City Council - Regular Meeting

Call the meeting to order. Please rise for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [clears throat] My elbow.

Welcome to the December 2nd, 2025 Postfall City Council me uh meeting. Uh will clerk please note that all council members are present with the exception of Mr. Mallaloy who is excused tonight. Before we start uh we'll announce there are two public hearings tonight and I'm sure that's why most of you are here. If you care to if you wish to speak please fill out the form in the podium in the back turn it into our clerk and we will let you speak. There is a timer uh on the uh podium here and we will ask you to watch that time and and if you your time expires and you're just wrapping up I'll ask you to finish up. Uh anytime we get a large crowd like this there's going to be those people who are in favor and those people who are opposed and it's important that we listen to everybody and it's also important and we're going to expect that everybody's going to treat everybody with respect. We're going to listen. you will be listened to and I expect and hope that you will please listen to everybody else as well. Uh no comments from the audience. We do need to have everything uh recorded and u uh trans transcribed. So please no comments from the audience. If you wish to speak, fill out the form and we'll happily let you talk. We do have one announcement. Uh don't miss Winterfest this Friday here at City Hall Plaza. The campus will be alive with holiday festivities for all ages starting with the plaza uh plasma market at 4 pm featuring local artisans, seasonal treats and unique gifts. The evening will include the lighting of the community Christmas tree performances by the Pulse Falls Elementary School choirs, strolling carolers, crafts, treats from Mrs. Claus's kitchen, and a visit with Santa in his workshop. Bring your family and friends to celebrate the season. Are there any amendments to the agenda tonight?

We have none tonight, sir. Are there any uh conflicts of interest? Would you please present the consent calendar?

Item A is minutes from the November 18th, 2025 city council meeting. Item B is payables November 19th through December 3rd, 2025. Item C is September cash and investments. Item D is acceptance of the canvased election results. [snorts] Item E is the linger annexation grants of rightaway and easements ANNX-24-11. Item F is painted rock grant of rights away and easements X-25-3. Item G is the post subdivision final plat approval. Item H is the Montrose 18th edition plat approval. Item I is G2 development annexation and zoning agreement ANX-252 [clears throat] and ZC251. Item J is G2 development reasoned decisionnx-25-2 and ZC-25-1. Item K is echo estates annexation annexation reasoned decisionnx-24-5. And item L is approval to purchase a replacement van for parks and recreation.

Any questions on the consent calendar? I I actually I have a quick one and I'm sorry I didn't email it. It just occurred to me. Um this van replacement, it's not part of the um the finances that we're talking about later in the public hearing, right? This is something different. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. You're welcome. I also have a question about the van. Go ahead. Um

just from a perspective of trying to save as much money as we can. So, the van is, if I recall, my my iPad isn't working quite right, so I don't have it right in front of me, but uh is a 2005 with just about 100,000 miles on it. Um the only issues that were mentioned were the air conditioning not been not working. Um so to spend $70,000 on a brand new van, it looks like we've been driving about 5,000 miles a year since we've had this one seems a little bit excessive. So, I would kind of like a little bit of explanation of that. Ross, please. While you're approaching, wait, we've [clears throat] got a dead iPad up here. Thank you.

Uh Ross Jun, public course maintenance manager and fleet manager as well. Um yes, the uh the van that you're asking about, it's uh 20 years old. Um tip, it's quite a bit older than we typically hold on to a vehicle. And that 100 I think it's 105,000 if I recall right on mileage. Um, that's pretty much where we trip them. Um, if we can do that, the um I want to make sure you manage it. The um air conditioning has been giving um that vehicle fits, so they have not used it. Um we tried to fix it last year and it continues to fail. So rather than put more money into a vehicle that's 20 plus years and over 100,000 miles, um it's ready for a replacement as it sits right now. The other piece to that puzzle is the fact that this replacement van is a high roof van. So it um I'm not sure if any of the council members have taken a tour in one of those vans that are out there. They're very tight. They're very small. Um this is much more roomy and allows people to walk into the van. Um it's more like an airport shuttle.

Yeah. um vehicle for multi-purpose. It's not just wreck, but it could be used for multi. So, with the the kind of the low miles per year um on the old van, what is it? What is the van primarily used for? Uh it's a it's assigned to recreation. Um and I can't speak exactly to all of Dave there. Dave, I'll let you answer that.

So, I can't speak on the mechanical side of it, but I can speak on the the van itself. First of all, when we bought it, we it was a used van from NIC. So, we use it for our outdoor programs for the public um activities. So, we have two vans. Uh it's also used for some of the camp activities if we're running say the a small group or CLTs or something like that. But for the most part, it goes anywhere from, you know, mom's day day out to up to the mountain for hiking for anything that we can run an activity for. So, we have tried to cut back in the summer because the public doesn't really like having the windows open on the freeway.

But I can tell you it was a used van that we bought from NIC. Mr. Fair. Would it be safe to say that the 5,000 m a year on that vehicle because of the condition that it's in that this new van would probably have more than 5,000 m a year put on it? It would probably be utilized a little bit more because of some of the features. I would think so. And from what I understand, it's a little roomier. It has the ability to go a little further and be comfortable. So, an upgrade. Okay. Thank you. Let's hope we get 20 years out of this one. is the the new van is high roofed or the old van is high roofed. The new van would be a high roof. The current van is not correct.

So this would be like a totally different like we're not just replacing one for one like a what is it like the 15 passenger van 15 passenger van replacement. Yes. So capacity would be the same. It's just a higher roof. The other factor is that um the new van will be four-wheel drive um where the old one is not. So it's a safety factor especially this time of year. Is this the van that has been used for the friends of Post Falls days or not days but the friends of the community forest? I'm going to have to ask you a question. Is is are they using the red van or the white van? They're using the white. That's our new one. Oh. Oh.

So the red one is one we we take equipment in and we do stuff. So that's part of it is we're not getting 15 people in it. And sometimes you'll see this box on the back that's uh made out of wood on a hitch. So we have that. So from what I've been told, this one will handle more. Oh, okay. Will we be able to salvage the cassette player in that old van? Okay. It's an eight. It's an eight track. Okay. Thank you. Any other [snorts] questions? You feel comfortable with it, Nathan? I do. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you guys. I would move to approve the consent calendar as presented.

Second motion second. Further discussion. Roll call, please. Davis. Hi. Blue. Hi. Weslin. Hi. Stigler. Hi. Ziggler. Hi. Motion [clears throat] passes. Wade. Get there. Well, hang on. It may be all right, but he's got a old agenda. Let's see if the new one comes up. Okay, got it. Okay, thanks.

Who said you weren't technically? We're now at uh public hearings and the first one is the North Place right ofway vacation. I did not get a copy of the letter that was not dealing with this public hearing. Is that correct? It's the next it is.

Okay. So, uh Northplace right away vacation. With that, I'll open the public hearing. [clears throat] Right. [clears throat] Good evening, Mayor Jacobson and members of city council. John Manley here, planning manager, presenting the staff report for the Northplace Vacation VAC 253. So, the owner of this request is the Schnemiller brothers. Kevin Schnemiller will be here. He is here tonight to speak on their behalf. They're requesting to vacate some rightway that I'll show you in a minute that will help clear up the remaining portions of their development site. And they do own everything around this proposed vacation. And staff saw that there was no need for any utilities to be retained or anything that was in that. So you see here, here's the proposed ride of a rightaway vacation. Here is the bounds of the Northplace project, their phase project. Um, this is an older image. They've now have some additional phases they've worked on. Here's the approved plan that they have for this. You can see here that the proposed alignment of the roads is not near as linear as the the rightway that was retained. So they're requesting uh vacate that that way when they go through their phases they could then grant the rightway at the time of the phases to make these connections that you see here. Here's the stats review. We didn't uh see a need to retain it. Uh we'll get the rightway with future platting. No utility providers are affected and the proposed the current does not align with the approved preliminary plat.

Here who here's this is who we've noticed comments we we received was Philip 66. You see here they commented they had no utilities. NITD they had no comment. Any questions? Any questions Mr. Medley? And this isn't land that we own, right? They own the land. We just have the like right to use it with this if we want to if we needed to do something with it like the roads. Well, I mean it's right away. So technically that those corridors, yeah, we have the right to use that, right? So once we vacate it, then how the vacation process goes is they vacate from center line out to the adjacent property. They own those adjacent properties. So by default, it then be retained to the adjacent owners, which is the Schneer brothers.

Okay, perfect. Sometimes I think it gets confusing that we get we vacate land to someone that they don't pay us but when we want to buy like just from we don't buy rights away but sometimes we have to purchase small pieces of property or easements places. So then we're paying money. I think that sometimes just from the optics of watching one or two of these it kind of gets confusing. So, I just wanted to audibly clarify that to everyone that this is not land that we actually own. We're just giving up our legal like easement or rights of way to it. And you're giving me a funny face like you don't understand what I'm saying. And that's okay.

Typically, right away is right away that's it's owned. Basically, it's area reserved for city ownership and city use within the rights away. Um, like a road like typically like along Prairie Avenue when we widen it, oftentimes we do have to buy a rideway. becomes public rights of way. But we will get the appropriate rights of way back when the actual streets for this development which you showed on the other picture are built in. Yes. So when they go through here, they'll basically through the platting process delicate dedicate the rights away that allows Yep. Got it. Any questions, Mr. Manley? Sorry if I made that more confusing.

No, no, no. Like I said, sometimes it the argument is like, "Oh, well, we have to purchase our rights of way or when they're dedicated. That's one of the reasons why we should do certain things, but why are we just giving away rights of way without getting any money back for the land, but we don't actually own this land. It's just a right of way. I'm just And we're generally pretty resistant to being on board with vacating right away." Okay? I mean, because generally you want to retain it as long as possible, [clears throat] you know, until it absolutely makes sense. And so this is one that staff did. Okay. Thank you. Wish to speak. Name for the record, please. [snorts]

Mr. Mayor, uh, members of the city council, my name is Kevin Snide Miller. I reside at 6552 East Octavia Court here in Post Falls. Um, I'm representing both the applicant and the um, landowner tonight. In this matter, I'll be very brief. Uh Mr. Manley laid out the uh most important items and I have a PowerPoint, but I don't really think it's necessary to bring it up. Again, this uh right ofway was uh created through a plat back in 1910. So, it's a very old plat. It was part of some irrigated tracks that were created at that time. Um, as we uh came forward in 2024 with a subdivision plan, as you can tell by the map that Mr. Manley had up, that right ofway didn't really fit the plan in any way because they're very linear uh north and south, east and west. Um the north south one came close to the sing seringa street alignment but normally now we'll meander roads slightly uh and the uh size of the rightway didn't match up with the current uh code standards for residential collectors of both which Penrose and Seringa are. Uh so that's our reason for the request to vacate this. uh to answer uh the council person's question uh the two residential collectors Penrose which is the east west collector and Seringa um are approximately 13 acres. The area being requested for vacation is 5 acres. So the city will re uh just not including local residential streets will uh be granted about two and a half times the amount of rideway. In addition to that, uh the right of way that will be created

through the plan uh fits the uh master transportation plan much better uh and makes connections to both eventually green uh Greens Ferry. We don't own quite all the way to there uh as well as Prairie Seringa is built north. So, uh we appreciate your consideration this matter and hope you'll approve the vacation. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Any questions? Mr. Miller. No. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, sir. Anyone wishing to speak? We have none. Mr. Sneller, you don't care to rebut then. Correct. No. Want to give you the opportunity. I'll close the public hearing. Council, how would you like that?

I would move to approve Northplace Rightway vacation VAC25-3. Second. Motion. Second. Further discussion. Roll call, please. Blue. I. Weslin. I Stigler. Hi, Ziggler. I Davis. Hi. Motion passes. Thank you. Uh, next item up is the Meguire annexation. And with that, I will open the public hearing. And before we start, we have received two uh pieces of correspondence that came in after the deadline. Uh, council, would you want me to read them into record? Yes, I'm okay with that. Yeah, borrow. Thank you.

Okay, we have one in favor and one opposed and I will read them at the appropriate time. [clears throat] Good evening, Mayor Jacobson and city council. My name is Justin Souder and we have the Meguire annexation tonight. File number A NNX-25-4. [snorts] The applicant [clears throat] is requesting the city council to approve the request to annex approximately 18.11 acres with a medium density R2 zoning into the city of Post Falls. When the project was originally submitted, it was uh on well, it's on four separate parcels. It still is, and it had four separate property owners. It has now been consolidated to two property owners. So, the two property owners are now Prestige EM LLC and Wild Horse Investments. So, just wanted to make that clear on the owners. There's only two owners now. And you'll see that reflected in the annexation agreement. [clears throat] Here is the project site. It's on the southwest corner of Polline Avenue and Meuire and it is just north of Yukon Avenue and the train tracks that are running diagonally through the site there. Here you can see the site is not currently within the city and therefore does not have a zoning designation. The properties to the north, south, and west are all within the county and contain single family homes on large lots. And the applicant is requesting a zone designation of R2. Um the property to the east as well is also single family residential. You can see on the larger triangle piece there, that's R1. [snorts] Um and the applicant is requesting R2. And you can see on the map that there's R2 further south on Midway Avenue represented in this orange color, which my mouse is not showing up. Um, and then there's also been two other recent annexations, the Lingard annexation and the Painted Rock annexation that have also happened right there around Midway that [snorts] are also both been R2.

Um, there are R1 subdivisions east of Meguire Road that are both north of the project site that are on the east side of Meguire. The site is currently used for single family homes over the Rathon Prairie Aquifer. The water service here would be the East Greenacres irrigation district and waste water would be handled by the city. We have the capacity to provide service and the willingness to provide service at the uh requested density and any existing septic systems would be abandoned and they would be required to hook up to the city's water reclamation system. Meguire and Pole line are both arterials and Yukon is a local street and additional rights of way and easements would need to be provided as part of the annexation and road widening at the time of development. Now we will get into the review criteria for a zone change. The first one is the proposed zoning district consistent with the future land use map and focus area contained in the currently adopted postfalls comprehensive plan. So the future land use designation of this property is transitional which is designated for areas suitable for growth. The timing for growth is undetermined but guidance can be found within the West Prairie focus area and the assigned zone should be compatible with adjacent zones and uses and consistent with the guiding principles of the focus area. This site is adjacent to properties within the transitional land use designation to the north, south, and west. And then the low density to the east as mentioned previously. [snorts] Um, and there's also medium density further to the south. You can see in the orange color on the image to the left. Also want to point out that the R2 zone is an implementing zone for the focus area. The West Prairie focus area states that mixed residential is envisioned between Meuire and Corbin Road with higher density near commercial corridors and

arterials. Some areas within the focus area may warrant commercial use considerations if they are adjacent to arterial or collector roads or where traffic volumes exceed 4,000 trips per day [snorts] um or within a commercial activity node. As you can see, the project site is on the corner of two arterials and is also within a commercial node, which is represented by the green circle on the screen. A commercial activity node is intended to encourage commercial activities to occur at major transportation nodes to complement the overall community and create a focal point. Um, so some of these areas would consist of or could consist of a variety of retail, office or other commercial. However, another consideration is that Pole Line Avenue does not currently have good east to west connectivity and therefore may impact a commercial node at this location. The proposed medium density would be compatible with properties in the immediate vicinity that are utilized as single family properties because the R2 zone would also allow residential uses at varying densities and the intent of the applicant is to develop the property as detached single family homes similar to the Montro subdivision that is further south. Medium density may also be consistent with properties along Meuire that are further south that have been annexed uh earlier this year. Moving on to the second review criteria, which states, "Is the proposed zoning district consistent with the goals and policies contained in the comprehensive plan. The annexation request is consistent with goal one, which seeks to grow and sustain a balanced, resilient economy for postfalls, providing community prosperity and fiscal health. The R2 zone can deliver attainable housing choices in the form of cottage homes, tiny homes, twin homes, or typical single family homes which make up the majority of the desired housing market in Post Falls. And that is also

what the applicant is intending to provide. There are several factors that be need to be considered when applying a new zone. We've already talked about the future land use and compatibility with surrounding land uses. So now we will talk about infrastructure. Sanitary sewer is located in Meguire Road and would discharge to the Montrose lift station. That station has the capacity for the requested zone and is in conformance with the city's water reclamation plan. For traffic, Maguire Road and Pole Line are both classified as arterial roadways and are currently configured as two-lane roads. Modeling with our current transportation master plan indicates that over 70% of their roadway roadway capacity is available in the current configuration. However, to accommodate the projected traffic volume up to the year 2035, Maguire would be widened to a five-lane road and Poland would be widened to a threeline configuration at the time of development. Also, at the time of development would be full urban improvements um with sidewalk, sewer, gutter, things like that. The annexation is also consistent with goal seven of the comprehensive plan which seeks to plan for and established types and quantities of land uses in postfalls supporting community needs and the city's long-term sustainability. The R2 land use designation may help with community needs and long-term sustainability by providing housing which is also discussed in policy 15 of the comprehensive plan. Annexation of the subject site with the zoning request would help provide land for future housing needs in a medium density in an area that is projected to be incorporated into the city. And upon subdivision development, roadway and pedestrian improvements would be required and completed, allowing for continuity of roadways and help create further pedestrian connections through sidewalks and trails, which is encouraged by policy 33.

