City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, I'll call the meeting to order. We'll begin with the invocation and the pledge. Almighty God, send down upon those who hold office in this city the spirit of wisdom, compassion, and justice. Grant that with steadfast purpose we may faithfully serve our community, seeking the common good, protecting the vulnerable, and promoting the well-being and harmony of all who dwell here. Amen.

Pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under another God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

A couple of announcements. The city of Post Falls is excited to host the Post Falls Festival Parade this Saturday as part of our America 250 celebration. The parade begins at 10 a.m. and travels along Celtice Way from Frederick Street to Idaho Road. We invite everyone to come out and enjoy this community tradition. The annual Post Falls Festival returns this weekend, July 10-12, at Chameleon Park with live entertainment, local vendors, food, family activities, and more. Festival highlights include movie in the park, live music, arts and crafts vendors, and fun activities for all ages. Free parking and shuttle service will be available throughout the weekend. Full schedule of events can be found online at postfalls.gov. The city has launched a new comprehensive plan survey focused on future land use and growth in Post Falls. The comprehensive plan establishes the long-term goals and policies that guide nearly every aspect of city planning and decision making. Residents are encouraged to participate and share their vision for what they would like to see Post Falls look like over the next 20 years. The survey is available online at postfalls2045.org slash getinvolved through July 22nd. And I would encourage everybody who's interested in land use to do that because Getting involved when we're doing the comprehensive plan update is the right time to talk about what we want to see in the city and Then we can put it into the plan and then be able to point to that plan later All right members are accounted for with the exception of Nathan Ziegler and Mark Luca who are excused. So we do still have a quorum just barely and Ceremonies and announcements we were skipping item a that is rescheduled for next meeting. Are there any amendments to the agenda?

I

Declarations of conflict, ex parte contacts and site visits.

I have a conflict with item 2A on the agenda and will be recusing myself from the vote.

Very good. Please present the consent calendar.

Item A is minutes from the June 16th, 2026 City Council meeting, payables from June 17th through July 8th, April cash and investments reports, the Elevate Academy North School Resource Officer Contract Renewal, Public Works Annexation Reason Decision, Fisher Lift Station Annexation Reason Decision, Prairie Annexation Reason Decision and Development Agreement, North Chase Place Annexation Reason Decision and Development Agreement, Mullen Avenue Annexation Reason Decision, Mullen Avenue Annexation Agreement, Prairie Medical Development Agreement, Gull Annexation Development Agreement, Echo Estates Master Development Agreement, Acceptance of Water Utility Easement Dedication 1100 North Chase Road, bogey subdivision construction improvement agreement, the landings at Post Falls phase one commercial subdivision construction improvement agreement, and addendum two to the Arrive Post Falls construction improvement agreement.

Any questions on the consent calendar?

Yes.

So one quick question. I believe Councilor Luca, before he couldn't make it tonight, wanted to pull off the Mullin Avenue items. And I told Samantha that that was going to happen. So I wanted to make sure that if any of you wanted to pull that off for separate action, that's available to you.

Yes.

All right. We will pull those off. And they will become items G and H under new business.

And then I do have a question, I think, about addendum two. Sorry, I emailed them and probably just emailed them in late. This construction improvement agreement contract is not a public hearing or a full item because it falls underneath the amount that we now approve, right? That we don't need council to come back for?

And this is for the arrived post-false construction?

Yes. The last item? Uh-huh.

So we put it on there. It is below the purchasing threshold for departments. Thank you so much.

That's all right.

The council had previously approved this essentially cost-sharing arrangement. I can't remember the agreement that it was baked into.

Yeah, where we buy like two of the pumps and they do, yeah.

Yeah, and so because of that, I think it was the reason that was coming back. Okay. It was because the council had already seen it once.

Okay, all right. And then I had a question about development agreements versus master development agreements and making sure that those are separate items. But I would assume you emailed me about them.

Okay, great. I will give you the quick thumb notes version. Annexation agreements or annexation and development agreements, however you want to style those, those are based in state law and they're really aimed at conditions coming out of a zoning decision. So if you say we're going to give you this zoning but you agree to give To do these things, that's what a development agreement is. Confusingly, in our city code, we created something called a master development agreement that really comes out of subdivision. And so they are different things, and it's really based on conditions coming out of the subdivision approval process. In our draft subdivision update, we're fixing this. We're getting rid of the MDAs because it confuses everyone.

Fantastic. I just, I think that that's been normal, but we don't normally get all the way to S on a consent calendar and see all of them right next to each other. So I just want to make that clear. Thank you. I think I'm good.

All right. Everyone's good with the consent calendar except items K and L, which are moved off.

I move to approve the consent calendar as amended. Second.

Motion and a second. Further discussion? Roll call, please.

Stick Leader. Aye. Plew.

Aye.

Molloy? Aye. Mosby?

Aye. Motion passes, thank you. We are on to public hearings. Item A, Pleasant View Meadows Annexation, ANNX-25-10.

Do you want to open it?

Oh, yes, sorry. Open the public hearing.

Yeah, I checked, okay. Good evening, Mayor Westland and Council President Malloy and other members of City Council here. It's a little bit more reduced than I'm usually experiencing, but here we are. The Pleasant View Meadows Annexation, File Number Annex 2510. So the applicant is Pleasant View Meadows LLC. Actually, that's the owner, with the applicant being H2 Surveying and Engineering. They're requesting city council to approve their request for RM zoning on approximately 4.13 acres. The notice, if you saw it, was I think the annexation's a little over 4.5 with right of way, but that's the piece that they own. The housing mix they're looking for in an RM is a single family twin homes and multi-family town homes. On March 10th of this year, the commission, the planning commission that is, forwarded a recommendation of the RM zone with their proposal as cited in their narrative. In the annexation agreement that was attached in your packet, I think that's exhibit S6, section 5.111 is what the current language states that says it shall be restricted to attached or detached single family homes, duplexes, townhomes, or within a mixed use structure. Multifamily townhomes may also be constructed. If townhomes are constructed, no more than six single family units per structure.

Can I just clarify while we're on this slide? So a multifamily townhome then does not have a property line down the wall like a regular townhome would. Is that accurate?

Yes, that is accurate. So townhomes per planning's definition is individual single family units on their own parcels. multi-family townhomes are as you suggested there is multiple units on one parcel okay so but that's addressed through building code because building code has their own way they address townhomes for their definition

Okay. So then a multifamily townhome will not be an ownable townhome. That would be a rentable townhome as opposed to a norm. Cause it's just called out weird. It's like, Oh, multifamily townhome. How is that different than a townhome that we have in code? Um, but the difference is the property line going down. So the multifamily townhomes would be a rentable product as opposed to a normal townhome, which would be a purchasable product, even though they look the same on the outside.

Yes, unless they condo-plat afterwards. There is a path forward that after you do a multi-family development, you could condo-plat those and do them that way.

Gotcha, okay, great, thank you.

Thanks. So the project location is as you see here, it's on Pleasant View, just east of Pleasant View Road, just a little bit northeast of Highwater Drive, abutting a single-family subdivision to the south. Here is the surrounding zoning in the area. You see to the west, this is industrial zoning. That's River Bend Commerce Park. To the south, the yellow, that's that reference single family subdivision. To the north, there's county parcels. One thing I'll note a little bit later and I'll note now, there is a corridor, a planned Corbin Ditch Road path that uplands this project to the north that may provide future trail connectivity. Further to the north along the freeway, you see that red, that's Community Commercial Services, a little yellow, some other Community Commercial Services north of I-90, and then some more single family. Site contains two undeveloped lots. It is over the Raths from Prairie Aquifer. It is to note that the site is a former dump site, which from what we've been informed is that it has been remediated and is available to be developed. Water provider for this is East Green Acres Irrigation District, with the City of Post Falls providing wastewater, and it's been cited in a staff report that there is capacity to provide this for this site. Pleasant View Road is a major collector, and additional rights-of-way would be needed. So with the development of this, you would get that right-of-way along the east side of Pleasant View Road, and improvements along with that.

Is Pleasant View currently operating as a major collector, or is it just, it's not that big south of... What road?

Freeway, basically.

Corbin? McGuire? What goes?

So you have a blip of county through here. So you can go down. It's improved. And then you have some county unimproved portions at this location. And then you get further to the south. And then both sides more than likely. I'm not. I haven't driven that section in a while, I didn't know.

Yeah, I don't go down that, yeah. So aside from the county portion of it, it's operating as like a three lane, like Saltice does where we have approved these kinds of properties.

Chris from engineering probably could come up and speak a lot more on the capacity of Pleasant View Road and of that. So if you'd like, I can bring them up right now.

I would just like to know that since it's one of our criteria.

