City Council - Regular Meeting

She's speeding.

And our library director, Lynn, is here. And I have the proclamation here. I was able to get this produced even without our city clerk who's not here today. So that's a good deal.

Can I bring up, this is one of our board members, Thomas Hill, Dr. Thomas Hill.

I remember Mr. Thomas Hill.

Emma is our youth librarian. Emma Schneider and Darren, our technologies librarian, are going to join me today.

I'm going to take these off. And he's going to photograph. And he takes the picture. And then I'll read it after that. How's that? Proclamation City of Lewiston Idaho whereas the Lewiston City Library was formally established in 1901 to provide the citizens of Lewiston with access to knowledge ideas and lifelong learning and whereas for 125 years Lewiston City Library has stood as a cornerstone of democracy promoting the free exchange of information and providing a welcoming space for discovery and collaboration and creativity. And whereas the city library has played a vital role in supporting literacy, especially for our youngest learners, lifelong learning, intellectual curiosity, and fostering an informed, engaged community. And whereas library has continuously involved to meet the changing needs of its patrons, embracing new technologies and innovative services while preserving its enduring commitment to equitable access for all. And whereas Generations of residents have benefited from the library's collections, programs, dedicated staff, and community supporters, making it a trusted and welcoming space for discovery, connection, and growth. And whereas this 125th anniversary represents not only celebration of the library's rich history, but also recognition of its ongoing contributions to the cultural and educational vitality of Lewiston. Now, therefore, I, Dan Johnson, Mayor of the City of Lewiston, hereby recognize the 125th anniversary of the Lewiston City Library, and encourage all residents to join in celebrating its legacy of service and its continued commitment to supporting the pursuit of learning for all citizens of Lewiston. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal of the City of Lewiston, Idaho, to be affixed hereto this first day of June 2026. Daniel Johnson, Mayor, Lewiston, Idaho. Lynn, congratulations.

We're having a celebration this Saturday. You're all welcome to join us. Some of you may have gotten an invitation. If you didn't RSVP, you're still welcome to join us. We have a historical film. We have tours of the actual Carnegie and story time up there. And I believe some of the children at the Montessori School will be helping give the tours at the Carnegie Library in the morning. And then we have the launch of our preservation station, which will help people take their old family history and convert it to digital history. so they can keep it going through their family.

Cool. Can we ask Thomas to share a word too? Since you're here, we appreciate your service on the board.

Sure. Thank you. I just want to say as a new member of the Lewiston community, I've only been here a few years, I've just been a welcoming third space for any and all community members. So this proclamation is very well accepted and very honored to be part of this process as one of the pillars of the community of Lewiston. And just want to thank everyone for their continued support of the institution, of Director Lynn Johnson, and everyone that works there at the library. Thank you very much. We appreciate everyone's service. Thank you.

It's a fun place to go. I go there a lot. Thank you. SO NEXT UP WE HAVE ROMA NUMBER 5 DISCUSSION ITEMS. PLEASE NOTE THAT IDENTIFYING AN ITEM AS AN ACTION ITEM DOES NOT REQUIRE THE CITY COUNCIL TO VOTE ON THAT ITEM. ITEM A, LET'S TALK TAXES OPEN HOUSE JUNE 25, 2026. PRESENTATION REGARDING THE LET'S TALK TAXES OPEN HOUSE INITIATIVE INCLUDING EVENT DETAILS, PUBLIC OUTREACH EFFORTS AND ANTICIPATE COMMUNITY BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH TAXPAYER EDUCATION AND ENGAGEMENT. CAROL, ARE YOU GOING TO PRESENT TO US TODAY?

THAT'S MY PLAN, IF YOU'LL HAVE ME.

ALL RIGHT. WE'LL GET IT POSTED.

I HAVE A POWERPOINT. NOT SURE AM I SUPPOSED TO BRING THAT UP MYSELF. THAT'S NOT IT. WHAT DO WE HAVE BACK THERE? I CAN SURELY PULL IT UP FROM THE WEBSITE IF I NEED TO.

OH, JENNY'S TAKEN.

OH, SHE'S IN CONTROL. OKAY. WHAT'S A PRESENTATION WITHOUT VISUALS? Okay. Mayor, city councilors, thank you for having me. Carol Maurer, your public outreach coordinator for the city of Lewiston. And as the mayor said, I am here to present to you about a new public engagement opportunity that we have coming up this month. Can't believe that it's June 1st already. But it is exactly what our press release says. Let's talk taxes open house. SO I'M SURE YOU'VE SEEN IT ON OUR PLATFORMS. IT'S RECEIVED SOME NEWS COVERAGE. JUNE 25TH IS THE DATE FOR THIS. FROM 3.30 TO 7, WE SENT OUT A PRESS RELEASE LAST MONTH. AND WE'VE GOT SOME ACTION ON OUR SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES. WE'VE GOT FLYER GOING AROUND EVERYWHERE. AND WE'RE INVITING THE PUBLIC TO COME, LEARN MORE ABOUT PROPERTY TAXES, SPECIFICALLY PROPERTY TAXES, AND HERE IN LEWISTON. So this isn't for the whole county. This is not for all of Nez Perce County. We will have county representation there who can answer questions about assessments, bills, things like that. But this is specifically about Lewiston. Like I said, we'll have representatives from all five taxing districts there as well as the URA. And here we hope to provide clear, easy to understand information about property taxes. Now, That includes everything from how taxes are calculated, things that impact taxes, how they're used, property tax revenues are used for each taxing agency, what public services those monies go to. Like I said, different things that affect that. Where it all starts as well, so how our residents can get involved, everything from the top down, so starting with the legislature, adopting laws, all the way down to city and special interest, districts and how they utilize property taxes. This is something we're going to see how it goes this year. Again, this is the first time, of course, we're doing this. The biggest reason why we decided to do this is because, I mean, I think it's evident, but... You know, I've worked at the city now for a decade. Can't believe that. And I specifically work on helping the city put out information to the public so they know what's going on. It helps them go about their days, things like this. And the one thing that I've always heard of, heard about from folks, and I think you guys can agree, is property taxes. People have got opinions about them. There's a lot of misinformation out there about property taxes. AND A LOT OF ROOM FOR OPEN DIALOGUE WITH OUR RESIDENTS ABOUT PROPERTY TAXES. AND SO THIS EVENT IS STRICTLY INFORMATIONAL. THIS EVENT IS NOT DESIGNED TO CHANGE ANYONE'S MIND ABOUT ANYTHING, CHANGE THEIR OPINIONS ABOUT ANYTHING, BUT TO ARM THEM WITH THE CORRECT INFORMATION SO THAT THEY CAN BE A PART OF DIALOGUE AND COMMUNICATE WITH ALL OF YOU ABOUT DECISIONS BEING MADE. SO THAT'S THE BASICS. So this is just some more information about our purpose. So really our effort, like I said, aims to provide clear, easy to understand information. This is not an easy topic. And so what we're really trying to do is break it apart piece by piece to provide information about each element of this topic. And hopefully that helps just continue increased transparency INCREASE PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING. IT ALSO PROMOTES INTERDISTRICT RELATIONSHIPS AND BUILDING COLLABORATIONS AND THINGS LIKE THAT BECAUSE ALL FIVE OF THESE DISTRICTS WERE ALL WORKING TOGETHER TO PUT THIS INFORMATION TOGETHER AND TO HELP ANSWER QUESTIONS OF THE PUBLIC. AND HOPEFULLY THROUGH TIME WITH CLEAR, EASY TO UNDERSTAND INFORMATION, OPEN DIALOGUE, WE CAN STRENGTHEN PUBLIC TRUST IN OUR PROCESS. Like I said, the press release went out last month, and I wanted to let you guys know we're utilizing every avenue we can to get the word out to try to encourage folks to engage, come to the open house, ask questions, things like this. So some of that free, if you will, organic outreach includes things like our website. We have an e-newsletter. WE HAVE SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES. AND WE'RE UTILIZING THE PLATFORMS FROM ALL FIVE DISTRICTS. SO THAT MEANS SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES FROM THE COUNTY, THE SCHOOL DISTRICT. THEY EVEN HAVE AN APP WHERE THEY COMMUNICATE WITH FAMILIES. AND WE'VE GOT INFORMATION GOING THROUGH THERE. PORT ALUISTON, ANOTHER TAXING DISTRICT, THEY'VE GOT DIFFERENT COMMUNICATION CHANNELS. AND SO WE'RE TAPPING INTO EVERYTHING WE CAN. THE NEWS, LOCAL NEWS COVERAGE IS PICKING IT UP. EMPLOYEE DISTRIBUTION, CUSTOMER DISTRIBUTION. Things like that here pictured on the PowerPoint is a county employee in the treasurer's office Who graciously accepted my request to take her picture holding a flyer? As I'm sure you're all aware the second portion of property taxes are due by June 20th And so this is prime time to have our flyer at the treasurer's office and as folks are coming in to ask questions, pay their bill, things like this. So, yeah, so that's some of the organic ways that we're getting the information out. Then, of course, we are spending some money to get the word out as well. We can't necessarily bring everyone to us, right? So we need to go to them when it comes to big initiatives like this. And so I wanted to share with you a few examples of some of the advertising dollars that we've spent so far. So you can see up here in the upper left corner, that is an envelope. It was not $1,300 for just an envelope. That is our May utility bill for the city of Lewiston. We had a little message on the envelope that is supposed to draw your attention to a flyer that was inserted into the utility bill. And so that went out to over 9,000 of our customers here at the city of Lewiston. We have a social media ad going right now, and it will be running through the event. Our quarterly Living Lewiston Magazine and Program Guide, we've got information there about it. That $60 represents just one page of the cost to print that this quarter. And so we're also going to do a sticky note on the Lewiston Morning Tribune the week of the open house. Just to remind people, draw them to the website. There's a link and a QR code there. And like I said, our partners are assisting in this as well. This is not just the city. COSD, for example, here at the bottom, put a message in their utility bills last month as well. So yeah, so we're doing everything we can within reason to get the word out and to encourage folks to come to the open house. We're also encouraging our residents to bring a recent utility, or not a utility bill, a recent tax bill or an assessment And have a tailored experience at the open house they can ask questions about their tax bill or their assessment because not every single one is the same And we're also encouraging folks to ask questions ahead of time So we can tailor some of the information as well to what the community really wants to know so through this So at the open house, and it will be made available on the website, a big part of this effort here, you can see the title page of this document. It's not available yet because it's still being finalized. But we're creating what we're calling a citizen's guide to understanding property taxes in Lewiston, Idaho. And everything I've already mentioned is what's going to be in here. Everything from a bill itself, And we break that down, each item on the bill, what it means. There's a key there for that to laws in Idaho that pertain to property taxes. Yeah, all sorts of information. It's a guide. It's not meant necessarily, I'm anticipating it'll be about 50 pages with a key in the front. So if you're looking for something in particular, you can jump right there. Part of this as well is going to be sections of the different districts and how they utilize money. So we're breaking that down, how much money they received in the current fiscal year of property taxes. and where that money went, so what services that went to. Again, this is specifically about Lewiston. And if we continue to do this, this will be a document that we update every year to show current numbers. And we'll give this out at the open house, and then after that, we plan to have it available online. And the other thing I want to point out, too, before I get into how folks can help, is this effort, you know, we're talking about the open house, which is really important, AND I HOPE FOLKS UTILIZE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO MEET FOLKS FROM THE DIFFERENT DISTRICTS AS WELL AS GET THEIR QUESTIONS ANSWERED. BUT WE'RE GOING TO CONTINUE THIS EFFORT BEYOND THE OPEN HOUSE. SO INFORMATION THAT IS IN THIS GUIDE, WE'VE GOT A SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN AND EVERYTHING THAT WE'RE GOING TO BE DOING THROUGHOUT THE YEAR TO CONTINUE THAT CONVERSATION, PUSH INFORMATION OUT, GET FEEDBACK FROM THE PUBLIC. SO THIS OPEN HOUSE IS A BIG DEAL FOR US AND WE WANT PEOPLE THERE, BUT THE EFFORT DOESN'T STOP AT THE OPEN HOUSE. There's a lot of things folks can do to help garner interest. Of course, sharing information with family and friends about the event, attending the open house, speaking with folks at the open house. Like I said, we've got information out on social media. Folks can share that information. We have an event page for it as well. Reviewing the educational materials and being prepared to answer any questions and before making important decisions. That's another way to get involved. And directing residents with questions about property taxes to the available resources. I think that's about it. Pretty quick. DIRTY PRESENTATION OF WHAT THE OPEN HOUSE IS ABOUT. MISSY IS HERE, TOO, JUST IN CASE YOU HAVE, YOU KNOW, ANY QUESTIONS THAT MAYBE ARE MORE SPECIFIC IN NATURE RELATED TO THE COUNTY OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. BUT I OPEN THE FLOOR FOR QUESTIONS, COMMENTS.

THANK YOU, CAROL. COUNSEL, QUESTIONS? Councilor Spickelmeyer. Thank you, Mayor. So, Carol, and this isn't the main event. It's part of the city's 250 celebration at the high school, and this will be another part of it?