The third and final criteria is does the proposed zoning district create a demonstrable adverse impact upon the delivery of services by any political subdivision providing services within the city and there have been none identified at this time. Here's a list of all the agencies that were notified of the project. We received comments back from these five. Most of them were neutral or would comment during the subdivision process. Um, two that I want to point out is the Post Falls Highway District. They had comments regarding the alignment of the uh intersection of Yukon and Maguire and uh we have chatted with them and the applicant and decided that that will be discussed at the subdivision development. Um, [snorts] also the Yellowstone pipeline, we received comment from them saying that they have facilities in the area, but that they are not on the project site. And [snorts] that's what is shown here. This orange line that is north of pyl pole line is the uh Yellowstone pipeline. There's also another pipeline that goes through the project site and that belongs to the Northwest pipeline. We reached out to them for comment and did not receive any comments back from them, but the city is aware and the applicant is aware of the pipeline and the subdivision will be designed accordingly. That concludes my presentation. I'm available for any questions should you have any.

Any questions of Justin? I have a few. Um, just going back to your comment about um the highway district and Yukon. I know that there was their commentary in the packet, but I'm assuming that your like verbal conversations with them and the applicant are not reflected in the packet. Can you let us know what those only conversations by email? Oh, okay. Yeah. So, so they should be included in your date on that. So, okay. Um,

there was three total comments. They had one prior to planning commission. Then we reached out to them um prior to the meeting for a clarification on one of their comments. That was again an email correspondence. And now one they sent another comment prior to this meeting. Okay. All right. Um and then you said 70% of the road is available for Meguire. Is that like traffic-wise? Like we're only at 30% of it's expected or can you explain that comment to me please? I'm going to defer to uh Rob on this one. Mr. Paulace, sorry. I always make you stand up. Keep them awake. [clears throat]

Good evening, honorable mayor, members of the council. For the capacity on Meuire Road, currently the tra traffic volumes, depending where you're at on it in that area, are between 3,000 to 4,500 vehicle trips per day. That road has a capacity of over 12,000 right now. So, it's got about another 70% of its capacity available. In what way does it have capacity? like the type of road that it is because it is a arterial roadway. Um and it has right now two lanes in the northbound direction, one lane in the southbound direction for part of the roadway. Correct. You

not is it right here that it has three lanes or is it a different part of the roadway? Right now we have uh the two lanes northbound up to the railroad tracks and then that uh happens again north of uh Pine Avenue. So in this area it's not three lanes. In this area we don't have all of that now but when that develops you will then have additional road width that would be constructed from um Poline Avenue down through the railroad tracks.

Can I ask you about the arterial designation as well since you're up here? Um it we've decid we've decided this is an arterial because of what we want it to be like in the transportation master plan or because of its actual usage presently in the current transportation master plan based upon the usage and the long-term desire that we had in 2017. It was to see Magguire Road as an arterial roadway. But if it's only using 30% of its capacity of a designated arterial, perhaps presently it [clears throat] is not actually an arterial roadway.

So we established it as an arterial because we saw that within the development period of the transportation master plan that by 2035 we would be well within that threelane arterial capacity which is 8,000 to 20,000 vehicles per day. Okay. So that would depend on it being developed out would bring it to its full blossom as an arterial roadway but presently perhaps is not functioning as an arterial roadway. If you want to go from a definition of identifying it classified based upon how many vehicles are on it. It's operating more as a collector right now. Yes.

And then how about pole line that doesn't go really any far any further west. It kind of like goes into the subdivision there. Um, it says that it's identified as a arterial as well. I drive on pole line all the time, but not this pole line. So, is this one? Based upon traffic volumes today, there are less than 500 vehicle trips per day on the section of Pline Avenue west of Meuire, which would be well within the local residential standard. Gotcha. By 2035, we anticipate with improvements on Pleasant View and improvements on Pole Line as we continue to grow that Polline Avenue will need to be an arterial roadway.

This part of Pole Line from Meguire Road to Pleasant View. Yes. Okay. So going So we would start the arterial there and move it west. Correct. So between and we're looking at alternatives with the transportation master plan update which hasn't been adopted and we're going to be having a workshop with you in the near future. Okay. As to what's going on with pole line between Maguire and Chase. Gotcha. Okay. I mean I like it as a commercial node but the arterial designation's just had just I just had some questions about it. So thank you. You are welcome. Any other questions?

Not thanks Justin. Does the applicant wish to speak? Name for the record, please. [clears throat and snorts] Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. [clears throat] There we go. Uh, my name is Ray Kimble. I reside at 21104 Colmine Court here in Post Falls. I'm here tonight representing the two owners of the properties in question. Um so I think staff did a really good job of kind of talking through a lot of the the zoning stuff. I'm going to talk a lot tonight about why um why the city should annex this. So this is of course the project site and as you see here it is transitional on the future land use map. Um current the proposed R2 annexation, what we're asking for tonight is annexation with an R2 designation with a single family detached residential restriction. Um which puts it more in the low density residential zone or category where we're in that under five units per acre um versus that medium density. Um, but what it does is it gives us the ability to um create some lots that are a little narrower, a little smaller um to fit the entry level market as best we can. Um, which is something that we're striving very hard to to fill because that's a part of the market that is really really suffering at this point. Um, this is what the uh our proposed future subdivision looks like. Um, and it it's got some interesting things. Um, one of the things that we talked about uh with

regards to the uh Wow, this is really weird. The slideshow doesn't show the mouse the same. Um, so Yukon right now comes out and pops onto Meuire right at the railroad tracks, parallel to the railroad tracks at a at a weird little skew, which is not necessarily a safe intersection. And so one of the things that we will do with this layout, and the city staff suggested it and it makes a lot of sense, um, is that we're going to take Yukon and we're going to turn it, move it north, and then pop out onto Meuire about halfway up. And what that does, that provides an intersection that is perpendicular and far enough away from the railroad tracks um that it becomes a safe intersection uh much safer than what's there today. Um another thing that the followon subdivision will do of course will being will bring pedestrian connectivity um to that area. Um, as you saw earlier in your present or in your packet tonight, uh, Montrose 15th or 18th or 25th or whatever it was, there's a lot of them. Um, that completed the subdivision Montro all the way up to the railroad tracks. So, there's pathway all the way up to the railroad tracks here. Um, there will be pathway from pole line all the way south uh, to the railroad tracks here. So, um even though it is a little bit of a frogger hop across the across the road, um there will be pedestrian connectivity um from from essentially um well north almost shoot almost Prairie Avenue. No, Fiser from Fiser um all the way down with a couple little gaps here and there um all the way down to Seltis Way. So recognizing they'll have to hop across the road a couple times at different locations. Um but it's much better than walking down the shoulder of that road

right now. Um so with regards to the comprehensive plan um so it so are we pro the west prairie focus area key policies in that were are talk about promoting some infill development prioritizing annexation opportunities and supporting development patterns that are interconnected and provide pedestrian connectivity which is what I was just speaking about. Um with regards to infill um I'll talk about that a little bit more later. Um but this is what the county zoning in the area looks like. Um you can see that the area that is not shaded in any color is the city of Post Falls. And so while this is not a um it is not an island per se, it is about as this area is about as surrounded as you get. Um and I think um and so when it comes to is it infill? Well, we've had a lot of places like this in the city that were at once little peninsulas and now they are pockets and now they're and then and then those pockets are are have filled in. Um so with regards to the criteria in the comprehensive plan, we speak a lot towards you know future land use um being compatible future land uses or compatible with existing land uses in the area within the city. Um and of course the Montro subdivision is single family residential detach which is almost identical to the product um that we would like to bring online a little bit smaller lots because they're in a PUB um their R1 uh will be R2 single family detached that's what we're shooting for um future traffic I'll talk about that a little bit later um but making sure that we have available and adequate land for future housing needs

is really important um that's policy 15. Um because we got to have a we have to provide housing. You know, it it's interesting. One of my clients um is his dad or his uncle once said, and he's 80 or 82, something like that. He said, "If I want my kids and my grandkids to live here, I need 27 homes. I need to we need to build 27 homes." And that really struck me that if we want our children and our grandchildren, our the next generations to continue to live here, um it isn't just growth from outside. Um it's growth from people who grow up here and don't want to leave. And it's important that we provide housing for them. Um so as you can see here uh infill development um we are our property is in the yellow um right here and that this right here is the only little gap keeping it from being a complete island all the way around. Um and as you see there are other islands. There's this one here which is mostly green field and then there's this which we call the central island and I'll speak to that here in just a moment. So, Central Island um so of the 200 plus properties in the central island, there are 19 that are of a size that are easily developable. Um one of those just came into the city. That one right there, G2 development, and there are three more um that clients of mine have snapped up. Now, most of these this is it's an interesting area because most of these properties, they're they're not on the market. if they're ever on the market, they're not on the market for more than a day or two before they're under contract. Um, and so the ones that are developable um get

snapped up very quickly, but in order for them to be developable, they had to be one for sale um and two touching the city um so it can actually annex into the city. And so these are very few and far in between. And and they can be they're they're little truffles. Um they're hard to find, but they're worth a lot when you find one. Um and then in this area, which is the West Prairie, is of those properties between uh Corbin and Magguire South Pole line, there are 55 properties in there, and only five of those would be difficult ones to develop. So, it really shows that, you know, while the focus on the central island is important and we should snap up as much of those as we can, um the availability is is really, really small. So, in speaking about transportation master plan, I've got six minutes left, so I'll keep this pretty quick. Um, so Rob is right. The transportation master plan shows this property um along Meuire here as Meguire as a an arterial. And recognizing that Meuire at some point is not going to connect to Highway 53. It'll be cut off. It is also important to remember that Meguire is the western terminus of Hayden Avenue which is also a regional collect or a regional arterial. Uh, Prairie Avenue is a regional arterial and so having these north south connections is incredibly important to our transportation master plan. And the way the transportation master plan works is that the city's consultant does this really complex traffic model and then does some projections of traffic modeling based on population growth. and they look at where people are going to grow, where they're going to where people are

driving, what the driving habits are going to look like, and then they do their best guess at all right, hey, we're going to plan for this, and this needs to be a certain width. And I don't think Rob's ever gotten the phone call from someone who said, "Thanks. I didn't have a traffic jam today." Uh, but they get phone calls all the time complaining about bad traffic. And one of the reasons for doing for these annexations, why they're so important, especially along arterials, is that the city gets the the right of way and the construct and the follow- on construction of the improvements with the subdivision. They get all that for free. So the city taxpayers doesn't pay for that. So if the city in 10 or 15 the city doesn't annex it and just stays in the county does what it does today and in 2035 when the transportation master plan um shows well when the transportation master plan comes to fruition and there's more traffic than the existing roads can handle then there are phone calls being made like ah this sucks the traffic's horrible um and then it's on the public to the public agency whether it's Post Falls Highway District or City of Post [clears throat] Falls or combination thereof to pay for those improvements. Um in this case the frontage improvements including the the rightway um dedication not including the easement dedication um in today's cost is 671,000 and change. Um that's that would be the savings to the public. Um in 2035 it's over $830,000. Um, and that's an important thing to remember. And so, and then I guess the last thing really is that um, annexation criteria wise, there were no adverse impacts

identified by any agency as a result of that. And with three minutes left, I'll answer any questions or concerns. Question. Mr. Kimble. Why isn't it one owner? Usually you come with one owner.

Uh, that's a really good question. So we were here when we were here last or when the so I guess it was the north uh so all right there are two things um so there was an annexation subdivision request for the southwest corner of the property so or the intersection so it would have been so this right here was um came in and or requested and council denied it.

And one of the reasons for denial was there was talk about it was not a cohesive um annexation request. And so, um, it took a lot of work, uh, for my clients to one come together, um, to purchase four different properties and come together as a single, um, annexation rather than a hodgepodge. Um, believe I heard the term, Jacko'Lantern teeth. Um so trying not to do that to try to come together with a single cohesive um annexation. Um that probably should speak to the the commercial node and why that's um not appropriate in this location. Um one is the east west. Um, so the area right over here where it's this R1 parcel right here, that's the location of the existing that's where the Shymiller Farm um shop is. So they're they've got Northplace East and Montrose that they're slowly chewing through or not very slowly. Um, and that's all they're farming right now. So there will be a point in time in the future where they are done farming and that property will end up getting developed. That is the appropriate location for commercial. And the reason for that is is because it's on the going home side of the street. So when it comes to commercial development, especially in outlying areas where there's a commercial node, it's really important for the commercial development to happen. um the or the tenants for commercial development like to be on the going home side. Gym, going home from work, stop at the gym. Convenience

store, same thing. Little grocery mart, um haircuts, all that stuff on the going home side. So, and what I mean by that is hanging a right-hand turn instead of having to take a left-hand turn and cross traffic both directions. So, that's why that would be the more appropriate spot for um commercial on the going to work side. um say a coffee stand in the morning, the more appropriate spot would be the northwest corner where it's a righthand turn in and then a right hand turn out to get down to the freeway and out. So, that was a long-winded answer and

okay, sure. I mean, I guess we could argue about where the commercial should go or shouldn't go. I it's just I mean it doesn't seem like it's mattered much in other places of the [clears throat] city where they put the commercial. But um I am curious in the packet and in the minutes it talked about well I guess I'll start with this development will have an HOA of some kind generally. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Um so 27 people from one person need houses. They're young people presumably of the house buying generation now. And I think it was also noted that um you know we want these houses to be affordable for homeowners. So to meet that if you're you're laying that out as a reason to annex and to get an R2 zone. My question then is is somewhere in your like deed agreement or development agreement will it state that only people of a certain age or generation can buy these homes and also um will they be owner occupied because otherwise they tend to be in a price point that they could easily be rentals as well. So, if if that's laid out as a statement as why we do need those, I'm curious if if it can be backed up with making sure that that's what they would be for.

I think that's always the intent. Uh that that's the intent. Um there's ways to accomplish that. Um, there are some tricky legal things there that I'm not probably experienced enough to really navigate. That's what the attorneys are for. Um, when it comes to when it comes to a development, for instance, and I'll So, this property right here, when it had an R1 designation, it had 16 lots. R2 is 22 lots, same streets,

same amount of infrastructure, same length of streets, same everything. U but there's more lots. And so the cost of the overall project for both of them is essentially the same. But it's divided amongst more lots. And so by doing that, it brings the lot price down. And in bringing the lot price down, it correspondently brings the home price down. And market conditions being what they are, um it's we're doing our best to hit that market of entry-level homes. Um when it comes to owner occupied or rental, um I know that when I retire, I would love to rent my house. It's in gold. Um but I've lived there for 24 years now. um it doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good or a bad thing. Um but I think it's important that we provide I think someone once put it said to me um it's important to get on the home ownership train. Doesn't matter if you get on in economy or business class or first class, but get on the train because as long as you're gaining equity, you have the ability throughout your lifetime generally to move into different homes and move up. Um, and it's incredibly important and that's what we're shooting for when it comes to um, ensuring that it's a owner occupied or deed restricted or age restricted or any of that. I I couldn't I couldn't commit to anything like that. And

Sure. And as you all know from being on planning and zoning, we only have so many criteria that we're technically allowed to consider. So, if there are going to be comments made outside of those criteria that are placed there to help us be encouraged to see the vision of the the project, I would just hope that there was assurance that that was something that would actually happen instead of them just being comments to help us see what you're trying to do. Um, and that's really the only that's mainly my what I'm trying to get at here. So, yeah, thank you so much. Do you have any questions? Um, I do have a I think a question for staff. I wasn't quite I wasn't quite done there. If we're allowed to go back, but if not, um, I I don't have to. So,

you want to wait until if it's a question for staff, do you want to wait till deliberation or Well, okay. Okay.

