing. So I see ladies pushing baby strollers. I see kids riding bikes, kids roller skating, kids on electric scooters, adults riding bikes, people of all ages walking their dogs. and of course joggers. Now all of these things I see on a daily basis. And occasionally I see people with their ponies. We saw a gentleman here last night with the photos. Also there's folks riding their horses through our neighborhood. And all of these activities that I've listed are done in the traffic lanes of the streets of Indian Meadows. In the traffic lanes. And that's because we don't have sidewalks, which you're all well aware of. We're never going to get sidewalks. This is how we're going to operate going forward. It's been that way in the past. In the past, it's been fine because we're an R1 neighborhood. We have very light traffic. There's no through traffic through Indian Meadows. It's just into your house and back out. So there's been no problems up to this point. And I know you've been told this over and over for years now, and I'm sure you're sick of hearing about it. But the development... that the development design that you've approved allows a volume of traffic that is being projected to go to and from Cortere on the same streets where these activities are occurring. In my view, this is an egregious disregard for the safety of these residents. And it appears that some of you just don't see the problem with this, which is very alarming to many of us, by the way. So last night it sounded like some here are trying to find a solution to this problem. I feel that access gates for first responders only are a good fix for this. The solution was discussed during some of the early meetings on this project, but it must have been shut down by someone on city staff. I don't know exactly why it was stopped. I don't have time today to get into the details of this approach, but it addresses the safety needs of both developments quite well, in my opinion. First responders go through access gates all day long in this town, in this state, in this country, for that matter. It's nothing new. So please consider this in your search for a solution. Thank you.

Thank you, Greg. Christopher Barton.

Greeting members of the Coeur d'Alene City Council and Mayor Gookin. My name is Christopher Barton. I'm a member of the Coeur d'Alene NAMI Board. My mother was Rosalie Barton. She passed away January 14th of this year. The date of that, which is so important to me, is I am a suicide attempt survivor. Prior to passing away, I'd had a couple of suicide attempts. The only thing that kept me going was the pact I made with myself stating I will never try to kill myself until the passing of my mom. But thanks to some services which I've currently received, that will never happen again. Because of a medication regimen which I've been prescribed by Dr. Dennis at State Hospital North, along with housing I've received, because at one point I did find myself homeless. But my therapist, Christopher Green, what he stated was, housing is health. So the housing I found at Trinity Housing through St. Vincent de Paul, along with the mental and medical services which I've received through Heritage Health, those things have really kept me going. Also, along with NAMI, with NAMI Walk and with the support groups, I actually co-facilitate the NAMI Peer-to-Peer Connections Group, which is held every Tuesday from 5.30 to 7 at First and Walnut in Father Bill's, which I'm actually taking time out of that tonight because I do co-facilitate that. to speak in front of you in this very important subject about suicide. Because suicide doesn't just affect the person it takes out, it affects those it leaves behind. Just like what my mom said, the grief and loss she would go through if I had gone through with the attempt would have been grievous. So I just want to thank you for taking the time and the proclamation which you guys made for this month to be suicide prevention. Thank you and have a good evening. Thank you, Christopher.

And I would just say you should listen to Chris Green. He knows what he's talking about, and it's just a coincidence he happens to be my nephew. But anyway, small world.

Thank you, Chris. Thanks. Have a good evening. You too. Darren McNeil.

I'd like to thank the council for allowing me to at this time to submit what I have. I have some handouts that I gave to the clerk too. Basically I'm an Idaho licensed plumbing contractor. I live in Oak Crest mobile home park community and there's been some concerns by the residents on the current water heat meter installs. So I'm requesting an addendum. to the 2027 code or the current code that the building department has adopted, which is the same as the state of Idaho, to have addendums to it. And in the handout, I also am requesting notification to the MRAP funds through Cherry Batchelor or the other I can't remember who's ahead of that department. And the reasons for these are because according to the Consumer Affairs Journal in 2026, water damage insurance claims statistics. The recent data shows the average household claim for water damage is 12,000. $514. It has allowed $5,000 for emergency home repairs for plumbing. So I'm requesting that the MRAP department or community development allows up to $10,000 for plumbing repairs to match the same that they do for roofing. re-roof permit. And I have additional handouts to give those departments also. And the reason it has become so much more, for example, as a licensed plumbing contractor, it used to cost me $41.26 to replace all the plumbing underneath a kitchen sink. The last time I did it, it was in excess of $147 in materials only to do that project. Toilets, they used to cost $98. Now for an ADA compliant or chair height toilets, $379 for a water saving toilet. And also according to Home Advisor, the restoration service costs further varied according to the source of the water damage. They don't even include structural repairs and replacements. So, and also there's the issue with the water meters that are currently being installed in Oak Crest Mobile Home Park. They're sub meters that are being installed by the request of the mobile home parks owners. And I'm just requesting that there be an amendments to the current plumbing code enforcement. that if additional meters are installed on other lines or the water service need to be altered or changed to higher size, which a lot of them have to be, there's 30 to 40 of them that they have not completed because of the size of the water supply lines. These are the ones above the ground. So I'm requesting the council to approach the city code department to upsize these water lines and also the placement of them I have, I'm sorry I went over, but I have amendments to Appendix E and the Uniform Plumbing Code, which they follow, plus a diagram of a standard pit set water meter. So feel free to review those, and if you have any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them for you for my concerns.

Thank you, Darren. Thank you. Wait, wait. We do have a question.

Well, just can we direct him to contact the city administrator?

Well, I saw you talking earlier with Ted. I'm sorry.

I'm really hard to hear.

So earlier I saw you sitting next to our building department head, Ted. You discussed this with him?

I'm sorry. I can't hear very well.

All right. Okay. Well, we'll be in touch. Okay. Thank you.

My phone number's on the paperwork, too. Okay. Thank you.

All right.

Jeanette Laster.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Tonight I'll be wearing a different hat, my aquatics hat. The recent drownings have prompted this statement and as one of only three lifeguard and trainers in the community, I take each one of these very personally. It has been very difficult to balance my emotions and frustration over the past couple of weeks. Our community deserves a water safe environment in its public spaces. Accidents will happen and some people won't follow the rules. However, I feel strongly that there is community education and additional training that we can hold ourselves accountable to providing to mitigate some of these incidences from occurring. I will first present you with the two images. The top one, you should have that image, the two pictures. The top one is City Beach on 4th of July seven years ago. The bottom one is City Beach this past year on 4th of July. Since the drowning, you can see that it's very different. Since the drowning near the docks at Independence Point, I have had multiple reach outs from aquatic facilitators in the region and multiple discussions with those that are around first responders. This isn't just a one agency, one town problem. This is a community culture problem. Many of you know, in 2008, I came here to build the Kroc Center. It was my third aquatics facility build in my career. I will never forget at one of the community meetings, an older woman piped up and stated that the Kroc Center wasn't needed and that everyone should learn to swim in the lake like she did. Since then, the Kroc Center is packed as one of the only full-scale Learn to Swim programs, and because of the need, there are three other local coalitions desiring to build pools in our area. My observation was that most people who learned to swim in our lake never put their face in the water because it was lake water. So they are not equipped to swim for endurance or safety and definitely not to rescue someone else. The six most common factors why bystanders often fail to rescue someone in the water have to do with a combination of psychological, physical, and situational factors. The bystander effect is many people hesitate because they assume someone else is going to act or they feel less personally responsible when others are present. Recognition challenges. Many bystanders do not recognize the signs of drowning early. There are specific characteristics that trained professionals look for. Risk of aver syndrome. Aquatic victim instead of rescuer syndrome occurs when an untrained bystander drowns while trying to save another. Forty-five percent of rescue attempts end in multiple drownings, most often family members. Lack of training and skills. Many bystanders have never been taught safe rescue techniques. Physical and environmental hazards. We do have waves and chop and murky, poor visibility water. In some places, the silt is like pudding. This can make rescue attempts dangerous for even our trained responders. Docks provide a unique risk of carbon dioxide pockets trapped underneath and carbon monoxide poisoning if near boats. diffusion of responsibility, and most commonly, in group settings, bystanders may feel less urgency to act, assuming that others will intervene. This is especially common in public areas where lifeguards are not present. I have a lot more to say, and there will be time for further discussion. However, for tonight, I simply want to get the greatest factor in these incidences increasing from six last year to 11 this year. May I continue briefly? From six last year to 11 this year, that is 11 drownings between here and Spokane, of which nine were recovered. In a time when we are increasing budgets for fire rescue and county deputies per capita of our population's growth, we are decreasing water safety and lifeguard responders, literally eliminating them from our city budgets and using the excuse that we can't find enough interests or trainers. This is false. There are hundreds of lifeguards being trained in our area. A lifeguard's job is prevention first. Lifeguards in this area are trained as first responders. They are certified through many of the same agencies that local EMS are certified through, and some have EMT training. They partner with fire departments for joint activities during Ironman and other races and responses on camp waterfronts. It is not wise to put pressure on our EMS system to be public safety, mental health counselor, and all of the things, and now add them as lifeguards. Drowning is the leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 4, and the second leading cause of unintentional injury, death for children ages 5 to 14. Calling in mutual aid and dive teams in a 40-minute respond time, and if the drowning person has aspirated any water in their lungs, they have a 6% chance of survival. Anything greater than 40 minutes does not have a likelihood of resuscitation. And for our untrained first responders, they get a general area of a missing person through shouts. However, underwater is miles of area that you are trying to search in, and there are no landmarks underwater. Sometimes we can only see two feet in front while dealing with a current. All of this is an unrealistic plan of action and a false sense of safety for our community members. Furthermore, if we don't train as multi-agency for these situations, it will never play out the way it's supposed to. I know we are all reflecting on these recent situations. Beyond putting water safety personnel back on our beaches, I have some cost-free or minimal cost ideas I would like to discuss with staff to begin to recreate this water safety culture. I am compiling lists to implement, such as free life life jacket stations, and hosted public water safety days. There are a few in the region willing to offer free water training services. That's it for today.