Good evening, Chris Schneider, staff engineer. I would not say today Pleasant View is constructed as a major collector. I think in most stretches it's more of a unstriped two-lane road. There is a desire for this to be the major collector in the future with the truck traffic as we have a lot of industrial and commercial here on the west side of Pleasant View. But today it's not really much of a road. It's functioning more as like a local commercial roadway currently. Okay. and there's no capacity issues currently on it.

All right. So here you have the zone change review criteria. The first two really are looking at the comp plans, goals and policies and the future land use map. And then the last one is, does any proposal have any demonstrable adverse impact on a proposal in which we notify other agencies and look for comments. So beginning on the first two, we look here, the future land use designation is transitional and it basically points you in that transitional designation to a focus area. I would argue probably a focus area designation of sorts would have been better than transitional in hindsight, but since we just always punt a focus area. But the applicable focus area is riverbend focus area. Show the location of this right about here. So it's on the kind of centrally eastern portion of that focus area. So looking at what's stated in the Riverbend focus areas, this area is developing into a mixed use center that benefits from its proximity to Idaho and Washington state line and Spokane metropolitan area. It's anchored by a region's second largest industrial park, the Riverbend commerce park, and includes national businesses, workforce, and research facilities. It's expected to continue attracting commercial high-tech hospitality, entertainment, and residential development and kind of that focus is kind of, it'll tie into some of these goals and policies that are about to be referenced. Goal one, grow and sustain a balanced, resilient economy for Post Falls, providing community prosperity and fiscal health. One that policy two may be tied to that goal, as you see here in bold, the elements. We just briefly highlight the infrastructure and service plans. So as referenced, you do see the road currently is, as Chris referenced, is kind of like more or less a local commercial two lane, but with improvements through time, you would actually get those improvements that would help facilitate that area. looking at compatibility with surrounding land uses, looking to the south, that single family that was referenced, planning wouldn't consider the smaller single family town homes as single family homes being incompatible, nor would we see six town homes adjacent being incompatible either. Goal seven, plan for and establish types of quantities of land uses in post-fall supporting community's needs and city's long-term sustainability. Policy 15 could be tied to this as it's looking at ensuring adequate land is available for future housing needs. One of the sectors that is deficient we've identified and I think in our housing needs is that attainable missing middle housing sector and so what they're proposing seems to fit in that niche. Another thing about the housing needs, it talked about looking at diversified housings within an area. So although this isn't a single developer doing a diversified housing product, the ultimate outcome would be multiple types of housing products near some sort of employment center and other commercial services. Goal 12, maintain the city's Post Falls long-term fiscal health. Some items that may tie into that would be policy eight and nine. They're both dealing with infill and are doing county islands. This, I would say, being bound by the river and the city to the north and east functions as a county island. And the reason why those provide opportunities for more physical health is a lot of times we have utility services and access nearby. It's near the city. It's more readily serviced by city services. Once again, I highlight here the site and the trail section. So you can see the abutting nature of that trail to the project. You see all the businesses there and the houses to the east. So the last one is, does the proposed zoning district create a demonstrable adverse impact on the delivery of services? So these are the agencies that we noticed. The comments were received. They mostly are neutral, nothing in the vicinity, no environmental impact concerns, and no real issues on this that we heard. So there's the zone change criteria. Any questions for me at this point?

I think I have one, sorry, while you were going through some of that stuff. Is the R1 to the south on city sewer? So are services already running down Pleasant View, or is that something that we would need to consider

From what I understand that they're in the city. Once again, I don't have pipes memorized. Gosh, what? Engineering do, so I would call Chris up to verify that, but I would assume that since it's yellow and we have an industrial park to the west that there is city services. And he's nodding yes.

Okay, great. Just because of that county pocket, I just wanted to be sure that it was running. Okay, sounds great.

Thanks. All right.

All right, if the applicant will come forward.

You're taller than me.

All right, perfect.

Mayor Westland, council, thank you for considering this. I'm Kyle Cotton, here to represent Pleasant View Meadows, the applicant for this annexation. It's annexation 25-10. I want to give you just a little bit of context for what I'll show. There'll be a brief introduction, a summary of the request, a description of the approach that we've taken, the remediation, anticipating that there will be a fair number of questions related to the geotechnical nature of the work that was done at this property, a little bit about the design, the aesthetics, and we'll do a recap at the end. This annexation is supported by Momentum Architecture and H2 Survey and Engineering. So the project progress, previous phases of work which have been loosely coordinated with the city in anticipation of a future annexation was to do some geotechnical mitigation. The property was a previous dump site. It was an unofficial dump site which just means that nobody really knows what was put there and we had to go and find out. We're now at the phase where we're seeking annexation which means we've, We've characterized the nature of what was there and done a substantial amount of remediation preparing this for development. So the annexation request, as you already heard summarized, is the annexation of two unincorporated lots adjacent the Corbin Ditch off Pleasant View Drive. That's at 561 South Pleasant View. The property, as John noted, was 4.52 acres, including the right of way. The request is for the residential mixed zoning, and Planning and Zoning Commission has already indicated a potential approval for that. Land use is indicated as transitional, adjacent to that major collector, albeit the status of that is maybe not as robust as some of the other major collectors in the city. It is generally conforming with comp plan goals one, seven, and 12. There's additional right-of-way along Pleasant View that will be dedicated for development during the entitlements portion. And that would come with when the property is put forward for any subdivision work. Property was formerly used as the dump site and remediated by the developer. There's buildable and non-buildable areas that were clearly defined and there was a substantial amount of record keeping so that we know exactly what was done and where the property is well suited for structures to be placed. The wastewater can be provided by city as post falls as was noted. One of the things that we have done is pursued an alternative to East Green Acres as a water source. The East Green Acres water supply is a fair distance from the site. The land itself is considered class six under their rules, which means that it is not eligible for irrigation water, and that means it's also not required for a irrigation assessment. And that means, so we did get a letter in writing signed by the board, the East Green Acres board that does allow us to seek City of Post Falls water supply for the property. The property would be managed by an HOA upon development. and that would maintain any of the private roads, sewer, and water that would be interior to that. So our approach for this property is a blight to bright transformation that would turn this undocumented landfill, which is an environmental risk, into a vibrant and productive residential community with zero remediation costs passed on to taxpayers. The annexation value here is really three part. One is environmental, it's a cleanup of an unproductive, difficult to work with piece of property. It's the introduction of smart housing, so that missing middle 29 single family homes that provide an opportunity for entry level and workforce housing. And the community connection. So offering a large green space, almost 24% of the property is anticipated to be used for green space. And that would provide that green belt connection in the event that the city does develop that trail network along the Corbin Ditch. So this one, why not now or why now? Is it safe to build? Absolutely. So the developer has executed targeted environmental remediation to make the site ready for annexation. We'll go into that a little bit further here, but the housing layout respects the geotechnical work that was completed and does take advantage of a large green space area in a portion of the site that was not substantially changed. How does this affect city services? It's a highly efficient layout. There are a block of 10 townhouses expected to front on Pleasant View, and the remainder of the homes would be twin homes and a single family home that are accessed via private drive. So very small amount of city infrastructure required to support this. There is water and sewer available at the southwest corner of the property. Sewer's available by gravity, so no lift stations required, and both of those should be eight inch lines, eight inch water, eight inch sewer. What's the case for annexing now? So there is some time sensitivity and interest. The first of those is this perfectly addresses that missing middle in this housing market that is difficult to afford and difficult to find entry level housing. We also would secure the potential for that green space connection in advance of the city's plans to build out that Corbin ditch, which would allow you to include that in any of the planning for rooting and access to that. And in addition, there's also the chance to shift water service from East Greenacres Irrigation District to the city, making that transition seamless. So let's talk a little bit about the remediation. These are all actual site photos. So these are pictures that were taken out at the property during the course of the work. So this is the status of what was there before we started doing remediation work at that property. You can see in this photo there's a number of pieces of trash that are hanging out of that bank. SO THE PROPERTY WAS ONCE A LANDFILL, AGAIN, THERE'S A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF POTENTIAL ENVIRONMENTAL RISK WITH THAT. WE USED TEST BITS TO KIND OF GET A GENERAL ASSAY OF WHERE THE REFUSE MATERIAL WAS AT. WE DID FIND A LARGE PORTION OF THE PROPERTY HAD NO REFUSE MATERIAL WAS NATIVE SOILS, BUT THERE WAS A CLEARLY DELINEATED AREA. This is a summary of work picture. So upon the close and the finish of the geotechnical work, area A was fully remediated, meaning we went all the way down to native material below any of the deleterious material that was there and rebuilt that back in compacted lifts. Area B was minimally processed, which means we filtered the top 5 to 10 feet, pulled the large fraction trash materials out of that, and then recompacted that. And area C was the area I mentioned earlier, which had no evidence of trash, and that was native prairie gravels all the way down. So this is one of the transects that we did. That's a trench that's on the upper right corner there, and that shows essentially how we tracked where the refuse material went on that property. We used a grid system to keep careful track of the areas that had been fully remediated versus the areas that hadn't. Each of those grids that you see in the dashed yellow is a 40 by 40 square. And we have excellent daily logs and documentation from the geotechnical engineer that provided full-time oversight for that work. So this was the process. The upper right is essentially what was dug out of the ground. Bottom center is the first phase of filtration, which is going through a two inch sieve. Lower right is a one inch processed material. And then the picture at the left is what we produced on the back end of cleaning the trash out of the materials that was there on the site. And that is a very nice structural fill that compacts really well. It's a fantastic structural material. The restoration work, this is a pictures in action top left. That dozer is about 12 feet, 13 feet tall. So we're down 16 to 18 feet pulling material out and that's about where we hit the bottom of what was there. The process for restoration is to go down until you run into native materials and then to build back slowly in 10 inch lifts, compacted and moisture corrected all the way up. And so that, you can see bottom center is the roller, and that's a new gauge that's on the ground there. Everything that's here is compacted to 92% density per ASTM standard. Restoration work, so we have moisture correction there. Here's the geotechnical summary. So this is sort of everything wrapped up. There was nine test bits used to first identify the depth of waste. That's where we built that plan to go with a 40 by 40 grid and tackle it. in a grid fashion. The waste screening process was two inch first, then a one inch minus, then a half inch minus. We had Liberty Geotech was the geotechnical engineer of record for this. They provided full-time oversight and we have all of the daily logs and evidence which was included in the submission to the city. The major excavation on this occurred between 9-6 of 24 and 11-8 of 2024. And all of the land from the 20 foot to 180 foot off of the edge of Pleasant View Road, area A, is the area that was excavated all the way down fully remediated. So that's the area that we'll look at here in a minute for potential townhouses. Land from 180 to 420 is the area that would be the eventual green space that's minimally processed. There is a small amount of deleterious material that is still within there. And it would be relatively deep we didn't find Much in the way of biologicals that landfill has been there for a very long time So most of the setting settling would have already happened Area B is suitable for green space parking roads paths trails, but structure restricted. So that's that center area and above ground building restricted and then land from 420 foot eastward was the area that was native materials requiring no mitigation and This was an early design concept, just looking at potentially what might fit on this property. That turned into the preliminary design here for what we'd like to end up proposing through a subdivision process. So this is the frontage here on Pleasant View Road, indicating two blocks of five townhouses facing the street, rear loaded with parking in the rear as well. We have that green space that's shown in the center separating the townhouse block fronting on Pleasant View and the twin homes that we'll look at right here. This has 18 twin home lots and one single family home lot. That's the one that's there at lower left. So this is served off of a loop road. Everything that's off of Pleasant View would be private. And so private water, private sewer from that part. Here's the aesthetics. So the architectural design is using kind of a warm, modern craftsman, modern farm aesthetic, blending contemporary lines, natural textures. So we have a high-end look, but still maintain that welcoming neighborhood feel.