So, uh, yeah, I can wait for you to come back up. And sorry, Mr. Pace, this might be for you. Um, I think that today actually there was a train that was stopped crossing over Meuire for some length of time if I'm correct. I don't know how often that happens, but I have a concern about looking to place more um development so close to the roadway when uh we have a lot of development that's already north of this this roadway going east in the city. That makes transportation difficult. Is this a has this been a consideration of staff or the developer especially right here? Um, and how often does that train block this roadway? Do we know? I mean, today the train was like just stopped on the roadway, not even moving. So,

Mr. Paul, members of the council, Robert Paul, city engineer. Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer for you on that. I don't know how often the train comes to a stop on that section or any particular section of track within the city of Post Falls. It does happen on occasion. Um today there happen it happened to occur. Our biggest concern is that in seeing potential development on that site, the location of Yukon Avenue, where it currently intersects Meuire Road is a unsafe distance from the railroad tracks. Gotcha.

And that's as Mr. Kimell mentioned and Postf Falls Highway District has mentioned um we've been in discussions with the um developer on some potential layouts and the goal is to try to move Yukon Avenue between 3 to 400 ft north of the railroad tracks to allow for safe operations or safer operations. Looking at the collision history out there, there have not been um any train vehicle collisions in the last five years that I saw on the state data.

And presumably you would have no concern increasing the amount of population that uses this land to live in such close proximity to a crossing of the railroad that potentially has a train stopped on it. I would not have a concern about that. We do provide alternate routes and numerous crossings throughout the city where we can get them. Gotcha. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Stay there. Oh, I was going to say I'm good. But

uh just quickly on on the train crossing question, as that road has been identified as an arterial and we anticipate traffic to increase on that road, is it incumbent upon the city or upon the railroad to make improvements to traffic flow and controls on that intersection of the railroad and and street or who who does that fall on as it would fall on the city. Um we have in our current transportation master plan we've identified the rail c or we've identified almost all the rail crossings in the city of post falls for needed improvements as impact fee related [clears throat]

uh improvements that would occur. Uh historically what the city was looking at was that the overall cost of widening the rail crossings to put on any one particular developer whether it's a 5 acre piece or a 50 acre piece is a huge [snorts] cost. Um it can vary but typically if you have to put in lights and arms you're looking at over a million dollars. If you have to widen the tracks, uh the planking is around $1,250 per linear foot and then you have agreements to go through the railroad and the railroad is not cheap to work with.

So it is something that as those rail tracks need to be expanded, we our history has been to put that as a impact fee related cost and let all of growth pay for it through the transportation impact fees. So if I'm hearing you correctly then some of the impact fee collected from this particular if this annexation is approved would be designated toward or correct toward the railroad crossing improvement. That is correct. And we have improvements to that railroad crossing in particular that are on our transportation master plan.

I would like to go back and double check that. I believe that we do, but I don't recall 100% on that. I know that um the planking there is just about the right width to handle the five lanes where we had some issues at that location was more handling the pedestrian facilities on the edges that might require a little bit of extension of the planking and then that would become a multimotal impact cost not a traffic impact cost. Okay. But in order to do any of that we would need the rights of way.

That is correct. Thank you. Any other questions? Thanks. didn't wish to testify. [cough and clears throat] Uh first I'll read is the uh piece of correspondence came in after the deadline per council's direction to the city of Pulse Falls. My name is McKenna Snyder and I am writing in support of the Meguire annexation and NX254. I was unable to attend this evening, but I appreciate the opportunity to submit my comments. I was raised here in North Idaho and after owning a home in Montana, my husband and I moved back because we wanted to build our future in the place I've always called home. We came back hoping to plant roots, buy a home again, and be part of a of this community long term. Instead, like many working families, we found ourselves in a position where we're renting and questioning whether home ownership here is something we'll ever be able to reach. We love this area, but the rapid and often disorganized growth has created challenges even for the dual inome households. Affordability, strained infrastructure, and inconsistent development patterns have made it hard for families like ours to feel secure about staying. That's why annexations like this matter to me personally. When development happens under city oversight rather than in fragmented pockets, it allows for thoughtful planning, adequate utilities, appropriate zoning, predictable infrastructure, and long-term vision. Annexing this area gives the city of Pulse Falls the ability to guide growth in a way that supports the people who live and work here, not just a development happen happening around them. In my role working alongside local builders and trade businesses, I see

every day how crucial coordinated growth is. not only for economic stability but for ensuring families for ensuring families have realistic attainable housing options. Annexation helps ensure that new neighborhoods are built responsibly with the services, infrastructure, and planning needed to support a sustainable community. We want to stay here. We want to buy a home here again. And we want North Idaho to remain a place where people raised here can [snorts] build a life without being priced out. Thank you for your time and for considering my comments. I respectfully support the approval of the Maguire annexation. Sincerely, McKenna Snder. Uh, in favor and wishing to speak, Wade Jacqueline.

[clears throat]

Good evening, mayor and uh council. Thanks for hearing. Um my name is Wade Jaclyn. I currently live in Celane. Uh but I am one of the applicants uh with Wild Horse Investments. Uh my cousin Mike and I. Um I grew up in this area. My dad, my uncles grew up in this area. my grandfather, grandfathers. Um, we are not coming in from out of state trying to take advantage of any situations here. This is something that's really important to us as locals that grew up here to keep our family and be able to raise our children here and our grandchildren. Um, the first house I bought was just up the road on Henry um about 30 years ago. Um, one of the things that Rey brought up that was really difficult to bring together was four individual properties that are contiguous to one another. We had a lot of issues putting that together. We were able to combine with um the owners of the property that um is on the southwest corner of Pole Line and Magguire that recently wasn't able to get annexed. And what we decided and worked with staff on is if we could combine four properties at the same time to create right-of-way improvements that weren't hodge podge or jackal jackal lantern teeth that it would show the good faith in what we're trying to do to improve the ride ofway of Maguire all at once. It improves the traffic control or traffic problems of individual parcels getting development developed at different times. Um, it immediately improves the pedestrian traffic. Um, during the PNZ hearing, a young woman that lives just to the north brought that up where she actually drives behind her children while they're riding their bikes down Maguire to get to the elementary school.

Um, in addition, I don't remember if it had it on the spreadsheet or not, but there's power poles that are all up and down Maguire and along pole line that will also need to be moved in order for the ride of way to be improved. So, which is another cost that would be incurred by us as developers, assuming this annexation meets your approval. It's hundreds of thousands of dollars. And along with that, we do improve the landscaping, the look, the aesthetics along that pedestrian trail and also the fencing that would provide some delineation between the subdivision and the railroad tracks. Um, having Yukon move to the north also improves the safety problem. We've been out there a bunch lately and that intersection is really rough to get out of the way currently lined up. Not to mention the improvement of Yukon itself. Um the R2 single family designation. Speaking to the affordability thing, it's a misconception I believe that it's just firsttime home buyers that need this affordability. It's also people that have lived here and retired that are looking to stay here and want to realize that when they've sold their home, they can buy down and realize some equity, provide themselves a bit of a nest egg by selling their current home and buying something smaller while remaining in the area so they can be with their family. Again, this is a county island in my opinion. um the interior island that we try to work inside of. A lot of those properties are only 2 and 1/2 acres. They're smaller. Utilities are not right there. And to develop a smaller piece of property like that and drag utilities and improve the roadways ends up being cost prohibitive. Again, we're local. We're here for the long haul. This is not a oneanddone thing for us and it never has been. It's

really important to us that we provide a legacy that our grandkids, our kids can look at it and say, "Hey, it has my name on that street and I'm proud of it." I appreciate your time and trust that you guys will see that this is a good annexation for the city. Thanks. Thank you, sir. Uh, not wishing to speak in favor of Nicole Jaclyn. I am in support of this annexation. [clears throat] This project is well uh thought out and provides much neededed housing and continue and contributes to the beautifification of the city. I believe this is a positive addition to our community. Wishing to speak in favor uh John Rudenb Rudba.

Good evening Mr. Mayor and council. Thank you for your time. I want to speak in favor of this project. A name for the record. John Rudabah.

I live in Post Falls on Brookie. Um I want to speak in favor for this project for a couple reasons. I have kids that have been through the school district. I'm still in it. Onway College is already talking about wanting to move back and it does help affordability, having more doors. It's um the more you have, the more affordable it is for younger generations or I never thought about what Wade said, even people um fellow co-workers and stuff. they really can't afford to buy a house. It doesn't have to necessarily be your first house, but in general, um, it will help a I think it was, uh, I was at the planning and zoning meeting, which I thought was pretty cool. It's the first time I've got a good look at this project. I think it's really neat. They did come together to kind of help create a large chunk of that corridor. And, uh, yeah. Um, and with this, I'm in the construction industry. It obviously helps jobs, which also helps restaurants and so so forth. So, it definitely is good for the community and and I also think it is impressive that they're willing to do a restriction with seeking an R2 of making it more of a mantra style neighborhood. I want someone to home in there. Very great community and those are nice [clears throat] looking homes and neighborhoods. I think that's about it. Everything else has pretty much been said to you guys a few times. I am in favor. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Not wishing [clears throat] to speak, but in favor is Darden Dakota with an attachment. I'm sorry, Darren. Darren, sorry about that, Darren. My name is Darren Dot. I'm a local resident and pro uh resident property owner here in Pulse Falls and a fourth generation member of the North Idaho community. I'm speaking today in support of this proposed community. I believe this project is important for the long-term health and sustainability of Pulse Falls. Growth is inevitable, but more importantly, it's needed. And right now, our community is facing a serious housing shortage. As a father of four, I worry about whether my kids will be able to afford to live here. I worry about whether they'll be able to find a place to rent, whether it's an apartment or small house, and eventually whether they'll ever have an opportunity to buy a home in the town they grew up in. This project may be just one piece of the solution, but it's a necessary piece. My 19-year-old son is in his third year working in the plumbing trade. Young workers like him and others in our local trades would benefit directly from the jobs, contracting work, and economic activity this community brings. This isn't just about housing. It's about keeping our local workforce employed and rooted here. I believe the city council and our community should approach new development with the mindset of does it meet our standards and does it support postfall citizens? If it does, we should find ways to make it work, not create barriers to responsible growth. It's also important to remember that the developer, not the city of Pulse Falls, is paying for the required improvements. Road work, sidewalks, utilities, and road widening. These are investments that benefit the community without placing the cost on taxpayers. Increasing our housing inventory moves us closer to attainable and affordable housing. This helps our employees hire teachers, nurses, police officers, firefighters, trades people, everyone who keeps this community running. and it helps future generations who want to stay in Pulse Falls rather than being priced out of it. Finally, this project does not take away any property rights from those who oppose it. Their land use

remains their own choice. In closing, I support this community because I believe in it strengthens Postf Falls economically, socially, and for the generations who hope to build our future here. Thank you. [clears throat] Wishing to speak in favor, Jason Knox. Thank you. My name is Jason Knox, Mayor Jacobson. Members of the council, thank you for your time tonight. I wanted to come speak in favor of this annexation because I'm a member of that new generation that is staring down buying a first home and uh I fear I won't be able to afford one to raise a family here. Housing affordability is increasingly out of reach for me and many other young people like me who wish to call Postf Falls home for the long term. There was a fascinating report out of our very own University of Idaho by Professor Steven Peterson, the College of Business and Economics looking at the housing shortage in Coupney County from 2016 to 2023. They found that over those years, lack of affordable housing costin county 3 thou sorry 5,340 jobs in the local economy, 535.6 million in gross regional product, $435.4 million in local payroll, and $28 million loss in total taxes. And those numbers have only grown since then. If you've spent much time around small businesses in Post Falls, you'll know one of the major one of the largest uh restrictions on them recruiting and retaining workforce is lack of affordable housing. They have no place to keep employees and they're losing employees to places like Spokane Valley where wages are more competitive given the the cost of housing.

If we want to keep the small town feel of North Idaho, we need to support our local small businesses. And there's no way to do that if if they can't keep employees. And there's no way for them to keep employees without affordable housing. Uh if we continue to limit the supply of affordable housing, it costs us jobs, hurts small businesses, and raises our cost of living even more. Ensuring projects like this get built is the only way to ensure the economic viability of postfalls into the future. That is why I encourage your approval of this annexation. Thank you. Thanks, sir. In favor wishing to speak, Chris Meyer.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Chris Meyer. I'm a Cordelane resident. I'm here before you tonight to speak in favor of the annexation request. Kind of wearing two hats. I'm here as a community member. I've spent over 40 years of my life living in Coupney County watching our community go through um some pretty interesting changes as we've grown and developed and adapted um to some of the new demand that we're seeing in our community. And in my day job, I work for a commercial real estate development firm. I'm not a home builder, but I work build and manage the buildings that house businesses in our community that provide the services that we all want and need here. Restaurants, retail, healthcare, legal services, insurance. Those folks are my clients. So, [clears throat] on a weekly basis, I'm in conversation with those business leaders talking with them about the challenges mentioned by the previous testimonial. on an individual basis how hard it is to recruit and retain talented employees in this housing market in our community. The rising costs of housing are really impeding job growth. In particular, a lot of our clientele are in the healthcare industry and so it gets as far as having um highly credentialed medical providers not able to relocate here from other markets because of the housing affordability issue. So, we're losing the opportunity to provide benefits to these to our community members. So this is a supply and demand economics problem. The demand is outstripping supply in our community, driving those prices up. Sadly, in many of our perspectives, there's no gate at the border anymore. The demand is coming whether we like it or not. And so after 40 years of watching this, I don't blame people for wanting this piece of paradise that we all live in here. So if we can't address the demand side, how do we address the supply side? As community leaders and visionaries, we have to take a measured and strategic approach to increasing housing supply in our community at a pace and scale that makes sense for our community context. So, this change is happening. We have to turn and face it head-on, cleareyed, which brings us to tonight's applicant. The Meguire Meuire annexation

application, I believe, has a lot of merits um to help solve this issue. It happens one bite at a time, and each one of these opportunities we can't pass up. This aligns nicely with the postfalls comp plan within the area of city impact. So, it does provide an additional um opportunity for housing development on the perimeter of the current community. Helps fill in the gap of county ownership, which we all know how cumbersome that can be to administer. Does have good connectivity on the previously mentioned arterials of Pole Line and Meguire, including the dedication of rightway so that growth pays for growth. By that dedication, it's enhancing the transportation infrastructure in the community. [clears throat] Utilities are available around the site. And to my personal perspective, the medium-density zoning requested by the applicant really makes some sense when you consider the activity on the arterials transitioning down to the periphery of the community, which is surrounded by lesser intense development in the remaining county pockets. More supply is the really the only answer and the pathway out of our region's housing affordability crisis. This is one way we can contribute to that solution here tonight. So would encourage you to vote in favor of the proposal. Thank you. Thank you, sir. In favor and not wishing to speak, Jeremy Boulder. And in favor, wishing to speak, Andrew Rogers. [clears throat] Good evening, Mayor, Council. Uh, again, my name is Andrew Rogers. uh resident of Post Falls here. I actually had a lot more to say until the presentation this evening and some of the written letters were much more eloquent than what I have to say. At this time, I think I'd like to abstain from making too much more comment other than I I really encourage

you guys to consider this this application for annexation and I I think it does really serve the community well. So, please consider that. Thank you sir. Thank you. No, no one wishing to speak who is neutral. Correct. And the information that we received uh council received after the deadline. This letter uh is in regards to the November 12th, 2025 planning zoning meeting regarding the proposed annexation file number an NX254 of the 18.11 acres of land extending from the southwest corner of North Magguire Road at West Yukon Avenue to West Poland Avenue. The meeting gave the citizens the opportunity to be in favor of opposition to the annexation. Eight citizens were in favor, 15 were against the annexation. Of the eight in favor, only six lived in Pulse Falls. The concerns I have are that this particular annexation, actually any annexation of the lands between West Yukon Avenue and Prairie Avenue are that number [clears throat] one, this annexation is not consistent with surrounding properties to the west with no benefit to those existing residents. Number two, developers are in the process of landlocking farmlands from Corbin to Mcquire and Prairie to Yukon Avenue through their request for leapfrog annexation, which is development that occurs in a discontinuous pattern, jumping over over some areas in order to build further out. Number three, developers neglected to inform planning zoning of the second high-pressure natural gas pipeline that runs dead center across all northern Yukon uh all the northern Yukon Avenue parcels from Corbin to Meuire. That pipeline is operated by the Williams Company, Northwest Pipeline Corporation, Salt Lake City, Utah. The Maguire uh meter station is located at 2100 North Corbin Road. Number four, locate loc located locating rural subdivisions and residential properties next to operating

farms creates a variety of problems for farmers. Liability for trespassing children, safety hazards from increased traffic, and people, crop, or livestock losses due to trespassing neighbors and their pets. Currently, the area between Yukon Avenue and West Prairie contains horses, mules, cows, chickens, goats, and sheep. Number five, planning zoning must be in compliance with the county's comprehensive plan, which states it must avoid urban sprawl. Number six, planning zoning stated that Meguire is slated to become five-lane road. This is completely unnecessary. It is also due to be uh disengaged from Highway 53 in the near future. Because of these concerns, I'm requesting that you deny the annexation of said lands now and in the future. Thank you for attention this matter. Sincerely, uh Clyde Blocker, wishing to speak in uh in opposition, Patrick Graham. I'm glad you brought it.