Thank you, Janine. Max.

Back at it again. How's it going, guys? You know, when you go to grab a building permit, submit an application for a building permit. I don't know if you guys are aware, but there's no survey requirement. One of the leading causes of issues having to do with the building department is setbacks, determining those setbacks, identifying where that point of reference is. Because there's no survey requirement, we rely on the city, rely on the inspectors to do their job, identify where the property lines are. which created an issue for me, and I've been dealing with it for the last three years. It's a problem, and there's no way to address it aside from requiring a survey. Many cities do it across Idaho as well as other states. What's interesting is Hilary Patterson stood in front of the Planning Commission and said, well, we'll just push back. We'll have greater setbacks, 10 feet. What if that comes up later, and they say, well, it's not 10 feet? Who do you rely on? Do you rely on the city? That's where, you know, somebody gets their application. That's where it gets approved. Where do we start there? There's a lot of buildings within the city of Coeur d'Alene that are not on the property line or not on the setback. Tons of them. It's a constant reoccurring pattern. And many of you sitting on council have been here for well over 20 years. Yet nobody's come up with a solution for this. It's created heartache. I've submitted public records requests to which I get constant delays. The neighbors are upset about my building. Randy Adams likes to accuse me of harassing the neighbors, which is kind of hilarious considering the fact that he said I broke a branch. And if you'd like me to play that recording, I have it. Then he states he's never been there. He doesn't know what it is. All sorts of stuff. It's been a struggle, but I don't get any answers. Christy, when I asked you, about the public records, you said that you contacted staff. I've yet to get any sort of communication. Nothing. I sent you guys an email last night in regards to it. Didn't hear a single response. So is it a lack of transparency? Is it just, well, there's a legal issue, so we don't want to discuss it with you? Do I lose all public assistance because of that? I don't know what to do. What do we do? How do we solve this problem? It's not just me going through it. There's several people going through the same issue. We don't have a survey requirement when somebody's constructing, and then after the fact, we say you're wrong. You've made the mistake. We have sovereign immunity. That's what Randy says. We made the mistake. We know it's a mistake. We know it's a reoccurring pattern of mistakes, yet we're not willing to address it. So all I ask is that you address it. And I'll work on that public records request, and I'm still awaiting a response. So it's three months now, Christy. So let's get that response. Thanks. Thank you, Max.

Can I correct the record?

In public, in your comments, council comments.

Okay, I'll wait. Max, I have an answer in my comments.

Anyone else would like to make public comment?

Okay.

We will be moving on to council comments. Christy.

Thank you. Well, I have requested your FOIA request be filled three times, and I've been assured by our city clerk that it has been filled. So, Max, I've made the request. I'm told it's been filled, and this is where we are.

Any other council comments? Okay, so mayor has a bunch of stuff to talk about. Let's see where to start. All right, so we have some volunteer opportunities on our city boards and commissions and committees. Still out for some student representatives. City of Coeur d'Alene is seeking youth representation on city commission's boards and committees. Service on these boards gives high school students between the ages of 14 to 18 an unprecedented opportunity to learn about city government, several special projects, and to become involved in the community. If you're interested in serving as a student representative on any of the following committees or know of a student who might be interested, visit the website which is up on your screen. And you can download an application form. The deadline is Friday, September 18th. These committees are Parks and Rec, Ped Bike Committee, Urban Forestry, and the CDATV Committee. We also have opportunities for adults to serve on our city committees. We have an opening on the Planning and Zoning Commission. City of Coeur d'Alene is seeking one commissioner to serve on planning and zoning. These appointments are for six-year terms. Terms of this commission seat will end on May 1st, 2029 or later. It's a replacement until a successor is appointed or qualified to fill a vacancy for a partial term. Applications are due September 18th at 5 p.m. by email, U.S. mail, or hand-delivered to City Hall. We have a vacancy on our library board. City of Coeur d'Alene is accepting applications for an upcoming vacancy to a representative on the library board of trustees. Members of the board are appointed by the mayor and council and serve a five-year term. You must live within the city. The board consists of five members who receive no salary, and applications will be accepted until this Friday at 5 p.m. The PED and Bike Advisory Committee is looking for an applicant. It has to be a member of the retired community or a member who has water access or School District 271 or a member of the legal community, and the application period will remain open until the vacancies are filled. Urban Forestry Committee is looking for applicants to fill two vacancies, and one vacancy must be filled by an entomologist. It's a bug guy. The application period will remain open until the position is filled, and the Personnel Appeals Board is looking for a member to fill one vacancy. This is a panel of six members appointed for four-year staggered terms, and they must be residents of the city. and no member can be a salaried employee of the city. And again, the address or the webpage, if we could put that up there again, Mike, there it is. So right down there at the bottom, that's where you can apply for the city committees. Thank you, Mike.

Moving on.

SO MUCH STUFF. SO I WANT TO MAKE AN ANNOUNCEMENT THAT TODAY I HAVE FORMED AN AD HOC COMMITTEE TO LOOK INTO THE STREETS TRAFFIC AND PUBLIC SAFETY IN THE INDIAN MEADOWS NEIGHBORHOOD, SPECIFICALLY IN REGARDS TO THE FULL BUILDOUT OF CORTAIRE. I HAVE ASKED COUNCILMEMBER CHRISTIE WOOD TO HEAD THIS COMMITTEE. And we'll be making an announcement at tonight's meeting, which is what I'm doing now. The committee's task is to examine the current streets, traffic, safety conditions in the neighborhood, and to compare them with the effects of the full build-out of core tear. The goal is to find a way to remediate the issues and create solutions to be presented to council. I will be working with Christie's staff and neighbors to set up the first meeting and establish the mission statement and goals, and it is my hope that this effort addresses the concerns brought up at last night's hearing and to work toward an acceptable solution for the neighborhood. Thank you. And, okay, these two are for the other hearing. I would also like to introduce, at tonight's meeting, Connor Pettikoulos, who is sitting right there next to Joanne. He has started cross-training for the position of, well, Joanne's position, which acts as clerk for our meetings. He will be starting full-time with us on September 14th as Joanne is transferring to the legal department. She's abandoning us. And this is her last official city council meeting, and I do want to thank you on behalf of council for the great job you've done for the past few years clerking our meetings. We look forward to having Connor do it from now on. So get used to seeing Connor down there. He's a really great guy, and I hope you guys look forward to getting to know Connor. And I think that's it for me. Also, I just wanted to clarify something that was mentioned in the paper today. So the mayor does not abstain from voting. The mayor is only legally allowed to vote when there is a tie. So I just want to make that clear.

I'm glad you did. I kind of wondered about that when I saw it myself. I thought it was one of those, when it was like the no-lo-whatever kind of hearing. Oh, well, maybe...

No, no, no. I only vote if there's a tie, and I did not recuse myself or anything. We're moving on to item H, which is the consent calendar.

Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve the consent calendar as presented.

Second. We have a motion and a second to approve our consent calendar, which contains no resolution this time. Any discussions? Roll call, please.

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

Yes. Motion carried. Moving on to item I1, under other business. This is approval of financial support for the University of Idaho Riverview Gallery and Living Lake Lecture Series. Our staff report is by Adam Rouse, our Parks and Rec Director, who also interfaces with our Arts Commission.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, council. So I'll give a real brief introduction to this. And I've got some more capable people to explain what the Living Lake project is. But yes, just here on behalf of the Arts Commission to ask for the approval of some funding not to exceed $8,000. And I know it was a question that we got of if this was recurring or just one-time funding. So this would be just one-time funding from Arts Commission funds. And I'm happy to stand for some questions after these gentlemen give the presentation. But we've got Dr. Andy Fields and Jake Gerringer from U of I. They're going to run you through a little presentation.

Welcome, Dr. Fields and Mr. Gerringer.

Hi, Jake.

Hello. Good evening, Mary Gookin members of the city council. I appreciate the opportunity to present to you all this evening.

Make this larger.