That's a good question. So what we're doing is there's actually another event going on at the same time, and it's our Parks and Recreation Department Star Spangled Celebration. So we're going to have the Let's Talk Taxes open house inside the Lewiston High School Commons. And then the Star-Spangled Celebration is happening at the same time in the courtyard area. And so we thought that was a good opportunity to bring in different audiences that would maybe participate in one but not the other or vice versa. AT LEAST HAND THEM A FLYER AND THEY CAN LEARN MORE INFORMATION LATER AFTER THEY'RE DONE HAVING FUN. AND, YEAH, SO THEY'RE SEPARATE EVENTS, BUT WE'RE KIND OF SPONSORING THEM HAND IN HAND, LIKE, HEY, YOU KNOW, YOU CAN COME TO THIS OPEN HOUSE, BUT YOU CAN ALSO GO ENJOY SOME FUN OVER HERE. SO, YEAH.

GOOD.

COUNCILOR FORCHMAN.

EVEN IN MY AIC LEADERSHIP TRAINING, talking about this, that Lewiston's going to have this opportunity.

Yes, I have been telling everyone, far and wide, including state legislators about this.

It shows, because it went that far. Good, I'm glad. Job on your part getting it out, and I know it's very easy to disperse information.

Thank you.

I appreciate that. And if you guys have any feedback, too, like topics you think may come up or questions you get a lot from the public, feel free to send them to myself or the mayor, and we can make sure that information's included.

So, just wondering, like, for the county, I assume they'll have the assessor there and the city clerk?

Yes. So, the county will have the assessor, Dan Anderson, there, as well as Patty Weeks, the county clerk, and the county treasurer, Missy. So, yes. So, each district will have leadership representation. The mayor will be there at our booth, as well as a few other staff. I'm getting a look. And then for the school district, we'll have Tim Sperber, the superintendent, as well as some of his support staff. Same thing for COSD, excuse me, Central Orchard Sewer District, as well as the Port of Lewiston. So there'll be leadership and support staff level individuals there.

So it will be... One big presentation or booths?

So it's informal is how we've set it up. So it'll be booths. So people can walk up to any one particular booth that they would like. They could visit all of them, have conversations one-on-one. We feel through the open houses that we've put on over the last several years that folks respond really well to that, just kind of speaking to who they want to speak to and not necessarily sitting through a presentation for a long period of time. But they'll be able to talk to whomever.

I have a silly question, but are we going to give out a sticker to people who come to the booth and learn? Like, I know taxes or something. I get taxes now.

Yeah, we could do something fun like that for sure. I like the way you think. Just like a voting sticker. I voted. I learned about taxes.

I'VE BEEN VOLUNTELED, SO.

THEY'VE BEEN VERY HELPFUL. I THINK YOU GET 10% OFF YOUR ASSESSMENT NEXT YEAR. THAT WOULD BE SOMETHING.

I'LL TELL ANDERSON THAT.

THANK YOU, CAROL.

THANK YOU.

COUNSELORS, NEXT UP WE HAVE ITEM B, CHAPTER 31, FUNDING REQUIREMENTS AND POLICY DIRECTIONAL OVERVIEW OF POTENTIAL AMENDMENTS TO CHAPTER Council discussion policy direction on the development process and our public works directors here today welcome Good evening afternoon mayor City Council Dustin Johnson public works director.

I'm gonna pull in Director Shannon grow from community development here in a little bit to talk about frontage improvement. So We're running on our number three of sitting down meetings. So I'm looking for some interaction and this is your opportunity. So this is frontage improvements. And so as I talked earlier with Shannon kind of coming up here, we go through the development process frequently. We have applicants, everything from small and large who want to Redevelop their property or come in and subdivide, you know, a field or something. And I would say more often than not, the sticking point is often frontage improvements. And when I talk about frontage, I'll get into the details, but public streets, sidewalks, curb gutter, those those aspects. And I think, you know, the caveat to start the conversation here is. Staff's job is to implement the code. We look at the code, we try and communicate back to the Disability Advisory Committee, the Public Works Advisory Committee, the City Council, the Planning and Zoning Board. We try and communicate back to you guys of what the sticking points are. Our job is just the tools in the tool shed, you guys implement them. That's what today's meeting is about, to share with you The challenges that we have, and I think we've had conversations in the past, and I would love to just snap my thumb and say, okay, here's how we're gonna get every developer who's ever interested to doing any development in the in the valley to come in and do it. But there's always a cost. And so I'm gonna talk a little bit about competing interests, uh, and how development today could be a problem in the future. Um, so. With that, I'll start talking. Please interject at any time because I think these meetings have been long today. So I need some back and forth. And so the more you guys provide to me feedback on what your preferences on some of these code amendments, the easier it's going to make it for us when we come back to you later this summer with some code amendments. So generally, as I said earlier, the... Challenges are just specific to code to frontage improvements You know the narrative, you know Lewiston's hard to develop in they always you know They make us do all this work and they never you know work with us and and I will say some of that is true there I mean the code dictates You know what we do some of its code from the state some of its federal code And some of these are restrictive codes ADA standards. So we talk about mill and overlays anytime you go beyond just a surface treatment on a road, you have to do all the ped ramps. And so that adds 20, 30, 40% cost depending on the condition of the street. So I can't go and just do a simple mill and overlay on a road because I can't afford to do the entire street. So you see some of this on Bryden, you've seen some of that on 21st Street, and that's just a public agency. And so I'm looking to amend this code to give the flexibility, but at the same time, those ADA ramps are necessary. I mean, if you're in a commercial corridor or you're next to a school, who's to say that those aren't necessary improvements? Or you're deferring them for a future user, you know, a wheelchair user who can't get into the public school building. So those are true facts. there isn't just like, yes, let's be pro-development. You can't just lean on everything and forget everything, the aspects that the code's been built up to this date. And that goes to that conflicting needs of the community. And then I think we're all fully aware life in the orchards is a little different. You have streets up there, airway is the one that I lean on the most because it's, you don't have enough right-of-way within the edges of the right-of-way to get two cars in there. And so you can't expect developers or people who are looking to invest in their property to say, yeah, you're going to put in curb, gutter, sidewalk, and a full travel lane on your side knowing that you're actually going to be in your neighbor's yard at that point. There's just not enough room. And so we're trying to find ways to accommodate what the code says, what the developer or the reinvestor, the community person wants to do with what's actually out there. And of course, I remind you all the time when it comes to water, we're on a hill. So everything goes uphill from here. We have a lot of assault. We have cliffs. Topographical challenges are a real thing here. So I already talked about the ADA transition plan. That was adopted in 2020. That was actually my first project when I came in here. I pushed this across the finish line of doing that ADA transition plan. And so with that ADA transition plan, basically it established the goals and the processes and the priorities for how the city was going to address the deficiencies within the infrastructure, specifically, you know, There's other areas, you know, the website and our city facilities. I'm not going to talk about those. Those aren't necessarily not important, but today's the frontage improvements. So it's, you know, identified, you know, corridors. You know, you've got, like I said, 21st, Thane, Bryden, Main Street. These are all roads that are commercial hubs. You've got schools within their proximity. You've got pedestrian users coming and going. You obviously have automobiles going back and through there. And so, you know, I just plucked this chart here that shows kind of, you know, the arterials, the collectors, the locals, you know, where we're at for lane miles for sidewalk, where we're deficient, where we have street corners with sidewalks. ramps and almost without without ramps. I know particularly some new counselors or even old counselors. There's a lot to read, but this is a plan that I would recommend you take a look at because it was a lot of work went into it. And it's I mean, you give you an annual update as how we're addressing this. But the intent of the plan was basically to say, as we move forward, we're going to implement these changes. And so whether it's like I said, we're doing 21st Street, We're going to put in all the ramps. You're going to build a new housing development. You're going to put in all the ramps. You're going to put all the sidewalk in. And that works for some of these larger developments where you have the budget to do that. But we're finding maybe it's in the orchards. Maybe it's a normal hill. Some of these infill projects that aren't your 200 lot subdivisions. That's a that's a sticking point. That's a gray area. THAT BECOMES SOMEWHAT OF A PROBLEM. SO TALKING ABOUT TYPES OF DEVELOPMENT, TODAY WE'LL JUST KIND OF BREAK THEM INTO TWO GENERAL CATEGORIES. GREENFIELD IS A SUBDIVISION. SO THAT'S THE PLAT RIGHT THERE. YOU'VE SEEN THESE COME ACROSS YOUR CONSENT AGENDA MULTIPLE TIMES. General expectation it's dictated by state code and local code that if you're creating lots so you're you know this is out on the edge of town you need to provide the new lots water sewer sidewalk storm drainage all of these things you're basically going to create those lots with all the necessary infrastructure and the cost of creating that infrastructure goes into the cost of those lots. I don't know that we really want to talk about that's a much bigger level. I mean, you can talk about incentivization. You can talk about impact fees. You can talk about late comers fees. There's all kinds of deals that go with that. That's not necessarily what we're talking about. If you're creating new lots in Greenfield area, That's generally the responsibility when you're looking at these 20, 30, 40, 200 lot subdivisions. That's not what we're talking about today. What we're talking about is infill. So infill traditionally has been somewhat easier because infill is you've selected an area surrounded by developed property that is underdeveloped or underutilized. And you see pockets all over. There's some within walking distance. Well, you can spit on one from here. It's right, you know, where you had maybe, you know, Twin City Foods. It was a massive commercial development. It's now not being used for anything. So that would be an infill development. You've got a couple on, you know, as you go out to East Main, behind the mall. A lot of them, you know, as you go up into the orchards there where you have these large Blocks five acre lot that was owned by a family and now it's been you know, maybe you got some flag lots But you still have some underutilized property up there That is easy in the sense that you you should have infrastructure somewhere to hook into, you know If you're in the city limits, you should have water. You should have sewer. Maybe you don't have adequate pressure maybe you don't have adequate sizing for the for the sewer lines and And that's where the challenge becomes. And so, as I said, if it's water pressure, if it's, okay, there's no curb and gutter within two miles of this, what does the code say? And what should the code say? How do we make this piece of property more developable? Because the last thing we want as a city to say, no, you can't do it because the code says you can't. I think we want to be responsive to the people who want to develop and say, how can we help facilitate what you want to do with the property? And that's easier said than done. One other little caveat is greenfield is always a subdivision. Infill could be a subdivision because, you know, if you're doing that, you know, like those orchard lots, you get five acres and then you're going to create new lots. That's a subdivision. It's still infill, but it is a subdivision. So don't get sticky with with the words. So. Chapter 31, that's right away. So that's the section of the code that's specifically right away. I'm not going to sit here and read you code all afternoon. I promise I don't have 100 slides here. So right away, section 31-33, there's people... The public perception is the sidewalk, since it's in the right-of-way, is the responsibility of the city, and it is not. It is in the right-of-way. The city can replace the sidewalk. The city can apply for grants and build the sidewalk, but based off of the code is that the sidewalk is the responsibility of the property owner, and that means keeping it clear from snow, wood, leaves, weeds, litter, debris, or other obstructions. That is a standard everywhere in Idaho, everywhere that I've seen in Washington. Well, I think Seattle's a little different. There's some hybrid models out there. But that is the standard model that has been gone through for the last 150 years, is that the sidewalk is the responsibility of the homeowner. And so, yes.

Not to throw too much of a kink in this, but... That is a discussion I do want to have eventually in much more detail about who's responsible for what in particular in this piece of code.

Yeah, and that's where, you know, kind of starting this for the conversation is, I think, there is merit. You know, there's the city attorney left, but, you know, as you get into case law and discussion, because this is obviously... Property owners push back on this for obvious reasons and there it becomes kind of a cost for the city because I'll get into it a little bit later. But if the city was responsible for all of the sidewalk and maintaining it, it's just an extra added cost. So we talked about property taxes. That would be an additional burden on the property taxes. Uh, additionally, there's liability as far as trip hazards. And so then the city would have to inspect them regularly because you see a lot of these. We get these frequently where you get lawsuits where people have tripped and hurt themselves and they they have they've named us, but they typically named the business or the property owner in front of them. So I'd love to have that conversation because in preparation for this, I dug into it, and I think Seattle, San Francisco are some of the major cities that have a different model than this. I've worked in Montana, Washington, Idaho, and everywhere I've been, the frontage is the responsibility of the property owner.

And then the other thing, one other, is the additional requirements.

So curbs for all new construction, major remodeling, manufactured prefabs, basically any significant investment into the property triggers curb gutter sidewalk. And so these are the two sections being sidewalk and then curb gutter sidewalk that we're talking about. So, yes.

So on that one, I get a lot of people... and myself included, that feel like the major remodel thing is an issue, just because if it's in a weird area, you don't need a sidewalk, that's when you end up in the orchards with some house with just a sidewalk. Yes, yes. It's not usable. It's just going to degrade, and it... de-incentivizes people to upgrade their house.