Are you in love with the jaunty roofs? You give me a cottage.

Do you like the jaunty? No, I do not.

No, but I think I really like, um, the plan. I have to say one of my concerns when you were talking was fronting on a major collector. And it looks like you have a great deal of space between the actual front doors and what has been described as going to be a major collector in town. And so I appreciate that consideration and the extra parking in the back. Although that does look like a pool, which really excites me, but it is not. No, it is not. Okay.

All right, so townhouses this is lower floor upper floor These were set up as two to three bedroom and the size fraction for these is about 1,300 square feet Maybe 1,400 square feet on the on the upper end. This is the twin home a aesthetic So this is the the two-story twin home option these clock in at around 1,100 square feet in that ballpark and All of these have enclosed garages. This is a cold climate. It snows all the time. Nobody wants to have to start a car that's out in the cold. And this is Twin Home B aesthetic. This is a single story, but it does have a single car garage. I didn't include a floor plan for this one, but the size range for this can be 600 to 800 square feet. So recap, this annexation's a win-win in the truest sense, takes an underutilized former landfill site, completes its transformation to a safe, beautiful neighborhood, adds 29 high-quality homes in a near-industry neighborhood with an infrastructure model that protects the city budget. To top it off, this secures that vital greenway link for the future trail system. So I wanna thank you for your time and respectfully request approval for the annexation. Happy to answer any questions.

Clearly a large amount of work went into this. Thank you for all the detail on that. That was great. Questions from council?

It strikes me that we've been talking about twin homes and town homes, but the square footages that you just mentioned, those sound like cottage homes and tiny homes to me. which it does, I mean, there's a lot of work that goes into it and I think I like the layout and everything else, but I, sorry, as I like shuffle through all of my paperwork to validate that, I don't know if we're allowed to have staff come back up and answer questions if we're at that point.

The biggest difference is that cottage homes and tiny homes aren't attached. All of these are attached.

but I think there's a square foot minimum for town homes, is there not, that like throws them into the cottage and tiny home? He's shaking his head no, okay great, doesn't matter, it's fine. And then I guess my only other question to you as the applicant was why not do, like why do RM, which includes commercial, which is generally like the benefit of commercial, I see no commercial and then I'm assuming that it's because R2, requires a special use permit for townhouses and you have to have a square foot, like a lot minimums that you're not going to meet in the R2 designation is accurate.

Yeah, so the RM zoning was sought for setbacks, lot minimums, density, and really it's that mixed housing offering. So that mixture of townhomes offered with all of these as single families. So I think the question earlier was that you had earlier tonight was the difference between multifamily townhomes versus single family townhomes because of the character of this development. And some of the rules about the multifamily percentage, this would not ever be proposed as a multifamily townhouse. These are single family only.

Because they're multifamily, even though they're townhomes, they still fall into like our more traditional. I can't see John, so I don't know what he's shaking his head to or not. These would fall into, like, these are considered R3 because they're still multifamily, even though they're not like the traditional apartment complex structure. Is that, am I understanding that correctly then? Okay, all right, okay, that answers my question. Sorry, I'm just trying to keep up with the specifics here, so. But otherwise, yeah, I don't have any other questions, so. Oh, and thank you for doing 29. I like that number when we do this. Like, I think we've been asked to approve like 90, to like 200 of them at one time, but I think the 29 is a nice, it's gonna be a nice little community.

Yeah, it's gonna be a good buffer and transition.

All right, if there are no further questions, then any public testimony? In favor, not wishing to speak, John Stone. In favor, not wishing to speak, Ryan Martin. In favor, not wishing to speak, Tim Wilson. All right. So there's no need for rebuttal. And we can go on to closing the public hearing. Deliberation.

Doesn't give us anything fun to deliberate. I like some extra stuff in there.

All right, the first question before the council is on the annexation. Is the annexation in the best interests of the city?

Seems like it. purely based on the remediation of the land. Um, so yeah.

And it's, I think it provides a, uh, a much needed source of, uh, workforce housing in a very heavily commercialized area, um, and starts to creep into a County pocket there. So that's good.

Yeah, he said from blight to bright or something cute like that. But I have friends that live in that neighborhood, and I'm driving down there. It's like, yeah, it's kind of gross before you get to their house. So I'm absolutely in favor of making this go forward.

All right. So we're going to keep these annexation and zoning motions separate for legal clarity. So I'll entertain a motion on the annexation.

I move to approve the Pleasant View Meadows Annexation ANNX-25-10.

Second motion and a second for the discussion. Roll call please.

Plu.

Aye.

Molloy. Aye. Stiglieder. Aye.

Motion passes. On to the next questions. All right. On to the initial zoning review criteria. Is the proposed zoning district consistent with the future land use map and focus area contained in the currently adopted post falls comprehensive plan.

I'd say yes. Residential mix is called out as an implementing zone. designation in both the focus area and the comprehensive plan?

Yeah.

All right. Is the proposed zoning district consistent with the goals and policies contained in the currently adopted post falls comprehensive plan that are relevant to the area under consideration?

I would also say yes. As I mentioned earlier, the workforce housing for the abundant commercial elements in the immediate vicinity is right along the lines of the zoning district and a comprehensive plan. Also, this development promote vehicular and pedestrian transportation connectivity by getting the additional right of way on Pleasant View and the future potential connectivity with the Corbin ditch path. I agree.

I mean, policy 15 was cited as diversified housing. I like the number at 29. I don't know that it's really supported given all of the things that we've annexed and approved in the last like two years, which is largely this product over and over and over again. how much diversity we've really been adding since it's like the same thing, but I actually really like it in this area, um, that there's no other options here other than just like straight single family homes. Um, and so I think that looking at just at this, um, focus area, it's, it's nice in that way.

And in terms of cabata compatibility with existing development too, I'm, I'm sure that nobody's going to have any argument that they, would prefer to live next to a development such as this as opposed to an unregulated landfill, so I think it's a win all around.

Thank you. All right, finally, does the proposed zoning district create a demonstrable adverse impact upon the delivery of services by any political subdivision providing public services within the city? None noted.

They say none.