Bottom line up front, we are approaching you all to partner with the Arts Commission with a financial request of $8,000 from the Lake District Fund to further the topic of the Living Lake Project that's occurring currently in the community. In short, the Living Lake Project is a fellowship that aims to translate the science related to Coeur d'Alene Lake and the watershed into understandable information through art. It's led by the Coeur d'Alene Arts and Culture Alliance with a number of community partners including the Idaho Department for Environmental Quality and the Coeur d'Alene Tribe Natural Resources Department. And important, University of Idaho via the University of Idaho Idaho Water Resources Research Institute at U of I Coeur d'Alene. What we've done at U of I Coeur d'Alene in the Harbor Center, in our atrium, we've converted what used to be a reception desk area that became unused into a small gallery to showcase art, artifacts, research, all of the above items of scholarly value from the university and our community partners. And in this atrium, we would like to host a small work show focused on the same topic as the Living Lake Project. And so the call to artists would be the same as the LLP, which is to create a maquette, poetry, or something of a similar nature that communicates Coeur d'Alene watershed science into information understandable to the general public through art. And consistent with this request, this line item is $5,500 for the display tools needed to make that happen. So display cases, pedestals, items of that nature. And paired with this show, we are looking to do a four-part educational lecture series that focuses on the intersection of science and art, communicating science through art, scientific literacy, topics of that nature. So we're looking at that being a four part series over the course of 2027 with the first one specifically tied to the small work show at the Riverview Gallery at U of I Coeur d'Alene. And the remaining 500 of that 8,000 will be reserved for joint marketing between U of I Coeur d'Alene, the City Arts Commission, the Arts and Culture Alliance, and related to that, the Living Lake Project. We believe that this partnership is in the interest of both institutions. It's consistent with the City of Coeur d'Alene Arts Commission's goal for education. and collaboration, and with the University of Idaho Coeur d'Alene's focus on research and community engagement. So I will leave it there. And we're happy to take questions alongside Adam. Thank you.

Any questions for Jake or Dr. Fields or Adam? Yes, Christy.

Thank you. Thanks, Jake. Good presentation. Dr. Fields, welcome. You know, all that I know about the U of I Water Research Program, I learned from my good friend, Wanda Quinn, long-term employee of U of I. But I don't have any updated information. How long have you been studying the water? Is this something you've done in partnership with the tribe? I think this is a fantastic program, by the way, but I'm just wanting to know for community information.

Yes, thank you. So the Idaho Water Resources Research Institute was somewhat inactive until about four years ago when I revived it by combining it with our community water resource center that we had here. And so IWERI serves the entire state, and it's focused on research that affects water users. So not creating policy, it's focused on doing the research to inform those who create policy so they can make good policy. And so we folded the Community Water Resource Center into IWERI so that there's a branch. And IWERI is statewide with presence in Boise, Moscow, and Coeur d'Alene. And so we've been doing it for quite a while. I don't have the exact dates, but we partner with a lot of the institutions, DEQ, the tribe. We have our Bay Watchers, which is a citizen science program, which Councilwoman Evans went out and actually sampled some of the water with us, too, which all of you are welcome to at any point. And so we engage the community with that. We partner with the RGM Collaborative. And then we do the Confluence Project, which is student-focused. on high school students where they learn about water. They actually go measure snowpack and then they also do water quality sampling and it culminates in the youth water summit which happens in the spring and it's amazing. A whole bunch of students with their research posters. It's really quite fascinating. So there's a lot of activity around water and we're focused heavily on being a partner across the state and really trying to help educate people in what's happening.

Thank you very much.

Any other questions? Yes.

I don't have a question, but I do encourage all of you to go out and sample the water. And it's a great opportunity just to be on the lake, but also to learn about everything that the U of I is doing.

Can you say, what sample, does that mean drink it?

Really? For you. It's a special, only for the mayor.

So you did like a scientific, like a test tube. Okay, all right.

She wants you to drink it.

I'll drink it, sure. Go ahead.

And also, I'm really looking forward to the four-part lecture series. I think that's going to be a great addition to the community. So great presentation, Jake.

Very good. Well, I see no questions. We'll look for council action then.

Kiki has a question.

Oh, I'm sorry, Kiki.

Well, I just have some questions. I was going to do this during discussion, but I'll just do it now. And this may be for Adam or anyone. I was giving a presentation to a Leadership Coeur d'Alene class about a week ago. And as I polled that group, I realized about 60% of them have lived here less than 10 years. And so when I was reading this, I was thinking about our budget presentations that are coming up. And this isn't very much money. And it says this comes from the Arts Commission funding. But can you speak to how that was created, where that money comes from? And that's what I was afraid of. It's like, if we don't have money, why are we doing these projects? And I believe I remember Nancy Sue Wallace's name being attached to this back in 1998, 9. and that it was separate percentages of funds that came from somewhere. Can you talk about that? Renata, you might be the only one who was here then and remembers it.

Well, I can tell you. This is the money that was dedicated through urban renewal. So there's still money in that art fund. So that's why it said earlier in the presentation, it's talking about the Lake District. So this is money that's still in there. It has to be done for art. It can only be put in the Lake District where it was. That's the restriction. And I don't know how much money is still left in there. Renata, you want to?

There's quite a bit of money still left in that.

We don't want to hear that on a budget hearing.

Yeah. Well. And outside of the urban renewal dollars for art, we do collect 3% of any of our capital projects that are public works projects. And so that fund does get replenished with some additional funding sources outside of urban renewal as well. And that's pursuant to an ordinance that Nancy Sue Wallace helped put in place.

And I just think it's just good for the public to clear up that this is restricted funds for that purpose. It's not money that we can collect and just say let's move this into the general fund at will. So that's where we're at with that. And so I think this is a great project. I'm glad to hear you're cooperating with the GEM group. Because I sometimes look at that and say, is this a duplication of the same lecture type series? But if you're working together on that, it just brings strength to both of them. So that's good to hear. And I appreciate the clarification on where the funding came from. And I think it's a cool project.

Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve financial support for the University of Idaho Riverview Gallery and Living Lake Lecture Series. Second.

Motion to second. Any discussion on the motion?

Yes.

Please, Dan.

Today, I think probably everybody got an email from a community member who said that the use of these funds, the way we're going to do it, improper and unnecessary functions for Coeur d'Alene government and I would just go on the record of saying I don't think so as somebody born and raised here and um what we do and the lake this this is a good use of our funds and again we've got some dedicated funds for that because we We put a priority and a value on our art and humanities and the intersection. So anyway, so in spite of that, I'm voting for this. Any further discussion? Roll call.

English.

Yes.

Wood. Yes. Evans. Yes. Miller. Aye. Gabriel.

Yes.

Sheckler.

Yes. Motion carried. Thank you, gentlemen. Look forward to seeing that project. We're off to item number I-2, which is Resolution 2672, approval of an agreement with the World Triathlon Corporation and North Idaho Sports Commission for three years of Ironman 70.3 Coeur d'Alene, 2027 to 2029 Renata McLeod with a staff report and the contract.

Yes, thank you. So the agreement is for a three-year period of time, and we do have those dates, June 27, 2027. June 25th, 2028, and June 24th, 2029. And those are not in conflict with the Coeur d'Alene dates. So just wanted to make sure that was clear. So the City of Coeur d'Alene has been hosting an Ironman competition since 2023. I wasn't involved in the earlier negotiations, but since Troy Timison left I was the person that got to be involved with this year's negotiation So we just took the last agreement that you've approved and added in all the addendums They created a new format for the agreement. So most of the meat and content is in the exhibits So it's a short agreement with lots and lots of exhibits what you'll find is in exhibit C or most of the items that the city of Coeur d'Alene has agreed to and Um, within that, uh, exhibit C item number five states that Ironman will reimburse the city for all public safety costs. So that's inclusive of the day and any overtime cost. Previously we had negotiated overtime costs to be included in that, and that is included in this agreement as well. Um, I'm sorry about my staff report. There was a little faux pas in that it's saying the city receives a payment of $25,000 a year. It's a three-way arrangement. So it's World Triathlon Corps, North Idaho Sports Commission, and the city. So North Idaho Sports Commission pays that $25,000 to Ironman in order to have them here in Coeur d'Alene. We receive payment for our direct costs, so any of our public safety costs. So if it's over $25,000, they would pay over $25,000. There's no delineation on the amount of our public safety costs. It is the actual costs, so. I wanted to clarify that.

Yes, Kiki.

Renaud, does that cost include streets and all of that, or just, I mean, anything that the street department has to put out there?

We just have public safety costs reimbursed. Iron Man actually has their own private traffic corporation, so they put out all the barricades and everything for this race.

Thank you.

Not to say that streets doesn't have some responsibilities to sweep. the streets and stuff I just want to make sure that all the costs are covered is where I'm going with that yeah I wouldn't say every single cost is covered but we've agreed to that previously that there are some things we do to help coordinate with the parks department and clean up the street did you have anything else to add nope and I would just say they are very excited to do a three-year agreement unfortunately they won't be able to make it tonight We received this contract on Thursday, so it was expedited to get in the packet. They want to open up registration for the Coeur d'Alene 2027 race.

Outstanding. Any questions? Yes, Christy.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Renata, I appreciate that you have the figures available for the cost of public safety, but same question I always ask. Was the police chief and the fire chief consulted in the development of this agreement?

Absolutely, yes. I submitted it to them for review. And they had a couple questions. I was able to answer their questions and make sure that the correct language was in the contract.

Awesome. Thank you.

Any other questions?

Amy? As a two-time Ironman participant, I am happy to make a motion to approve resolution number 26-072, approving an agreement with World Triathlon Corporation and North Idaho Sports Commission for three years of Ironman 70.3 Coeur d'Alene 2027-2028. through 2029 events.

And as a sprint triathlon third place finisher of the baby race, I'm happy to second that.

Excellent. So we have a motion and a second. Anyone else competing or have any questions?

As a person who finished last out of the water, I'm all for this.

OK. Any other discussion? All right. Roll call.