You've been reading my notes. Because that's the transition. So I wanted to give you all the background on the code, but that's exactly what I wanted to have this conversation is about. Because, yeah, I have some examples of exactly that, where it's like this... It made sense the intent was right in where that's how we're gonna get through this transition, but ignored cost ignored You know just the practical practicality of getting these sidewalks built because yeah, you've got checker patterns of Chicken coop sidewalk vacant lot, you know, it doesn't it doesn't function. So I appreciate that anything else before we Okay EXEMPTIONS. SO THERE'S TWO EXEMPTIONS FOR ALL THIS CODE THAT SIDEWALKS AND FRONTAGE IMPROVEMENTS. THE FIRST ONE IS FEE IN LIEU OF SIDEWALK. YOU'LL HEAR IT PHYLO. AND SO THIS IS JUST A SMALL SNIPPET OF THE CODE. IT'S QUITE LENGTHY. Because it's very specific of these funds are collected. So if you're in a location and it's almost always out in the orchards where you look at the network and you have no right away or you're two miles from sidewalk, the city, and I don't know exactly when this was adopted, but the city at the time said, we need you to participate in the sidewalk network. We know you can't build sidewalk in front of your house. you will pay a certain percentage of what that would be, money collected, and it would go into a in lieu fund, lieu of fund. And we collect, I pulled the numbers today, somewhere between $20,000 to $60,000 a year in Philo money. And they go to specific neighborhoods. So we kind of We track all of where the address, where the money came from. The best way we can use the filo money is when we have grants. And so we use that for the local match. So it helps us build, you know, the sidewalks in front of schools. There's one up there and I can't remember the name of which street it was, but we've got that's how we use that that that filo money right now. The problem with Philo, as you can see when it was written, basically these exemptions can be used if this and this and this and this. There are six conditions in which you have to be met for Philo. It puts staff in a bad situation where we say, I think you're a good candidate for Philo, but I don't know that I can justify this one. And so we squint and we try and find a way to get them there, but This is somewhat overly burdensome for both staff and the developer. I call them the developer. More often than not, we have people who have these five-acre lots or a family that wants to leave a portion of a homestead or whatever you want to call it to their son. We're doing two or three lots, and we call them the developer. It's not always massive subdivisions. It becomes very burdensome for somebody to come in and say, yeah, you got to meet all of these conditions in order to pay. Then you get to pay us just just to not build sidewalk. And so that's a bit of a bit of a burden. But the Philo, they signed an agreement. I sign it. It's recorded with the property. So. Forever it's it stays with the property. So let's say in 80 years, the sidewalk network has creeped its way up there and the city's managed to find a way to. Build sidewalks they go to assess that house. They can't assess it because they've got a file agreement that's been recorded and they've already paid for that. So that gets them out of future improvements for any frontage that would ever be required.

Yeah, no, I. These things I like to sit down and think about them for a while, but I mean just on the surface It doesn't it doesn't feel right that this by low process of you pay a fee to not have to build the sidewalk and in theory when XYZ happens you'll get a sidewalk, but that money could be used to Across the street and you never really get the sidewalk, but you paid money for that sidewalk so it just I mean it seems like a big paperwork burden on the city side and Something that's not gonna work out very well for the customer either.

Yeah, and what we're finding now Well, let me show you the next one is postponement. So Philo is you pay up front both of these you never you well No, I take that back. So Philo you pay up front and POSTPONEMENT IS YOU DON'T PAY BUT YOU AGREE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE FUTURE IF THERE WAS ANY NECESSARY NEED, YOU KNOW, IF THERE'S A SIDEWALK GOING TO BE BUILT IN FRONT OF YOUR HOUSE. I am more of a fan of the postponement because the way I envision this happening moving forward, you know, and we're talking decades and decades and decades, is a local, either grants, grants are always great because you're always trying to connect all these, you know, schools and areas of deficient sidewalk. So grants are great for that. The other one is a local improvement district. And so communities like Lewiston could say, WE'VE GOT X AMOUNT OF DOLLARS IN OUR SIDEWALK FUND. THIS STREET SEEMS TO BE A HOT BUTTON ISSUE WHERE WE HAVE DEFICIENT SIDEWALK. A postponement would say the property owner or the previous person that carries forward with the land, the pre and the property has agreed that they will participate. And so you wouldn't get them to protest out, um, a future, uh, local improvement district. And so that would mean the benefits of that are you do it all at once at one time. So you get a large block or two blocks. So you get a significant savings. You're not having these weird hodgepodge sidewalks come along. You get one project design. It's administered by the city. So you, you don't have to put it onto the backs of the properties owners. So those are all the good things. And it's done when, when the, when the property is ready to be done, when it, you know, that we're not trying to force it on these different areas that don't necessarily connect any other sidewalk. The bad side is yes, it's postponement. So. You know 50 years ago my grandma signed this postpone agreement now I'm gonna be the one who's gonna pay for it and the only way that I can really Feel good about having a postponement is that the city? administers the LID and they just pay for it within their their assessments and and that way they don't they don't have to pay the 10,000 15,000 all in one pop that would be one way that it that you could make that program work but Philo has benefits. It's worked. It's had some successes. But I understand what you're saying 100%. And so postponement is becoming a little bit more preferred just because there's no money up front.

I can see it seeming a little nicer than that pain up front. But even postponement, if it follows the land, I mean, you could have five different people and the fifth one who ends up with the land at the time. It's almost like there's this weird hidden lien sitting against this land.

And that's the one thing that I found out.

I didn't agree to that in this contract, did I?

Yeah, and I have met with multiple property owners and they said, so you could just collect this at any point. And it is written in the code. The public works director can order sidewalking at any time. If if in the best, you know, and there's some code language in there that says in the interest of the community and the traveling public, you know, this, the public works director can order. Sidewalk and that's not I mean, I would not have this job for very long if I go around and asking ordering sidewalk in. So that's not that's not the route the city wants to go, but that's always been the fallback. And I'm not saying I support that, but that is 1 way that the code puts a little teeth to it. So those are the only two exceptions in the code. So if you came in and you're talking about, you know, I want to develop this parcel, you've got to somehow find a way to match that or get creative with the way you subdivide the land. And it becomes... And if you're just... somebody who owns the property, and you see a lot of it now where it's passing generation to generation, and they come in, and they're not land developers. They're not attorneys. They're not surveyors, and so trying to walk them through the process, postponement, file, I don't understand what all this is about, so trying to find a more creative approach to the code. So I'm going to call up Shannon Groh now to talk a little bit about kind of incentivizing or how we're balancing development. Do you want to talk?

Yeah.

Okay.

Good afternoon, Community Development Director Shannon Groh. The mayor hired me in 2022, and one of the things that he wanted me to look at was the development process. It is one of those things where most cities get criticized for. It's hard to work with Lewiston. We hear that all the time. John Spigelmeyer and I were at a meeting with a contractor, but other contractors who have said this. And so between sitting through the development review committee processes, which is the city's ability for somebody to come in and give us an idea of what they'd like to do, And we have different departments say, well, you're going to need to upgrade the water or you're going to need to get a building permit or you're going to need to do these things. Frontage improvements comes up quite often. And part of that is because of in the late 60s, Lewiston annexed in a whole other city, right? And that city didn't come with sidewalks built and it also didn't come with a bank account to build those sidewalks. And so you have situations where we have roads in neighborhoods without sidewalks. And so as I KNEW THAT THEY WERE GOING TO BE MAKING SOME CHANGES TO CHAPTER 31 AND I'VE BEEN VERY INTERESTED IN THE CHANGES TO CHAPTER 31 AND SO I ASK THAT I BE ABLE TO COME AND TALK AND SHOW YOU SOME EXAMPLES OF WHAT THE CODE SAYS TODAY. AND AGAIN, IT'S THE CITY STAFF IMPLEMENTS THE CODE, YOU SET THE POLICY. AND SO WE ARE TRYING TO GET A TEMPERATURE FROM YOU TODAY TO SAY SO THAT WHEN WE COME BACK TO YOU WITH SOME CODE CHANGES, IT KIND OF REFLECTS OUR CONVERSATION TODAY. So this is an example here of Hatway Road. This property has been looked at a few times for commercial development, and it's a pretty big piece of property, but as you can see here, there is quite a big slope here. As the code says today, and I'll kind of go back to it, you can see here that for all new construction, major remodeling, manufactured home installation, and prefabricated structures, shall be responsible for curb, gutter, and sidewalk construction. So that means any building permit for new construction, which could be a carport, it could be I'LL LEAN TO. IT'S NEW CONSTRUCTION. ANY MAJOR REMODEL, THAT MEANS IF YOUR HOUSE IS BUILT BEFORE 1950, IT'S 100% OF THE VALUE. IF IT'S BUILT AFTER 1950, IT'S 50% OF THE VALUE. SO IF YOU DO A PROJECT ON YOUR HOUSE, LIKE YOU DO A REMODEL, AND THE AMOUNT OF THAT REMODEL HITS 50% OF YOUR HOME'S VALUE, YOU NOW HAVE TO DO FRONTAGE IMPROVEMENTS. AND THAT MEANS CURB, GUTTER, SIDEWALK OF THE WHOLE FRONTAGE. So when we talk about building permits this piece of property and it is big piece of property would require Full frontage improvements for a curb gutter and sidewalk plus as you can see most likely retaining walls To hold back the land in order to install that and I think what we're coming to you with is The code is a bit restrictive and doesn't allow Public Works to say to be practical to say You know, this doesn't really make a lot of sense. Hatway Road doesn't have a lot of, you know, pedestrians on it just going for walks. It's somewhat of an industrial area, if you will. Does it make sense to require this? And has it inhibited development? And the answer is probably yes. Because that's a big piece of property and that would require tens of thousands of dollars of frontage improvements. So, It's something that comes to us. A lot of times people have an idea, and they're coming to us, and it's great that we're being able to tell them what the requirements are ahead of time, but it is sure a big letdown to be like, you're gonna have to build those frontage improvements, and it's quite costly in a lot of ways. This is another one. This happens in the orchards quite a bit. This is, what do we say, 11th and Grill? No, 22nd and Grell. So this is 22nd and Grell. As you can see, something happened here. Probably a flag lot was installed and they had to do furniture improvements. This is probably furniture improvements with the new house. Today the code says if there was any new construction, major remodel, or maybe even subdivide this lot into two lots, furniture improvements would be required along this side. Along this side. So that's quite a few feet. Let's see. It'd be 135 so 300 and almost 350 feet of Curb gutter sidewalk in order to get a building permit to do anything on this lot Yes, it's because the one the person on the corner on It's because it's a frontage. Yes, and so Okay, here's another one. So this one is kind of zoomed out because we wanted to show the proximity of SAC of a school right here. And this is where we're going to talk about sort of the balance of things. As government, we have to balance. As Dustin said, I, as community development director, I'm always kind of like, yes, yes, I want to give the yes. I want to give you your permit. I want you out the door. I want you to build. We want development. However, there is a balance for us, though, to consider And so when this person came in, she was looking to subdivide this lot. And oftentimes what happens in the orchards is you have somebody that's either lived in or inherited a lot that they've had for many, many years. And at one time, maybe it was a homestead or a small farm or something. And it becomes hard, difficult to maintain those pieces of ground. And then as the neighborhood builds around you, you see, oh, well, I could probably just sell this off and, you know, not have to have that burden anymore. And so this resident came in and asked us, what would I have to do if I subdivided this lot? Today's code would say, yeah, you're going to put a subdivision in here. You're doing frontage improvements for if you put in a cul-de-sac, for example, you're doing that. And you're doing this entire area. thing here and you're doing all of that there. And the reason why we brought this one is to say not all subdivisions are alike, not all areas are alike. This is orchards again. This is actually same street, grow, only in a different area. but there is a school here and So you could make the argument that well this is within a block of a school Don't we shouldn't we require French improvements shouldn't we want to have French improvements because I think on one of these aerials there are Kids walking to stack and they are walking in the street so That is a few examples of what happens when we have a When we're applying the code today, people come in to want to do developments. There's a few orchards lots too that will have, let's say it's a corner lot and or maybe even this lot and you have a corner one and this one borders both. Then you're doing frontage improvements on grow and you're doing it on 11th here. So it's one of those things that I always cringe at when we have to kind of give folks the bad news. The other side of it, like Dustin said, we do allow for filo. I believe that's 75%. And so there is a benefit to paying into Philo. You may not have that benefit of the sidewalk in front of you someday, but the city does collect that. And it is, I guess, the way the code is written out, the fact that everybody has to do it is fairly distributed. But does it make sense? You know, a lot of these orchard lots, it does not make sense to us. Think about 10th Street and how it goes downhill and up the hill. when you're off of powers or rip-on. Think about those side. We've had somebody that wanted to place a manufactured home on an empty lot. You're doing furniture improvements on that whole thing. And so what are some of the, you know, do we want to consider having this? You know, we will most likely, if you say we're not going to require furniture improvements on residential lots any longer, we will have some pushback from other residents who have had to do it. That happens with city code. Oftentimes code is made more restrictive over time. We're kind of coming in with a new focus, a new lens, and not creating so much restriction, such as parking requirements. You guys, we brought to you the reduction of parking requirements to half. That's what we did. Yes, people have had to build them to the past, but this is today, right? And so will we have a little bit of pushback from others that have had to do it? Yes, we will. But I think we're here asking you today, you know, what's the temperature of the council? Where would you like to see this direction go? Jessica, when you were talking about what you were, I was like, yes, this is what I face all the time with building permits. And, you know, when somebody wants to put a manufactured home on something you want, when we talk about affordable housing, we talk about ADUs, we talk about increasing density, all of those things. the codes written today will require fringe improvements and so did that placement of that manufactured home now become unaffordable because the lot isn't fully prepared for that development. In my interviews with with contractors too, the criticism of Lewiston is we're not starting at zero and what that means is we come in to develop a piece of property but Now we have to upgrade the sewer system. Now we have to convert. Now we have to do furniture improvements. This is one of those ways that we can take a look at infill development and say we're going to relax it a little bit, if that's the direction the council wants to go.