All right, then I would entertain a motion for the zone assignment.

I move to assign the residential mix zoning designation to the Pleasant View Meadows annexation. Second.

Motion and a second for the discussion. Roll call, please.

Plew.

Aye.

Malloy. Aye. Stiglitter. Aye.

Motion passes. Thank you. Now we are on to unfinished business and item A, Fisher Lift Station Annexation Ordinance. I think we're just going to read off a couple of these.

Roll, please. I move to place the ordinance Fisher Lift Station Annexation ANNX-26-1 on its first and only reading by title only while under suspension of the rules. Second.

Motion and a second. Further discussion? Roll call, please.

Malloy. Aye. Mosby. Aye. Stiglitter. Clip.

Aye. Motion passes. An ordinance of the city of Post Falls, a municipal corporation of the state of Idaho, annexing property consisting of approximately 0.51 acres, located at the northwest corner of North Howell Road and West Fisher Avenue, providing for amendment of the official zoning map and providing for an effective date hereof.

I move to approve the Fisher Lift Station Annexation Ordinance, ANNX-26-1. and to direct the clerk to assign the appropriate number and that it be published by summary only. Second.

Motion and a second. Further discussion? Roll call, please.

Molloy.

Aye.

Mosby.

Aye.

Stiglitter. Aye.

Plew. Aye. Motion passes. Item B, public works annexation ordinance.

I move to place the public works annexation ordinance ANNX-26-2 on its first and only reading by title only while under suspension of the rules. Second.

Motion and a second. Further discussion? Roll call, please.

Mosby? Aye. Stiglitter? Aye. Liu?

Aye.

Malloy?

Aye. Motion passes. Make sure I have the right one, sorry. An ordinance of the city of Coast Falls, a municipal corporation of the state of Idaho, annexing property consisting of approximately 16.04 acres located east of the intersection of North Pleasant View Road and West Hargraves Avenue, providing for an amendment of the official zoning map and providing for an effective date hereof.

I move to approve the Public Works Annexation Ordinance ANNX-26-2 and to direct the clerk to assign the appropriate number and that it be published by summary only. Second.

Motion to second. Further discussion. Roll call, please.

Mosby.

Aye.

Stiglitter. Aye. Plew.

Aye.

Malloy.

Aye. Motion passes. On to item C, Prairie Medical Zone Change Ordinance.

I move to place the Prairie Medical Zone Change Ordinance, ZC-25-2, on its first and only reading by title only while under suspension of the rules. Second.

Motion and a second, further discussion? Roll call please.

Mosby. Aye. Stiglieder. Aye. Plew.

Aye. Malloy. Aye. Motion passes. An ordinance of the City of Post Falls, Kootenai County, a municipal corporation of the state of Idaho, providing for a change in the zoning classification for land located at the southeast corner of West Prairie Avenue and Highway 41 from Community Commercial Services, CCS, to Community Commercial Mix, CCM, providing for this ordinance to be in full effect in effect full force and effect from and after its passage, approval, and publication according to law.

I move to approve the Prairie Medical Zone Change Ordinance, ZC-25-2, and to direct the clerk to assign the appropriate number and that it be published by summary only. Second.

Motion and a second. Further discussion? Roll call, please. Mosby.

Aye.

Stiglitter. Aye. Plew.

Aye.

Malloy.

Aye. Motion passes. On to item D, Powderhorn Vacation Ordinance.

I move to place the Powderhorn Vacation Ordinance VAC-25-5 on its first and only reading by title only while under suspension of the rules. Second.

Motion and a second. Further discussion? Roll call, please.

Stiglitter. Aye. Plew.

Aye.

Molloy. Aye. Mosby.

Aye.

Motion passes. An ordinance of the city of Post Falls, a municipal corporation of the state of Idaho, providing for the partial vacation of a utility easement situated on the southerly 10 feet of lot two, block four of the plat of Pioneer Ridge, recorded in book F, page 23, records of Kootenai County, Idaho. Located in the southwest quarter of Section 27, Township 51 North, Range 5 West, Boise, Meridian, as described herein, providing for a disposition of the easement, providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances, providing for severability and an effective date.

I move to approve the Powderhorn Vacation Ordinance, VAC-25-5, and to direct the clerk to assign the appropriate number and that it be published by summary only. Second.

Motion and a second. Further discussion? Roll call, please.

Stig Leder. Aye. Plew.

Aye.

Molloy. Aye. Mosby.

Aye.

Motion passes. Thank you. On to fee resolution revision, item E. There is no presentation, correct?

I move to approve the fee resolution revision.

Second.

Motion and a second. Further discussion? Roll call, please.

Stiglieter? Aye. Plew?

Aye.

Molloy? Aye. Mosby?

Aye. Motion passes. Item F, Wellhouse IV Rehabilitation Contract Amendment with JUB Engineers.

Oh. OK.

You thought I was slacking, didn't you?

I was like, can we just be done? We can.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, Andrew Arbini, Projects Division Manager in Public Works. So typically, Jackson would be making this presentation. He's the project manager for this project. But he is enjoying some scheduled time out of the office. So you get to listen to me. As an overall update, so construction on the project is complete. Physical construction has been completed. The disinfection topic, this item is something that was recently discovered and is a new issue and this amendment tonight with JUB provides the additional services for JUB to support the city and the contractor in reaching a disinfected well. I did include an outline, have a few slides tonight to expand on the details of this. I'll lead off with a project summary and an update of where we are. A few photos of the well site as it is currently. So this is the completed project. A few pictures of the interior. You can see the new pump, new piping and electrical gear. overview of the project this was identified in the current water system master plan and was identified as a full replacement project so that included the the existing well house that was there and the pump which dated back to 1970s following construction of the project the contractor is required to return a disinfected well to the city Following the initial test of the well, it came back positive for coliforms. I'll talk on that in the next slide of what that is. So following that, the contractor proceeded with chlorination steps to reach a disinfected well. To date, those have been unsuccessful. A note here, the well is isolated from the water system, so we're able to isolate that. It's not pumping into the drinking water system at all. So talking on well disinfection, the contract includes a very comprehensive disinfection procedure. And the two primary constituents that are being tested there are coliforms and E. coli. Coliforms are essentially a natural occurring bacteria often found in water, plants, soil. So in and of themselves, it's generally harmless, but they are an indicator that contamination could be present or is present, such as E. coli, which does present a health risk. In reviewing the disinfection steps taken to date, there's been some variances in what the contractor has carried out in the field to achieve disinfected well to what the spec requires. This gets into a little bit of means and methods and typically contractors have some leeway to take different steps and still accomplish the same thing in the end where it becomes more of a discussion point when those efforts have continued to prove unsuccessful. And so to date, we've communicated that based on the review of the plan implemented in the field and what the specification requires, that the contractor has not met the entirety of the specification. Some of that leaves some question about dosing. Did you actually apply adequate dosing as an example? Some additional information. So prior to construction of the well, there's no known contamination at the well site. We essentially assigned a new well to, or existing well, to the contractor for construction. We have not ruled out an external factor. That has been some conversation. There's been some conjecture. Contractor has presented that. Maybe there's another source, and we don't have enough information to know if they're could be an external source that is causing this. So the continued path, the next step would be to continue disinfection and in closer alignment with that specification. A most recent update on this topic, so last Monday, this was after I submitted the agenda item, we met with the contractor, JUB, the contractor, the project team, and discussed the disinfection efforts to date. And at the end of that discussion, the contractor has offered to provide another disinfection plan. That would include review by JUB, their sub-consultant hydrogeologist, and providing input. So this will provide a more robust testing plan with direct input from the engineer and sub-consultant working towards getting a disinfected well and getting to a resolution on this. So that brings me to the specifics of the amendment. This is broken out into two parts. So the first part is an increase to an existing task item we have with JUB as part of the construction of the well. It's the observation task. So this would be an increase of $32,000, filled as a T&M, so services as needed. This includes a consultation with JUB and their hydrogeologist to advise on disinfection plans and provide that input. The second task is an optional support services. Should the city choose to pursue additional testing by another contractor, this would allow those similar support services to occur with another contractor. Taken together, the total is $67,000. That's the request tonight in this contract amendment and funded out of the same well house budget code. I guess one note on overall project budget and where we sit, we had a previous amendment that came to council for some delays related to the project back, I think, November timeframe. We have, the contractor has agreed to a negotiated deduct to the contract to offset some of those delays. And overview of the project as a whole and looking at the estimated project cost from 2024 when the project was bid, we're about $20,000 of the project estimate. So we're We're very close even with all of the additions. I think the project estimated cost was $2.27. So we're about $2.29. So with all of the changes, we're still somewhat in alignment with that original estimate from a few years ago. Next steps. had this bullet point in here, continued discussions. We've had a very productive conversation. I think that's a key point as well. The contractor has done a lot of work to date to make attempts at getting to a disinfected well. We've also noted that there's some discrepancies or some variances here. And they've continued to come to the table, and they're willing to give this another effort. We're also inclined to help get to a point of resolution where we can keep moving with the goal of getting this well online. Another point is staying within the contract. So I think extending the services with JUB is an example of that. It continues to retain the engineer as the engineer record on the project and then provides the expert guidance to city staff in making these decisions and recommendations for what to do next. I guess a key point here, that third bullet point, if there is a responsible party in this that earmarking that as an opportunity to have those discussions at a future point I don't know how likely that is how clear that that would be but noting that we have not waived any of the city's rights under the contract to date in fact the city continues to hold retainage on the project and then there's also some unpaid balance of work that's been completed but not requested. So overall we continue to retain the city's rights in that. And then assuming we're moving forward that ultimately working towards project closeout and final documents of the project. So that I will answer questions.