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

Yes. Motion carried. Now we're on to the public hearing. This is the big enchilada, the budget, whatever you want to call it, the topic of discussion in the community. There's a sign-up sheet in the back if you want to sign up to testify. And I'll be asking if anyone missed that opportunity at the end of the hearing. This is a legislative hearing for our fiscal year 26-27 annual appropriation ordinance. Staff report is by Katie Ebner, our finance director who has worked, sweated, and fretted over this budget for quite some time. Katie.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Council. I am here with the budget hearing presentation. At this point in the process, we've spent the month of May with directors talking about their budgets for the upcoming fiscal year. We spent the month of June in the finance department compiling and analyzing the budget, as well as preparing information for future council workshops. We had a workshop in July with council bringing some potential cuts, suggested cuts, looking at that larger deficit at the high water mark. And then I appreciate council's feedback on sharing which cuts to include in the budget and which cuts to add back or fund this year. I'm coming here with the product of all of those meetings. And this point in the process, in Idaho it's a little confusing because you hear budget hearing and you think we're all going to sit down and cross things out or add things. But truly this is the meeting where we hope to have something for council to approve in order to meet deadlines, most importantly the deadline to levy property taxes, which is coming this week. So this is a very important part of the process. The legislative action tonight And I'll jump right in as an overview. If you in the audience or tuning in online are joining us at this part of the process, this is going to be an overview, not a lot of detail. We did spend quite a bit of time throughout the summer looking at the detail. And I'm always happy to revisit any of those questions, council, if you want to go dig into something a little more. Quick overview of what I will talk about. We'll talk about general funds revenue sources. We will spend quite a bit of time talking about property taxes, growth in property taxes, property tax impacts, foregone and where that comes from. And then we'll go into expenditures for the general fund, a summary, and I have prepared a multi-year projection based on some assumptions that will show council sort of the trajectory we could be on without some action in future fiscal years. Last, I'll have recommendation and rationale. That would be the resolution tonight and the ordinance. Budget at a glance. We spend so much time in the process talking about general fund because that is where Council has the most discretion on allocating resources and it is the backbone of operations for many of our services. Utility funds account for 44% of the overall budget. When you see that total $154.825 million. We have our utility funds adding into that, special revenue funds, which are earmarked funds. Our library fund is part of the special revenue funds outside the general fund. Some smaller fiduciary funds where we don't have a lot of discretion. And then debt service, repaying prior bonds. And we've got capital funds as well. for our streets projects, multi-year streets projects. So that's the budget at a glance. Now we'll jump into more analysis of the general fund and we'll look at revenues. Property taxes are the backbone of our operations as far as the revenue sense. Half of the revenues come from property taxes. That percentage can change over the years based on if we receive Additional state revenue if there's a surplus at the state and we're receiving more in one fiscal year That slice of the pie might might shift things a little bit But at this point our property taxes account for 50% of the revenues that support public safety public works are Permitting licensing all of the general parks recreation all of the the general operations of the city and so we talked about quite a bit about a percentage increase to property tax revenue or increasing those property tax revenues. So when we're speaking of, for example, a 3% increase to property tax revenue, we're increasing 3% of half of our revenue. So it's not an overall 3% revenue increase. That's something to keep in mind as costs are growing for every organization. We're very limited in how we can generate revenue to address those cost increases. Other major revenue sources, intergovernmental, the key players there would be state sales tax revenue, liquor tax revenue, and highway user tax revenue. So those are the major players, plus some small grants here and there. 13%.

Just as you go, we have citizens who contact us and send us information and sort of ask questions. Or they might think they know how our budgets are constructed. So you have it listed here. But if you could just explain the restrictions on our utility budgets.

Yes, of course. So utility budgets are very much bound by laws where when we generate fees from utilities, they must be related to the cost of operating that utility and that utility alone. We couldn't say, oh, we're going to increase water and sewer rates because we need more money for police. We would not be able to do that legally, nor would it be correct as far as running these utilities as a business on their own. Fee payers pay for the service of running that. With the caveat that there are certain instances where overhead can be charged to these utilities, for example, payroll is processed by the city's payroll person. I assist in finance direction for those utilities, our city attorney. So all of those other services that are supporting those utilities, we have limited amount of ability to move some of the revenues as a transfer in to our general fund. Does that answer the question?

Yeah, we could just dispel the myth that we could just take any money out of the wastewater fund or water fund and put it into the general fund. Unless it's a chargeback for services rendered. Correct.

Yeah, exactly. Thank you. Okay, and I think I hit the major categories on here. Licenses and permits, that's a large revenue source. We are discussing those increases with permitting, which will help recoup the costs for that area of our operations. Same information, just comparing by category the 2026 adopted budget to the requested FY27 amount. Some of these numbers have been refined since prior meetings. We get more information. We include that. But overall, no, nothing really significant to report from prior meetings. We are looking at that property tax increase, which I'll go into detail. We are budgeting about a $575,000 increase in licenses and permits. That is twofold. Some of it is a projection of the increase. And also, our revenues in the current fiscal year and prior fiscal years, we're showing some trends that we're showing we can bump up that revenue number a little bit. Intergovernmental, we do have some increases in this category, but the major change is a decrease in highway user revenue. We are paid based on what is generated at the state level. Then a formula is applied, and that is something that we can't control. It's just based on the economy and what revenue goes into this state level fund.

Could that be blamed on people who drive electric cars?

Possibly, okay All right growth in the city's property taxes the the property tax formula is Unlike Possibly any state around us and this is where we run into so much confusion with the average taxpayer and in unfortunately, it causes some unnecessary heartburn in some cases. And I think that explaining how property taxes work will always be a passion of mine to hopefully make it more accessible to the average citizen. But it isn't an easy way that property taxes are generated. maybe compared to other states that have sort of a little bit more of a formula that can be applied year over year in a way that makes sense. We're going to talk about foregone taxes and what are they, where did they come from. Idaho law allows the city to increase property tax portion of its operating budget by up to 3% annually. So that's the property tax total levy amount, not the rate necessarily, the levy amount by 3%. In prior years, the city did not take the full allowable increase. There were many years that council did not take the 3% allowable increase. And why? Why did council not take that increase? It wasn't because there was no need for new revenue. It was because the formula for property taxes generated on average more than a 3% increase in revenue. So there wasn't necessarily a need to use the mechanism to raise the 3% property tax and vote on it as a city council. It just came into the formula automatically. So in those years, when the 3% increase was not taken, those funds could be reserved as foregone taxes. And I'll get into that a little bit more. Now, it may be surprising that the levy, the M&O levy increased by more than 3% in prior years. And we've talked about this concept quite a bit. I've created something, a new way to look at it that may kind of drive it home for those who are logging in at home or just new to this conversation. So let's say, theoretically, the city had $100 million in valuation of new growth. And in 2016, that $100 million would generate for the city's formula automatically that would just come in and add to the levy $585,750. Now, in 2018, $100 million in new growth again. Not that there was that amount. There might have been more, a little bit less. But if it were exactly $100 million, again, $531,448. So we see this just over half a million. And then you start to see a change. About 2021, the levy rate drops. And the levy rate is what drives what flows into the formula automatically. So the levy rate begins to drop based on valuations increasing at a very high rate. And then in 2023 and 2024, we see further limitations from the legislature. And so in 2026, if we were to have the same amount of valuation, $100 million valuation of new growth, the formula would bring in 218,381 compared to 2016, 586,000, just under that. And so in a year where inflation has been a factor here, we are seeing so much less, a fraction of the amount of money that flows into the formula on its own. So any questions on that? It's a new way of looking at it.

Just going to make a comment. And so a lot of people who come from the cow states, they're used to if the valuation of their home increases, their property tax goes up. so your house increases by five percent you can pretty much count on property taxes going up five percent but in idaho it's inversed because the property value is in the denominator so the more the city grows the lower the levy rate gets which means new growth hundreds of millions of dollars that comes in is not a boon to the city So people out there who are looking and they say, wow, look at all the growth in the city, why are they raising property taxes? Because the formula here, it heavily favors the homeowner as far as property taxes are concerned. That's a benefit of living here.

Correct.

But it means we have to be very frugal with our budget.

Correct. And the goal is to keep property taxes as low as possible. But at the same time, we have expectations from our community with regards to public safety. and that comes with the costs, public safety, parks, all of our other services. So it is a tough, if you're from another state, exactly as you said, Mayor, where your valuation changes, you expect to have a higher property tax bill. If your valuation changes in Idaho, it matters to the extent that it changed in relation to all the other property tax payers. So I probably haven't been able to explain this in a way that will make it gel in a new listener's mind, but at least planting the seed of there's more to it than how it's calculated in other states is the most important part here.

Katie, because you touched on it, can you just summarize just briefly the legislative caps issue that also was paramount in this change?

Yeah, the most dramatic change was the decrease in the levy rate, which was driven by property tax valuations increasing. And that isn't to say that the legislature acted in order for that to happen. However, there could have been some sort of reform to make the formula make sense. But the response to it was a further limitation on the revenues that could flow in by only allowing the city to use 90% of the growth in the formula. So you'll see It's not the math changes from just an easy, you know, that's the levy rate. That's how much we're getting. There's a limitation on the amount of growth that would flow into this formula in this 2023 fiscal year. So thank you. OK, back to foregone balances. In prior years, when the city did not take that 3% allowable increase, it was preserved as foregone taxing authority. And at this point, the city's foregone balance is just under $6.5 million. And if the city were to take 1% per year, reincorporating those foregone taxes into the budget, that would take about 19 years to recapture. So at this point, that it feeds into a recommendation for this year to take more of that foregone as a one-time capital expenditure increase.