So my question would be, Shannon, with a cornered lot, you have, as you have right here, you've got 344 foot. Would it be feasible to say that on a cornered lot, you are required to do 50% of your lineal footage.

One of the things you could do is you could say at a corner lot, the frontage you're going to do is the house frontage. So if you're addressed on Grell, you're doing the Grell frontage. You're not doing the 22nd Street. That would be the other half. That would be something to consider. Because doing percentages might be hard, but to say, okay, on corner lots, we're not going to require both of those, but we will... still require actual frontage, which means the street that your house is addressed off of.

On your comment regarding pushback from citizens, if you have a flag lot that's only 90 feet wide, you're only required for 90 feet. If you've got a square lot with the same square footage, you're doing significantly more improvements.

It can be that. Yes.

And I guess me, you know, to carry on to it too, and I live, I have the only sidewalk on my street. Yes. And so now everybody pulls over and stops and does their phone by my house. To me, it's what makes sense. You know, the people down the street from me, they're not going to be putting in a sidewalk. It's not the rich where I live, you know. Yeah. But I just see the challenge of writing it so it doesn't come down to favoritism. It looks like favoritism. You're allowing somebody to do this and not that person. How you write it in there. I'm all for it. Do what's right, not what the book says. We even have developments, in my opinion, 22nd Street, I think, or 21st. There's a housing development there. It's one of those that If you're driving across and you get hit, the road widens by 30 feet and then it comes back again. It's an eyesore.

Yeah. And sometimes that can become almost a hazard rather than what you're trying to achieve. And so, like I said, we're trying to find that balance. We do have an ADA transition plan. It does talk about, you know, arterials collectors, local streets. Right now, Philo is only available on local streets, and you also saw all the and, and, and. You have to meet all of those. And so, you know, if you don't mind, I'd like to go through kind of a series of gut checks to say, because that will help us write... some code to you it doesn't mean that's what today what you say will be code obviously we still have to go through three readings and we'll have it out there on a public agenda and public meetings but I guess what I would like to know is you know what is the feeling between subdivisions and infill and so Subdivisions, like a new subdivision, we just brought in Skyview Estates, right? Phase four, I think. And so with those, from community development's perspective, subdivisions is kind of a no-brainer. You're going to be bringing that in, and that is greenfield development, and sidewalks are required. So is that a... General, yes. Okay. What about infill? So like this example here, this gal wanted to take a pretty good sized orchard lot and subdivide it. So we could do a couple of ways. We could say, no, if you already have, and right now there is city policy that allows for one split And you don't have to do the front end improvements here on the existing home site, but you would have to do it here. So I guess the question is infill subdivision. Do you want to see something from us that says this many lots or more, like over four lots? Do you want to see, no, this is residential and it's just somebody trying to develop their orchards lot? No frontage improvements? Is it, well, if you have an internal street, you're going to do that frontage, you know, you're going to do the sidewalk and the cul-de-sac? What's the feeling on infill subdivision?

To me, in this one, you said that the school has a sidewalk up to the street, and then that next block to the left doesn't have a sidewalk.

The sidewalk actually just goes to here. So it's not even bordering the whole school yet.

I was thinking you were going to leave with a gap.

Yeah, and that could be something else to consider. If you do an infill subdivision, you're doing fringe improvements if it hooks on to the rest of the lot. You know what I mean? Or do we, you know, to me, this internal piece makes sense. To have this gal have to do frontage improvements around her existing property doesn't make sense. So that's kind of how I see it.

So why, I mean, I guess it's a little off, but why isn't the school required to do at least a continuous sidewalk down a main street to their school?

That's the reason any homeowner isn't. It's just... There's nothing that makes them do it.

That's where it gets a little difficult is us telling a homeowner, well, you got to put a sidewalk here. And the taxing entity itself isn't even putting a sidewalk.

And I will say, close to sidewalks, we have been successful of getting TAP funds, Safe Routes to Schools funding, that type of thing. And so we just, we keep chipping away at them. But orchards is hard.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I could see... potentially a Risk type factor when when we're looking at is a sidewalk required or not when it comes to residential in particular so if you were right there by the continuous sidewalk or what soon to become a continuous sidewalk, you could say, okay, for a development here, you don't need to do it across the entire development, but we are going to be building a sidewalk here and we want sidewalk across the front part, at least. I could see something like that, but only because of its distance from the school. So maybe that's like a red zone, like this area is red zone because it's this Close to the school, and there is a definite plan to build sidewalk here in the next 5 years. If then it makes sense to me to say, okay, this falls into the factor where yes, you have to do sidewalk. Yeah, but if there's no plan, then I, it just doesn't. It doesn't make sense to me to make them do it.

Well, I know Public Works is working on a sidewalk master plan this year. And typically with sidewalk master plans, you're going to see north, south, east, west arterials, right? So we're talking 21st Street, we're talking 17th Street, 19th Avenue, 11th Avenue, Main Street, those types of things. On those roads, that completely makes sense. Those are, I mean, one of the biggest gaps in Lewiston is 17th Street coming down, right? Because the only real accessible path coming down from the south is 21st Street. And so if they're on those types of roads, arterials, I can definitely see commercial or residential like, yeah, you're going to put in that sidewalk, right? What's hard with putting a time limit like within the five years is that Grants come and go and well look at Brighton. Look how long he has to get to Brighton with grants You know what I mean? And so it's difficult to Know that we're gonna do that, but we could brainstorm on what does the sidewalk master plan look like and What are our priorities within that sidewalk master plan? Which then can help? dictate what we want to see in residential type of requirements, if that makes sense. That will delay us a little bit on the changes for Chapter 31. We could still make some small changes to Chapter 31, like with the phylo where it's ands, we can make them ors, just to help us in the meantime be able to have a little bit more flexibility on the staff's side of things. And so we definitely can make some smaller ones, but these bigger type of questionable items, I think is, we could delay those until we get the sidewalk master plan done.

Well, the other thing I could see, you know, the flip side of the argument is, well, this is if we went with these, you know, in my mind, these colored zones of this is a red zone. The other side of the argument is, well, that's the city's duty to ensure a sidewalk there. The city should just. Allocate property taxes and build a sidewalk because that's a high risk area. We shouldn't rely on any of the property owners to do it individually. It should just be part of the plan for sure.

And that's actually part of Dustin's piece here is that, you know, he's talking about and. putting in like we could do some of these smaller ones for now um but part of that is if you do i mean i think the way the council was going back when it was approved back when chapter 31 was approved i mean uh counselor cleaver you might have more information than i do i remember sean coming and talking about the remodels and all of those types of things um you know the the goal was to build out the sidewalk network But I think we're seeing today that it's not working as well as we'd like it to, and it's actually creating some issues, especially in the orchards where you have piecemeal sidewalks, or it's making development unaffordable.

I heard, too, like at the airport, they wanted to put in a coffee stand, a drive-through coffee stand, but just the impact of that amount of money they'd have to put in to develop and make that usable. Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Maybe. Hinder them from putting one there.

Yeah. And I guess that's the other question, too, as we go along here is commercial versus residential. Change of use. So, like, for example, on Brighton, there are houses. Somebody might want to make that into a small insurance company. Just the fact that it changes use, you know, what do you think about that? That's a commercial. That now is a commercial development. Yeah. AND SHOULD THAT BE REQUIRED TO HAVE CURB A GUTTER SIDEWALK? AND MAYBE THE ANSWER IS YES, BUT IT'S SOMETHING THAT WE NEED TO THINK ABOUT DURING OUR CODE REVISIONS HERE.

FOR SUBDIVIDING A PROPERTY, THAT WOULD JUST, THAT INDIVIDUAL WAS JUST WANTING TO SEPARATE, RIGHT? JUST SEPARATE THE LOT SO THEY CAN SELL IT TO SOMEONE ELSE. YEAH. AND THEN SOMEONE THAT WOULD COME IN AND WANT TO PUT A HOUSE ON IT AND DEVELOP IT WOULD BE A DIFFERENT SITUATION. SO TO ME, IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE TO HAVE THE PERSON dividing it, paying money to put any kind of sidewalk. It seems like it would make more sense for the person coming in and building a new house to do that or houses. Yes.

Yes. Yes and no. So let's say they did a little cul-de-sac here and we did it that way, building permits. Well, you would have it piecemeal. You know what I mean? Boom, boom, boom, boom. Right. So, yes and no. But I agree. Because part of me was like, well, required on the building permit. And then the other part of me that has still required on the building permit is like, ugh!

You know? Yeah. That makes sense, too. Yeah. Yeah. As far as, like, how many, I mean, when does it become, like, a... like a new housing development? Is there like a number of when that's classified as that? Because you were talking about like a four or more.

Yeah, most subdivisions are treated equally. You're subdivising, you're subdividing. You know, there's smaller type of, there's one lot split, there's, you know, boundary line adjustments. But right now we treat most subdivisions the same. One of the issues that I have had in looking at the development process, and this is a highlight of that, is that we've all heard the term development should pay for growth. Well, I agree with that. Development should pay for the growth that they're creating out here. But our code is treating every person wanting to do anything as a developer. If this person right here wanted to put in a carport, they are doing frontage improvements for that whole thing. Because that's new construction.

That doesn't make any sense. Or even, I would imagine, even if you wanted to asphalt your whole driveway and put new piping and do that whole new... Depending on the cost of that, it might put you in that realm of having to now add sidewalks to the...

Yeah. And so what staff is looking for is just, you know, are we on the right track here? Assuming that it's a little restrictive, we can come to you with some changes to say, hey, this seems to make more sense. We'll make kind of like step one, smaller changes. And then as we develop the sidewalk master plan, we can kind of relook at what makes sense from there. Because the sidewalk master plan is really the city's plan to develop But do we want to still kind of keep some of this fringe improvement requirements with building permits as a piece of that? Maybe we do and maybe we don't.

I had a comment on Commissioner. You're a commissioner now. Oh, thank you. We're talking about that lot. You know, it's like waiting until they developed it. Before, if you made them put in a curb and a sidewalk, then they wanted to do a different plan, they'd have to tear it all out to do their...

They'd have to replant it. If they're going to do a different stream... Yeah, yeah. If you planted a cul-de-sac in here and the developer had to do the curb, gutter, sidewalk, that's in place with the approved plat from City Council. And so, yeah, the most of the time we will require like the rolled curbs in case they wanted to do a driveway in a different place. But yeah, yeah, there's issues with it.

You know, I got to tell you with with cul-de-sac, I mean, just thinking of it from, you know, if I was living there, I don't really like sidewalks anyway. In a cul-de-sac lot. I mean, sure, some people, maybe they do, but I kind of like the grass going right to the little curve there and then there's a little bit of a gutter. So I think we're way too restrictive with our requirements on definitely remodels and things of that nature. I think that is, I don't like it.

What about a new residential house project?

A new residential house.

That's in the middle of an orchards block or a block that doesn't have sidewalks right now.

Yeah, I think that's where we get into where we have to write out what, like those risk factors or however you want to put it, because that would fall into, it makes absolutely no sense. It's not a requirement. But if there are sidewalks on both sides I mean that would take me a little more thought to try and weigh that out in my head of whose Responsibility in the end really should that be should that be the developer? Should that be the city like what you know? What's the situation of why there's no sidewalk right there?

What's the feeling on residential versus commercial?

Me commercial makes sense that they would create sidewalks.

I I don't know I I think it depends where you're at and your surroundings.

Because there's some... It might not have a lot of foot traffic. Yeah, it may not make any sense. Where it's located.

It's just a waste of money. Like you take Brighton. Somebody converted, like she said, one of those homes into a business. You want to find parking. You don't want willy-nilly parking in the lawn. You'd want to have their parking lot. You've got to have a parking lot. They made a parking lot. and finished it all out. Yeah.

Here's why I asked that question about commercial. So we had somebody come in here and they were thinking about developing this for a little coffee shop. Kind of what you're talking about, Jessica, on Friday. and as you can see this is uh this is a piece of property that has some furniture improvements uh it does not have them here this is lapway road and so right now the code says you put in a little drive-through coffee shop you are doing fringe improvements you're fixing whatever is broken here and then you're also doing it all the way here as well so I'm just pointing that out to say, yes, I don't think all commercial is equal. This could be something to think about, especially when we're trying to encourage small businesses or other businesses coming in. Maybe it's like Dustin has on his PowerPoint here. He has phased development, phased infill. And so maybe on commercial, we're like, okay, we're not going to make you get that to get your business license. But you're going to have to build this within 10 years or something like that. Let somebody get off the ground and then, but know that that is something that you're going to have to do eventually. That might be a way to have a kind of a mixed bag for commercial too.

Maybe. I mean, it could still seem like a barrier in the end because they have that cost weighing over them. You know, if I do keep this business, it depends how the contract works, because maybe it's you're on the hook no matter what. Then you go bankrupt in the business and you're on the hook for $50,000.

The other thing, it could be a developer agreement. We'd write it up. It's 10 years and they come back to council and say, yes, I agree to this. I want to renegotiate. And maybe sentiment has changed in 10 years. Maybe the sidewalk has been built out over there in the last 10 years. Maybe we're going to go build sidewalk there in 10 years and we want them to participate now. I don't know. You know what I mean? So I'm just throwing out possibilities for thought. if you will.