You mentioned something about adequate dosing. What are we talking about?

So chlorination, under the specification, there's a reference to an industry standard and dosage of chlorine concentration. So when there's recommended amounts of that, and to date that's been applied, but it's not entirely clear if that – It's possible that that was diluted in the process. If you add too much water with the chlorine, are you actually getting that percent concentration that you intended to put into it and creating an adequate solution?

And if the solution is inadequate, then it would have an inadequate effect on sanitizing the system. Is that basically what it's getting at?

Correct. And the system would be the well itself. So it's the well shaft approximately 200, over 200 feet deep. And it's that formation at the bottom of the well is what we're talking about here. There's the concentration, but there's also just the steps in do you have sufficient contact time? There's also considerations that a significant amount of chlorine and that you're not damaging equipment as well. So there's a balance of that contact time. With the advice of JUB and their sub-consultant, they've had some recent experience. It sounds like another well somewhere else that had a similar instance. They'll say that the presence of coliform is not unusual. That is fairly common after construction of of a system water system in this instance it is we've been involved in four wells now and have not experienced this to this extent talking with our experts that they do have some experience with that and so the experience would say that this This may have occurred during the process, and it just needs more aggressive treatment and an approach.

Thank you. Sorry, I do mind. When you were talking about how close we are to the original estimated budget from, I think you said 2024, is that assuming we make these contract amendments, or is that before?

That was before.

okay so we would be exceeding by 20 plus whatever we would approve with all the requested amount correct and then to put it very simply for people who are wondering why this is being requested in blunt terms this is to ensure that the system is putting out clean water that's what what is being asked is 67 000 more in order to ensure that we have a system that is clean and not contaminated

Correct. And it is, we cannot bring the well into service until we can prove and provide that we've achieved a clean well. Got it. I guess maybe clarifying. So the estimate, I may have misunderstood your question. So the difference of 20,000, we're over 20,000 from the estimate, and that $20,000, that includes this amendment tonight. Oh, it does include it? It does include it. Oh, OK. Sorry. I realized what you were after the fact. All right. Thank you.

That's it for me.

Can I lay out this timeline a little bit then? OK. So we have a scheduled well upgrade on a well that was functioning fine with clean water. that we had put money aside for, got a bid, needs to be upgraded, fantastic. We're thinking ahead and taking care of the residents. It gets delayed for reasons that seem reasonable, and that's happened sometimes. And now we have the well built and finished, but it's not sanitized appropriate, or it's not sanitized, which is also something that can happen with wells that we know about. And so we try to sanitize it using normal means, but the means that were used were not those that were delineated very specifically in the contract that we have with the person or the company doing the work. So we have not yet reached the end goal of having a sanitized well like we started with to provide clean water to the residents, as was pointed out. And so now the city is being asked to pay almost $70,000 to continue with our contractor who is not direct with our engineer record. That is not the contractor doing the work because the contractor that was doing the work has not been able to sanitize the well and has not used the specific means that were written out in the contract to sanitize that well. Is that, did I get like the details of that accurately? You can just ask yes or no, because I have more questions after this. Or answer yes or no.

Yes. I think you accurately portrayed that. The disinfection, so I think what's unclear at this point is the source of the contamination.

Sure, and that's fine. So my concern with it is that there were steps that were supposed to be done, and I appreciate what you're saying, that there's like some wiggle room and like we can kind of, we have some room to operate independently, provided that we come to the necessary endpoint, which we didn't come to. And now the city is being asked to pay almost $70,000. And so I guess I definitely want the well to be sanitized. Like I think that that is a goal and a priority. My problem is I think that if you had come in and said, you know, sometimes this happens, we don't really know where it's coming from. We did everything the way that we had agreed to do it and that's still not working. So now we need to pull in more resources and we need to pull in more people to think about it and we need to pull in more ideas and that's gonna cost us more money. That seems reasonable to me. It seems unreasonable now at this point that since it wasn't followed the way that the city had agreed that it would be done, that the city would have to pay more money.

Right. So there's a variance in what's been done and then what's to the spec. And we've been very careful that we're not accepting something that is, we don't want to take on that ownership. Of course. We're careful to not say it's, It's exactly that issue. I think there's enough uncertainty and there's a potential that it could be a handful of sources. I guess my comment about looking for it, reserving the ability to circle back around for a responsible party. If there's a responsible party, I think what that could look like is that if it is very clear that these things were not followed accordingly or we discovered this that was the source, that allows us to come back to that conversation and the point about the 70,000 or 67,000 of services, That's where the city is very clear that we're reserving our rights. And today, this moves the project forward so that we can continue with our design engineer. We'll sort out who's responsible.

But I think that's the risk that you take when you don't follow the specs. Because if you don't follow the specs, then you have created uncertainty in this project. in this process, so if we had followed the specs, then I agree, I think it would be very clear cut and easy, but since the specs weren't followed, now we have opened up in an unnecessary way, where is the, blame isn't the right word, but where is the problem? So that's where I'm struggling with this, had the specs been followed like they were supposed to in the contractual manner, then it would absolutely make sense, but we had a clean well, And now we have a well that we can't get clean. We didn't follow the, whatever was laid out in the way that it was supposed to be done. And now to get it fixed, the city has to extend our contract with, third party isn't the right term, because they're very much involved. I don't mean it like that. But now the city is responsible for these additional fees for this additional service that we have to fund while the contractor fixes the problem. Again, if it was followed to spec and we found ourselves in this position, then we would all be on the same page. Does no one else?

I want to make sure we're understanding this correctly because I thought I heard it differently. My understanding was the contractor is saying they did everything the right way and it didn't work. And now we're trying to figure out, is that true? Which would mean that there's some third source that's not accounted for. Or did they make a mistake in the steps? But I think we're not sure about that yet, right?

There's a bit of both. So they believe that they have followed that specification. I guess adding a little bit more to this, the There's some challenges with the well, the way it was originally constructed. So what the contractors also stated is that some of the testing procedure is complicated. I don't know that it's, this is where we're in a bit of that gray area of how much can be done. versus it complicates the testing procedure. So there are some differences just with the space in the well casing itself in that testing procedure. So I'm also a little careful just knowing we're in a public setting, the contractor listening to the conversations that we continue to work through this, but I also wanna answer all of your questions as well, I guess the concerns in this. So there's The contractor believes they have accomplished the spirit of the specification. We've pointed to a few areas that are unknown. So we're not able to check the box on that yet. We're also scratching our heads a little bit that this is not typical that we see this. And is there evidence of something else? Could it be an external factor? I understand we're spending the money to move forward with JUB or making that recommendation. That allows us to continue making progress towards a resolution and then we could, I guess our approach would be to revisit if there is a responsible party and come back to that.

And would this additional scope help us make a conclusion about whether someone was responsible for it or whether, is it gonna include some sort of investigation that's gonna say, yes, someone did something that caused this condition and therefore they should be responsible or it was an external factor? Is that part of what we're gonna learn through this, what's asked today?

Through the process, if it becomes clear that, we we find a for example we find something in the well that is a tool and clearly okay that something occurred here it it is a challenging situation to to know for a fact where the what the source could be there there's been a lot of work that's occurred at the site just physical construction work and it as we continue to test i think the best case scenario is that we move forward with this revised testing plan that the contractor is putting together anticipate we would see that soon and best case outcome is that that provides for a disinfected well if we learn information along the way and that that points to okay was this Is there a responsible party in it? Did someone miss something along the way? To me, that would be the time that we could circle back with a contractor and have those conversations. Along the lines of reservation of rights under the contract, we continue to reserve rights to LDs, so any delays to the project, additional delays if we are talking a responsible party that that is a mechanism under the contract as well.