Christy has a question.

Katie, the bottom of that slide, you just stated that as fact. And I can appreciate that. But I just want to make sure for the citizens listening that there's been no policy or discussion adopted by council that we would try to recapture all of that foregone for the next 19 years.

Right, yeah, exactly. And that's what mostly I want to get ahead of the question of, well, when we're taking these foregone increases, what are we doing to our future ability to, you know, if we need foregone taxes? But this is more of a reassurance that the balances there are sufficient to take a larger hit this year as far as, incorporating those foregone balances, recapturing those into the budget this year. But yes, no, that's as a fact, just a calculation not to show any sort of policy leanings or anything like that, so. Okay, let's talk about growth for this year. So really great news over a number of years where the growth numbers were minimal, could not, support even a portion of the increases coming into the budget. $244 million in new construction this year. That is up from, I think it was 80-something million last year, so big jump. And so that is generating just under $600,000 in revenue to support this growth. And if we were to look back, it would have generated so much more. So it is something to help with the deficit, but the city must serve all this growth. And that's what we're seeing with the budget. The deficit is just a fact of the budget when the revenue hasn't grown for so many years and the costs continue to grow.

So you didn't, on that number, Katie, the $592,000, you didn't do the math to figure out what that would have been had the legislature not changed the rules on us.

I could probably do it really quick. I'll do it. Okay. I try not to do math standing up.

I try not to do it at all. What was the number? It was $592,000?

Yeah. And then tax rate.

0.9 equals, it would be $657,000. Yeah. So they cut us by, yeah, $59,000 or so.

Oh, I get it. So this is prior to, yes, yeah.

If they hadn't changed the rules on us, we would be collecting approximately, what, $66,000 more. Yeah, somewhere around there.

Yes, that sounds right. OK. So going back to that, it's very encouraging to see a number coming in from that new growth formula that is higher than prior years. To sum it all up, the city could cover rising costs in the past just from that new growth formula. The revenue is so much lower now than necessary compared to prior fiscal years. So the city must rely on city council acting to bring the revenue into the levy amount rather than it automatically calculating in. And the solution or the recommendation that I'll come to is the 3% increase in the levy budget total and then also a recapture of 4% of previously foregone taxes. And this is something that we've discussed in the high water mark in the workshops.

Mr. Mayor.

Christy has a question.

Katie, I think it, when did we do the high water mark? Was that last month? Yeah, a month ago, yeah. When we agreed on that, I asked the city administrator to work with you and identify more cuts to the budget. And you and the mayor and the city administrator got right to work. And you gave all of us some options that two weeks ago we supported. It was almost $1 million. But it's not really reflected in the proposal now for the tax increase. The reduction of the million, I would have liked to have seen built into the proposal.

So that will be on the expenditure side. I'm still going through the revenue category. Am I understanding? Yep. Perfect. Yes, I will get there. All right. Just to sum up the numbers of what we're talking about when we talk about we have the prior year maintenance and operations levy. and then the allowed revenue from new construction adding in there, the recommended 3% allowable increase, recommended foregone recaptured for maintenance and operations of 1%, and then the additional one-time foregone recapture of 3%, bringing us to this total here for the FY27 levy.

And Katie, this is the same percentages and the same purposes that Post Falls adopted when they adopted their budget last month.

Yes, correct. Our Association of Idaho Cities conference earlier in the early summer, it was the sense in the room was that every city needed to take as much as they could because of how this formula has changed. It is just simply we are unable to keep up with the services without a recommendation of this increase.

And that's all coming out of that decision by our legislature, House Bill 389. Thank you.

How would this impact taxpayers? These are projections. If you are an average homeowner in the city of Coeur d'Alene and your assessed value is $550,000, if you're a homeowner and you can apply for the homeowner's exemption, you would have a taxable assessed value of $425,000. This increase would come out to an annual dollar increase in your tax bill of $93.50 if you pay your property taxes in a mortgage escrow monthly, that would come out to just under $7.80 projected. And then, you know, if you have a higher valuation or let's say you're a commercial property owner of $1.5 million, you would not have a homeowner's exemption in that case. you would see an annual increase in your tax bill of $330 for the city's portion of taxes, about $27.50 a month. Christy. Looking at that there. Yeah.

Thank you for the chart. Do you have, because we can see the increase, but we don't know what these dollar amounts are paying now. So what would be the total?

Oh, I see. I did not bring that.

Total property tax bill?

Yeah.

Usually the, so I did some math, which I'm going to go over later. And generally the city accounts for about 43% of your total property tax bill. So welcome math. So just double that and add a few cents.

So I think I'll talk to Katie.

Do I have the property tax rate?

Let's just use the one for, I don't know, $525,000. What are they currently paying? With this change.

You mean for everything?

Yeah, what's the current bill and then we can add the increase.

So I don't have the, in front of me, the prior tax rate, but with this change, a average homeowner's annual bill is $1,185. So that per month for the city, all city services would be about a $99 a month. Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry. So the, overall property tax charge? I can pull up the four.

For a year.

With the county, yeah. Hold on. A year. Let's see. With all the taxing districts? Because we don't know what their changes are going to be.

They took free at the county. And what did the college take this year?

I don't know if they took. I don't think they took anything. It would be kind of a waste of time to try to project that if we don't know what each other taxing district is taking.

Yeah. It would just be good to know what we're already charging.

And I would just say our place in Coeur d'Alene Place, which the assessed valuation is about $540,000, $550,000. We're currently at about $1,800 a month for every tax. So then it would be $1,900 or something. And nobody loves taxes, but that's still quite a bargain for what we get. I remember that's what Ron Ettinger would say.

Okay.

Who's the victim here?

I'm trying to find a... I can pull up a property tax bill right now to demonstrate it. You can do mine. Okay.

I'm the only gookin in the system.

And you're paying a lot. You're the only gookin.

Oh, I am. I'm paying a ton.

There we go.

You can use mine if you want.

Okay. Okay.

Where do we want to tax it from?

What if we see a warrant or something that flashes across here?

See, I'm not in arrears.

He's on time. Great job. Okay. So when you receive your annual tax bill, you'll see every taxing district that you fall within. And if you are within the city of Coeur d'Alene, this is going to be the total net tax annual for the city of Coeur d'Alene M&O. So you are at... Oh. Yeah, it's pretty much half of that then. Yeah, $1,100 for the average taxpayer is their City of Coeur d'Alene annual tax bill, that portion. And then so that would be an annual increase of the $99. And it's hard, too, because we have these... The state has property tax relief numbers built in there. I don't have the ability to project those for taxpayers either. But yeah, we just try and look at it year over year what effect will increase. But hopefully that gives a better sense, gut check of the numbers.

Thank you.

All righty. Let's jump into expenditures for the general fund. Very high level overview because we spent quite a bit of time itemizing out all of the increases that we were looking at in that high watermark proposal. Personnel costs are approximately 80% of the general fund budget and that supports our negotiated wages. That's the large factor there. Health insurance is a very large factor driving costs this year and staffing needs. They're just going to have an effect on the budget. We have some additional FTEs built into this budget that are necessary. Here is a summary of the changes going from FY26 to FY27. The largest, as just mentioned, those personnel costs are going to drive the big changes in the budget under $1.5 million increase. And three parts of that, these are known costs at this point that are incorporated into the budget, is a 16% health insurance premium increase. That is nationwide. We're seeing those. contracts that insurance have negotiated with health care providers, higher rates, which are then passed on to those subscribed to the policies.

Mr. Mayor.

Christy has a question.

Katie, what I remember of most of our contracts that we do have, and Melissa can speak to this much more clearly than me, that we do have a provision for when a rate goes to a certain height, you can come back and negotiate the health insurance with our three collective bargaining entities. Has any of that happened, or is it going to happen?

Yeah. So the way that the language reads, the city would still bear the majority of a large increase like this. Um, and I can go through all the details and the nuts and bolts of how that's calculated, but without being able to show it, I'm probably going to get everybody off track, but this is, um, the city is not taking on anything more than what that language, um, States. And so it's a 16% in health insurance premiums. The, um, total increase of the expenditure that the final cost is about 12%. taking all that contract language and applying it. So the city is bearing the first 12%, and then we have come up with, as a health benefits trust, a way to help with some balances in the health benefits trust to lower the impact for this year for employees as well.

Okay, thank you.

All right, we have a handful of FTEs coming into the budget. We have an additional FTE in our building and inspection department. We have our custodial. We needed to add some custodial support as well as FTE additions in our fire department, some of them being externally funded. Supplies and services increase within this number, the large totals. One would be the increase in annual street overlay program of $125,000. and a roof replacement at fire station number three. Another large one would be our permitting software that we're implementing. And police department has a handful of supply needs, as well as the city is now being billed by the county for inmates who are in county jail based on a city ordinance violation. So that is built into the budget liability insurance premium increase. This is sort of the trend with liability insurance. The property values have increased so much and that drives rates up, unfortunately. And Those are the largest increases there, and I'd be happy to go into more detail if desired. Capital increases, we have a lighting project at Riverstone in there, and we also, excuse me, the roof replacement would have been under capital. And we also have our overlay program. This is the same information just in a graph form. And so we see that health insurance increase large portion. Then we come down to supplies and services. We do have a little bit of savings when you get those new budget requests. Sometimes there's one time items. So we remove those from the expenditures. Now moving on to the city's ongoing deficit, which we've discussed over the summer. This budget, with all of the changes incorporated, includes a $1.9 million use of fund balance to supplement ongoing revenues and afford ongoing operations. And same message that we've been discussing. We want to have a healthy financial outlook So the recommendation is 20% to 25% of budgeted expenditures in the city's reserves.