Yeah, to me, like a big manufacturing building makes sense. Something like that, right, where you're building up a new building, putting sidewalk in, and then having, that makes sense to me. But yeah, like this one, a coffee, like a little coffee truck, like, does it make sense, or trailer, that you would then require that. So it's like, I don't know if it has to be a certain development threshold, you know, you're spending so much money, then building so much money, but then I don't know if that brings us into a gray area. Yeah. It's difficult.

But even with this,

There is sidewalk here, up to there, and then as you can see, it is a difficult path for a pedestrian here. And if this is a coffee shop and these employees want to visit that coffee shop, you know, it is something to think about. Building, you know, some sort of access across the street.

Well, if I remember correctly, where the sidewalk ends there on the east side of Odom, that's all.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

It looks like it goes up here. Anyway. Another tool you could use for an exception is a cost ratio. I mean, up to you. We'll see what you guys can come up with. But, I mean, I would be open to some kind of cost ratio as well. When you're in those scenarios where you're like, ah, this is really... We should require you to make sidewalk here, but they only have a $10,000 business or $50,000 business, and we're going to have them do $30,000, $40,000 worth of concrete work. It doesn't make any sense. We're just killing the business there. So something there, too.

Yeah. One of the things that the mayor and I have talked about is the mayor's initiative on infill development and where the city can, could, should come in and help properties along because it is infill. It's cheaper for a city to maintain infill than it is for the development out there. That's why we're like, no. You subdivide into the screen field development. You are putting in all of the amenities. But when somebody needs to put in a house in the middle of something and they need a fire hydrant or something like that, where can the city come in and help bring that to the table? Because we have had instances where a piece of property has sat for many, many years and due to lack of infrastructure? And would it be better for the city to make that investment into a fire hydrant or something else and get the taxes and have less code enforcement issues on that piece of bare ground within a neighborhood? Or is it better to like, nope, you got to pay for that fire hydrant, right? So we are trying to look at things, but it does cost money, right? And so that's what makes it difficult.

Yes, what would be your recommendation or suggestion on that halfway roads?

On halfway, I would postpone it indefinitely. I would postpone it for, I mean, unless there was some development like that could start building up. That's why you do the postponement.

Um, but yeah, I would not, I would not require with no, I, I, I've worked in, uh, codes that require it's a variance that, you know, you apply through public works and then you would say, you know, just say it's a topographical variance, whether it's a wetland, a cliff. What you know whether it's a cliff and a hole or a cliff on a hill? You just apply for it, and then it would be like any other administrative variance So they apply in the public works director denies it they could appeal it to the board or the council And then you guys would say no no no we approve it so there's still a check and balance there that I would today write something in the code that just says you know a variance topographical variance for that and Problem is, if you get too liberal with that and you just, yeah, you got a variance, you got a variance, you set up somewhat of a precedent, but you don't want to go too far. But I think that one is a straight-faced, yeah, we're not going to require that.

So if I may, if we could, what I'm hearing is, yes, go ahead and present us with some code changes that make it easier administratively for us to allow for postponements in Philo for now. We do the Sidewalk Master Plan. Do you have a timeline on that?

We want to get it under contract by this summer.

So, yeah. We're looking at Sidewalk Master Plan. And then that will help guide us for the rest of, for the other major co-changes. Because with any new master plan, typically comes co-changes. Kind of like the comp plan, right? And so, that's what I'm hearing. Yes?

Okay. Just a quick question. Is there like cities that do, and I don't even know if we could do this, but like incentivize. So if you put a sidewalk in, then we'll not charge the full amount on this permit or just as an example, something like that where we can incentivize them instead of forcing them to do those types of things.

Well, we're kind of doing that now with the Philo because you have to pay 75% instead of 100%. There are times where it would make sense from a city standpoint not to do a sidewalk in a certain area. Sometimes that's stormwater. And that's something to think about too. Like if we were to get rid of all residential curb gutter sidewalk, there is stormwater issues that come along with it. Curb and gutter especially help with stormwater mitigation, which we are required to do under the MS4 permit. So You know, that's not probably something staff's going to recommend is to get rid of it completely. I think exploring more so what we're doing. So it's possible to do that kind of thing. I'd have to look at it a little bit more because we're talking about kind of two different things. We're talking about infrastructure versus building permit revenue, you know what I mean, and how that's applied. And so it's possible, but we can also think about What makes more sense, and probably what makes more sense is, and it would achieve the same thing, is for the city to, when you're going through a budget process, to think about putting money in to fund sidewalk infill. And we, you know, without even a sidewalk master plan, we know that we need those arterials to be built out for sure. And by schools. So those are going to be, even when we do the sidewalk master plan, those are the two things that are going to rise to the top, right, is schools and arterials. Yeah, exactly, service type stuff. So, okay, do we have all the answers that we need?

Yeah, so yes, we will do the straightforward, simple stuff. We'll get that to you turned around as quickly as we can. The only other thing I would add is you talked about some of these higher level, like, Do we want to carry Philo forward? I would, and this, if we're going to go to the Sidewalk Master Plan, I think queuing this up to the Disability Advisory Committee and then the Public Works Advisory Council, which you're now on, so we can have a kind of a workshop in those over the next, you know, it'll be a year before we get kind of all the process through the Sidewalk Master Plan. And so we can start rolling that out process-wise with those committees and then Cue it up to the council. So so because I wouldn't be afraid that particularly the DAC You know, they put a lot of work into that transition plan.

And so if we just say yeah, it wasn't working So we didn't come back for you It's the balance right it's always a balance one other thing I was gonna ask for sidewalk policy in regards to just homeowners doing a remodel or something of that nature, to have that re-looked at. And I was going to ask, when we were getting done with budget stuff, I was going to ask to have that on the agenda. But with this discussion, should I just, you know, for now, not do that, give you guys what my thoughts were on it, you know, separately? We can have that discussion when you're ready. Yeah.

Because like I said, what the code says today is that 50%.

Right.

Well, depending on when your house is built. But this is new construction too. And so for now, we could tweak this to not be so all-inclusive.

Yeah, I mean, the main thing is just the cost, the cost burden on individuals. So if they, and maybe not even a remodel, but a damaged sidewalk and the city, it gets a complaint, the city sees it, they're like, call the homeowner, hey, you've got to fix this sidewalk. Well, it's $20,000 to fix it. You're talking about this one. So there's re-looking at those, the way that works for the individual.

Yeah, I would support that. I mean, I'm actually working with a homeowner right now where not sure why. It's not an old sidewalk. It's 10 years old, so it's not a new sidewalk. But, you know, a sidewalk should last 100 years. 20 years and it's collapsed and it's been sinking and it looks like it was either the utilities were installed incorrect or, you know, not adequate compaction when they put the utility lines in or or a service line ruptured and undermined. And then it either way, it doesn't look like it's property owner. And then, of course, it's a flag lot. And so the property lines don't line up correctly. And so. That particular one, it works well where, hey, we got some staff that is new and they're going to go out and work and build some sidewalks. So it's a kind of a it's easy, but that's not a process that we're, you know, a policy that we can carry forward. But I'm seeing a lot of these more regularly where it's a. I don't want to say in these economic times, but there's a lot of people out there who couldn't carry 5, 10, 15, $20,000 in replacing sidewalk. And so the code is very explicit to say we will, and we have a boilerplate letters in our file system that we send you and notify you, and then we'll lean the property. And I don't know that that I mean, I like that one that I had that I just the example I gave, I rescinded that because I just didn't feel because of all the other stuff I just described. I don't like that. So, you know, but again, there's the other side where it's between them and a school and you're just going to kind of look the other way and ignore the sidewalk that needs to be replaced. So but I agree with you. I think we need to look into the the the the process of how we address those.

Okay, so I'll hold off on having it brought to a meeting on my own, and I'll just hand off the stuff to you guys, and you let me know.

Okay, and I'll even start, because like I said, this was more development-driven, but I'll dive into that process as far as what protecting sidewalks and some of how we got to where we are today. Yeah, perfect.

Thanks. Okay.

OKAY. I'LL MOVE ON TO ITEM C, LEGISLATIVE UPDATES.

