Remarks by Mike Dittenber
87 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 4
- Play at 1:24:22
“Okay. Now I want to direct the question to the other two wells that we have that are not producing anything. So if I understand correctly, one of them is, uh, is strong and sulfur smell and sulfur is not poisonous or not hazardous. It just smells like sulfur. Um, has that well been, have we been directed to take that well offline by DEQ or regulatory agency or did the city and some sort of, uh, move to not want smelly water, take it offline?”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:25:43
“And do the arsenic levels exceed the contamination levels?”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 1:34:55
“Mr. Mayor, thank you. I just wanted to clarify some information for those people listening. The optional tax that the voters are going to be asked to approve will generate $4.4 million a year in funds for roads and highways. And that's a substantial amount of money. When we talk about infrastructure, whether it be water or roads, this will go a long way to help the city of Caldwell. The Idaho legislature, in their wisdom, take that how you want it, seem to have punished cities, meaning that the default formula gave 70% of the revenues generated by registration fees to the rural counties and…”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 2:00:45
“Mr. Mayor, I would suspect that we're about to have some spirited discussion about this. And unlike Councillor Williams, who said he didn't have a script earlier, I have a script, so I would like to read a comment into the record before we have some discussion, if you're okay with that. Okay. So I put a lot of thought and a lot of contemplation into this, and so I want to make very clear, and so there's no misunderstandings about how I feel about this. I have concerns related to the use of the automatic license plate readers, the ALPRs. My concerns are two-sided. How will the city generate…”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 2:04:49
“Okay. I'm going to ask you this question and I'm going to turn and ask our city attorney a question. Have you ever been in court where they have raised the concerns about the legality of what you're presenting based upon LPR data?”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 2:05:06
“Alex, are you aware of any situation where our, uh, our officers have taken a case to court where the legality of LPRs have come into question?”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 2:05:51
“Mr. Mayor, I have some more questions. Are you okay? Okay. So I'm looking here in the contract. I guess I'm appalled that it's such a short contract, and there are some things that I'm surprised are missing out of there. But I want to ask about Section 4 in the contract, Section 4.2 specifically, that says that Axon will – will obtain all necessary state and federal approvals before installing this. Can you explain the state and federal approvals for this type of technology?”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 2:06:42
“Okay. So... That answers a question, not my question. So now over to our city legal staff. What are the federal regulations requiring regarding LPRs or state regulations? Are there any regulations?”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 2:07:17
“Okay. So the next question that I have is a section 4.3, uh, where it says that Axon will install outpost hardware and outpost hardware means something. Uh, I'm not sure it means a lot to me, but there's always concerns about embedded technology and uh, and what people who really know technology is about can embed something. What has Axon provided you that would guarantee the safety of this information?”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 2:08:23
“Okay, thank you. In my written statement, the courts, this is relatively new to our courts. I mean, really new. And so we have a gentleman that just read a court case that I'm sort of familiar with. I didn't come to the same conclusion, but it's definitely a court case. So having said that, What if the courts decide at the state level or the courts decide at the federal level that flock cameras cannot be, or LPRs, cannot be used in Idaho? What sort of recourse do we have against Axon?”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 2:09:28
“Okay. So now my question is for legal. So I call it something different. I'm not as highly technical as legal is. I call it a weasel clause. Uh, how do we weasel out of something if it just seems to not be good for our city?”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 2:10:29
“Okay, and one last question with regards to that. Sometimes our legislature and their wisdom do stuff and it might lack a little bit of clarity. For example, the current law regarding the safeguards of LPRs lacks a little bit of clarity. So who gets to decide whether or not the contract could be voided? Do we decide that or does Axon decide that or is that something we do together?”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 3:02:58
“I have had a chance to look at the assessment roll and to briefly review it. And I make a motion that we approve the assessment role for local improvement district 24-2 for miscellaneous concrete improvements within the city of Caldwell right away.”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 3:11:38
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 3:28:00
“Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Katie. I have Just a question for clarification. So there was an original development agreement that was That had a property laid out differently. And so now we're down the roadways and they want it for the same use, but they just want to configure the parcels differently for for greater use to maximize the property.”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 3:42:28
“Thank you. I remember my question. Scott, first of all, or Councillor Telmont, I appreciate you bringing this forward. But how many times do we walk in your office where you walk us off the ledge, where we don't have to request this?”
City Council · Oct 5, 2026
- Play at 15:44
“Mr. Mayor, just so everybody knows, that green line down the east side of Farmway Village to a certain point to the southern end of the property, then heading from east to west, where that green line ends at the west border is the exact manhole where the existing jack and bore and inverted siphon that goes under the canal is. So that would be the pretty much anticipated route of the sewer line from the county property through CHA's property.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 22:07
“Mr. Mayor, thank you. I will vote in favor of this in large part because I have great faith in my fellow council members here. But I am always concerned when we take more eyes off of something and go with fewer eyes, especially when our city is growing. We have extreme scrutiny about what we're doing. And it just seems disingenuous that we would say fewer eyes makes better sense than more eyes. I know you have a plan for reorganization and different people looking at it. I just think there's some inherent risk and we ought to just be aware of that. So that's all my concerns.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 45:30
“Thank You mr. Mayor President curbs thank you very much I got to tell you this is the second negotiation I've been involved in and having some familiarity with negotiations previously you guys did a really good job for the for my fellow members of council this process took about a three-month period we met every two weeks for about four hours and maybe four and a half hours, and there are 32 different articles of the contract. And you deliberately and very professionally went through each of those articles. And one of the things that is important to note, that we talked about salary on day…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 55:04
“Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to continue items number five, six, and seven on tonight's agenda to a date certain of October 19th, 2026. All right. Thank you for that motion. Do we have a second?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 57:10
“Mr.. Mayor, thank you director Collins. I have a question for you with regards to the hundred twenty four Thousand dollars it says of impact fee funds, so I would take it that the Studies being paid for out of impact fees that go to parks But because it's part of the comprehensive plan or could be part of the comprehensive plan planning and zoning takes the lead on it Is that the correct assumption?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:13:50
“Mr. Mayor, Oscar, thank you very much for the information, but I have a question here. So are we in this resolution just declaring the property surplus, or are we also in the process of declaring it surplus also assigning a value to it?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:14:32
“Does that happen at a different time? Because I don't see anything on my little cheat sheet here that has any sort of property valuation for that process this evening.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:33:20
“Thank you. Just thank the community. We had a remarkable rodeo the last couple weeks. Great turnout, and we have another great event heading our way here in a couple weeks is the Indian Creek Festival. So I encourage everybody to get out and enjoy what we have in our city. I also wanted to kind of comment on what Councillor Stoddick said about code enforcement. And this is something that I believe, and you and I have had this conversation briefly, Mr. Mayor. I think if you drive a city vehicle and if you have a city phone, you are by de facto a city code enforcement officer. I don't think…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 9:48
“The old item business with the discussion of the sewer line to the county's proposed jail site, I'm going to declare a conflict because my place of employment stands to benefit from this project if it goes forward. And I've also been involved in some discussions that the rest of city council members have not been involved in. So for that reason, if there's a vote on anything, I'll declare a conflict of interest.”
City Council · Aug 3, 2026