So look, let's look at, um, Katie, um, can you tell me where that comes from? Because the national standard is, uh, 15 to 18%. Yeah.

So, um, GFOA typically was, um, I'm, I'm trying to remember, I don't know when they changed it, but it would have been three months of expenditures, the 25%. They did decrease it to, 18%, I believe, recently. I'm not necessarily in support of that decrease personally, just my own personal financial outlook. And so that's why I have that recommendation of 20% to 25% of expenditures. The most important thing coming from my recommendations is to hit a balanced budget so that is not fluctuating. So if we could get to maybe 18%, if that's where council wants to direct, 18% and a balanced budget would be ideal because then we know we're going to maintain that going into the future.

And what's our percentage right now?

Right now, we are budgeting to end the year at about 25%.

So the national standard is two months at 18% on the top end. But you want us at 25. And I can appreciate that very much. I think you're just trying to get us healthy. But again, that's kind of a policy decision. So continue, please.

Exactly. And I think it's just important to, maybe I need to stress the fact that while we have a healthy fund balance right now, we are budgeting at such a rate that having it at 18% could lead us into the danger zone very quickly because we are budgeting a deficit every year. So I think the focus, in my mind, is on that balanced budget. That's the biggest goal the city, in my opinion, should move towards.

And I want to add that it's our long-term goal to fix this. So we want to get kind of over the hump here.

Dan. Well, just to follow up from last night, I already had a question this morning from somebody that's right on topic with this and looking forward is with Cortair, When would we start seeing something come online and what are the trigger points? Is it when they sell a lot? Is it when they actually build a building? So anyway, could you talk to that a little bit?

It's my understanding that new construction comes on to the assessor's roles when a certificate of occupancy is issued. So I would expect we'd be a number of years out from that point to start seeing that.

Michael, did you have something to say?

Yeah, for maximum security, GFOA still recommends three months or 25%. They reduced it recently to two months, and I think that's just a reflection of tightening economic constraints nationally with inflation, and it kind of reflects what's happening in cities across the country. But they still prefer 25%, and I think that's where Katie's trying to responsibly go.

Thank you. Yes, thank you. Katie.

All right.

And that leads us into the conversation between ongoing and one time. It is very important that we acknowledge pieces of our budget that are ongoing and pieces of our budget that we cannot rely on in the future. Ongoing the allowable 3% property tax amount in property tax budget increase. And then the 1%, 307, 761 of foregone for maintenance and operations is also ongoing. And then of course our wages, benefits, operating costs, those costs that we're seeing in this request, the majority of those increases are ongoing costs. And then one time items, we have the foregone increase for capital projects. So that is something that council would need to decide. to do again, and not necessarily a recommendation for me. But we will speak of that in the next budget process. It is one time. She has another question. Sorry, Katie. But that's what we're supposed to be doing here, right?

You're educating us. Yes.

The one time proposal of Oregon IV, capital improvement. There's no projects identified, but I do know that we have ongoing issues that come up, whether it's a crash police car or we need a dump truck or whatever it may be. But just for clarification, there are no identified particular projects.

This would be to pay for ongoing capital budget items that we have. So help with our overlay line item. This is truly to help with get us to a smaller deficit for this fiscal year. So the only increase to capital, I think I have it on this slide back here, is $170,000. So it is to pay for existing capital items that we have in the budget every year, ongoing capital items, to offset that for one year. OK.

Thank you.

Katie, are we required to identify the capital items?

Yes, we will report to the State Tax Commission. I've reviewed what qualifies under that. It would need to be items or projects that are expected to last more than seven years. And so fire equipment can fall within that. Right now, we've got our bond that is helping with that. But in the future, that could be looked at as something to help us potentially move away from the bond model, just depending on how much foregone is there. And yeah, so we'll report on that to the State Tax Commission on what we've used those revenues for. I don't read that there is a time limit. So if some of it is to be reserved in a future fiscal year, Capital projects, typically construction projects, are multi-year. So there could be an ongoing reporting to the State Tax Commission on this. Thank you. OK. Other one-time areas of note, the annexation fee resources, making that final transfer of the quartier annexation fee resources. And then use of fund balance to support expenditures. So fund balance is not replenishing itself. So every year when we budget fund balance, that is considered a one-time resource. And to demonstrate that, I do these multi-year projections. Normally, I choose a list of assumptions. And so these are assumptions that we hope, in discussions in these meetings, I believe that council hopes to right-size. But if we're looking at the current trajectory, if we were to add $1 million to our property tax revenue each year, and 3.5% to wages and benefits each year, this is what we would look like on a multi-year outcome. So what I do Add in here is a savings from unfilled positions figure. The city budgets on 100% of personnel costs, which we always have turnover. We call it the churn. Employees leave. There might be a gap in between hiring the next person. An employee may retire or resign. The individual coming in to replace them may be on the lower end of the salary range due to experience. So we do see savings each year, and I'm putting in a calculation for, I think, 2% of personnel costs for each of these years. So as personnel costs grow in this model, we'll see that, excuse me, that I'm looking at the wrong line, the savings from unfilled positions also grow in lockstep with that. So the issue here is truly the expenditure increases exceeding what we would potentially add in property tax revenue.

So in this actual chart, this doesn't account for any FTEs that come online in any of these years that are in addition to current status. So this is just status quo with unfilled positions, no growth in any services or staff?

Yeah, the only growth would be 3.5% to wages and benefits, which was what we've seen the past few years. And so if that were to, if we were to hold the line on expenditures, we would see the deficit close pretty quickly if we were able to pull that off, hold the line on expenditures.

And so I'm just kind of, I'm not sure if this is in your presentation, but in some of the last ones, you had done some staffing level issues and said that per 1,000. Is that in this chart?

Not in this one.

So I guess where I'm going with that is this is saying that we are planning on the savings of unfilled positions without adding positions, and we currently have fewer positions than we had 10 years ago.

Correct, yeah.

OK. Just want to be clear.

Yeah, and it's hard to bring in so many assumptions I've just I wanted to show us, you know status quo if we if we're just keeping the same plan Which doesn't it's not realistic and I see that But I think that the big factor here is just the major cost in the budget is personnel and the area where we seem to grow is our personnel costs so this is it is not in line with our ability to increase revenue and so that's an area I think and I just think I just want to in being clear on that I'm just getting a sense that you know people say live within your budget and live within your means and we're hearing that from a lot of these areas so I think a chart like that illustrates that

Our community is growing. The demand for services is increasing. But we have fewer people than we had 10 years ago. And we're not projecting to add any. Plus, we're not projecting to fill all the positions we already have.

Yeah. And I think I recall what you're referring to. I read an analysis of full-time employees compared to population. And that has, it is significantly lower compared to prior years. you know, just prior decades. And so we've really, as a city, done a great job of doing more with less as far as the personnel resources. Thank you. Yeah.

Christy.

Katie, when you've projected our revenue out to FY30, did you include the closure of an urban rural district? Did you include impact fees or any sort of Other fees that we charge going up, is that all built into your model?

It is not. No, it's a very simple projection model as far as we know that we could potentially increase property taxes up to a million a year. And we also know that our personnel costs have been increasing at this rate. To do a more sophisticated projection, that would take quite a bit of time. And also discussion on council's values of what the feeling is on should we

anticipate state revenues going up or should we anticipate them going down that's a very um lengthy discussion i think to get a model like that built well there's some things we do know i guess i guess the reason i want to go down this rabbit hole is because you have a projection and i'm and i don't mean that in adversarial way we're just going to use your numbers which i appreciate but your projection is in fy 30 3.2 million off budget, but we know, I believe there's an urban renewal district that'll be closing. We know that we're going to continue to raise fees for services. Um, you know, we'll go through every revenue stream, but we should be able to project that with just those two items put in.

And I know those a couple of them off the top of my head. So I looked at the urban renewal. We have a, it's the river district that's closing. next year is what we expect. And that would generate about $800,000 because we are limited even more so on urban renewals closing. And so we could add ongoing revenue of an additional $800,000 and subtract that out of the deficit or the annual shortfall. As far as fees, just quick back in the napkin. I know that this isn't going to be perfect. We're looking at some pretty substantial fee increases in the building department to align more with, you know, they hadn't been updated in quite a while. So we're looking about $575,000 in that area. Because fees, licenses, and permits are a smaller category of revenue, I'm not necessarily confident to say that that could be a huge area of relief for the budget. So I do acknowledge that there are items that could be brought into this multi-year projection. It is a very simple surface level look at it, but I don't foresee knowing all that with the urban renewal and how we can increase certain transfers and that sort of thing, that there's really that on the horizon that hope of something coming in and fixing this situation.

No, not fixing, but just with those two numbers alone, the projection's almost half.