Good evening. I'm Patrick Graham. I live on uh Yukon Avenue. So, uh I'm an opposition of this and the main reason why Well, let me back up here. All I've heard during the planning and zoning and uh tonight is that they're going to build affordable housing. Affordable housing. Nobody has given you a number of what that housing is going to cost to build, but I can tell you that building a house in Coupney County right now is a average $250 to $300 a square foot. So that letting that sink in a minute, a,000 square foot home at $250 a square foot, $250,000. And we haven't even put any property underneath of it. they're willing to give you $700,000 that that they're telling you how much they want this to happen and and uh but who's going to pay for that? The people buying those lots. So, where are we going? It's no longer affordable housing. That's my first thing. Changing the road on Yukon. I've lived over there for over 15 years now. I've never had an issue. you're wanting to change the the approach to move it down so that it's helping the neighborhood. Um it's not necessary. We have all of us that have properties have used that road for there's some of them on that have lived live over there that longer than I have. So, um, you brought up a great point that I was going to bring up about the fact that, uh, CCNR's passing an ordinance so that no corporations can buy the houses. If you

want to do that, then you're going to start driving down prices in Post Falls and in surrounding areas that uh, but it's corporations that are buying all these properties and then renting them out. So, there is no affordable housing. There is lots that you approved uh uh still south of us on Midway that haven't even been developed yet. And um backing up a little bit on that whole project four years ago that that was all approved. Um, last year they had that midway tore up, the road tore up, so the residents that live on the west side of that development couldn't even use the road to get to Meuire. So, uh, it took him over a year to get in utilities. How long is it going to take them on when they shut down Yukon? And I have one way in and one way out. So, that is my all I have at this time. Thank you. Appreciate it. Mr. Harrington, council received uh correspondence that I just read into the record and then the author wishes to speak. They've already testified. Correct.

H push the button. They are here to testify and they already submitted timely. Uh no, it was untimely. That was the one council asked to uh have read into the records which we have done. Sure. But now apparently they're here and wishing to speak. But I would assume that we've already heard the testimony. Yeah. I So generally we do uh brief written testimony in lie of oral testimony. So since the written testimony was read into the record, Miss Block, are you okay with that?

Are you over here? Okay. Thank you. I just want to make sure we we did hear your comments. So, I can't imagine a whole lot's changed from the council just receiving your letter. So, we were going we'll go with your written testimony. Thank you. Wishing to speak in opposition. Uh Tamara Dale. Good evening. Evening.

Um, my name is Tamara Dale and thank you so much for letting me speak this evening. I reside at 2722 West Poline Avenue, which is just a couple properties from this annex that we're talking about. We moved there 25 years ago. We've had horses. We currently have dairy goats and we have chickens. We have a lot of livestock. Um, and I raised all five of my children in the for 4 for program. We moved there for a reason. We wanted property and we wanted animals. Um, this proposal is four times bigger and twice as offensive as the Briner annex that was already denied with even their engineers saying RN R1 made the most sense. I would ask this body, what changed? Why is this even being considered? There is no firehouse on this side of the tracks and this morning the train was parked across Maguire and Corbin as you stated earlier and possibly Pleasant View for who knows how long. Unless you can get all the Meuire frontage on both sides of the road, it doesn't mean anything to traffic flow. Just one hold out and all the development is moot. We need a moratorum on any new development until the intersection of Maguire and Seltis is fixed. Are we going to tear down the church or wipe out the mini storage to get two more lanes to accommodate any further development? The three-lane bottleneck at Saltis is even a bigger problem which may may require require some version of eminent domain. This again contradict the existing plan. This intersection PL and MG is slated as a possible business hub and this would completely negate the that plan. Based on the anticipated traffic flow and other intersections on both Pole Line and Meguire, we need a roundabout. The current proposal will

actually make this intersection more dangerous for pedestrians, not less dangerous because they will have to cross two streets to get to uh connecting sidewalks. Actually, four if they're putting four in. then deal with the new traffic on Pole Line Outlet. In the PNZ report, they point out that the field across the street is not going to annex anytime in the foreseeable future. Safety, safety, safety. And it's we need sidewalks for children. Well, what about the children and grandchildren who like the rural lifestyle, who have livestock, and want a safe place to continue that tradition? If they want this so bad, then they need to pay forward the cost of fully widening the pole line. both sides of Magguire and Yukon also pay the current residents for the inconvenience and damage to their lifestyle. The fact that actual fairness to the neighbors it is basically impossible to do that proves this is a bad idea. Not all lowincome housing turned into ghettos, but all ghettos are habited by low income. We also have a constant stream of people from the local subdivisions walking down our streets enjoying the rural atmosphere with up to 100 new cars per hour that will be no more. The development causes a direct risk to current residents whom most of have livestock on property and use the road for recreation passage of animals. Most people moving into the area are not capable of proper navigation of livestock, especially horses with riders and pose a direct safety with um to the area. Most new residents are not aware that Idaho is an open range state and the driver, not the animal owner, is responsible for any damage to animals or riders. This council has a duty to protect its residents quality of life from overdevelopment and urban sprawl and developer grade. Thank you. And um I am in opposition so I would hope that

you would vote that way. Thank you ma'am. Thank you. Uh wishing to speak in opposition. Gerald Dale. [clears throat]

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council. Appreciate the time to uh talk to you. Um I'm as my wife said 25 year resident of pole line directly in the impact zone of the sanex proposal. I would like most of the people here and I like most of the people here tonight and most of the people in this town moved here for what it was not what the unelected planners and develops developers want it to be. I would like this council to consider multiple public opinion events that have occurred in the last few months that are all trending the same direction with the actual local residents. The election last month for the mayor and city council for postfalls both with both open seats going to the less growthoriented candidates. the fire levy budget override that failed because the people want controlled growth and the developers to pay their whole bill, not just the upfront part and leave the long term for the rest of us. The Briner annex from earlier this year where this council rejected a proposal for one of these same parcels at the R1 level and I quote, not in the best interest of the city. the new area of interest or area of influence process where it looks like the city will have a little bit less influence over non-incorporated lands and then specifically the input gathered for the new comprehensive plan which is in process to replace the existing end of life comp plan things have changed in the last 10 years but especially the public surveys conducted by the SCI alliance at the post office postfall's days and online with all three of those surveys showing this same trend that yes, affordable housing is way up on the list. But proper planning, open space, and quality of life ranked higher by significant margins. When you look at all of these trends together, it appears

to show the consensus of the opinion within the county and the city is that enough is enough with apartments and highdensity development. Profit driven model and some real estate and some real grassroots planning and preservation needs to happen. Code states that zoning must be in compliance with county comp plan which states it must avoid urban sprawl. The staff report contradicts itself for what this should be zoned. They are okay with O R2 but says the adjacent areas are R1 low density. The previous version of this was rejected before and now it comes back in four times the size. How is bigger better? Except for the profit for developers. The [snorts] only thing this annex gets you is more free sidewalk and more non-owner occupied rentals. Nothing is free. Someone has to pay for it. And this time it's the surrounding community. This is unique area and I'm paraphrasing previous things but development of this area is going to be so peacemeal that normal form no formal plan can be made or implemented. Most of these five acre parcels will not be available at any price until the current occupants die over the next 30 years. And then most of them are in trusts, so will be handed down. We long-term residents have nowhere to go. This is a great spot. We don't want to go anywhere else. We can't afford to go anywhere else. We moved here for what this unique area is and was, not for what someone else wants to turn it into. In conclusion, the city of Post Falls needs to reconsider their existing plan and make some larger parcels. Not everyone wants to live in an apartment. Development is not the enemy here. Greed

is and greed, not common sense, is the only reason R2 was proposed instead of R1 or R1S. Those densities would actually match up with this side of the tracks and keep give people and families a chance to have a real garden, a lawn, a few check-ins, maybe even a horse. Sir, your time's up. Can you wrap it up for me, please? There is a demand for single family homes with larger parcel size, a quarter to half acre or R1S. This would keep density at reasonable levels without destroying the rural feel of the area. And no area is better suited to this than this unique area. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Uh is Michael Valentine still here? Uh he wanted to speak but he said he could only stay till 6:30. He is in opposition. As an established North Idaho Pulse Falls resident since 1989, I've appreciated the rural living and safety of safety of quality of life. Been in the real estate business and trucking industry and had the privilege of experiencing the dream in Idaho. This new proposed annex would make Idaho extreme inner city, loss of farms, nature, and potential crime. Uh, wishing to speak in opposition, Michael Gardner. Hello, I'm Michael Gardner. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. [clears throat] Uh, we support growth, but it must be f fiscally sustainable and consistent with the city's own comprehensive plan under R2 zoning. This annexation would add nearly 150 homes compared to about 50 under R1s. That's triple the demand for roads, storm water systems, utilities, and emergency services. The fire levy failure shows residents do not want to subsidize uncontrolled growth. The comprehensive plan calls for avoiding urban sprawl and ensuring zoning transitions are compatible with adjacent uses. R2 conflicts with surrounding R1 and R1S zones and undermines that principle. The proposal prep presents a sweet deal for the city with costs being covered by the developer. The reality is that it's not that simple. An analysis done by Urban 3 found that cities tended to gain short-term tax revenue and infrastructure contributions but

inherited permanent maintenance liabilities that outpaced the revenue. They called it an economic sugar high. A fiscal impact study at Olympia found annexation added millions in net cost over 20 years even with impact fees in developer built infrastructure. Speaking of impact fees, Idaho law does not allow them to cover maintenance operations or ex existing deficiencies. Maintenance costs are forever and they grow faster than tax revenue. R2 zoning accelerates this with higher resurfacing, snow removal, and storm water maintenance costs. The Spokane Valley Rather Prairie aquifer is a sole source aquifer serving over 500,000 people. It's highly permeable and unconfined, which means pollutants from storm water runoff enter quickly and spread widely. Under current conditions, a 1 inch rain produces about 73,000 gallons of runoff. Under R1S, that doubles to 147,000 gallons. Under R2, it triples to nearly 246,000 gallons. The proposal touts the environmental improvement of removing the septic systems that are currently installed. Removing the septic may eliminate 13.8 8 kg of nitrate per year, but R2 storm water adds 37.2 kg of nitrate a year, nearly three times the amount. That's not an improvement. Moreover, R2 introduces 2.8 metric tons of sediment annually. Even R1S adds more nitrate than septic removal, but at 40% less runoff and pollutant load than R2. More imperous services means more oils, fertilizers, and contaminants infiltrating the aquifer. Not just for Post Falls, but for for Spokane Valley and beyond. City [snorts] water service

may reduce pumping demand, but R2 zoning creates a much greater risk of aquafer contamination. R1S minimizes imperous service area, reducing runoff and protecting water quality while still allowing growth. Our recommendation is to approve the annexation only of zoned R1S with minimum quarter acre lots. This balances growth with fiscal responsibility and legal compliance. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Uh wishing to speak in opposition. Uh Tammy Dale. [clears throat] I'm Tammy Dale. I've been a resident of Coupney County for 25 years. I grew up in the 4 program here and have been in this area um contributing to many activities for a very long time. Um the key major problems I see with this proposal are if developed this tract will greatly impact and increase the traffic on Yukon, especially pole line absolutely destroying our ability to use the road and posing huge safety issues for livestock recreation. I've been a triathlete and mountain biker in this area for some time. I ride down those roads all the time. There's many cyclists that ride down those roads all the time because of the rural environment. The surrounding areas currently and historically are rural a and ranch properties and developing these proposed parcels will greatly alter the current way of life for the existing residents. This development will cause property taxes to rise, thereby causing damage to the mostly long-term residents, especially those on fixed incomes. Half of all of the highdensity development on the south side of the tracks is brought by out by bought by out ofstate investors. So, the affordable housing plea is a scam to cover the greed. Quite frankly, if they end up at the same price point as the duplexes south of the track, they're already out of the afford affordable market. I know my employees and myself as a small business owner here in Coupney County already can't afford it. So, it's not affordable. um if they uh really cared, they would take the time to make it so that the uh

um bylaws by whatever HOA or any other um legal remedies or protections would be so that they would have to be uh owner occupied because um as someone who's currently having to rent in Coutin County, I can tell you most of these properties are not owner occupied. Um, if approved, R2 will be just another subdivision that will have so many cars parked on the streets, you won't be able to pass. Um, two cars by each other as you're passing each other. Um, look at what's already happening in Montrose. It's a bigger subdivision and you still can't hardly get passed by there. Um, quite frankly, uh, the, uh, future growth really should in include midlevel. Um, as somebody who knows current residents already living in the county that need to upsize into a larger house as their families grow, it's not there. They're having to leaprog from all of this entry level housing to to to much larger parcels. The the R2 is not mid-level. The R2 is entry level and that's already what they're in. That's not what Kney County needs right now. Um there's already been many people that have gone through the ecolog ecological damages. There's lots of small farmers in this area. We have one of the best local food markets. Um but that requires that there's still farmland here to farm. Um and quite frankly, the goal of any bureaucracy is to expand its scope. um constant suggestion of local planners for R2 developments as proof that they're going from a bureaucratic mindset, not a community mindset. [snorts] Um thank you for your time and your consideration on this matter. I hope that you will use all this

information to um to pause this project and give us time to redo the needs the planning for Coutney County so that it can meet the needs of current residents that want to contribute and continue to contribute to the atmosphere and the way of life that's already here. Thank you.