If I may be clear, my comment wasn't intended to place blame on the contractor. My point is only that when you don't follow the specs, it creates that uncertainty that leads us to this point. So again, if the specs had been followed and we agreed on that point, I would not be uncomfortable with this request so i'm not looking for the source of the coliform or the dare i say source of infection again i think i'm mixing genres what did you say earlier vocations yeah um so that's not my point my point is that there was a contract that seems to have had steps and um like recommend not recommendations but like ways to do this that I think we agree now. We're not followed to the letter and so we didn't come to the conclusion that we wanted to come to. And then to introduce the comment that there's some issue with the testing, well you can't. I mean, anyone that's worked in a lab or works with lab, like there's no give on any of those because they have to, I mean, all of their standards have to be perfect all of the time for you to trust the measurement that comes out of it. So your comment about there might be problems with the testing space now? So then how do we trust the tests that come out of that? So now I have more questions, but to this, if it is something that we need to talk about in an executive session or in a workshop, I'm not comfortable with allotting more money and more time if we didn't follow our original contract. in the first place. And I would like to, I'd like to stick to those pretty solidly before the expectation is just to come back to council and ask for additional money so that we can keep the project moving.

The way I look at this, there's another factor too, is that, so let's say for argument's sake that the specification for testing, we don't know for sure if it was done exactly according to specifications. So we run through this again and with correct paperwork, oversight, documentation, yada, yada, yada, we are a hundred percent certain. And it's demonstrated that the spec was followed perfectly this time and it still doesn't work. Well, now it's not really a totally unnecessarily a contractor problem. It's like, there's a, there's a bigger problem that even if they had followed the specs, we'd still be here today. So I think we need to, if we go through this process and it still doesn't work, then that kind of takes away the, because you didn't follow the spec, we're here. That's not the case anymore.

And that's not the point that I'm making. The point that I'm making is that we didn't follow the specs and we didn't come to the, we didn't, but we also didn't get the outcome. So was it because we didn't follow the specs or was it because there's something else wrong? But we can't answer that because we didn't follow the specs.

Correct. So if we go through it this time and it's demonstrated that the specs are followed and it works, now we get to perhaps circle around and say, okay, is there some fault here? Then we can go back and try to recover that. But we need to know.

if the spec is going to work first yes i agree one clarification and i realize i'm interchanging my words so when i mentioned the testing procedure the disinfection procedure so part of reaching to get to a point where you can take a test and take it to the lab there's a procedure to get the disinfection into the well and that process the contractor has noted that there's some challenges with that and there are some challenges with that. So the specification calls out how to go about that process and what the contractor has noted is that that's not what we have in the field. There's some variances. There is a way to achieve this, but in conflict a bit with what we have in the spec and what it directs the contractor to do, they've noted that there's some differences here in what we could actually do following exactly that method. So that some of that grayness that comes into where we're at today of navigating through the next steps to continue with a robust disinfection and now engaging with a hydrogeologist on board where we did not have that before. This is not common to see the test come back to this extent for this long. So we are now engaging, or I should say, JUB's engaging with a hydrogeologist that's providing that direct input and guidance to move it forward.

Yeah, so realistically, I mean, you have a textbook standard, and then realistically on the ground, reality is saying we can't do it along those lines because of the way things are with this old well. Right.

There are some points of consideration.

It's not an old well. It's a brand new well.

So the casing is the existing casing. What was the existing well? Yeah, so the rehabilitation project essentially replaced everything above the ground. We kept the casing in place. It's a 16-inch diameter casing. And then the pump, and there's a shaft that extends down to the aquifer over 200 feet. That assembly went went into the casing, but the existing space that the contractor is working in to disinfect the well is There are some constraints.

So now it's some specs can be followed but potentially weren't and then some specs can't be followed and also weren't and thus what specs need to be followed and shouldn't be followed. So now there's even more quandary here and grayness that continues. So I think there's only two ways. There's so much grayness that we just approve the money to you and move on with this which I think is the wrong standard to set and the wrong place to be in these or I mean, the other decision is to not allot it until there's sufficient clarity to really understand if the specs that weren't followed should have been followed to have it. So I guess one must decide between the two.

Mr. Rubini, I would ask, what has been asked today? Is there a certainty? in the outcome that if we approve these funds today that the result is gonna be clean water coming out of this well? Who's this in that direction? So obviously not a certainty but is there a certainty that if we don't allot these funds that the water coming out of the well is not gonna be clean?

It's a matter of what our next steps would be under the contract with the contractor. I guess pursuing that in that route, I don't know that that goes smoothly. But I think there's a couple of different avenues if we're not proceeding with the engineer of record. I glanced over my shoulder a couple times, the public works director, John, I guess provide an opportunity if you had anything you'd like to add, I guess I'd open that door.

He's just going to leave you in the hot seat.

So we've been having conversations with the contractor and with city staff, including our legal staff as well.

Yeah, what I hear you saying now before he speaks is just the contractor needs more support with implementing the disinfection, and that's why we're calling in the reserves to figure out a way that this can be done with the existing well setup.

Correct.

Okay. I'm fine with that.

Hi, everybody. I'm John Beecham, Public Works Director. Thanks for letting me struggle in late. I was at a different meeting. I would go back to what the roles are to answer some of these fundamental questions. So JUB is our engineer of record and our hired construction management firm. So their job is to, for example, contractor says we follow the specs for this disinfection and testing procedure. We send that to JUB and say, did they? They write a report that says yes, no, maybe. So what we're asking for today is their continued help in analyzing the project and providing technical recommendations to get to a clean well. The contractor's job is to do all of the disinfection and testing. So in the absence of JUB, city staff would be making all those technical decisions. Did the contractor follow this? OK, they did. What next? Well, we don't know because we've never done this before. We have not, as city staff, experienced a disinfection not working in this way. JUB and their geotechnical engineers have. So that's why we're interested in having them on board. So at the end of the project, if we can say, sorry.

If we had clean water now, would we need to spend this extra $67,000 for JUB? No. Okay.

So if at the end of the project, we can point to the contractor and say it's their fault. They should have done this right the first time, and we had to spend all this extra money. There are contractual provisions to go and claw back somewhere all of that money. If we get to the end of the project and it's gray, that's very difficult to do. And if we get to the end of the project and they have done everything exactly right, then we're sort of, if we do not have technical advisors, we are at a very big loss for what to do with the next step forward. So staff's recommendation is we need our technical advisors to help us get through this. We are not trying to sort out the blame for what's going on at this point in the project, nor do we have enough information to even do that. That sort of happens at the end of the project, and that's how the contracts are set up. we would not want the contractor to hire a technical advisor to tell us what the next steps were. That's sort of the alternative to this. If not the city hiring an advisor, do we make the contractor do that? They're going to hire someone who says it's done right already. That would be in their interest to do.

I don't think the question is what you're explaining, though. I think that we understand the role of JUB and the city and the contractor. I think the question, at least for me, is if the specs had been followed to whatever extent they needed to be done that's in the contract, we could still be in this position, but since they weren't, we can't know if we would be in this position. And so I want to see the specs followed and then need to spend the money. Not to say the specs may have been followed but may have not been followed and thus we don't have the outcome that we were looking for because we don't know if that's because our specs weren't followed or because there's a bigger problem. So that's my point.

I would like that too but I don't think we have that option. I don't know what that would look like if we tell the contractor proceed but we're not going to have an engineer on the job until you get the well clean.

So what was JUB's answer then to, so if JUB, the way that you're explaining it, is looking over what the contractor is doing and saying yes or no, they're doing what is in the contract, what was JUB's answer to these specs that haven't been done? Was JUB's answer yes, they did what needed to be done, or no, they did not do what needed to be done?

They went through the entire report of what the contractor said they did, They noted deficiencies. So spec is not 100% met. Lots of things were noted as sufficient, but deficiencies were noted in multiple attempts. So their conclusion is the spec was not followed.

So can we have the specs followed and then see if the water's clean? And if it's not clean still, then we can do this?

We can, but without authorizing JEB to help us in that, it will be city staff performing the role of the engineer reviewing that work because we won't have a technical advisor because they won't be under contract to us.

I think to kind of go back to your analogy a little bit in thinking about this, I think any time there is a dispute as to whether or not the spec has been totally followed. I think the contractor would say that they followed the spec where we're saying that there are deficiencies. So there's a dispute there. And so thinking about it from like a legal lawsuit type analogy, you have to sort of perfect your claim. So you would make a claim, you would hire an attorney, you would have to expend funds to determine whether or not that what they're saying is accurate or inaccurate. And so it's the idea of hiring experts and hiring help in order to determine where the responsibility lies. And so this is at the front end. You have to expend those funds in order to determine who may or may not be at fault in order to get to the end of the project. And then once we're at the end of the project or lawsuit or anything else, that's when you are assessed damages or payment and figure out what the negotiated resolution is, if it's 60%, 40% that you make that determination at the end. I don't know if that helps or not,

So then at the end of the project we come back and say we had to spend another X amount of dollars because the original specs weren't followed in the very beginning. That made it so that not only did we not have clean water at the appropriate time, but then we had to spend X amount of money on additional services outside of the sanitation itself to get to the end goal. But we have no recourse to just have the specs followed in the first place?