And I did want to say to council that we will be having in the fall a workshop for long-range budget planning so that we can look forward and look at some of the numbers that Katie's bringing up and talk about possibilities of what could happen realistically, not like, well, we're going to get this new tax. We're going to look forward to that and see what we can do moving forward. And that's where a lot of this is going to come up. Thank you.

Thank you. And just bringing around to the staff recommendation I brought to resolution with the ordinance, these are the items included in that. And then recommendation from the financial perspective is plan for constraints. And yes, I think we're always looking for whatever revenue categories we can project to offset the budget. But the main driver right here is we keep seeing that expenditures are increasing above what our revenues are increasing. All right. Any other questions?

Questions from counsel for Katie? OK. That's it then.

Well, this is a hearing.

And I have a sign-up sheet here that has no one on it. So I would like to open the public hearing. It is a legislative hearing. Is there anyone who would like to speak who has not signed up yet? Well, OK. Max would like to go ahead and hand that down to them so Max can get signed in. Thank you. I'd also like to say, you're going to have to sign a little thing. Until you do, I would say that normally it was tradition that for this hearing, Susie Snedeker would come and give us comments on the budget. Susie is not feeling well, so she was not able to make it tonight, and we wish that she would have a speedy recovery and that she is in our thoughts and normally would be here to tell us what for.

She's probably watching.

I hope she's watching.

Thank you.

You mentioned Cortere.

Just for the record, just to say your name.

Oh, my name is Max. I live here in Coeur d'Alene. You said for Cortere, COs are required for taxation purposes. Is that what you brought up earlier?

Well, yeah. I just kind of asked the general timing of, yeah, what will trigger when.

Gotcha. So I looked it up really quick, and under Idaho Code 63-301A, the Tax Commission guidance does not state that the issuance of a municipality CO is required. So we collect those taxes immediately.

Thank you for the clarification, Max.

I'm pretty neutral on it.

Appreciate it. Anyone else who would like to do testimony or testify for our budget hearing? Okay. Seeing no one else, I will close the public testimony and now it goes to Council deliberation. Council, what is your mood? Christy.

Mr. Mayor, in the spirit of Susie Snedeker, who can't be here, I just want to revisit the foregone topic.

Okay.

So... Going back to my earlier discussion, we did come together as a group, asked our staff to find cuts in the budget that we could identify and try to live with. And it's painful. It's painful on their side. It's painful on our side. Because those are positions and capital that we need. But we came up with almost a million dollars. And I was really grateful for the work on that. Did a great job. But I still don't see it reflected in the proposal. I still see the full 4% for foregone, 3% for ongoing taxes. When we make cuts to the budget, I think that it probably should reflect in our ask, because that was the whole point. Otherwise, it's just us feeling the pain of not filling those positions, but we haven't given any property tax relief to our citizens. I would like the council to consider, rather than that full 4%, that we would look at just 3% of that for a total of 6%. And that would reflect the cuts that we all agreed to in the budget, trying to give some relief.

Is that a motion?

Yes, sir.

Do you understand? Do you have the motion down there? Thank you, Joanne. Is there a second on the motion? Motion dies for lack of a second. Thank you. Thank you for trying, Christy. Moving on to discussion.

Mr. Mayor.

Thank you for not all talking at once. Thank you. Kenny.

I don't disagree with Christy's thought at all. I think that trying to look at a way to minimize this tax impact to our citizens is important, but I think that that extra 1% is important to help bridge the gap still. so we don't continue to have that gap continue. My time's up. Your time's up. All right, everybody, let's go home now. So that would be my reason for not giving a second on that, is although I agree that if we could sustain that, it would be great, but I think that we need to look at ways to bridge that gap still.

Appreciate the comment. Thank you, Kenny. Kiki.

Mr. Mayor, thanks. And I can echo what has been said about not wanting to taxi. But I feel like we have a real volatile situation coming from the state level. And I recall many, many years of charts being up on our screen where we did not raise 3%, did not raise 3%, did not raise 3%, raised 1%. And it was a decade of not raising and taking advantage of being prepared for this growth. With the cap on the Lake District urban renewal money not coming into us, That cut us off at the knees. So as much as I would love to be able to say, let's save our taxpayers this $7.79 a month, I don't think we can risk it. And I think that's my position with it.

Thank you, Kiki. Anyone else want to say? Christy, again.

Well, because now we're past my motion. Yes. Well, my goodness, I think I've done 26 years of budgets, not here, but overall. it's tough it's always tough sometimes you have to make really horrible decisions but my experience with foregone in particular is that you use foregone for a one-time one-time opportunity such as the college did for the education corridor had they not used foregone we would have lost that opportunity forever and we wouldn't have the education corridor or there is a catastrophe something along the lines of it you know god forbid there were a huge fire at the wastewater treatment plant and insurance didn't cover everything we would need to uh we would have to use foregone to probably cover that expense because we need that utility Or it has to be in your budget, where you just can't possibly make ends meet without it. And I think that the 6% is sufficient, because looking at the national standard, we have a healthy fund balance. And so I think we could weather 6% other than 7%. And like council, nobody seconded my motion. And it's uncomfortable up here. telling the public we're going to raise their taxes. But I'd like you to reconsider that. I've never voted against a budget because we've always found some sort of resolution. And I'm very clear that the city needs to operate on revenue. We can't do it without revenue. So I'm very clear on that. But it's difficult for me to say yes to this budget when I don't think we've made a strong argument for that full amount of foregone.

And could somebody remind what does that 1% represent? The difference between 6 and 7? 1% is $307,761.

In a $154 million budget. Well, it's general fund, so.

And how much is our deficit if we do take the one?

If you do?

If we do, we'll still have a significant deficit, correct?

Right, right. With the $1.9 million deficit, all of the recommended increases are what makes up that number. So we would just be increasing it by that $307,000.

And I would also like to remind council that currently we do not have a COLA included in the budget for our police association, and that's going to definitely add to that deficit.

May I ask a question about that? Please. So I'm identifying one time 1% out of a foregone, which can only be used for capital. So that wouldn't be going into the fund balance, correct, Katie? It can only be used for capital. That's different from how we would pay a COLA.

Correct. So this foregone would go towards ongoing capital items that we have budgeted each year, which, let's say, overlay. Let's say it's going to soften the impact of our annual overlay budget, which is increased up to $1.625 million. The city funds that. We also have highway user revenue, but highway user revenue is not enough to even cover our whole streets program. And so there's the terminology supplement versus supplant. And so this would be supplanting an expenditure we already have, directing those dollars to help soften this year and pay for capital items we already budget.

Thank you.

Yes. Well, then. I would make a motion to pass this with a 6% for the foregone versus the seven, just to see.

Second.

Okay, so a motion has been made to go with 6%. Total. I believe the 6% is the total.

Yes.

Which would reduce about $360,000 off of the revenue side. Which is going to take

that out of the capital improvements.

We have a motion and a second now. We revisited the earlier motion. And is there any discussion on this, which is to basically change our budget proposal from 1% foregone for maintenance operation and 2% foregone taxes for capital expenditures? Dan Sheklar.

think we need to spend the money on capital improvements we have roads that need to be chip sealed we have playground equipment at McEwen that's falling apart and it's dangerous it's it's the gem of our community and when tourists come here they they go to that playground and it's you know but there's things like that all throughout our city and I think even though it's not personal or even though it's not general fund I think we do need to To take that foregone. So I oppose this. Any other comments? Kiki.

And just to be clear on that, what you're saying is that if we remove that 1%, what you were going to do is take that foregone and put it into capital that's already in the budget. So that now that's already in the budget is going to have to come out of the general fund.

Right, that would come out of fund balance, correct, yeah.

Fund balance, if it gets done, sorry.

Any other comments? No discussion? Oh, thanks.

This is cumulative, though. Well, it kind of is because we're doing ongoing expenses that we're going to be paying for anyway.

Maybe I don't understand the question.

I think you and I have had discussions in the past that the cumulative effect of not taking the 3% over the years has really put us in a little bit of a bind, which we're kind of feeling that pain today. And we've rarely gone after foregone.

Can I answer that? Thank you. So we're talking about two different things, though. Foregone isn't something that we do. And this foregone, this 1%, the $330,000 approximately, that's for one year. We're not taking it next year. It's a one-time thing. So we would just have to make that up through our fund balance this year, which is healthy at 25%.

And I want Katie to comment on that regarding the ongoing effect of the capital portion of this fund balance.

Yes. Um, and I think it's important to clarify whether or not council would like to reduce the, um, there is 1% of foregone that is ongoing that goes to maintenance and operations. And then there's a recommendation for 3% of foregone. That is one time for capital projects, capital expenditures. And so it sounds like the reduction down to in the foregone ask would be taking 2% of that capital expenditure foregone. Is that correct? The one time or reducing the MNO?

So the one time proposal is 4%.

No, I'm sorry. So the 1% of the foregone when it's taken can go to MNO, which is ongoing. Yes. So 3% in this recommendation, 3% on top of the other, you know, 3% plus 1%, then the final capital 3% is one time.

And it would be reduced to 2% under this motion.

Yeah, that's what I'm hearing, yeah.

That is not ongoing revenue. We take that once. We cannot increase our budget by that amount next year.

Correct, yeah, yeah. So the impact of it would be a larger deficit for the current fiscal year, which we will see that deficit of $923,000 added all things considered equal anyway because we're removing that revenue. So for this year, we'd be increasing the deficit by the $307,761. And then going into next year, we don't have that capital at all unless council approves it again.