Wishing to speak in opposition, Jacob Sink. So yeah, I'm Jacob Zinc. Uh, so I live on West Yukon. So right off the bat, you know, that train was there more than an hour today. So can you imagine the disaster? You know, you've got density blocking two intersections. You got to go all the way around all the traffic routing through that causing a traffic jam multiple directions. Maybe there's an emergency, a fire, a medical event, and it's quite frequent. It slows a lot. It doesn't stop a lot, but it's not the first time it's stopped. There's also switching tracks there. So, there's frequent there's times where it'll even back up. So, it's a very poor choice. As for the safety issues brought up, it's a non-issue. I live on West Yukon. There's no safety problem whatsoever in any dimension. There will be a safety problem if this is approved, the annexation big time. Traffic will bring injuries, fatalities, all the dangers uh come with traffic and density. Um I want to say I really appreciate what this council did with the Briner annexation to deny it. I do like what others have said that, you know, we can't stop growth. Growth can be good, but it needs to be done in the right way. Like we're in this huge region, so there's massive demand from all over. There's also means there's tons of places to live and commute into Post Falls. So you're not going to solve housing. You're not large enough. No matter what you do, what you do have the power to do is to make a great place to live. To continue to ensure that Post Falls is a place that people are like, "Wow, this is amazing the way it was developed. Don't let it just be, you know, just another run-of-the-mill place where, you know, stack everything 10 miles high, create a bunch of problems, and it it it problems beget more." Um, you know, I don't blame the sellers. they want to make a living, but you're

the council for a reason. Uh to make the right choices, not necessarily the ones in the interest of a a minority. Um so I won't bring up the briner part again. Um I do appreciate that. So you know, if this is approved, I think it'll be where the tail starts to wag the dog. You'll lose control over growth. the buildup will justify more growth and it'll just continue. And then finally, addressing the affordability. I think I touched on that. Um, you know, demand is national or at least very regionwide. There's lots of people I know in Spokane that'd love to live here. They can't because it's unaffordable. The second the price drops, they're biders. They move in the locals who wanted the affordable housing. It's still unavailable to them. the only way uh is to build uh basically economic progress in terms of jobs and things and to bring the skilled in. But the skilled are not going to want to live in those entry- level homes. They're going to want families and kids. So, you're not going to bring those type of workers in that are going to give you the most productivity, which can truly help you with your housing prices. Um so, others have touched on a lot of the indirect costs. You know, I think this council is wise enough to understand all these things. You know, this city cannot and should not attempt to make housing affordable. What it can do, as I've said, is have the power to make the housing that does exist be the best place to live. Um, you know, I've got four kids in my place. I'm concerned for their safety with the R2 and a lot of, you know, Yeah. and and other quality of life life issues. Obviously, your leadership is why this is such a great place to live. And I can promise you a lot of community members and myself have come together. A wise action here will not go unnoticed. Um, you know, I would love an opportunity to support any and all

campaigns of everyone who makes the right decisions here and I believe that my neighbors all feel the same way. Therefore, I urge you to deny this annexation in favor of better alternatives because there's many alternatives. You can have smart and smooth growth. This is just not one of those options. So, thank you. Thank you. Uh, wishing to speak in opposition, Rick Heinline. [clears throat]

Thank you. My name is Richard Heinline and I live on West Poline and I am here in opposition. So, you're going to hear the broken record tonight about the affordability issue for building these R2 residential homes. And I'm here to stand unequivocally opposed to this. Right. So, uh we can be real here and say that uh building a high density, which I will consider R2 high density and for this given plot, um that it's going to improve the affordability of houses due to supply for the demand. We all know and because I've gone to a uh I've learned supply and demand and read a book on ethics past eth grade that uh this doesn't uh do anything compared to world global markets and inflation. That's all this is going to really dictate. So when people are trying to tell you that a $550,000 single home house that's mere feet away from another one is affordable and reasonable living, we're kidding ourselves when we do such. So this is really for the profits of the investors uh and not for the supply of demand. demand is being generated here or dictated creativ creatively. So, um, [clears throat] and for their other selling points, I'd like to squash a little bit of that is the non-residents that write letters that come in and also stand up here like, uh, Mr. Knox from Raft there. Um, he is not from this town. He does not pay taxes here. So, his testimony or whatever he said should be struck from the record because it doesn't make sense. I'm not going to go to Beverly Hills and tell them that they should build more mansions because the ones they have available aren't affordable enough. I would be laughed out of their court. So the irrelevance of that I do want to make a case for. Um and furthermore with these R2 developments and the loose wording of the planning by the applicant and their engineers is that um the private developers are just looking for profit in in this form. So technically with their loose wording, they can go in and build whatever they want and then fight a legal battle afterwards because I've seen it done. I know how things are done. Um, which leads me to asking the

elected officials here about the establishment, if we do not have one already. I'm not aware of it, uh, a rural agricultural preservation committee for Post Falls. The areas that you're looking to approve here are all agricultural zoned. They talked about the gas lines. We talked about the traffic and the roads, and it's going to be an issue in that way. So in my terms, I feel like this is necessary to one avoid collusion in an ethical matter, which I I will cite the uh the local land use planning act of Idaho, which is the Idaho code 67-6506 to ensure that um developers and PE that are not in collusion with sitting members of of planning and zoning uh may there be such things. So that's an important one here. We need to put pragmatic checks in place that will make this uh legal for us. And um I think that's important. This committee, if we do not have it already, should oversee the preservation of legacy agricultural zoned areas uh and determining the right places to build subdivisions, which were already spoken about. Um the proposal that was shown here during a planning and zoning meeting when they put it up on the board, the whole entire room audibly gasped at that. Right. So, we should also take in account the local aesthetic of Post Falls, Idaho. The allure to Idaho coming in here. The highdensity town homes that were built on Midway and Maguire uh are horrendous looking. It's near criminal about how those rectangles just stick up out of the earth. So, we're trying to prevent that in our nice country area. So, um on top of that, fees for developers need to be increased so that we are not hit with uh decreased home values and increased taxes. Right? So, we talked about the the roads as much as we possibly can, but you get fire, emergency services, emergency service going to get past that train that was stuck there for an hour. That's to be determined, but um I just want to uh make sure that people know that even law enforcement, the deficiencies here are are grand. Being a former sworn police officer in the state of New York, I can see the deficiencies

there. So, we want to make sure that our taxes are not going to increase. and we look forward to doing something more like R1S that is a reasonable growth and not an irresponsible boom of growth. Thank you all sir. Appreciate you very much. Uh wishing to speak in opposition Ashley Tilton. Evening, Mr. Mayor and city council members. My name is Ashley Tilton and I live on Poline. I'm here tonight to strongly oppose the approval of Magguire Annex. This project continues to be advertised as affordable housing, but that claim doesn't reflect reality. These homes are tightly packed zero lot line structures with no backyards designed to maximize profit, not affordability. Throughout all the discussions, the term affordable housing keeps being repeated. But affordable to who? affordable to someone moving here after selling a million-dollar home in California because the local families who were encouraged to speak here tonight, including the young man from Raft, would not be able to afford any of these homes. A new single family home in Post Falls right now typically ranges from $700,000 to a million depending on the builder, the lot size, and the interest rates. That's not affordable housing for the average worker, teacher, police officer, nurse, or young family trying to live in this area. I'm a military retiree, and I couldn't afford that home. So, calling this project affordable housing is misleading, and repeating the phrase does not make it true. Second, the argument that this project will make the area safer because contractors will widen roads and add a sidewalk is simply inaccurate. The sidewalk they keep advertising won't even connect to existing sidewalk

systems. So having to cross back and forth over this five-lane road that they're going to build so that you can connect to random sidewalks along Meuire doesn't make it safe. If you want a sidewalk to be safe, then just build a sidewalk. You don't have to put in housing units to make a sidewalk. And widening roads means all the residents along pole line going from two lanes to three lanes are going to lose part of their property. This hasn't been discussed. It wasn't in the plan. When are we going to talk about this? Because I'm one of those residents that could potentially lose part of my property to widening this road. Under PFMC 18.20.100, 20.100 zoning and annexation decisions must be consistent with the comprehensive plan and must not create an evident adverse impact on public services. This proposal fails both points. Traffic emergency response times, road safety, storm weather capacity and rural livability will all worsen, not improve. Our roads and emergency services were never designed to absorb a sudden surge of tightly packed homes. and approving this project would overwhelm these systems far beyond their intended capacity. I also want to address the motivation behind this project because it matters. The developers and project managers are from this area and while I respect that, it's disappointing that they do not live near the impacts of this build. Being local should mean caring about protecting our community, not squeezing in high density, profit-driven developments in the area where intentionally set up as small farm plots and transitional country land. We moved here for space, agricultural use for peace and rural character that is disappearing one at a time. And finally, I have serious concerns about ethics and public trust. A board member

involved in this project, even though they recuse themselves from the vote is still unacceptable. When decision makers also profit from the outcome, it undermines confidence in the entire process. This plan does not make postfalls more affordable, no matter how many times it is repeated. It does not make it safer. It is not supported by its current residents. It only benefits the developers. Don't let developers distract you with the dollar signs claiming this project will spare the city expenses. Their profits come first. Our community will pay the real price. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Uh not wishing to speak in opposition is [clears throat] Jenny Beck. My family moved here almost 17 years ago to start our lives over after we lost everything in the 2008 economic crash. We chose Post Falls because it was slower pl slower pace rural with open fields and fresh air. We loved to see open fields with horses and cows on our way to school or the grocery store. We were drawn to the safety that is that this area provided and the simple lifestyle we could have here. We raised our children here. We built our lives here. Now it feels like this town is being sold off one development at a time. That is not responsible growth. This is an increase in density without infrastructure. planning without accountability and expansion without respect for the people already living here. Our school system is overburdened and strained without proper resources. Our roads are unsafe. Emergency services are stretched thin. Routine services haven't been efficient in quite some time. My commute this morning on unplowed roads is just one example. To make it worse, many of us uh most affected by this decision cannot even vote in your elections. We had to say uh we had no say in the mayoral election or the city council seat. Yet here you are making decisions that will impact our quality of life. Count county residents like us will carry the burden of the impact while developers walk away with a profit. Another piece of what makes Post Falls a wonderful place to live and raise a family will be gone. It is imperative that city council deny this annexation is proposed. If development must proceed, it must be consistent with surrounding R1 and R1s parcels, not the R2 density being proposed. And it must include real infrastructure improvement plans, not empty promises. Stop drilling first and planning later. or it doesn't work. Our community is not a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder. Our quality of life shouldn't be for sale. I understand growth is inevitable, but there is no reason that common sense cannot be applied keeping the growth consistent with the surrounding parcels. [clears throat]

Not wishing to speak in opposition. This one's a little bit hard for me to read. uh true Hibbert Story Smith Trust. I was surprised by those of you who said you'd wanted younger younger family members to be to return and live on Wrath and Prairie. Well, prairie itself means open area, farmland, meadows, all of which you would ruin. No more views, uh no more animals, uh kids to grow up with. They can they can move to uh Santium Street building new houses there. Don't argue for your children and grandchildren to be able to return to live on the prairie when you are getting rid of it. We we moved here to be on the prairie. Let us be. You are requiring you are going to start ruining that for us too. What you propose opens the door for the end of the prairie. Remember you cannot change it back ever. Think about it. Not wishing to speak in [clears throat] oppos in opposition. Alan Horning uh one against our two current area is extremely busy with unable to handle additional traffic. Why are you planning to make Meguire five lanes when access to highway 53 will be closed in 2026 permanently? The they this should be shifted to Pleasant View. Most of us moved here for the rural lifest life. This move is bad bad for the for that lifestyle. The three lanes proposed on Pole line west of Maguire will cause problems going east of Meuire through the school zone. It does not appear the infrastructure is in place to support additional property as we have lost our lost some lost our power multiple times

in the last three months. Water pressure is also dat dramatically uh reduced. Not wishing to speak in opposition. Don Lidle, did I pronounce that right? Uh these lots have been uh past year oh have been u something once before and were denied. statement was made earlier this year that the city would not expand its holdings just for the purpose of of development. It appears to be to me that the city administration thinks there is an uh unbburdened amount of unlimited amount of water in the aquifer. For personal reason, I picked my property because it was in the county uh rather than the city. uh not wishing to speak in in opposition. Rosanna Bracken, I am concerned about the safety of my neighborhood with highdensity housing and related traffic. I also worry about my property value with the reasonzoning and the increased traffic and road enlargements. Not wishing to speak in opposition, Micah Joseph Breen. I believe this mass housing in this area is unnecessary as there are other areas zone for this purpose. I also believe the proposed road expansion in that area is unnecessary use is an unnecessary use of money as well as cause problems with property owners overall quality and overall quality of the area. not wishing to speak uh in opposition. Uh Mark and Kevin Kassen, our concern is that homes costing 300,000 and more is not affordable housing, which means that the lowerpriced homes

that some may get financing for will most likely need to rent a room, which means more cars and traffic. The cars accumulated to the little neighborhood uh just built off Meuire and Midway have a ridiculous amount of cars on the roadway causing more traffic in the area. Yukon is not built for a large traffic load and pole line will be inundated with traffic as well. Uh we saw the map when we saw the map of the proposed neighborhood it was heartbreaking. This should only be an R1S for a rural community. We are already being inundated with more housing development on the northwest corner of Midway and Maguire. We strongly oppose we we strongly oppose to this unsafe and proposal. Not wishing to speak in opposition, Adriel Bracken. I am very concerned with increase of highdensity apartments in the area along with concerns of infrastructure. I live on the corner of Rosland and Maguire and am deeply afraid for the safety and value of my home with proposed widening of roads and increased traffic. I bought this house this home 12 years ago. Uh no, we lived on I bought this home 12 years ago. No, we lived on edge of county and couldn't believe this growth would be allowed. not wishing to speak in opposition. Dan Beal and Kathy Beal. My son-in-law is Dan Beal, but I'm sure you're not him. So, uh, keep zoning R1. Poor planning. Uh, interaction of Highway 53 and Meguire closing. Uh, no need to widen Meuire on the pole line. Area is an open range. Area is an open range. Traffic should be

shifted to Pleasant View. Stop the urban sprawl. keep rural lifestyle loss of water pressure and power outages several times in the last three months. Plet Cooper not wishing to speak in opposition. Traffic's already getting bad. Don't want road widen and don't want my trees damaged. I like my privacy and quiet. Not wishing to speak in opposition. Uh Rebecca Ronald, this area is not good place to have highdensity zoning. This area has been and still is small farms and ranches with many animals in most places having some acorage. We are tired of this area being drastically changed from how it has been previously. More dangerous. More people have already found needles around train tracks. This was not something seen before. Tired vanexations being for developers, not for actual people that live here. What about gas line in this area? Not wishing to speak in opposition. Floyd Mossberg, have you driven in Pulse Falls lately? Cars, cars, and more cars. We live here for the rural lifestyle. It's been pushed out. No more development, please. Not wishing to speak in opposition, Hannah Gardner. Today, this area generates about 34 trips per day. Under R1s, that rises to 475 trips. Under R2, it will skyrocket to,425 trips, 37 times the current condition and three times R1S. Adjoining streets lack sidewalks and the Maguire Seltis intersection is already failing. Adding this level of traffic before infrastructure improvement is unsafe and irresponsible. Until this these infrastructure issues are resolved, higher density zoning isn't just bad planning. It is dangerous. Not wishing to speak in opposition, John Glinsky. Did I get that right? I I do not understand. Four lanes north of the tracks on Meguire. Who is going to pay for the railroad crossing to be

expanded to four lanes? 53 is closing. Traffic will divert to Pleasant View and Prairie. R2 does not make sense for this area. Cheryl Mossbury not wishing to speak in opposition. Is Stone Church to be torn down? Exactly how many residents on 18 acres and not wishing to speak and in opposition. Uh Joe Gillan. Yes, I am opposed as I am a resident out there on Poland Avenue. almost seems like a movie. The big money comes into town and the common sense goes out the window. Large country charm lots get bought up and cookie cutter look alike small lot homes are put in. We need to put the brakes on and preserve what little charm this town has left. That's all the folks who have submitted uh information or wish to testify. Now it's time for rebuttal by the applicant. Evening again, mayor and council. Uh Ray Kimble, for the record. I get it. Change is hard. Um I'm a lifelong resident of the city of Post Falls. I spent five years down in Moscow kind of just during the school year um to get my degree and I'm boomerang right back here. Um, as a kid I made 10 cents a pipe moving irrigation pipes out on the prairie. Um, Montrose uh was this Sears Field uh and the 108 and the Kelly field and the midfield and Wirefield. Those are all those are all owned by the Schneide Millers. I moved pipes on the Johnson ground. I did a lot of things. I moved pipes where my house is now. Um over the 25 years I've been doing this job, um I've been involved in the development