I think there's a dispute as to whether or not the specs were followed.

It's confusing when it's brought up in the beginning as not having specs followed and so we have to do more and more things. I think the logical answer is then follow the specs and then it can be clear and we can move on and the request for money makes sense. seemingly we must spend all of the money to get to the end and then try to, in someone's terms, claw back some of it, which seems crazy, but okay.

I think we see this a lot with any sort of construction project we do when the contractor runs over for whether they're late or whether it's not their fault at all, we have minor contract amendments for the engineer of record to provide continued oversight. And so we see that a lot where we do an amendment to a construction contract to account for something and then there's a smaller one for the engineer of record. Regardless of how this goes, we had a contract with JUB for a certain amount of services and now we're kind of running over that time, right?

Or to the end, yes.

Yeah, and so if we want their continued help, we're going to have to pay for it, at least initially. I think we spent a lot of time on this. I'm not sure that anyone's going to change their minds. It might just be good to go to a vote on it and kind of move on.

I have one question before we do that, if that's all right. Would our retainage cover what is asked for today? i believe so but i'm going to defer to andrew he's probably more familiar with sorry thank you close i think it's around 60 000 is is the retainer okay we'll go to the vote i would move to approve the wheelhouse for rehabilitation contract amendment with jub engineers second motion in a second for the discussion just a couple comments i know we've largely already covered it but i think I was trying to specifically avoid the analogy that Field made for the optical reasons that Andrew has already mentioned. But I think no one's admitted to any responsibility. And ultimately, you have to get to the end of the project in order to figure that out. And this, I think, is going to be what we need to do that. So I will be in support. Further discussion?

Yeah. I think that it is important how we communicate these things. It's not, you know, it does matter and these things are important when we're asking for money and we're asking to continue amendments and we do see these often. But when the reasons are brought up in certain ways from staff, It wasn't council that tried to blame anyone for any of this. It was part of what was communicated in the packet of why we are where we are. And we do have these amendments all of the time, but there's often reasons why we have to extend or ways to do that. I don't appreciate the assertion that I'm making a big deal out of nothing or continuing to talk about something, but it matters when we have these amendments all of the time to contracts, especially to residents that see us just kind of approving these things for reasons that really, in the way that they're presented to us, make it seem like it's not the taxpayer's responsibility to pay these in any other way that we would work with other, like how we would operate with a contract that we have. I understand what JUB does and I understand what the contract person does. I understand their roles, but I still think that it's worth making sure that we're just not approving things because somebody didn't do something the way that they were asked to do it in the first place and then will now we're over schedule. So the city's responsibility is to get their consultants to spend more time on it and more money. So I understand all of that, but it's worth talking about and being clear about, especially since this isn't our money that we're spending. So that, yeah.

And to that point, I would appreciate it with that. Mr. Albini has done a good job of explaining how the city has retained its rights to go after that afterwards. And he bothered to explain the retainers. So I appreciate staff for putting together this presentation to explain how if we go through this, that doesn't mean we're just spending money to fix an issue. There's rights and remedies as there are in any contract dispute, but you have to go through the dispute in order to get it back, so I appreciate staff's efforts in presenting that. I think they did a good job.

Further discussion? Roll call, please.

Plew?

Aye.

Molloy? Aye. Mosby? Aye. Stiglitter? Aye.

Motion passes, thank you. Now we are on to the K and L items from the consent calendar that were pulled off into unfinished business. The Mullen Avenue annexation reasoned decision.

Kind of wish this would have gone before the last one, but here we go. So yeah, the Mullen Avenue annexation, reasoned decision, and development agreement. We're going to rehash things a little bit and see where we go from there. So as was presented originally, the owners of this is North Idaho Surgical Hospital. Their representative was Angie McVey. They were looking to annex about 4.39 acres with community commercial services zoning. Here is the location of their proposal, just east of Syringa, north of Mullen Avenue there, hatched there in red, about halfway between Greens Ferry and Syringa. There is the zoning to the west, you see the residential neighborhoods in the county to the north and surrounding to the east, and south of Mullen Avenue there is that community commercial, and then it was identified there was a portion there that you see that was not part of their request. So on April 7th, that was the first time we all got to enjoy the presentation on this. And at the end of it, it was kind of kicked back a little bit and say, hey, it was approved, but said subject to a restriction on residential use. Staff went and kicked that to the applicant. The applicant more or less said, well, we really don't want to have anything restricting multifamily. So we brought that back before you on May 19. We discussed that. And then council directed staff to work on the applicant to see if there was a zone that is amenable to them that does not permit by special use anything else than 100% of R3 residential. So staff looked at it in different ways. And we've said that the only zoning designation that appeared to match the direction that we got was that community commercial mix, that mixed zoning. Because in that, it allows up to 50% multifamily. It allows an opportunity to look at that development agreement and cap that element. So the agreement provides the same limitation on multifamily residential uses that our mixed zoning does. So here's that section 2.5 in that agreement. You see currently as drafted that it says owner agrees that multifamily residential uses on this property will require special use permit and further may not exceed 50% of the total development site. So that's what the current language is of which the applicant has agreed to that cap To note, special use permits are a heightened review and may establish additional conditions to mitigate the impact of the development to neighboring properties. So you see neighbors to the north, the special use permit, things like increased buffer distance, regulating height to multifamily, distance of separation. Those are all items that aren't in our code, but you can go above and beyond that through the special use permit. Similarly, depending on what ends up to the east, similar stuff can apply there and west.

And we do have buffer requirements in our code as well.

Yeah, thank you, we do. So yeah, I mean, I don't know if, Field, if you want to chime in and add any more to that.

Yeah, again, I would just reiterate, when this first came to council on April 7th, it was approved for annexation, it was approved for CCS zoning with the restriction in the development agreement. And then, again, when the development agreement was not agreed to by the applicant at the subsequent continued deliberations on the 19th. The direction from council was to see if there was a zone that was amenable to them that would meet that under 100% of our three residential. And looking at that again, because the annexation and zoning was approved at CCS, the easiest thing to us was to just insert the CCM requirement on multifamily into the development agreement. Again, sort of word for word. And so that was our thinking behind it and how we got to this place.

I think much of our conversation before was restricting not residential, but specifically.

Multifamily.

Specifically multifamily. CCS allows cottage homes, duplex townhomes, and twin homes by special use. But I think it kicks them to the R3 zoning when they get that special use. So I don't know. I guess the question that we have to answer is, are we OK with 50% multifamily? Or are we OK with residential but not multifamily?

I thought it was better than 100%. So I appreciated that. And it's one of these. lesson learned kind of things that because now we have a very clear delineation of the annexation versus the zoning vote and so you know we are in a bit of a pickle here so yeah what are our options um i guess i guess i can't answer that but i thought the the acceptance of a 50 restriction was a win and allows it wants everybody to move forward and on with their lives.

Yeah, I rewatched the May 19th deliberation, and yes, there was a lot of different deliberation about many different topics, but ultimately, The motion that we have to rely on is that work with the applicant to see if there is a zone amenable to them that does not permit by special use permit or anything else 100% of the R3 residential. And so that was the motion that was made that was seconded and approved by council. And so we kind of have to take, yes, there was all of this other deliberation and there was, I believe even some deliberation that it should be limited to just what was in the county. allowable or allowable density in the county and summit and but ultimately the motion and second that the council directed staff was that find it find a zone that works and and so that's that's where we went from and the the zone that that would most fit that direction would have been the CCM but again because it was already sort of approved and at that sort of annexation and CCS zoning. We thought the easiest way to accomplish that was just to insert that same condition from the CCM into the development agreement.

I mean, what's kind of nice about the CCS versus the CCM, though, is you can have twin homes. I mean, there's more products that might be more palatable than the traditional multifamily, even if they could have it at 50%. There's other products that are available in that zone that wouldn't have otherwise been available. It's kind of nice. Just saying.

So we're kind of stuck with it.

And does this not just reiterate to Joe, you were in my point all the time that, gosh, it would be nice to have a commercial zone.

I looked at this, and given the totality of the circumstances, I think I took it as a win and moved forward.

I agree. And I think that field has done a good job of explaining how this does meet what we voted on on the 19th. So I would move forward.

So I've moved to approve items K and L, the Mullen Avenue Annexation Reasoned Decision and Mullen Avenue Annexation and Development Agreement, both numbered A and NX-25-7.

Second.

Motion and a second for the discussion. Roll call, please.

Malloy. Aye. Mosby. Aye. Stiglitter. Aye. Plough.

Aye.

Motion passes.

Thank you. I would like to say thank you to staff on that one, too. I was the one that made the motion last time around, and I know it was a whole other round of

negotiations that were probably not pleasant so thank you for for taking the lead on that all right we have nothing under new business so we're on to citizen issues this section of the agenda is reserved for citizens wishing to address the council regarding city related issues that are not on the agenda is there anyone who would like to speak If you could state your name for the record, and you have five minutes on the timer.