Does everyone understand that?

I do.

So we're still on a motion to Reduce it from, I'm just going to talk about the capital expenditures. Reduce 3% foregone taxes for capital expenditures to 2% foregone for capital expenditures.

And I would just make the argument that it would be nice if we had a three to three vote, because then the mayor could break the tie. You are so sweet. Well, let's see what you guys think.

And I've got to tell you, so this is actually a council bill. This is an ordinance. But what we're going to do is I'm going to do just a voice vote now to see if we're going to move forward in this direction, in which case we would change the language of the council bill. So otherwise we'd be fumbling.

Mr. Mayor, I think the foregone is in the resolution. Resolution 26073 sets the foregone.

But I'm also seeing the 3% in foregone in... Okay, so it doesn't affect the first...

It would affect the ordinance, but if we're talking about... How do we do this so that it works properly? I think the motion is regarding Resolution 26073 about the amount of the foregone to be taken.

So we're out of order. We're putting the second item before the first item. I know that's the council bill, and that's the resolution. So we're on A. The resolution is B. So what would you recommend that we do regarding this? What would be the cleanest way to accomplish it?

The cleanest way is the foregone is going to change the ordinance if the motion passes. So we should see if that motion passes first.

So we're going to jump ahead to resolution 26.

26-073, yes.

OK. So we're going to be on resolution 26073, which is the B item. And it's not a real form. We're skipping over A. We're going to B. This is resolution 2673. which I'm going to read now based on the motion that Dan English has made. So certifying pursuant to Idaho Code 63, 8021E, the amount of foregone increase for the budget for fiscal year 26-27, specifically 1% foregone taxes in the amount of $370,761. for maintenance operation and 2% foregone taxes for capital expenditures in the amount of fill in the blank.

I have a, yeah.

Yes, we need to know the number. You can just read it.

Make words in there.

This is the number.

The 2% is $615,522. Yeah.

$650,522 for the 2%. That is the motion. Actually, why don't you go ahead and read that, Dan, replacing the amount at the bottom of that in red where it says resolution 2673. It's more proper for you to read that since you're making the motion.

Give me that second number again, the nine.

615,522. So $615,522. And then in paragraph two, a number would also change there.

It would be $923,283 for the total budget foregone increase.

Sure. That's what we have down here already.

Oh, OK. Hold on. Minus the 307. I thought I was so smart coming up with.

It's OK. If this ran smoothly, people would think we're up to something.

No, so it is a 3% increase.

That is, yeah.

Yeah, so that would have been incorrect if we were doing 4%.

Yes, I see it now. Okay.

So I'm good to read? So is he good to read it? Yes. I think I can. Please go ahead. Make the motion to approve Resolution 2673, certifying the amount of foregone increase to be budgeted for fiscal year 2026-27, specifically an amount of $307,761, for maintenance and operations and, let's see, 9, or no, 615, 522 for capital projects pursuant to Idaho Code 638021E.

Second.

So we have a motion and a second. And any discussion on this or feedback from staff at this point?

Did we do that right?

I think we're good. All right, roll call.

Miller?

Yes. Wait, Miller. Miller. The other Miller.

No.

Miller voted no.

Gabriel?

No.

Sheckler?

No.

English?

Yes.

Wood? Yes. Evans? No.

I didn't even notice it says Gookin. It says Gookin. That is so cute. OK, so the motion fails. Well, I didn't see it. She didn't see it. No one saw it. How many eyeballs looked at this? So we are back again to the resolution and the council bill. And I guess we can go in any order.

Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion to dispense with the rule and read council bill number 26-1014 once by title only. Second. Second.

Motion in a second to read the council bill. Any discussion? Okay, the clerk will read the title. Sorry, you don't have it. Oh, I'm sorry, the roll call. I'm sorry. Aye.

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

Yes.

Wood? Yes.

Now we can read the title.

Council Bill No. 261014, an ordinance entitled the Annual Appropriation Ordinance for the Fiscal Year beginning October 1, 2026, appropriating the sum of $154,825,839 to defray the expenses and liabilities of the City of Coeur d'Alene for said year. levying a sufficient tax upon the taxable property within said city for general revenue purposes for which such appropriation is made, levying special taxes upon the taxable property with said city for special revenue purposes within the limits of said city of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, providing for severability and providing an effective date hereof.

Very good. Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion to adopt Council Bill 26-1014.

Second. Motion to second any discussion. Okay, now we'll do a roll call.

Evans? Yes. Miller? Aye. Gabriel?

Yes.

Sheckler?

Yes.

English? Yes. Wood? No.

Motion carried. We're on to Resolution 2673, which is regarding the foregone taxes.

Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve Resolution number 26-073, certifying the amount foregone increase to be budgeted for fiscal year 2026-2027. specifically in the amount of $307,761 for maintenance and operation and $923,282 for capital projects pursuant to Idaho Code 63-821E. Second. Motion and a second. Discussion on this motion.

I'd just like to say a couple of things before we proceed because this is going to be the final ceiling on the budget. Are you good? Did you have something to add?

No.

Oh. So I ran some numbers because I've, like you all, I've gotten the feedback from the public and the anonymous people on the Internet. And Kiki is absolutely correct. When that Lake District closed, it just murdered us. I mean, when they changed the rules in House Bill 389, we lost a ton of ongoing revenue from that urban renewal district closing stuff that we were counting on to pay employees. And it just killed us. The other thing that is really bothering us is the revenue from tourists that we do not receive. Everywhere else you go, you're paying a city tax on your hotel bill or on your liquor bill or whatever. We don't collect that, so all that goes on the backs of the residents. We all have to pay more because our legislature refuses to allow us to levy a tax on hotel beds and tourists. And they stubbornly will not give that to us. uh... as much as it would add for property tax relief and help everyone and and eliminate this situation where we're talking seven percent and that's just i mean and katie's talking to us about unsustainable but i wanted to address the one issue about living within your means cuz that just it perks me uh... being on the inside and actually looking for all the money in the couches cushions and all all everywhere else and finding staff like our our building director ted who's working on weekends because we don't have staff sitting around eating donuts and drinking coffee that's not what's going on in the city 2016 my property tax bill was five thousand four hundred and thirty four dollars and fifteen cents in 2016 that was based on my house's valuation of three hundred and sixty thousand dollars last year my house's valuation was a million dollars and my property tax bill was five thousand nine hundred and six dollars over a 10-year period, the amount I paid in property taxes went up 13% over a 10-year period. Inflation went up 37%. That melon that you bought for 89 cents in 2016 is now $2. If we kept pace with inflation, Last year my property tax bill would have been $7,460, not $5,900. But we are below inflation. We are the only thing in the country that's below inflation right now, other than your IRA. I ran property taxes for the valuation of my home, which is a million dollars, and then that's inflation there. If that same house was in Spokane, my property tax bill would be $12,168. If that house was in Oregon, generally, the property tax bill would be $13,000. If it was in Montana, $10,000. If it was in Boise, $9,700. If it was in Post Falls, $8,100. It just irritates me when people say we're not living within our means. And I don't like raising taxes. I don't like having to pay more in taxes. But all the people, all the feedback that we got, all that stuff on social media, we've done almost all that stuff. The only thing that was suggested that we haven't done is pay our employees less. And I don't want to do that. We lose valuable employees with what we pay them now. Heavy equipment operators go. Police officers go. Firefighters go. People leave. We are not the highest paying agency in the area. we are living within our means. And I just wanted to address that and put things in perspective in that we've been really good with the money. And as much as I would like to keep that value low, you've got to look at what you're getting for your $99 a year increase. You know, crime is low. There's no crime here. Our police department fights the crime. If you need emergency services from fire, they show up in four minutes and they're there. We have wonderful parks. The streets aren't riddled with potholes. You are getting a tremendous value from the city of Coeur d'Alene. And I would just hope that people would appreciate that.

Mr. Mayor?

Yes, Christy.

All of that's very true. And I'm slow on the uptake. I meant to vote yes on the 3% that we would normally take. And can I change that for the record? My issue was with Oregon.

So this is on which resolution? We haven't voted on that one yet, I don't think.

No, we haven't. But I voted on the last one. And I am in support of the 3%.

Okay, so can we please change Christie's vote from a no to U.S.?

Thank you.

Thank you. Is there any other discussion on that after my little rant there? Then we'll do a roll call on that one.

Miller? Where are we?

We are on the resolution to basically adopt the foregone as according to the law.

The total seven.

That's it?

Yes. Gabriel?

Yes.

Sheckler?

Yes.

English? Yes. Wood? No. Evans? Yes.

Very good. Thank you so much. Thank you, Katie. I know that you did a lot of sweat on that one. And so you get a rest for about six months. No, you don't. Anyway, and thank you to all the staff and everyone. I mean, I'm serious. There was a lot of heartache out there. There was a lot of cuts. A lot of people were nervous about things going forward. And you guys have done a tremendous job. We're on to item K, which is executive session. And please do, council, note that we have the updated agenda item.

Mr. Mayor, I'll make a motion to enter into executive session pursuant to Idaho Code 74-206A1A to consider a labor contract offer or to formulate a counteroffer. Second.

Motion to second. Any discussion? Full call?

Gabriel?

Yes.

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

We are in executive session. Thank you, everyone.