of probably five, six, 7,000 different lots um in this area, Courtlane, Hayden, Raft, Post Falls. And change is tough. Growth has happened and is happening. It has been happening since the 70s or before. This area has been in a constant state of growth. Responsible growth is important. There are utilities. So, we tried to grow on the edges and the outskirts, not taking huge swats of land necessarily. We want to concentrate growth where the utilities are available where so there's sewer right across the street. It's of adequate capacity and and depth. Water's in the street. Um it's of adequate capacity uh and size. I think it's a 16inch main in in Maguire. Uh which may not mean anything to you, but it's huge for water size. Um, in the last 25 years I've been doing this job, and of those 5, six, 7,000 lots, I don't think I've ever had a single project where it was bought up by an outofstate Black Rockck type developer creating all rentals. It's never happened. Not a not even a 20 ladder, not a 10 lot, not not a 50 lot. Just doesn't happen. Um if there are rentals are typically bought up by a resident who has wants to um someone local who wants investment income um for their future. Um, the vast majority, and I mean vast majority, of the properties that I've helped develop

go to owner occupied, single family, home buyers, families, people like me, people like most of you, people like a lot of the people in this room. Um, with regards to the railroad, um, so that existing crossing right there right now is four lanes. So, it's a four-lane crossing. It's got the guardrails up. Um, and it's it's got the bus lane, right? So, with a five lane road section, the five lane road section is two lanes each direction, a center turn lane. And at railroad crossings, we don't need a center turn lane. So, it's pretty easy that we can do a a road diet, if you will, at that location. slide everything into the middle, go four lanes, still have room for the pedestrian crossings with the existing uh tracking in that bit in that area. Um, and give us the flexibility at low cost, you know, give a little bit of creative design, we can make that happen um as a community with minimal costs to the taxpayer. Um when it comes down to so I think was it two three years ago that we got that the uh emergency services did their implemented their um impact fees. Most people I know that own houses in Post Falls never paid an impact fee for emergency services. [clears throat] Every single home in Post Falls that's built from here on out pays an impact fee. That's an important thing to remember. Um it does affect affordability. Um but it also offsets the impact on our emergency services with regards to that train track being there and train stopping every once in a while or trains passing through. Um whether this is annexed into the city or not, that doesn't change that fact. Um it doesn't

change really anything. Um emergency services have been dealing with that since emergency services have been here. Um and they will continue in the future to deal with that and that and as evidenced by none of their comments uh as in zero comments with regards to concerns uh they have no concern with it. Um got a lot of notes with regards to the bottleneck at Meuire and Saltis. Um, I think this project is probably a really good example of why um why it's important to annex properties um that that mini storage is in the county and it was zoned commercial in the county. It didn't annex into the city of Postfall City. Didn't get any rightway as part of that. And that's in a lot of ways that's kind of the penalty for not annexing on important corridors at important intersections. Um, Polline's one of those P line and and Magguire is one of those intersections. So, not only does the city get the the right of way and the improvements built, but every single house in that subdivision will also pay the follow on subdivisions will also pay impact fees. So, it's that plus. So, they're more than mitigating their impact. Um, and the benefit to the city is huge. Um, when it comes to affordability, we've got very, very few levers that we can pull as a city, as a community, when it comes to supply and demand. [clears throat] And one of the things we can do when on the development side is we can get a little creative and try to come up with something products like the R2 detached single family that we've requesting

um that offers just a slightly different product line that's not already out there. So they're smaller lots um and with those smaller lots are typically smaller homes. pushes us into the entry level uh market. Um, I wish it was cheaper. I wish the costs were cheaper. I wish construction costs were cheaper. I wish land costs were cheaper. I wish fees were cheaper. I wish a lot of those things were cheaper to keep affordability down. Um, there is a floor. Um, and we're doing everything we can to ensure that we we are providing options for affordability. Now, not all my clients do that. I have lots of clients who uh do the upper end stuff and the large lots and county development, whatnot. Um, but the reality is is that this is one of those places where we're talking about responsible growth in an area that is next to utilities, next to the, you know, adjoining the city of Post Falls right across the street. It's it's not a hodgepodge development. It's different than what came before because with great um my my clients with a lot of expense and a lot of difficulty got four 5 acre parcels cobbled together um to come and present some

great times. Could you wrap it up for us please? And that's completes. Thanks sir. Rebuttal. Thank you.

Questions Mr. Kimble before we go to deliberation? That'll close the public hearing. First question up before we have further discussion is, is the annexation of this property in the best interest of the city? I'll jump in first. Um, this is this is always a difficult one doing uh doing big chunks like this. I think we've heard very good public comment on on both sides of this. I was impressed, I think, by the level um of insight that a lot of people put into this. So, thank you everyone for for showing up and expressing that. I think that's really important and it's u it's a difficult decision to weigh when we have longtime residents who are on both sides of the issue. And we're in a position where regardless of what we decide, we're going to have a lot of people who are angry at us, but that's kind of what we signed up for. U and and so we have to kind of weigh things, you know, the best that we can. Uh there are some strategic reasons why doing an annexation here might make really good sense for us. Um, the right of way is obviously one that there are intersections that do need to be improved in our long-term plans. And if we don't annex and get the right of way in a time like this, then we probably end up having to later raise taxes and then use that to purchase right ofway from the developers uh who own the properties. And and so it's it's a cost um in some ways that we have to bear. And planning for that adequately can make it cheaper by by doing things. Now, there's also the pedestrian trails that have been mentioned. There's something that that maybe a lot of people don't know is there's a uh public works operations center that we're building upon Harrave to the north. And as part of that, we've committed to getting infrastructure out there at some time in the future because we're the city spent money. We bought that lot. We're building the facility there and and at some point we're going to need water and sewer there or to get sewer there. Um, there's also a public school site to the north on the prairie that at

some point they're going to need to build that to expand capacity for our schools. And again, they're going to need to get infrastructure up there. And you can't do anything like that unless there's sewer. And so using projects like this that help leapfrog utilities out there gives us some benefits in the strategic long-term plans, which we have to weigh in addition to all of the the comments that come in. Uh, I think moving the intersection away from the railway is is a is a good thing because there's only going to be more traffic in the future regardless of what we do tonight and having safe intersections is a really big deal. Having the um the pole line intersection on on Meguire probably does need some improvements. We can't do anything about it until we get all four corners of that in city limits and we have the right of way to actually be able to legally go in and improve the intersection. Um, and so we've got to, you know, weigh all this stuff and then also think about what are we doing with uh with the housing supply. I know there's a whole generation of Americans who feel like they have no opportunity for home ownership and that's really difficult when I see friends of mine who are having to leave the area who grew up here and they don't see any future for themselves on the ladder of American home ownership. And if you don't have some way to buy an entry-level home, you're not going to have a good long-term economic prospect as inflation continues. if you don't get on the ladder somewhere. We just did a uh housing needs assessment. And the big takeaway from that was we have almost no inventory for starter homes. That there's a lot of higher value homes. The median home price in the county is $550,000. Interest rates are absurdly high. And for young Americans, they feel like they have no opportunity here. And that's not a good place to be in. Uh, I like that this was using single family detached as a restriction. I think that's good. This is not apartments. It's overwhelmingly nobody wants more apartments and our our we all agree with that, I think. And our uh in needs assessment said that we have too many apartments. So, okay, we have too

many apartments. Um, but we don't want to stop building housing for for young families or for retirees at the same time. And so, we've got to balance that and say if we're doing no apartments, let's do ownable starter homes. And I think that's what this is. And so I think this is um it's also a benefit that we're doing multiple parcels at once. I know it looks like a lot at once, but when you do it in a big chunk, it's still going to be developed over a long period of time, but this allows us to plan for the utilities and the roads when we do the subdivision later so that we can get them in the right spots. And I think that's important rather than doing the hodge podge development where things go in places where they don't make sense, we can actually lay this out in a way that does make sense. If this were anything different, if this were doing multif family, if this were doing apartments, I would be saying no. But based on the balance of all the things that I see and the the factors that I consider, I think uh I'm going to be a yes on this one.

You let you go [snorts] next?

I will. Uh Councilman Wesland summed it up, but the reality is yes. Uh is annexation is in the best interest of the city based on land use map comprehensive plan, which we always talk about uh transitional uh suitable for growth. as far as the West Prairie focus group, medium density land use, mixed residential, and again the uh single family detached [cough] uh is the right fit. When we do these and we have public comment and and and folks come up, we're looking for facts because that's what we have to base ours. We don't go by emotion. We certainly don't go by uh the developers whether they're instate, out of state, in town, out of town, whether they're from Postf Falls or Rather. It's not what we go by. We go by facts. We go by the data that's been presented to us. So that's what we look for. I've had cases in planning and zoning where folks have come up and said, "Hey, you might want to be aware of this that you're trying to annex in because there used to be an old landfill there. There's two tractors and a bunch of stuff buried. Great. Good information to have. we need to look at this a little bit further. I do struggle a little bit when I hear terms like collusion, ethics violation, ghetto, things like that that are thrown out that it's just not applicable. So, I go back again to the facts and the facts are is that I do believe that this annex uh is in the best interest of the city. I do feel it's the right fit and uh I support it.

Yes. Yeah, I uh first of all just want to say thank you to all of you who are participating in this process. It's it's very encouraging to have a room full. Uh so we get a lot of different voices and perspectives. Um if you'll indulge me for a moment, I'll get a little nostalgic about my history of of living here in Post Falls. I am a Post Falls native. Uh born and raised here. You know, when I was a kid, uh we can name all the annexation and development that has happened around. You know, Montro wasn't there. That was a sledding hill. Uh, the Meadows wasn't there. Fieldstone wasn't there. Um, Harmony Place wasn't there. Uh, Singing Hills wasn't there. We used to ride snowmobiles across that that field out there. Um, Idaho Street was a dirt road north of Pole Line when I was a kid because there was nothing out there. And so, I get it. I I feel that from all of you when you see the town and the place that you grew up in um or have lived for a long period of time kind of erode away right before your eyes because I I can definitely relate to all of that. Um however, the town that I lived in when I was a kid being about 7,000 people, as difficult as it is to admit, doesn't exist anymore. It doesn't. Um, and so we are faced with an issue of I completely understand why people want to live here and why North Idaho is the hot spot for for in uh growth of of people coming here from other states and other places because that's why we all live here. It's a beautiful place to live and the small town feel that that I grew up with is something that I hope to preserve in some way as we try to manage the growth that that is inevitably coming our way and that what we've witnessed in explosive fashion in the last six or seven years. Um so taking that all into consideration and looking into an annexation like this, I would have to disagree with Ryan and in my case it it

is a little bit of an emotional attachment. I'll I'll admit it to you. It's difficult to separate our emotions for from what's happening right in front of our eyes to what the law says, what is fair to everyone and what is the right course of action. Um, you know, I I raised my kids here. Uh, and you know, one of the things that is paramount in my mind is as in everyone's, the affordability of housing here is an issue. And as as both of our other councilmen mentioned, you know, we know and we we've heard the message from our citizenry loud and clear that we don't want any more apartments built. Um, and I can I can proudly say that since I've been on on council, um, we really haven't approved that many highdensity housing uh, projects since then. Um, many of the ones that you see continuing to build were approved before then. So, um, we we have heard you loud and clear about what you want in your community and how you want it shaped. Having said that though, then if we don't have an option for people to live in in a in a rental type of of housing product, what do we do? Uh, we can't have both at the same time. We can't have affordability and low market supply. So, there is there is a rub there. How do we how do we [clears throat] deal with that? And I think in looking at these annexations, I think if any of you listened to the previous city council uh meetings in the last year or so, you've probably heard me say this uh more than a dozen times. I don't I don't believe in annexing anything into the city just for the sake of annexing and growing the footprint of the city of Post Falls. And so, you know, this is another one of those that that comes up in this discussion because this exact piece of property that we're we're referencing included that 5 acre annexation request that I myself voted against. So, um, you know, I'm definitely hearing your your concerns about growing and specifically out in

this part of the part of the town that that seems to be the most resistant to this point to um higher density housing than what we're used to in in five acre county type parcels. Um, a couple questions I have before I I kind of give you my decision on this particular annexation. Um, I think they're valid questions that are brought up in a lot of these points. So, if I could ask, we're talking about an affordable price point, and I know it's really hard to kind of spitball this without putting a lot of numbers to it, but do we have a ballpark figure of what these homes would go to the market for in today's market conditions? Mr. Terry, can we hear

the public hearing is is closed. Um and so any type of any of that information would require reopening the public hearing um and going through um but we can discuss it. Correct. Absolutely. Okay.

Yeah, that's a number that I would like to know. Um and then the other part someone mentioned there, you know, the number of parcels in this in this particular plot of land. Um, by my math, it's it's we're talking about five units per acre and it's a little over 18 acre piece, which means that much of that will be taken up by roads. So, it's not even, you know, 5 time 20 would be 100. So, be it probably be around a 75 unit type of type of uh development. And, you know, I think it's important to to use accurate numbers and um, you know, to really discuss what we're talking about. And the other one, and I don't mean to be stepping on anybody's toes or um being offensive about this statement, a lot of what gets discussed when you talk about annexation in development is the greed of soand so, the greed of the property owner, the greed of the developer that comes in and sweeps in and they don't care about anything that happens to this property except for what lines their pockets. And first of all, I would challenge anyone in this room who has ownership of their property in the city to turn down any kind of fair and market value offer on your land if it comes to a point where you can't take care of it anymore because you're getting older. uh many of the farms that we see around the prairie that surrounds us. I mean historic families that have lived here for many years, the Schneiderm Millers, the Jaclyn, the Meyers, the McCleans, you know, that have generational farms and raise cattle on our prairie. Um many of them are now the ones who are selling pieces of that land off for development. So why is that? A lot of it is because the next generation along the line doesn't want to farm because there is no money in farming on the raft prairie anymore. The soil I don't know if you can call it soil on the rather prairie. It's more like sifted rocks. Um you know and I I remember as a kid when we would

we would go to football practice and the smoke from burning grass fields on the prairie this was before we had any particulate count or anything like that. You know our coach would just yell at us more to run harder. Um, but as soon as the as soon as the grass burning went away, I remember my dad saying, "That's the that's the end of agriculture in in Raft Prairie because it made it not profitable to raise anything on that land anymore." So, as a large tracked land owner whose kids don't want to farm and can't farm because it's not profitable anymore, what do you do with your land?

You subdivide and you sell it. The family heritage that you created when you when you were building that uh [clears throat] small empire um continues down your family line. And I think everyone in this room would agree that that's probably the most reasonable thing that you could do with that land. It's not a greed thing. It's preservation of your family and the work that you put into that land. Um and I I'll kind of close the point by saying this. I think a more greedy thing to do is to put yourself in a position where you have control and authority to make decisions over other people's land. Private property rights are a very strong attraction to the state of Idaho. Uh these people that have sold this land to developers have every right to do that. It's not because of greed. It's not because they don't care about their neighbors. they're just at a point where something needs to change in their family and they they are making the right decision for their family and I think we can all respect that. that coming to the end of it. Um I do [clears throat] think this is a this is a proper use of the annexation um for this particular spot. And I think the biggest uh positive about this what [clears throat] we've talked about it is in in accordance to the city's transportation master plan in obtaining those rights of way. um safety and and traffic flow is very important and I know many of you in the room and some of the negative or the opposition comments would disagree with that but that's why we have a master plan is that we look we try to look into the future 10 years and make a decision on what is going to be best for the city. If you look at the geographical location of Maguire Road north and south it is pretty uh strategically placed for a north south arterial and it really makes sense to

have it um developed as such. So, I would be in favor of this annexation. We're just going to go down the line. Thank you.