My name is Kim Brown. I'm a charter member of the Post Falls Historical Society and a past president. And I'm here tonight to talk to you about the Chapin Building, the RFP, comprehensive planning, and the need for improved communication with the public and with the society concerning historic issues and historic properties. If there's one building in Post Falls that represents community, that is the unique concept of identity and belonging to a place with multiple and varied uses. And you know the history of the building. The respect for its staying power. We've got tons of growth here going on in Post Falls, but as an object that we can really look at as an example of community, the Chapin Building is it. And it is it because it's housed successful businesses in an historic business district. It's lasted from one century to the next. It has served taxpayers as a former police station and later as a park and recreation department. It has been owned by the City of Post Falls for 57 years. You are the owners of the building. Now, you can imagine the shock, and I don't know if this is completely accurate, but I heard that the City of Post Falls does not include this historic building in its long-range facility planning. Of course, me being interested in history, that is a red flag, because you know we have very little here in Post Falls to hang our hats on. It is, and so I'm hoping that that is not the case. And I'm really, I want you to be aware, and I'm sure that you are, that there were previous mayors and councils that did maintain that building. And they did this from 1969 until 2009. So that's a long time. And then the Post Falls Historical Society, because of comprehensive planning with the city, with the community, and I will tell you, I personally have worked with the following mayors, Francis Wilhelm, Cecil Meyer, Don Camps, Kent Helmer, Clay Larkin, and Gus Johnson on historic preservation issues. So these mayors were definitely on track with the society and our many efforts and also this Chapin building. So that's how we kind of ended up with it. And you may know that we were really interested in the previous city hall, which was demolished for this facility. So we were still very, very thankful to get that old building because of its historic integrity. And it, of course, is a rather small unit. But even so, it was a place for us to continue our historic preservation efforts. Hopefully the city council and the mayor and all of you have read the RFP that the society has spent several months on putting together. And I am hoping that you will read that carefully. There's 22 pages of it and that you will also post it for the taxpayers of post falls to read and understand our commitment to that building, our commitment, meaning the society as a nonprofit organization. Since 1988, the Post Falls Historical Society has members, friends, community supporters have communicated the desire and the preservation of that building multiple times. I've come into the council multiple times to various groups and our issues are the same, preservation of our history. and promoting it whenever we can. And by that I mean in the parks, along the waterways, along the walkways, along our sidewalks, and certainly with existing National Register sites. We have communicated those concepts and different ideas of achieving that historic preservation to the staff multiple times. And we've also shared that in comprehensive planning. I'm overjoyed to know that that planning is still continuing. You can bet we will also submit our concerns to that. I'm hoping that the city and the council and the mayor have received and have carefully looked at the RFP. And I hope that you will post it so the taxpayers can read it also because I think there's a misconception about the Post Falls Historical Society and its track record here for the town. It would be great to see the doors of historic planning opened up to citizens and taxpayers to build on the energy of America 250. With our town story, a lot of people don't think anything went on here. I mean, we've got veterans, we've got families, we've got all kinds of contributions here in Post Falls that are sitting in files that can be shared.

I'm afraid we're running out of time. If you could wrap up in a sentence.

Yes, yes, I will. Currently, we have a museum and a monument project in the works. So how about working together to share and preserve our unique local history? Together we can rather than we can't. History continually showcases our sense of community. Our ancestors worked together and in 2006 we can too. Thank you very much.

I can confirm that we did receive the RFP from the Historical Society. Thank you for putting it together. And we'll likely have a workshop on that some point in the near future to decide what to do and how to move forward. So thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? Name for the record and five minutes on the timer.

My name is Chris King, and I'm the president of Post Falls Historical Society. We recently welcomed in 90 students from Southeast Elementary at our museum. The week before they arrived, I saw this old gumball machine in the corner, and I thought, before they come in, I would like to get that working. So I ran on Third Street, and I had it rekeyed. by the locksmith. Had it all cleaned up and I put in the gumballs and I set it out for the kids. I thought, oh, this is great. I went and I told my daughter about it and she said, mom, how much are you charging for those gumballs? And I said, well, a penny. And she smiled and she said, how much do those gumballs cost? And I started thinking about it and started to divide it in my head and I realized that those gumballs cost me five and a half cents a piece and I was only getting a penny for them. But really what was worse was I had to confess to my daughter that the museum gives them that penny to put into that gumball machine. So I was really out like six and a half cents. But why I'm telling you this story is when those 90 kids came through our museum, They toured the history of Post Falls, and then we have the scavenger hunt we do. And they lined up for the gumballs, and they were so excited. And I thought it was going to be kind of like, oh, I kind of made a mistake. But they loved it. And watching their little smiling faces reminded me of the best investments that we make are not measured in dollars, but they're measured in memories that we have. Um, that is what the Chapin building gives this community. It creates moments that creates memories. I know there's been concerns about the building and in February it was frustrating to listen because, um, we know that it's a historic building and we know it that requires care and that it seems like you don't want to put that care in it. That's what it felt like to me when I heard you all speak. Now, um, I want to let you know that it seemed like when you talked that you felt like we didn't do our share and that we needed loan forgiveness. I want you to know that the 17 years, I am new to this city, but I love this museum and I want to fight for this museum. I read everything I could find about the museum. I've read every piece of paper, every email. I picked up every box and read the history that people have provided to us over the years. And what I can tell you is that for 19 years we have invested and we have done our part that we made in that license in 2009. We honored our agreement with the city, we maintained it, and we operated it as a museum. We invested about $80,000 to $100,000 in that building. We have created value in that building for you. Community volunteers, local businesses, Geno Construction came in for cost so that we could have that building that you see there today. The way it looks in there today is because the historical society and Gino Construction came in and they did that work for us. Even when we were short money, they gave us a present of painting the whole inside of the building so that we could have that as a beautiful monument to Post Falls history. I have talked to Rich Wells, who was the original person who did the flooring, he redid the flooring in that beautiful building. He remembers it, the way it smelled and how he felt bonded to it by doing that work. And now he's the president of Gino. He told me today that he said that this building is structurally sound and has no differential settlement. meaning it's flat, it's good, it's not falling down like I keep hearing people say, and it's not have so much severe water damage that it has to be bulldozed down. I keep hearing that in the, with people here at Post Falls. And it's very disturbing. We spent a lot of money improving that. We improved the gutters. We paid for all the mitigation work in the basement. And the building is no longer experiencing water damage. I want you to know that. And you're invited to come down. I'll take you down to that basement. I'll show you what it looks like. It's great. We are not standing still as a board. We're really working every year. We are growing. We are open four days a week, not one. We do private tours on those days that we're not open. We have schools come in, and we do special events. In fact, we're going to do a special event in August, one I'm very proud of, about a photographer, Margaret Everts, who is a Post Falls, she was a photographer, and she also was a third generation Post Falls person. and we're doing that in conjunction with Rosemary Manor. Our board is exploring new ideas from expanding hours, like maybe in the evening, because sometimes when I work in the evening, people will come when they're walking and having a drink and eating, they'll come in and they'll look through the window and I'll just let them in while I'm working in the museum and they love it.

We're a little over time.

Can I try to wrap it up real quick? Okay. So what I'm saying is that we're really reaching out. I started talking to people. We found that the possibilities of maybe running out one of the rooms to a realtor because one thing great about the historical society is that when a realtor brings in a customer and they can be introduced to the history of Post Falls, we had a lot of interest in that. A lot of realtors seem to think that would be a really good place for them on Spokane Street. Can you just give me one more minute? As I walked through downtown Post Falls, I thought about this a million times, because I'm sure that you have your side that i don't understand because i tried to come in and talk to you and your lawyer said i was unable to talk to you the mayor because i wanted to get a better understanding what was going on so i walked through the city and i thought to myself we do need restaurants we do need shops i know this is a valuable property and i know we need successful businesses downtown but it also needs a place to remind us who we are. The Chapin Building is more than a museum. It's where grandparents tell the story to their grandchildren. It's where children discover the history of their hometown. It's where new residents feel connected to their community. Not every public investment generates revenue. Some generate identity. Some generate pride. Some create memories that last a lifetime. And we have many people come in and give us those lifetime experiences when they come through the museum.

Thank you.

These investments are worth making. I respectfully ask you to look beyond what this building cost and at times and consider what it gives back to the people of Post Falls and thank you for letting me go over.

Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else wishing to speak? Seeing none we'll move on to we have no staff reports tonight so Mayor and Council comments. Any comments from Council? All right, seeing none.

Sorry, I was just formulating my thoughts there. When you were mentioning the prospect of a soon coming workshop in regard to the Chapin building, I think it might be worth considering having it start with maybe a site visit, just a walk through to see what it is we're talking about. That might be something to consider.

Yeah, I think we can maybe put something like that together. Thank you. All right, seeing no further business and absent any objection, this meeting is adjourned.