THANK YOU, COUNCILORS. I AM GOING TO QUICKLY GO THROUGH MY PRESENTATION AND SHAVE IT DOWN FOR YOU ALL FOR THE SAKE OF TIMELINESS. I DO WANT TO NOTE, TOO, THAT EVERYTHING THAT PASSED THAT AFFECTS THE CITY IS NOT INCLUDED IN THIS PRESENTATION. SO IT'S NOT ALREADY ALL INCLUSIVE. AND I'M NOT GOING TO READ EVERYTHING THAT'S ON THE SLIDES. AND I'M ALSO GOING TO MENTION SOME STUFF THAT'S NOT ON THE SLIDES. SO JUST BE AWARE OF THAT. IF YOU DO HAVE ANY SPECIFIC QUESTIONS ABOUT ANY LEGISLATION THAT HAS COME OUT THAT'S AFFECTING THE CITY, I'M MORE THAN HAPPY TO DISCUSS THINGS WITH YOU OUTSIDE OF THE MEETING OR ADDRESS YOUR QUESTIONS LATER. AS A DISCLAIMER, THIS PRESENTATION IS INTENDED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. IT'S NOT INTENDED TO BE LEGAL ADVICE. SO IF YOU DO WANT LEGAL ADVICE, I WOULD BE MORE THAN HAPPY TO GIVE YOU THAT TO YOU IN A NONPUBLIC SETTING. I DON'T LIKE TO GIVE ADVICE FROM UP HERE. because the intent is for it to be legal advice and just between us as much as possible. So I don't typically do that in public meetings. Additionally, the views expressed as a part of this presentation do not reflect my personal political or my personal beliefs. This is more just presenting the information to you. It also doesn't reflect the views of the city attorney's office or the city of Lewiston. And so any opinions offered are my own and not of the city of Lewiston. So generally speaking, the 2026 legislative session lasted for 81 days. In that 81 days, you had 2,556 pieces of legislation that were written. Of those, 817 became bills, and of that, 350 passed to become law. Not all of those actually affect the city itself. There were a fair number of bills that were related specifically to state appropriations, and there were some DOGE-type bills that consolidated or removed or deleted certain sections of Idaho code altogether. Generally speaking, when I loaded all the information that at least has affected the city into an AI generator, these were the main themes that came out. What you saw from our legislature this session was... enhanced private property rights, more government accountability, less regulation of old concepts. One of the things that they took out of state code as a criminal offense was video voyeurism because you don't have too many peoples toting around their video cameras and it's changed and in this day and age there's other things that they're targeting so THOSE OLD LAWS WERE REMOVED FROM IDAHO CODE. ALSO YOU SEE A LOT ABOUT FINANCIAL AWARENESS, ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDISM, AND CONSOLIDATION OVERALL. Some of the bills that didn't pass, some of the key bills that I point here, both of these bills would allow the Attorney General's Office to hold local government officials accountable when they willingly violate state law. These types of bills were presented this particular year to address those local leaders and other communities that openly defied laws that were passed last legislative session. The first one would allow the Attorney General to block that elected official from taking position. The other one would fine them and hold them potentially liable for up to $50,000. Neither of these bills passed. Another one that did ultimately pass, but not as it was originally presented, is House Bill 516. What this bill intended to do was to prevent instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in the K-12 education system, but it eventually was replaced with language that prohibited teacher union activities on public funds. So in Idaho, there's two union groups that are allowed A RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE AS UNIONS, AND THOSE ARE TEACHER UNIONS AND FIREFIGHTERS UNIONS. CURRENTLY, THE CITY ALLOWS ITS FIREFIGHTERS TO USE PUBLIC FUNDS TO DO THEIR UNION ACTIVITIES. Until July 1st, teachers had the ability to do so as well. So this could be signs of some changing perceptions on what to do with public funds. But right now, this is going to go into place beginning July 1st, where teacher unions can't use public funds to do their activities. Another bill was Senate Bill 1247, which would require every law enforcement agency in the state to apply for THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND'S 287G PROGRAMS, AND TO COOPERATE WITH ICE. THAT ALSO DID NOT PASS. SO WHAT DID PASS? I'M GOING TO START WITH TITLE 74. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT AFFECTS PROBABLY THE MOST PEOPLE THAT MOST PEOPLE ARE FAMILIAR WITH, PUBLIC RECORDS AND OPEN MEETINGS. SO FOR PUBLIC RECORDS, THERE WERE SEVEN PROPOSED BILLS. TWO OF THOSE PASSED. ONE OF THEM MAKES CERTAIN DEPARTMENT OF JUVENILE JUSTICE, I'M SORRY, Department of Juvenile Corrections records, not public record anymore. Before it used to be just Department of Corrections and it did not include the Department of Juvenile Corrections. Now it's been expanded. Another one actually exempts photographs and images of deceased individuals taken as a part of a law enforcement investigation or coroner's report. Those will no longer be public record except to the next of kin. WE DO GET A LOT OF REQUESTS FOR THOSE TYPES OF IMAGES BECAUSE THEY LIKE TO INCLUDE THEM IN DOCUMENTARIES, HISTORICAL MOVIES. THEN THERE'S JUST THE MORBID CURIOSITY AND PUBLIC INTEREST. SO, YOU KNOW, THAT WILL BE SOMETHING THAT AT LEAST THE CITY OF LOUISTON DOES SEE A CHANGE. OPEN MEETINGS, THERE WERE THREE PROPOSED BILLS. ONLY ONE OF THEM PASSED. ONE THAT DID NOT PASS THAT WOULD REQUIRE LOCAL GOVERNMENTS TO HAVE PUBLIC COMMENT PERIODS THAT WERE OPEN TO EVERYBODY AND WE WOULD BE REQUIRED TO ACCEPT PUBLIC COMMENT ELECTRONICALLY WRITTEN BY PHONE ANYTHING OTHER THAN WHAT WE CURRENTLY DO WHICH RIGHT NOW FOR THE MOST PART IS IN PERSON SO THE LAW THAT DID PASS THOUGH DOES ALLOW INDIVIDUALS TO RECORD OUR MEETINGS AS LONG AS THE SPACE THAT WE WERE IN PERMITS RECORDING SO IF WE WERE IN A PRISON we wouldn't be required to allow recording, or if we were in an executive session, we wouldn't be required to allow recording. But any other meeting that we had, if someone wanted to bring their own camera, they could record it as long as they're not being disruptive to the meeting. Another bill that is becoming law is specific to e-scooters. I'm sorry, e-bikes, not e-scooters. An e-bike is, these are three different examples of them. Primarily, the focus was exercising due care. It requires drivers to exercise due care around e-bikes. IT REQUIRES E-BIKES TO EXERCISE DUE CARE AROUND EVERYBODY ELSE. AND REGARDLESS OF WHO YOU ARE, IF YOU ARE RIDING AN E-BIKE, YOU HAVE TO RIDE ON AN EFFECTS SEAT AND NO MORE PEOPLE THAN THERE ARE SEATS. APPARENTLY, THIS ISN'T A PROBLEM. THERE ARE CERTAIN EXCEPTIONS TO CHILDREN WHEN THEY'RE RIDING WITH A GROWNUP, BUT FOR THE MOST PART, ONE PERSON PER SEAT. Some other law enforcement bills that came up, some people might like this more than others, but you're no longer going to be required to have the little stickers on your license plates. Also, license plates, up until now, you could only have your license plate for 10 years. After that time, you were required to replace it. Idaho has removed that, and now you can keep your license plate as long as it's legible. And then there's a new license plate that came out celebrating the 250-year celebration that you can purchase. And then finally, another just generally law enforcement-related one. There is now a crime if you willfully and maliciously disturb the gathering of people for religious worship or a house of worship. And that is specific to religious groups. Another bill that became law makes driving 20 miles an hour more than the posted speed limit in a construction zone or school limit reckless driving. It provides a $1,000 fine or up to one year in jail or both for the first offense. Second offense within five years also is reckless driving, but it increases the penalties of one year in jail up to $2,000 or both. And then in either case, your driver's license is also subject to suspension under Idaho law for other areas. Some bills related to community development. Again, the primary rule here is in Idaho, we are a Dillons rule state, so cities regulate based on what the legislature delegates to them. So we have a strong legislative favoritism toward short-term rentals and private property rights. So you'll see that in some of these bills. Here you have cities can regulate short-term rentals, but only in the instance of protecting the public health and safety. There's also new laws regarding where and how you site manufactured homes in residential areas, encouraging more manufactured homes in development areas. Also, if you have an at-home LLC, you are no longer required to use your home address if you have an authorized registered agent. and you can use that instead of providing your home address. Additionally, we do get this question a lot. The state legislature does limit the number of yard sales that you can do before you are required to start collecting sales tax and run yourself as a business. You see that in Lewiston City Code because ONCE YOU HAVE THREE OR MORE YARD SALES, THEN YOU'RE REQUIRED TO GET A BUSINESS LICENSE. BUT AGAIN, THAT'S BASED ON STATE LAW REQUIRING YOU TO COLLECT SALES TAX FROM YOUR SALES. THE LAW IS BEING CHANGED SO THAT YOU CAN HAVE AN UNLIMITED NUMBER OF SALES IF your total sales for the year are less than $5,000, and you meet the requirements of a small seller identified under Idaho code. So that won't actually change our business licensing, and it won't really change anything else that we're doing for this, but it's just more information for individuals that if you want to have more yard sales, as long as you meet those qualifications, you won't be required by the state to collect sales tax. and then remit that to the state. Public Works saw a lot of changes, primarily focusing on hazardous waste and solid waste. Those areas of Idaho code are being consolidated. There's administrative actions that are being changed from the Department of Public Health to the Department of Environmental Quality. THINGS THAT USED TO BE UNDER PUBLIC HEALTH WILL NOW BE UNDER DEQ. THE PROCESSES FOR SOME OF THE LICENSING, PERMITTING, CITING, ALL OF THAT IS BEING CONSOLIDATED AND REWRITTEN. AND SO ENTIRE NEW CHAPTERS ARE BEING IMPLEMENTED AS A PART OF THAT REGULATION. There's also additional changes that are allowing federal funds and grants to be used for things like bicycle and pedestrian projects where before that wasn't allowed. And also it clarifies franchise rights. So last year the city saw A NEW STATUTE THAT WAS ENACTED THAT ALLOWS INDIVIDUALS WITH TEMPORARY SITE-SPECIFIC PROJECTS TO USE SOMEONE OTHER THAN THE FRANCHISEE IN A CITY. IN LOUISTON, IT'S NOT AS AN ISSUE BECAUSE OUR FRANCHISEE DOES NOT COLLECT BUILDING WASTE. BUT IN OTHER CITIES, IT IS VERY TIGHTLY CONTROLLED AND THEY DO HAVE EXCLUSIVE FRANCHISE RIGHTS EVEN OVER BUILDING WASTE. FOR US IT'S MORE OF A CONCERN RELATED TO YARD WASTE AND OTHER HOUSEHOLD WASTE. but apparently the legislature missed. Counties also have franchise agreements with their solid waste providers, and so this particular statute is intended to keep up with both of that. And there's also new rules related to municipal use of geothermal water and irrigation rights, so that irrigation easement holders are not required to get the written permission of the landholder prior to digging. AND THERE'S ALSO AN ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESS NOW THAT WILL ALLOW HOME OWNERS, HOME BUILDERS, AND LENDERS TO DIVIDE LOTS FOR MORTGAGE OR FINANCING PURPOSES WITHOUT TRIGGERING A FULL SUBDIVISION PLOTTING PROCESS. And some other general laws, again, relating to what local governments can do. You can't fly certain flags, so that takes away our ability to do honorary flag programs for the city. And there's also a law that declares that the state legislature is the presumptive authority REGULATOR WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO LAWS IN IDAHO. IF IT'S NOT REGULATED BY THE U.S. CONSTITUTION AND IT'S NOT KNOWN WHO HAS THE AUTHORITY TO REGULATE THIS, THE PRESUMPTION IS GOING TO BE THE STATE LEGISLATURE, NOT THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT, NOT THE COUNTY GOVERNMENT. IT'S GOING TO BE THE STATE. And then there was also a law that revised provisions related to the employment of relatives and the employment of certain relatives after an election. Most of those will apply to cities less than 10,000. Some of them do apply just generally in nature. And then we also had two big laws that we do see some effect. One of them provides that the library director may be hired and fired by the library board of trustees upon approval of a majority of the council, similar to other appointive officers. And then a law that will prohibit people from entering the restroom or changing room of the opposite sex. Some other things that we saw, again, this is now coming from the Senate. So these are Senate bills related to the collection of DNA and fingerprints after someone has been sentenced. It does affect our police department to some degree, especially where individuals are not already in custody at the time of sentencing. And then companies that install interlock ignition devices will be required to provide proof of installation directly to ITD. upon installation. Also, again, two things that Idaho likes a lot. It likes its drink, and it likes its land. So if a distillery owns its own brand, it is now authorized to sell liquor by the drink from the brand that it owns. It's not required to go through separate licensing based on different limits, but there are specifics to how that is to be applied, so obviously look through it. And then also laws establishing private property rights were enhanced. PARTICULARLY FOR LANDS NOT OPEN FOR PUBLIC WARRANT LIST SEARCHES, EXCEPT LAND SURVEYORS ARE ALLOWED TO ENTER. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT LOUISTON HAS BEEN AHEAD OF THE CURVE ON FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS. REALLY WHAT THIS WILL MEAN IS THAT IF THERE IS A PUBLIC NUISANCE OR ANY KIND OF, I'D SAY, NUISANCE GENERALLY, THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT HAS TO OBTAIN A WARRANT TO ENTER ONTO THAT INDIVIDUAL'S PROPERTY. AS YOU MAY RECALL, BACK IN 2024, WE TOOK SOME ACTIONS TO HELP ABATE SOME WEEDS, AND WE WERE GOING ON TO PROPERTIES THAT HAD OVERGROWN WEEDS. WELL, WE DID THAT WITH ADMINISTRATIVE WARRANTS. SO EVERY TIME WE WENT ON TO SOMEONE'S PRIVATE PROPERTY TO CUT DOWN THEIR WEEDS, WE OBTAINED AN ADMINISTRATIVE WARRANT, WE SERVED THE WARRANT, WE DID THE RETURN, WE DID THE FULL LEGAL PROCESS, AND THEN WE ATTACHED THE BILL TO THE PROPERTY. FIRST WE SENT IT TO THE PROPERTY OWNER, TO PAY, AND THEN IF THEY DIDN'T PAY, THEN WE WENT THROUGH THE PROCESS OF HAVING THAT BILL CERTIFIED TO THE STATE OR, I'M SORRY, TO THE COUNTY TREASURER'S OFFICE, AND THEN THEY APPLIED THAT TO THAT PARTICULAR YEAR'S PROPERTY TAXES. WE WERE ABLE TO GET COMPLIANCE, BECAUSE FOR A LITTLE BIT WE WERE GETTING A LITTLE OUT OF CONTROL WITH SOME OF OUR WEEDS IN THE AREA AND OVERGROWN PROPERTIES, AND THAT HELPS BRING DOWN THE TIDE. SO WE HAVEN'T HAD TO DO THAT FOR ABOUT TWO YEARS. WE ALSO USED THE ADMINISTRATIVE WARRANT PROCESS WHEN WE WERE HAVING ISSUES RELATED TO COWS AND WHETHER OR NOT THE COWS WERE HEALTHY ENOUGH CONDITION, AND THEN WE EVENTUALLY SEIZED THEM. THANKFULLY, WE WERE ABLE TO GET PROPERTY OWNER COMPLIANCE, BUT to have the state vet actually inspect the animals, but we did have administrative warrants prepared so that if we did need to, we could have those ready to serve. And really with the administrative warrant process, it doesn't allow us to do anything that we wouldn't otherwise be allowed to do. It just gives us the warrant that we need to go onto people's private property to do what is otherwise permitted by statute. So every time we went on there, we had a statutory basis to go onto the person's property. If we didn't have a statutory basis to do so, we couldn't go onto their property. It wasn't just an opportunity to just go on there whenever we wanted. And then also under community development, there's actually two bills here that I'm going to mention. The first one is this one, the Senate Bill 1354, amends the Idaho Land Use Planning Act to allow homeowners to construct ADUs on their properties and preventing cities from banning or unreasonably restricting them. So we're going to be making some code changes in our zoning code. that will look into this and figuring out how we address this and squeeze it into all of our residential zones. But there's also Senate Bill 1352, which is the starter home subdivision bill, and it's gonna essentially allow DEVELOPERS ON FOUR ACRES OR MORE TO CREATE MORE BUDGET-FRIENDLY SUBDIVISIONS WITH SMALLER SIZE LOTS, SMALLER AND DIFFERENT SETBACKS. AND IT'S INTENDED TO REDUCE THE REGULATORY BURDEN ON THE DEVELOPER. BUT WHAT THAT ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE FOR LOUISTON, WE HAVEN'T QUITE FIGURED OUT YET.

Go ahead. Did you see the, there was an email, an assessment from Jim's State Housing. It looks like a 501c3 or something, a non-profit type company that was set up and they were talking about ADUs and they were saying there was a couple bullet points where our policies weren't lining up with the state. One that I remember offhand was we're We've got it at 900 square feet, and we should be up at like 1,000 square feet or something like that to me.

I did not receive that email, but both of those bills, this particular code and then the starter home subdivision, we're actively in the works of changing our code to match what the new statutory guidelines will be. OKAY. BUT WITH PLANNING AND ZONING, SO THIS PARTICULAR ONE IS IN OUR CHAPTER 37. THE STARTER HOME SUBDIVISION IS IN OUR CHAPTER 32. BUT THERE ARE PARTS OF IT THAT WILL PROBABLY BE IN THE ZONING SIDE OF IT AS WELL. THOSE ALL HAVE TO BE INITIATED IN THE PLANNING AND ZONING OR, YOU KNOW, WE HAVE AN INITIATION PROCESS FIRST. And then we have to have a public hearing in our planning and zoning. And then we have our decision from there. And then it comes to you all. And so it's a multi-week process. But once we get to the point where we have our public hearing, we have to have an idea of what we want the code to be. So we're at that stage of identifying how we want those changes made in code and then working it through our planning and zoning and through you.

Okay, so this is triggering planning and zoning too to take a look. Yes, yes.