And I don't get to vote and it really doesn't matter because I'm almost done up here. So, I'm not going to tell you my opinion of whether it should or should not be annexed, but I want to give you a little bit more additional information or insight. Uh, Councilman Ziggler stated that [clears throat] he used to sled down the Sears Hill, the Sears farm. I bought part of that when I bought that home in 2000. Our house was built in 1900. Okay. I've been here in six weeks. I will have lived in Postfall or in uh North Idaho for 70 years. I've lived in Post Falls for 45 years. We bought our house built in 1900. It was on the old Sears Ranch. Used to be one of the largest dairy farms in Idaho. When we bought our home, it was our neighbors to the west was a barn and two silos. That's all the neighborhood we had. Now, Montrose is there. And yes, I would love to have I'm surrounded by trees, so I've got privacy, but I would love to have that open space over there. But you know what? I don't own that property. I didn't own that property. I had an opportunity to buy a piece of it, and I didn't. I cannot control what goes on over there. I can control what I do with my property. And one thing I do want to address, and we hear it, I've done this as an elected for 27 years. And I would also like to echo the comments. Thank you all for showing up. This is one of the larger crowds we've had, and I I do appreciate you taking the time. But I have heard for 27 years when growth occurs that our property values are going to go down. I've never seen it, folks. I've never seen it. And again, I look at what we paid for our property. I look at what the value of it is right now. I will

assure you the development of Montro, which started in I think it was approved in 1998 or 2000, and they're still uh phasing it out, has not caused my property value to go down. So again, I'm not going to tell you whether I think it should be annexed or not, but I want you to understand that when we sit up here, and I'm going to talk just about my position. I've been here forever. And people say, "We moved here because of the opportunity to buy this piece of property and to live this lifestyle we like." And I I respect the heck out of that. But by the same token, since we're here, do we have the right to prevent anybody else from moving here for to what they see as a type of lifestyle that they like to see? So again, I I won't say yay or nay on the annexation, but I want to let you know from a longtime I do see both sides of it, but part of it too is I don't own the property. Uh and I didn't own the property that is now my neighbors. I couldn't control it. So, uh, with that, I will shut up and go to you, sir.

Well, I'm super impressed with everyone's eloquent statements. Um, and I'm wholly sympathetic to the people that came out tonight, and I appreciate your voices. Um, and I've got this is uh been a tough one for me. Um, and yeah, I mean, you know, we can we can pretend that emotion doesn't count in anything, but it does. It matters. And [snorts] um so I've got lists here of why I am against it and why I'm for it. And at the end of the day, in the interest of the of the majority of the people of Post Falls, um I have to be in favor of this. I can't forgo um tying the continuity of the city together, the extension of of services and uh utilities and things like that up Maguire. uh Magguire developing more into the arterial road that we've designated it to be. Um and uh yeah, we're not going to get this opportunity again if we turn it down. So, it's going to be all on the city in the future if we want to do anything with continuity. So, it's now or never.

Cater.

Oh dear. I don't ever go last. I always go first. This is different for me. I'm always I know I'm always the first one to say something. So, um Okay. Well, turkeys, we're really just talking about the annexation right now. Um, and the question of whether the city desires it, whether I feel that this piece of property would be beneficial to be annexed into the city. We've talked about rights of way. We've talked about um electricity lines and poles. We've talked about connectivity. I also have a list of things and I probably won't be half as eloquent as everyone else. Um, so when I've when I'm thinking about this again, is it beneficial? So, you know, set that aside and speak to what was spoken to really fast, which of course, thank you all for coming out. I like enjoy speaking with all of our residents and the people that want to do stuff in Post Falls. I like to hear what you have to say and help represent that and um make sure that you have all of the information that you need to live in the city as best I can. I I do strongly believe that the land owners, whether it be one or 20, have the right to come and ask for annexation, and they have the right to ask for honestly whatever zoning they want. They'll be counseledled by city staff about whether it meets the comp plan and about whether they think that it's something that council has an appetite for, but they h I mean, they have the right to ask for it. Um, and if it if it goes through, they have the right to develop it. And I I believe that very strongly. Um I I like that they're local developers. I think that the heart of the project is in the right place. I think that the developers honestly want to do a good job. I I don't think that my reasoning for any of that is in question to those things. Um before we move on to talk about other things, I would like to address a couple of comments that came up and up that came

over again and again, which is this idea of supply and demand. Uh we've been building houses for I don't know seven years, eight years with just increasing pace. Um and it hasn't seemed to decrease the price at all. So I mean I'm not an economics major, but it seems to me that perhaps it's slightly more complicated than simple supply and demand. So I sort of reject that as reason to build anything in the city of Post Falls. Um the idea that we have levers to pull. I also disagree with the assertion that the government should be pulling levers um to make really anything happen. Uh that should not be our role um and what we should be like trying to do. The idea that growth pays for itself. Joe isn't here to bang on about this. This is his favorite thing. Uh growth doesn't pay for itself. As we know, growth pays for the upfront costs. growth does not pay for the maintenance of any of the proposed developments, this one or any of the other ones that we've seen. Um, affordable housing hasn't been defined. We don't know what it is. Uh, there are some other projects in Post Falls that are working through private public partnerships to really address affordable housing, but just building smaller houses on smaller lots does not guarantee uh that they will be affordable. So, again, I I don't appreciate that as um reason to approve this annexation. Um, we already approved two very large pieces of R2. I I say we as I'm one of six, but if memory serves, I voted no on I think at least two of the three. Um, one off of Spokane that is a true infill. Um, and then one just south of this one. So, when we talk about is it to the benefit of the city and do we desire it? Well, I don't really know because we have a bunch of R2 that hasn't been built out yet. So perhaps it would be reasonable for us to

finish doing that and then we can talk about this. Um I appreciate that it's difficult to get four contiguous pieces of property. Um if we're going to do it, that seems like the most reasonable way to do it. I don't know that that's enough reason to just do it right now. The idea that this is a county island. Am I allowed to have a map up while I say this or no? Could I have We could bring staff could bring up the map. I owe you all a lot of cookies. Thank you so much. I'd love to see a picture that shows this as a county island. Are you talking about the There's a photo from Ray's presentation. Either one. I think you probably have one.

Let's see. Oh, that one. I think there it is. Okay. Um, so we say county island like wh one moment.

Thanks. Like that big old piece of property on the left hand side to the west is developed city and it's quite frankly just not. We annexed it all in for what I think is a very specific purpose that you're welcome to delve into and look at, but it doesn't truly make this a peninsula or an island. And so again, I reject that assertion that that would make this beneficial to the city. We have a central island and we have another a number of other pieces of property within the city that do need development. And while it be easy or hard, I guess maybe that's the challenge that I would put to local developers. I'm sorry that it's not easy to develop those pieces of property, but that's where the most benefit to the city presently, those who live here would be. So, I I just I don't think that this is um that this is a county island, which I think is goal one, five, or seven that we talk about all of the time. Um this isn't going to solve housing. Even if building more housing solved affordable housing, building these wasn't going to solve it. Uh I think that that is most of what I have to say about this. We I mean, the fire levy failed. The school asked for a levy. Oh, that's demonstrable. I'll say that at the next at that point. Sorry. Um, so I am not in favor of this annexation as I do not feel that it would [clears throat] currently I'm gonna I have two more sentences and I'm so sorry. Um, currently beneficial to the city. I will say I don't know that it won't be at some point but I don't think that the presentation as such makes it um beneficial enough to annex to the city right now.

Okay. Yeah, I'm good. So we got four to one, correct? Yeah. Next. I pro I'd probably still call for a vote. Just uh roll call, please. Shannon, uh need a motion. We need a motion. We need a motion for that or just Yes. Okay. I move to approve just [clears throat] require annexation anx25-4 and have staff prepare a final ordinance for annexation. Second motion second. Further discussion. Roll call, please. Weslin. I Stigler. No. Ziggler. I Davis I PL I

motion passes. Now we go to the [cough] next item on the agenda and I'm going to turn that over to you Mr. Harrington. Our next not next item on the agenda but rather the next uh approval. All right. So uh now with the vote on annexation uh we now move to consideration of the zoning of the property. Uh, is the proposed zoning district consistent with the future land use map and focus area contained in the currently adopted postfalls comprehensive plan?

Yes, because um R2 is an implementing zone of the transitional land use designation and also because the despite saying R2, this is a low density development using single family restriction only which makes it compatible with the surrounding single family. Anybody else? What do you mean by it is has a single family restriction? You mean detached housing? Detached. Single family was in the annexation agreement. Just I mean detached, but they're still smaller than like single family R1. Sorry, I just want to confirm.

Anybody else? I think that's a critical point though that that it is consistent with the surrounding area only because of the restriction of detached single family um which is probably the best usage of the R2 zone designation. Yeah, I would agree. Um I would also maybe in the future or or we could from this point forward continue to use the term entry level because I agree with everyone there is no such thing as affordable housing right now. maybe attainable

obtainable housing, however we want to word it, because if you do the quick math, I mean, you're looking at sub450 $450,000 homes being considered that that's not the case, but uh I do agree that uh it is the right fit. I do think that there's I do think that there's a case to be made that we that this should be zoned commercial. If we're going to keep calling those two roads arterial, then I actually feel like maybe a light commercial would be more appropriate for this piece of property. I think it's hard to hold both. arguments in the same for the same decision. That's an arterial intersection, but we want R2 single family detached housing. So anyway, that would be my only comment. I'm sorry. No, Mr. P, you care to add anything or you

No, you guys are doing great. Next,

is the proposed zoning district consistent with the goals and policies contained in the currently adopted postfalls comprehensive plan that are relevant to the area under consideration? I think the point that I would make is something that we've talked about already is is providing a diverse housing product in the area. And I know affordability is relative. Uh everyone has their own definition of it. Um I think these homes will probably be in the 400 range 350 400 which for most of us here is going to be still unaffordable. But in contrast to an R1 or an R1S which we're looking more like 700 and 750

um it is more affordable. Uh so I think that kind of underscores the point of of diverse housing product available to our citizens and I think it helps with but no under no circumstance solves but helps with the future housing needs postfalls. I think that we already annexed in two large R2 properties. So, it doesn't actually help with the diversity of housing. And as to the goal that has to do with the financial and fiscal health of Postf Falls long-term, I'd love to see jobs that could buy houses developed in the city, not just more houses that we argue about whether or not are affordable.

So, if there's no housing for people to get the job, why would they want the job? But there is housing. we already that isn't affordable to the people who are seeking employment here. Right. But if this property is affordable than the other two annexations that we already did earlier this year with the same restrictions on the um development agreement for larger pieces of property that haven't even been developed yet. So the previous R2 annexation that we approved satisfies the labor demand for people who can afford those houses in the previous two that we well three technically. Right. So how many units? Well, I think there's 90 alone in the oneoff office. So 90 people are going to solve the labor crunch that we have.

Well, surely another 70 houses is not going to solve the housing problem, right? But again, it's an incremental Yeah. game. We're not we're not going to come in and approve 5,000 R2 homes at one time to satisfy the labor market, but we can do what the best we can with what is presented with us to us at the time. But we haven't brought in any industry like like Multicare and Cutney are building a brand new facility out on Prairie in 41. They're going to need employee people to work there. Cutney Health a couple years ago had I think several hundred maybe even 600 openings. Northwest Bry Hospital. I talked to them. They need people. One of the reasons they can't get people is because the housing isn't available. So

I just don't think that it's that simple. And I would like to see more industry brought in and that piece of property isn't going to pay any taxes either. So don't think it would be easier just to say if we can't help with the problem. It doesn't solve the problem then we're good. We'll just stop. That you we can debate it. But we had differences differences of opinion and that's fine. That's good. That's healthy. But I [snorts] think we've addressed the uh we've got one that would uh vote no on or cast a dissenting vote on uh the second criteria and I think the others tended to agree. So I think we've addressed that need and we can move on to the last criteria.

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? They were all given the opportunity to comment and none of them said no. Am I gonna get in trouble if I bring up what I have brought up on the other annexation? No. Okay, great. Um, the fire department like Kney County Fire and Rescue did not respond that they have anything to say, but they asked for more money because they say that they are not able to adequately pres provide services to what we already have. So, I'm not saying that they can't provide services. any impact fees though from this part of that go to emergency services.

Yes, but not for any operational like fees. They can only do they can't fix any deficiencies and they can't pay any wages with it. So they can only build more. So I'm not saying that they can't provide services. I'm just saying it gives me doubt about the answer. You know, we we have pulled a school district on every issues I think since I've been involved. And [clears throat] we used to get responses from the school district that said it is our job to educate children regardless of how many are here. And I have met with a different superintendent over the years. And I said, if it's going to have a demonstrable impact on your ability to teach, please let us know. And now we get the situation from the school district where they will usually typically provide us the capacity of their schools, their enrollment of the schools and how much capacity they have available to provide education to the new houses being built. Uh that's what we can do. We cannot sit back and solicit input from the different entities, fire, highway district, uh school district, pipeline, you etc. We cannot sit back and solicit comment from them when they give us their answer say yeah but we don't agree with you that's I agree with you they did pass go out for a levy but it's up to them to tell us and I think that's what they have done by saying that they're not opposed to it I don't think it's incumbent on us to try to interpret or decipher that in any other fashion but that's just me so that addressed a third so now it would be time for a motion correct Mr. Harington.

Yes. I move to zone Magguire annexationnx-25-4 in the requested zoning of R2 with single family detached restriction finding that the zoning meets the approval criteria in the Post Falls municipal code as outlined in our deliberation and direct staff to prepare a reasoned decision. Second motion second. Further discussion. Roll call, please. Weslin. I stigle leader. No. Ziggler I Davis I Blue I. Motion passes. Thank you. Uh folks, we're like two fifths or 28s or maybe a quarter of the way through the agenda. Should we take a quick five?

Yes. We're going to recess for five minutes.

call the meeting back to order, right? For sure. Yeah, I talk to myself a lot though actually.

Uh, next item on the agenda tonight is unfinished business returning ordinances and resolutions. First is the fiscal year 26 budget amendment number one continued deliberation. All right. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I brought this back from the public hearing we had last time. We wanted to talk about what these items were, and I had split them out in two sections. The sections are um the first section is going to be the items that we have purchased in 2025 that we want to bring back and and rebudget for 2026. And the second section is the items that we talked about during the budget uh budget discussion that the we had salary savings that it we had about roughly 800 700 800,000. We had pulled some items off of the um the what what people had submitted for requests. We thought we could fund those during 2025. That became a discussion for a lot longer than we had planned. So, we decided to put that into a budget request for 2026 as well. So, instead of having them co-mingled together, I had them identified, but we brought them back. So, now I have two separate lists so we can identify which which is which. So, we can go through those and we can talk about them. pick an operator here. Okay, like I had said, we can go through these. We have everybody has probably read these pretty pretty thoroughly. The first ones for bringing forward from 2025 that we um have on order but we haven't received yet are fleet trucks 500,000 fleet sander 30,000 a um equipment related to Camelan Trail 9 9900 [clears throat]

special events ordered a Christmas tree and I did you notice that there was a flyer that explained the Christmas tree this time it was not just your run-of-the-mill Well, it was pretty grandiose Christmas tree, but they could use at the special events for many, many years to come. So, it's um they should have been in the first one, but um it's there now. And this is that that specifically is coming out of a special events fund, right? Um we put into special events there $2 for every uh reg class registration that people do for recreation. We put we set aside in a different fund for special events. And so that's the money that they use to purchase that tree with. Yeah, sounds good.

Um, and then for uh street impact fees, there'll be 222,000 for um the Prairie Trail extension from Highway 41 to Zoros Road. Again, with street impact fees from Third Avenue to 2nd Avenue for the um cycle track on Ross Point Road for 146,000. The parks department is looking to um complete the Camille Park well replacement for 52,000. The parks department had ordered uh vehicles in 2025, but we haven't received them yet for 1434,000. They had planned to repave the parking lot at the parks department on Third Avenue. That hasn't been done yet. And so we want to carry that forward over for that's going to be $700,000. Again, that'll be coming out of the facility reserve fund. Uh let's see. We have a project from the black black bay boardwalk from park impact fee. That's going to be 380,000. They did get a grant for that. So, we are just um using the money and get reimbured from the grant. The street department has to remaining funds for street light repair that they didn't use in 2025. they want to carry the remainder of those funds over to 2026. So that's at the tune of $60,000. And also um the same thing holds true for we have set some money aside for ADA projects in 2025 that we didn't spend and so we want would like to carry those funds forward in 2026 so we can complete some projects once they're identified in 2026 and that's going to be 40,000. and the water capital fund is requesting to uh do a water master plan for 250,000 and so those total altogether that we I'm requesting to carry forward is 2.6 6 million.