I mean, as you'll see, this became effective on March 31st, but it doesn't give us a lot of time to really react or respond. And, you know, to the extent that our law at the city and state law don't match, then once a bill is effective, then we have to at least go by the guidelines of the state law. That doesn't mean everything else is, you know, ignored. But say it went from an ADU used to be 900 square feet. The state legislature changed it and says an ADU can be up to 1,000 square feet. Where we just have the 900 square feet, we would presumptively change that until we can actually change it. TO THE 1,000 SQUARE FEET. SO SOMEONE WOULD BRING AN APPLICATION IN, AND IF THEIR ADU WAS 1,000 SQUARE FEET AND THAT MET THE NEW DEFINITION, WE WOULD HAVE TO ACCEPT IT, BUT WE WOULD BE IN THE PROCESS OF UPDATING OUR CODE ITSELF TOO. And then public works, I talked about the irrigation and the information related to domestic water use. Some things that affect some employees and more generally, the provisions related to Percy employees prohibiting them from returning to work, the sunset provision is being taken out. So now retired Percy employees can return to work and continue to receive their benefits. Small Claims Court, the limit is being raised from $5,000 to $15,000 to address inflation. And there's also going to be some guidance related to cash rounding when pennies are not available. Some of our departments do accept cash, so this is something that they are interested in. And then there is a new change to laws related to local elections. Typically, you have to turn your application into the city clerk. Now, you're only required to turn it into the county clerk. The county clerk will then forward all the necessary paperwork to the city clerk. And that's all of them. There's a lot that goes on every year, and there's a lot of meetings that we eventually have to do to figure out how this actually affects Lewiston. Sometimes what the laws do is they might change or add a couple of words here. Other times, they start from scratch and start over. And so every time a new bill comes out, we have to look at what we have, what's being changed, Do we actually have to make any changes or is this something that we can wait on? Depending on, you know, a lot of these issues aren't necessarily issues that Lewiston itself faces, but we still have to figure out how to apply the actual, you know, the new rules that are coming out. We don't want to put ourselves into a position where we're taking a stance against a law like You know, as you can see, some local governments, that's what they do. But for Lewiston, we're being thoughtful in our approach AND WE'RE BEING THOUGHTFUL IN HOW WE ADDRESS THESE SO THAT WE'RE NOT JUMPING THE GUN TOO QUICKLY, BUT WE'RE NOT GOING TOO SLOW EITHER. SO YOU'LL SEE, THOUGH, IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS, A LOT OF CODE CHANGES. SO DIRECTOR JOHNSON, DIRECTOR GOES REQUESTS FOR SOME GUIDANCE ON THESE OTHER CODE REVISIONS ARE TIMELY BECAUSE WE'LL PROBABLY BE CHANGING THOSE AREAS OF THE CODE ANYWAYS. SO THIS WILL BE A GOOD OPPORTUNITY TO GET SOME OF THAT IN SOONER RATHER THAN LATER.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? THANK YOU, JENNIFER. THANK YOU. OKAY. NEXT UP, ITEM B, VACANT BUILDING ORDINANCE.

SO I JUST WANTED TO BRING THIS UP AS AN OPTION. I KNOW WE'VE ALL GOTTEN THE CONCERNS FROM CITIZENS ABOUT THE VACANT COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS IN PARTICULAR, AND NAMPA HAS I brought that example of what they've done about their vacant buildings. We don't necessarily have to go this route. There's lots of different things that they did that we could do differently. It just depends on how people feel about creating a fee based on people just kind of holding on to their buildings and not getting them rented or occupied. Maybe something that people would want me to pursue. I can talk to legal about it and see if it's something that makes sense for us. But we're also Idaho and property rights are very important with your property.

So you get like a Safeway building sitting up on top of the hill. They're still paying property taxes, aren't they? Yeah.

Okay. And I think the biggest concern is the the neglect that comes with it like they're like, oh I'm just gonna let it degrade and the community That's a big concern I think a lot of have different stories behind them.

I know the Safeway one is still under contract. So that's why they have I Think Danny Anderson brought that up. We talked about it when we had that I THE MEETING WHEN WE WERE TALKING ABOUT VACANT BUILDINGS AND RETAIL STORES AND STUFF. THERE'S OTHER ONES LIKE THE K-MART. THE ONLY THING I SEE IS YOU LOOK AT THE THING YOU PRESENTED, THE $1,000 FOR A BUILDING, THEY WON'T CARE. YOU KNOW, IF IT'S A ONE-YEAR $1,000 FINE, THE SIGNIFICANCE OF WHAT THEY'RE PAYING, LIKE K-MART, I THINK THEIR TAX IS $26,000 A YEAR. So, are you just going to make them mad? You know, are they going to do something to make them move forward with it? And I know, Counselor, you've had a lot of big write-up on it. I mean, it was good. You know, the stuff, there's good points, you know.

Well, I'd look at it like, what's our goal here? So, you know, the big goal is, well, we want to get a business in there. Well, that's not really up to us. We're I mean, we can do the best we can to try and make that scenario possible for a business, but ultimately that's up to the owner if they want a business there or not. What is up to us, I think, is, is the building safe? Do we know the empty buildings and what kind of state that they're in? I think those are important things for the public to understand. If one of these giant vacant buildings has a gas line that's not properly tied off or something, or an electrical line, That should be a concern of ours. And so I could see a proposal like this that you put forward of the goal being Well, we need to catalog all the vacant buildings that have been vacant for X amount of time. And the reason that we need to catalog them is because we need to understand how long that they've been vacant, what sort of upkeep is occurring on these buildings, what fire inspection that may need to take place on these buildings, building inspectors that may need to take place, things like that, so that we know it's safe. And maybe we could go a little further than that, but I mean, that would seem like at least initially a good goal to have. We're asking why. That could be a question in the data collection.

Why, you know, is there something that's causing you not to, you know, fill your business up? Talking to like Valley Vision, a lot of these buildings, you know, they don't want to alter them. or the new business that doesn't fit their needs. You get a major business that comes in, let's say it's a restaurant, they have a fit model, what they want. That's why you see somebody build a new building and people are saying, well, we have 10 open buildings, why don't they use that? Well, it doesn't fit. The cost is just equal cost to go build a building somewhere else or lease land. I think there's a thousand reasons why we do it.

Some of these businesses coming in want to buy. They don't want to lease. A lot of those buildings, they don't want to sell their property, which they shouldn't have to. It's their land, but that's why they're not getting people to fill it because they prefer to BUYER MAYBE THE LEASE ISN'T WITHIN THE AGREEMENTS THAT THEY WANT. SO I'VE TALKED TO AT LEAST ONE OF THE OWNERS OF A COUPLE OF THOSE VACANT BUILDINGS AND THE CHALLENGES THEY'RE HAVING WITH PEOPLE COMING IN AND WHAT REASONINGS THEY'RE NOT GETTING IT FILLED. AND IT'S NOT FOR THE LACK OF TRYING. IT'S JUST NOT MEETING THE SCOPES OF WHAT THOSE INDIVIDUALS ARE LOOKING FOR.

I THINK IF YOU START AT LEAST you know, kind of putting together processes in my other life, so to speak, you start kind of small with kind of a simpler goal, and you just want to make sure you collect the data in such a way that you can, if you want to expand into other Bigger ideas, you can. So asking why is probably a really important thing to do when you collect the data of how long has this been vacant. Why do you think it's been vacant? And you can do a check-in process. And there would have to be, I would think there would have to be some kind of fee associated for the cost of fire inspection or building inspection and things like that. But I wouldn't think it would need to be overly burdensome.

I don't know, like, I know the city, we are dealing with rural states, so we can't really enact a similar taxing as, like, the city of New York has what they call a vacancy tax. That's just, you're going to be taxed more if your building is vacant for so long. Can't do that in Idaho. So it would be more of a fee that we would enact, I think, when they're... LIKE THEIR BUSINESS LICENSE FEE THAT THEY WOULD GET. I DON'T KNOW IF THAT'S SOMETHING WE WANT TO LOOK INTO AS FAR AS JUST MAKING SURE THAT THERE'S NO NUISANCES, RIGHT? LIKE TRAILERS AREN'T STARTING TO, PEOPLE AREN'T STARTING TO CAMP IN THAT VACANT PARKING LOT AND CAMPING UP THEIR CAMP TRAILERS AND SOME KIND OF, I DON'T KNOW IF WE HAVE REALLY ADEQUATE RULES AROUND THOSE TYPES OF THINGS OR THE BUILDING IS FALLING APART OR IT'S LOOKING IN DISAPPEAR. SO NOW THE OTHER SURROUNDING BUSINESSES ARE SUFFERING from it with, what do you call it, assessment. Their assessed values are going down because that building isn't being maintained. I don't know if we have a really good code around that as far as I know. So I think that would be worth exploring to at least that we are not dictating what they do with that property, but we're also making sure that it is staying appealing to those that are coming into town that there's not this rampant big building with weeds everywhere and people parking their trailers out in front. USING IT LIKE A CAMP. BECAUSE I KNOW WE'VE HAD ISSUES WITH THAT IN THE PAST, TOO, AND EVEN OFFICERS BEING ABLE TO HAVE LEGAL STANCE TO SAY, NO, YOU NEED TO LEAVE. SO KIND OF STRICTING OUR CODES AROUND THAT I THINK WOULD BE HELPFUL. I THINK WE ACTUALLY JUST RECEIVED AN E-MAIL FROM A CITIZEN. I DON'T THINK IT WAS FOR BUSINESSES PARKING LOT, BUT SIMILAR TO RVs AND STUFF BEING PARKED.

MORE LIKE LOOKING AT BUILDING NEGLIGENT CODE.

I think there's some things around, you know, you can't have signage up after the business is gone. There's a certain period of time the signage of the old business has to be taken down. The building has to be secured so nobody can break into it unless they were, you know, breaking something. I guess they can't get into it without breaking into it. So it needs to be secured. Wiring needs to be taken care of, gas lines, water. needs to be available sprinkler system type stuff but you know rules like that take a look and it can't be in disrepair i think that that's one of the potential pieces too is the there can be disrepair going on like the roof is falling in or something like that

Was this something you'd like to see us pursue?

I can look into it and bring it back to you guys when I have some information. Okay. See what we have going on and see how to rectify it a little better. Without charging an arm and a leg or making people feel like they're being targeted.

All right. Sounds reasonable. Anything else?

Do we need to vote on staff hours or anything like that?

It doesn't go beyond you yet, right? Yeah, it's not going beyond me yet. I can ask some questions within a reasonable time.

Okay, well, we'll go ahead and move on to item E, roundabout safety at 10th and Burrell.

Yep, that was me. So I had the, she's not the principal anymore, but she was the principal of the centennial school there that wrote me due to citizens or parents writing her with the concerns of children's safety with that roundabout. I guess it's not really a roundabout, it's a traffic circle. Traffic circle. Yes. And so I had done some research with Dustin and kind of talked about what kind of options we had. She had mentioned trying to have the lights flash automatically during the school hours so that, you know, just when you're going through the school zone, just how those lights are between the hours of school, they all flash and are automatic. What the concern that is being had is that the kids are crossing that to go over to the Boys and Girls Club, and there's quite a bit of kids there, so it's pretty heavy pedestrian traffic pertaining to children, is they don't really remember to push the light So they kind of just cross, and then people are not really seeing them, especially at their height and stature. And so we've talked about different equipment for that, but it was, I will say, quite spendy. Dustin sent me some, and I think we had one that was at least, it was around $10,000. So it's advanced warning size will run us around $10,000. pay for two signs, materials plus install, we could wait. But we have nothing in the budget for that. So I guess my question is, we have our counselor contingency fund, which I think we've used that with the Valley Vision increase that we did, that one-time increase. I don't know if we want to continue to explore funding options that I can work with Dustin on, and we can allocate some funds there, or if you guys... I DON'T WANT TO GO IN THAT ROUTE, BUT I KIND OF WANTED TO BRING IT TO YOUR ATTENTION AND SEE IF WE WANTED TO ADDRESS IT AND TAKE IT MORE SERIOUSLY THAN JUST WAITING UNTIL A GRANT COMES UP OR A KID GETS HIT AND THEN THEY TELL US THAT WE CAN GO FOR IT.

SO, LIKE, IS THE FLASHING LIGHTS THAT ARE, LET'S SAY, Oh, here he comes.

Which is fine with me. You know more than I do.

I'm Danny Burrell for that school. Yeah.

Yeah, so we program all those in town because we get the schedule from the schools. Because you don't want them flashing just at any random times. And so we program them in for school, the school year, try to take them off spring break and seasons like that. The newer ones now, we can... program them with our phone driving by, and they're solar, so they're not hooked into the system. I mean, of course, you're replacing batteries, but you don't have to run wire through the intersection. And those were advance warnings, so it would be basically If you want to put one on each side, so if you want to put it on 10th or you want to put it on Burl, wherever you want to do, you just put them out there advance warning, and then they turn on during hours in the morning when the kids are coming to school and then after school when the kids are leaving the school. And so the price was for two signs on either side. I think it was for Burl, not 10th. But if you wanted on both, double that price. The material price was $8,000 for one. There was a cheaper model that was like $5,000. But if you wanted to have all four legs, you just double that, and it would be $16,000 or $10,000 plus labor. I mean, we're here anyway, but it would be material to put them in, concrete and that stuff.

So not just... How far is the school from there?

Is it in the school? I mean, are we talking orchard block? So it's probably a half an orchard block. I went up there when I got the email, and I went to the school, turned around, and then faced the roundabout so I could see the kids come behind me, cross there. From where I was sitting right at that intersection, I could see the school behind me, but I couldn't see the Boys and Girls Club. It's, you know, what is that, two blocks, three blocks from the school to the Boys and Girls Club? Is it still considered school zone? It is not there. No, the school zone starts right past 10th. If you're driving, if you come down 10th and you take a right to go to the school, it starts right after you transition. through that. So we could, and that was one of my questions, we could amend that and, you know, that would be enforcement to get, you know, cops out there. But, you know, I don't think people are not, they're not speeding through the roundabout. They're just not attentive. And the kids aren't attentive either.

Right, they're not pushing, yeah, that's fine. I mean, we could try to, even though it's not within their SCHOOL ZONE, BUT WE COULD TALK TO THE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB AND WITH THE CENTENNIAL AND SAY, HEY, CAN WE ALL GO IN ON IT TOGETHER AND PUT, YOU KNOW, SIGNS IN. AND I JUST DIDN'T WANT TO BRING THAT TO THEM YET. AND DUSTIN DIDN'T REALLY WANT TO GO TOO FAR TO TALK UNTIL WE KIND OF BRAINSTORMED WITH THE REST OF THE COUNCIL. BUT IF THAT'S A DIRECTION WE WANT TO GO, DUSTIN AND I CAN DEFINITELY GET SOME NUMBERS TOGETHER AND SOME OPTIONS THAT WE CAN PRESENT TO THEM AND SEE IF THEY'RE WILLING TO COLLABORATE WITH US.

Jennifer you know they wanted the flags I don't think they're using them anymore but you know where they buy the materials and we put them up that's a much smaller scale a couple hundred bucks worth of buckets and little orange flags that the kids steal anyway but but yeah we've partnered with them in the past they put a crossing guard there or something like some collaboration again with the boys and girls club in the school and That was a suggestion from the principal. The city used to participate. I don't think it was there. I don't remember which school where the city paid the school for some of the crossing guard. And that was cut out of the budget seven years ago. But so now the school is responsible for paying anybody. I don't know. what the process is, if they're volunteers or if they're paid employees from the school district, but the city doesn't participate in that anymore.

For sure they're volunteers. When I ask that question, I'll have to look back at my email. But yeah, I mean, that's something we can do. And if we can't get them to collaborate, then I guess I wanted to see where we were thinking on dedicating some funds to try to solve problems.

Well, I guess me, I'd think about it. I'd look at the school zones. In our other schools, we have flashing lights. So if we do it here, then this next neighborhood is going to want it. Everybody's going to. How far out do we go? Because the kids are crossing. And I drive through there a few times. I haven't noticed a big issue with it.

Yeah, and we usually lean on the, what is it, the MUTCD, the Uniform Traffic Sign Code. And there's very specific, I shouldn't say, there's specific parameters of where we're not going to light up every single intersection with crossing guards and all these things. Because, yeah, like you say, everybody, you did it there, you got to do it here. And so we try and hem in, you know, this one is... you know, the kids are obviously going on a direct path. And when I watched it, it was interesting because I took two things away from sitting. I'd never sat there from 3.30 to 4.30 or whatever it was. It's not, you would think school gets out and those kids are just going to come in this giant. No, it is like two, three, four at a time. And they just, for 45 minutes, I don't know what they're doing back there, but they take their sweet time to get through there. And so, yeah, it was a long journey. unbroken chain, and so it interrupts traffic. And then, yeah, you've got kids that were, it was funny because you've got these two kids riding scooters, and the kid in the front, like, hits the light, and then he goes through, and then his buddy's got to hit the light. So, you know, they're kids. I've got kids. They're not really paying attention to traffic flow. And then, yeah, you get kids that don't even hit the light. But the other thing that I did notice, and I may take flack for this, was it functioned pretty well. I mean, with what I saw that one day that was sunny and, like, you know, it wasn't the traffic patterns flowed fine people were not blowing through there like I had heard they had in the past but that's you know I was there for 45 minutes but it did I didn't see anything that was raising hairs on the back of my head but again that was one one day being out there you know if we've done more patrol there just to like because

I think drivers don't know how to use roundabouts or traffic circles. So just like an informational, like, hey, when they see, like, somebody doing something weird that they shouldn't be, you're not paying attention to pedestrians.

You mean on the public side?

No, like with the cops.

Oh. Like having somebody there for a little bit. Yeah, it could start with just seeing if we can patrol the area more, and then we can get some, I don't know if we can, create some data behind it that we can then... Because like you said, you only went at one time. Maybe we need to create more of a data sample to say... Yeah, we've got cameras.

And usually, you know, with our, you know, what we call traffic calming program, you know, the very first thing is to just send, you know, police enforcement out there to watch it and enforce it because a lot of times you'll see... A neighbor just says, I will not, you know, I'll drive right through it. I'm not going to stop. And so it's one or two, you know, people that just need to be reminded that's not how you drive through that. And it's corrected. Then we start looking into, you know, like we did with the speed bumps and things like that. I don't like that, but that's, you know, that's, you know, that's how you get, you know, people to say, I'm not going to go through there at 45 miles an hour down the center of it.

I do understand your concern, though, with everybody's wanting to get on the bandwagon now. I could be wrong, but most of the other schools where the kids are getting out do have the public schools officers. I don't think they have the same heading to Boys and Girls Club, right? Because I think that's what makes it unique is that these kids are all heading to the Boys and Girls Club versus the other schools. It doesn't have that same dynamic, and I think that's why it's a main concern there, but I could be wrong.

JENNIFER TINGANOS, CITY ATTORNEY. I DO KNOW CHIEF CUZICK ISN'T HERE, BUT HE DOES HAVE EXTRA PATROLS IN THAT AREA. I THINK HE SAID AROUND 8, 3.30 TIME FRAME. SO HE DOES HAVE IN THE MORNING AND IN THE AFTERNOON, THEY DO HAVE A CALL OUT JUST GENERALLY TO THEIR OFFICERS TO MAKE SURE THAT THEY HAVE MORE OF A PRESENCE THERE. AND THEN AS FAR AS THE SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS, I THINK THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE THINKING OF, THE POLICE OFFICERS THAT ARE THERE ON CAMPUS. SO THE SCHOOL DISTRICT HAS THREE OFFICERS THAT ARE OUR THREE SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS, AND PRIMARILY THEY'RE YOU KNOW, HOUSED AT THE HIGH SCHOOL AND THE TWO MIDDLE SCHOOLS. BUT THEN THEY CIRCULATE BETWEEN ALL OF THE SCHOOLS. AND WHAT YOU SEE A LOT IN THAT PARTICULAR AREA IS YOU GOT THE KIDS WALKING FROM ORCHARDS TO THE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB, AND THEN CENTENNIAL TO THE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB. AND SOMETIMES YOU'LL GET KIDS FROM SACAJUIA WALKING THAT WAY AS WELL, BECAUSE THEY DO TAKE SOME OF THE OLDER KIDS. And what the problem often becomes is people are so used to their habit of just going through. They're just not paying attention. So, you know, more driver education and whether or not the lights in and of itself is going to be helpful. I think, you know, that's questionable. But, you know, absent. more specific data or more specific information on, you know, what is really the problem and what's the best way to address it, I think it's hard for us to say whether or not a light in and of itself is going to change it, whether it's flashing on its own or you wait for a button, because other areas, you know, some of them do have crossing guards, and Centennial does have a crossing guard in front of it right out there. YOU KNOW, KIND OF LIKE WHAT DIRECTOR JOHNSON SAID, IT'S A PRETTY CONSTANT STREAM IN THE MORNING AND IN THE AFTERNOONS, AND IT'S PRETTY PREDICTABLE. IT'S JUST MAKING SURE THAT DRIVERS ARE AWARE BECAUSE WHEN YOU'RE FIRST COMING UP ON THAT AREA, WHETHER YOU'RE COMING FROM 10TH OR FROM BURRELL AND 11TH AREA AND EVEN THE OTHER DIRECTIONS, SOMETIMES IT CAN JUST BE HARD TO SEE THEM BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT LOOKING OUT FOR THEM. as a person that regularly drives through that traffic circle. And then it's just like any other crosswalk situation. You could be stopped there, and then the other cars just think that you're waiting for them, and they're just going to go ahead and progress through, just like when you're on the street and people try to drive through when you're stopped at a crosswalk. So it's more of that driver education aspect.

And kind of on that note, with the resource officers, I wonder if they'd be able to be there in person and educate the children too, just kind of as what to do, look out for cars kind of, you know, like once a month or something, just to kind of remind them to be careful around the cars as well.

I think a good starting point, and you guys can tell me if you think otherwise, but I think a good starting point would be to get more data, work with Dustin on really kind of gathering some more information, talk to Chief Cusick to what their officers are seeing, because if they're out there, maybe they're seeing some things that I can bring back, and then once we've gathered more, then I'll bring back whether we find that spending that money or not. It might not be worth it, like she said, so maybe gathering more data to find if it's valuable or not to do that, or what best approach would be. So bringing it back for discussion after getting more data together.

And talking to the Wise Girls Club.

Yes. I will collaborate.

Because their facility is driving the traffic.

Correct. Yeah. I'll collaborate. I'll see if I can collaborate with them, too, and see what their thoughts on solving the problem are. And then I'll bring it back to council when I have enough.

That would be great. I mean, I think communication between the school district, we work great with the school district and John Evans from the Boys and Girls Club. The only thing I would say is I'm not going to be able to get any data because school's out for the next couple months.

Bring them all back.

All right. Show me what you do.

Yes. Which probably then we won't have it for this budget. They'd probably bring it next year.

So it's not a problem.

Well, now it is a problem.

I've been there for two hours and didn't see a single kid.

Yeah, but throwing $10,000 at it might not be, maybe that's not going to solve the problem. So we'll definitely want to be careful. But I appreciate you guys brainstorming with me. I think it's really good for the citizens to know that we're taking it seriously, even if that means we're not able to do anything right away, but we're doing things.

We'll move on to unfinished new business, City Councilor Collins.

Do we have any in this meeting? I think I got that out.

Okay, see none. City boards and commission liaison updates. Do we have any?

I guess I do. We had the cemetery and urban forestry meeting last week. Nothing too major. I think the next big thing coming up on the list is figuring out what to do with these. They're almost like these sort of pillar brick things. Their original intention, I think there's at least four on the property. The original intention was if they ever built fences, these would be where the fences ended. And it looks like a big brick block with a little potted plant area at the bottom. And a placard spot on it. Should we put a placard there? Because there's no placard and there's no plant in the little bowl thing. So I think that's the big next decision. That's about it for now.

To placard, not to placard.

So follow up on the earlier presentation with the library. Just to remind everybody that this Saturday, June 6th, is going to be a Big day at the library, and I've been asked to go down there. Got interviewed. They made a little video. There's going to be a little movie going on. And, yes, I was part of getting the financing arranged to get that thing going. I'm proud of it. I still get a lot of lip from people. You know, we voted that library down, I don't know how many times, but I'm... We have a nice library, and if you haven't been there, you've got to go to it.

And it's not behind the bar anymore.

That's right. It's the real deal. Anyway, that's all I got. Mayor comments? He's gone. And agenda topics.

Do we have anyone to bring up? Sure. With the Parks and Rec Commission, We've been discussing with them, you know, talking about their duties and expectations. And most of them, because typically, well, the director's not here, but the whole meeting is the director giving his monthly report. So we've been trying to push the director and I to bring things up, and they aren't really aware of their duties or expectations. So what I'm wondering is if maybe we need to have a discussion within the council and look at the duties and expectations and, you know, see if they're really up to date. And if we need to push out to our commission members, you know, go talk to them at each one of their meetings, you know, go over it. That's what we started the last meeting at Parks and Rec was looking at them. And most of them, one of the commission members, he has been there for 12 years and he's never heard any of it. You know, they're the ones that are supposed to run the meeting. THERE'S ONE THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO BE BRINGING THE EXPECTATIONS, NOT JUST AN OUTBRIEF FROM THE DIRECTOR. SO IF YOU THINK IT'S WORTH A DISCUSSION ON IT AND REVIEWING THEM, I DON'T KNOW IF THE REST OF THE COMMISSIONS HAVE ISSUES LIKE THAT. OTHER ONES I'VE SAT IN, IT'S THE SAME WAY. THE CEMETERY ONE, YOU JUST SIT THERE.

RETROACT, AYE, SINCE WE ALREADY HAD THE DISCUSSION.

SO, ANYWAY, I'LL MAKE THE MOTION TO ADD THE ADVISORY BOARD AND COMMISSION MEMBER DUTY'S EXPECTATIONS TO THE JULY WORK SESSION.

I WAS THE AYE.

SECOND.

OKAY. MOTION MADE AND SECONDED. ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. AYE.

SORRY. I WAS THE SECOND, NOT THE AYE. SO, 7-1.

7-WHATEVER. 7-0. NO, IT WILL BE 7 AT FIRST MONDAYS. 4TH IS NOT LIKE FRIDAY. IS IT A SKIP ONE?

OH, BECAUSE OF JULY 4TH.

JULY 6TH. 7-6.

I FEEL THAT THAT IS A REGULAR WORK DAY. OKAY.

SOUNDS GOOD.

Is it, do you want it, sorry, do you want it specific for Parks and Rec or just the boards and commissions?

For all.

Okay.

I don't want to single anybody out.

I'll make them feel bad. Okay, well, then, item seven. Moved to adjourn. Second. And seconded to adjourn. All in favor? Aye.

Make sure you guys get some of that dessert.