Any questions, Jason? Okay. Motion. Do you want a motion on these individual field? I I would think it makes sense because the ordinance still to get we don't there'll be instructions. Yeah. But next meeting then. No, I don't need a motion on each one. But I'm I'm just thinking they requested that it be separated. It's for consideration. So, it might make sense to go ahead and do a that works as well. Okay, let's do it. Let's do it in two motions. Do you want this one to be called the carryover? Is that what

Totally fine. However you want to do it. Um, okay. I would move to approve fiscal year 26 budget amendment carryover as presented. Second. Motion second. Further discussion. Roll call, please. Stigler I Ziggler I Davis I Blue I Weslin I motion pass. Thank you. Next up.

Okay. These are the items that we talked about during the 2026 budget that we got a little um there was some confusion with. There was some discussion that there was money that it really wasn't. What this money was really it was salary savings that we identified during the year from unfilled positions. What happened was we we usually look at salary savings then at the time when we submit budget requests we try to cherrypick items off of the unmet needs list at the beginning of the budget season to say okay we have some very small items on here. what could we fund in the current year without [snorts] taking them forward to the next year with with the money that we currently have in the budget from un unmet from from money that we currently have. So what we did was we looked at the what what I did was I looked at the budget and I said okay we have roughly about 7 $800,000 that we could from salary savings we could identify some smaller items on the 2026 budget request and we could fund those. So, what happened was we went around the room at the department request and we decided what we're going to fund and we're going to bring those back to CA to to council for a budget request. Well, there was some discussion during the election process that it was something that it wasn't and that wasn't the case. The case was it was salary savings. It wasn't an overpayment of whatever the process was. It was just salary savings from unfilled positions. It was onetime money that we won't have again just because we weren't able to fill positions. That was all it was. So these this what we had looked to identify were um a 24,000 crash attenuator for the street department. Um $200,000 to identify because um insurance didn't pay for the full amount

at the um the destruction at the chase restrooms when they had the fire. The police department was looking at um they were doing some replacement for some body and car cameras in the next couple years and then they needed 416,000. So we thought if we could do half of the money saved this year and half of next year, we'd have the money in a couple years to fully refund those and have it set aside for when the money was needed, we would have the full cost of that amount. Then we could just purchase those outright. Where would the 200 next year come from if this is a onetime salary? We would we would rebudget it next year to hope and we could just budget it at the 28,000. Gotcha. That was the intent. Okay.

We'd set that money aside in a reserve for half of it and then hope next year, this the year when we planned for 2027, we would have that money at 28. We'd set that aside knowing going into it, we all agreed that we'd set that aside for the PD. So something else would So that would come back as another rollover then for 27. Um or hopefully we could just budget it right out depending on okay

depending but we all had an agreement that we would put it a priority to to fund that 28,000 for the PD um recreation wanted to have a new copier for 8800 um the 65,000 to rekey the parks department for additional security uh the parks department was asking for additional survey equipment for 9,000 Uh the facilities want to do a condition assessment for city- owned buildings and then devise an implementation based on their suggestions for 35,000.

Is that within the time frame that we would ordinarily do that? We have a facilities plan from a number of years ago. Correct. That identifies these needs. I don't know if we've ever done one of these before. Oh. about this. Okay. We have not Yeah. Uh John Bechum, public works director. This the naming of them is really confusing and I'm sorry about that.

We have a facilities needs assessment is what the consultant called that. That has been that was completed in 2021 and that looks at space elements of facilities, what we need for um for expansions or remodels, that sort of thing. This would be looking at the nuts and bolts of the buildings and telling us this HVAC unit probably should be replaced in three years. The carpet in your building should be replaced in seven and then put together a holistic financial plan of all those maintenance needs. We do not have anything that serves that need currently. Okay, great. Sorry, the names are are they not

they are very confusing and I'm sorry there's not better words to describe those two things. So, thank you. Maybe they just need very long titles and then we'll [laughter] What facility? Don's wish list would be good. Yeah. Currently what we're doing is we're setting aside roughly $100,000 for each for city hall and PD for any kind of maintenance items and we're assuming that roughly that that's not going to be enough if something major happens. So John was wanting to do one of these assessments and then budget accordingly based on years. Gotcha. Okay.

Okay. And then um the streets reconstruction had an additional 32,000 that um went unspent. So we wanted to carry those monies forward. Uh let's see here. Um streets uh street had some street ceiling funds to for 30 30,000 for um want to be carried forth for for next fiscal year. Uh the streets requested for a asphalt hot box of 85,000 and also the facilities division requested a um to add this is a tongue twister here energy efficient tinting for city hall and that's roughly $6,000 and then the total request for this is $73,000.

And how much of that savings is that? Is that like to the cent amount? No. [snorts] No. The initial push was roughly 800,000, but when we went through the the first p for this, it was 700. Okay. Question. A question about um funding for employment positions that were vacant. How is that budgeted money a one-time? Why is it why does it need to be spent in that year and not a carryover?

It doesn't need to be. What we could what we do is we if we have capital items that we are needing other departments need because we we can't fund them, we will usually look at unfilled positions that we have and we will fund those through one-time purchases purchases. Um whether it's through salary savings or a capital project um there's savings from there or another one time need one-time savings we we generally look at if that answers your question. So, if I understand this correctly, then um instead of rolling out because I'm assuming that those positions are still vacant. So, those are going to be they're fil. They're filled now. So, it's a same it's it's a budgeted amount again for this year that

I don't know. I don't know how to It'll be spent. Yeah. you spent money that was allocated for one purpose on something else knowing that in the next budget year it would be budgeted for that for that right recurring expense. And then what we do what we do normally is if the position like say for we used um uh we use salary savings to to fund unmet um capital unmet needs for one-time purchases. What we generally do is at the end of the year, I'll go through and see, okay, we have, let's say, $500,000. That's generally what I've been using for to fund uh vehicle replacement and also facility reserve.

So, I do a 50-50 split. So, that's what I was using to to build those reserves up because at first we didn't have a plan on how to fund facility reserves or also vehicle replacement. So, that's what I was doing. And so that's kind of our methodology now is but that was kind of a one-off because we had so many unfilled positions at the PD they had unfilled positions but they were kind of absorbing it through overtime. So but we had other like streets and we had some all throughout the general fund. So that's what I was using was okay we had roughly that amount. So but we had some other items that we may not be able to fund in 2026. So we could probably pull some of those off of 2026 and fund them in 2025 because we knew 2026 was going to be a hard year. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

And it was a hard and I just want to clarify one thing when he says he was allocating out those funds that is authorized under a resolution adopted by the council. So the council had authorized those allocation of funds to the facility and to the replacement. Yeah. And I remember that part. I just was trying to Yeah. Yeah. We then later we brought that back to council to to make it make that official. Yeah. Redesation. Yeah. So, this truly wasn't approved at the Yeah. Well, it it's approved now, but yeah, that was how we came about funding our That's how all got started. Yeah. Any other questions? Jason. So, can I just call this budget amendment number one or [cough] two or whatever? Or two or two. Two.

Okay. Move to approve fiscal year 26 budget amendment number two as presented. Second. Motion second. Anybody have a question? Agenda says budget amendment number one. It is number one with Yeah. 1B would be perfect. Okay. Perfect. Okay. Second. All right. Subset. Second. Still stand. Yes. Motion second. Further discussion. Roll call, please. Stigler. I. Ziggler. I. Davis. I. Blue. I. Weslin. I. Motion passes. Thank you. Thanks. Uh, Jason. Thank you. Next up is water reclamation facility contract amendment with Panhandle Area Council.

I think Jason's title is just as long as mine. always throws me off finding the presentations. Uh good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Andrew Arbini, uh projects division manager. Uh I'm going to lead off with a positive project update. So, the general contractor has uh met the requirements for substantial completion. uh meeting this milestone uh provide some finality to other project related contracts uh that the city is managing such as the pack contract. So a brief recap uh the improvements are in operation. They are completed. We've been operating the system all of the systems uh more or less as designed. Uh so recently we resolved or completed uh two of the remaining items that were required for contract substantial completion. Uh that was the Wigan final report um acceptance report for the membrane system and then Mr. Beichum presented the uh warranty um the proposed warranty and the service contract with Wigan Water at the previous council meeting. Uh this creates a path forward for final completion and I'll expand on that in my next step slides towards the end. Uh recap of PAX responsibilities for this project. Uh this the tertiary upgrades were partially funded with a loan from the state revolving fund that required prevailing wages be paid um on the project. That was the responsibility of the contractor to do that. The city contracted with PAC to ensure that as a

requirement under the loan and to ensure that that requirement was actually being met uh that those services are required through substantial completion of the project. So with amendment 10 uh this adds uh $1,800 and this is the amount that PAC will need to complete the close out of the wage [snorts] compliance documentation. Uh so previous amendments were for ongoing services. Uh this is estimated for uh the remaining services needed to provide a deliverable to the city. It's expected that PAC would have uh their portion closed out by the end of December, the end of this year. Um one other note, this is a hourly not to exceed. So it is possible that the actual build amount uh could be less than what is authorized in this amendment. Uh talking next steps. So, uh, as we work to final completion, we have a handful of contract items to be resolved with the general contractor. Um, mostly centered around around time. We have two um two claims [clears throat] for additional time and then that also ties into our discussion about um the contractual financial remedy for any delays. Um so we are haggling over the finality of that uh consideration in any delays when we're talking liquidated damages. So that takes into account our contracts such as Jub and PAC. Um it is typically a stipulated amount in that contract. So that is uh what we see as next steps in um getting to a final completion of the project. So with that I will

questions for Andrew. Entertain a motion. I move to approve water reclamation facility contract amendment with panhandle area council. Second. Motion second for the discussion. Roll call, please. Ziggler. I. Davis. I. Blue. I. Weslin. I. Sig leader. I. Motion passes. Thank you. Next up, we do have an ordinance. Warrenfield. I move to place ordinance Warrenfield Park Vacation VAC-24-2 on its first and only reading by title only under the suspension of the rules. Second motion second for the discussion. Roll call, please. Davis, I Stigler. I Ziggler

I. Motion passes. Mr. Thank you. An ordinance of the city of Post Falls, the municipal corporation of the state of Idaho, providing for the vacation of approximately 31 acres of rideway running through Warrenfield Park for an unnamed alley lying within block 42 of the plat of Post Falls. Also including that portion lying between the west line of block 42 and the center line of vacated Grant Street. Providing for the disposition of the ride ofway, providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances. providing for severability and providing an effective date and providing for other matters properly relating thereto.

I move to approve the ordinance Warrenfield Park vacation VAC24-2 and to direct the clerk to assign the appropriate number and that it be published by summary only. Second motion second further discussion roll call please. Davis I Weslin I. Stigler I Ziggler I wish passes. Next up is the painted rock annexation. I move to place the ordinance painted rock annexation [clears throat] anx-25-3 on its first and only reading by title only while under suspension of the rules. Second. Motion second. Further discussion. Roll call, please. PL I. Weslin. I. Stigler. I. Ziggler. I. Davis. I.

Motion passes. Mr. An ordinance of the city of Post Falls, Municipal Corporation of the state of Idaho, annexing property consisting of approximately 4.67 acres located at 2555 West Midway Avenue, providing for amendment of the official zoning map and providing for an effective date hereof. I move to approve the ordinance Painted Rock annexationnx-25-3 and to direct the clerk to assign the appropriate number and that it be published by summary only. Second. Motion. Second. Further discussion. Roll call, please. PL, I. Weslin, I. Stigler, I. Ziggler, I. Davis, I. Motion passes. Thank you. Next up is a linger annexation.

I move to place the ordinance linger annexation ordinance ANNX-24-11 on its first and only reading by title only while under suspension of the rules. Second. Motion. Second. Discussion. Roll call. Weslin. I. Stigler. I. Ziggler. I. Davis. I blue

I wish passes an ordinance of the city of Post Falls and municipal corporation of the state of Idaho annexing property consisting of approximately nine I'm sorry 4.97 acres located at 2671 West Midway Avenue providing for an amendment of the official zoning map and providing for an effective date hereof. I move to approve the ordinance linger annexation ordinance-24-11 and to direct the clerk to assign the appropriate number and that it be published by summary only. Second motion second. Further discussion. Roll call, please. Weslin I. Stigler I. Ziggler I Davis I

motion passes. Thank you. Next up uh tonight we have new uh is is new business and we have none followed by citizens issues and this section of the agenda is reserved for citizens wishing to address council regarding city related issues that are not on the agenda. Everybody left. We have we have one oh yay. Uh [laughter] no one's rushing down so I'm assuming that's not no there are no takers. Next up are the administrative staff reports. First is the 2025 2026 no operation plan presentation.

We've had our first complaint already, right? Actually, we didn't. We didn't really. We didn't have a complaint today. Yeah, we had one one snow time and Yeah. Anyway, I you guys do a great job.

Thank you. Uh good evening, mayor and council. Uh Ross Juncan, maintenance manager for public works. Um we did get our first snow of the year. Um everything went pretty well. Um I will uh give you a little bit of an update of uh what we have going this year. We've got a little bit of a change that we're going to implement this year. We uh hope to have a little bit more efficiencies with it. Um and I'll get through that. So, I'll go through staffing, our equipment, a little bit about last year, um the changes we are going to implement, some challenges, and um how we uh handle outreach, and uh and I'll take your questions at the end, but feel free to ask questions as we go. Um we have 20 uh plow operators. That includes three of our leads um who oversee the teams that are out there. Um, we operate day and night. So, we have a day shift and a night shift. So, my night shift is on on uh duty right now. So, they're they're ready to go. I'm sure they're out there checking the roads, looking for icy spots, treating it with magnesium chloride, and making sure we're safe. Um, I have a department specialist. She uh Ronda has a name and she takes care of phones, emails, complaints, um, anything and everything we ask her. She's great. uh street supervisor and he oversees pretty much all of the the leads that we have in streets and the operators that are out there. Uh myself as a manager um three fleet mechanics, however, I only have one currently filled. We lost lost one about a month ago. Um he was a young man right out of college. Uh was with us for about three months, maybe four. Took a better job elsewhere, a little bit more money. Um, so yeah, we're down to one fleet mechanic for the entire fleet of over 400 vehicles and equipment.

So, we're struggling a little bit there. Um, and one supervisor who oversees all that.

Our equipment consists of 10 uh dump trucks outfitted with plows um as well as sanders that go into those as and deicers that go into the back of those plows or the sorry, the dump trucks. Um, average age for our dump trucks 5 years ago was 2003. That was average. So, we had some that were older, a little bit newer than that. Um, we've gotten to a point where we feel comfortable, uh, just about comfortable with everything we've got about. So, we're at an average age of 2020, so about a 5-year-old age now. Um, and we have the five deicer units and five sanders. We also have the eight city loaders um that all have gated plows and we are um looking forward to getting those on the road and being more efficient with how we use those. Looking to last winter uh we only had four plow plowable events and we only got into residentials once. Um when we don't when we have a lot of events which are small events which are not really plowing we end up using more materials which consist of salt and magnesium chloride. So those costs go up when there's less plowing if that makes sense. We still throw salt still throw the magnesium chloride but we rely on it more for the lesser um snow totals. Um so you can see what we've did last year 63,000 gallons. It's just over a gallon or a dollar a gallon is what it cost us. And the ice slicer, which is a salt that we purchase locally. Um, and we have 700 tons stockpiled. Seems like a lot, but when you see it stacked up there, it's like that's for the entire city. I hope it lasts.

Um, we also, um, coordinate with the highway district, the local high district, and they buy from us that salt. So, we're stockpiling it there, and they use it for pay [clears throat] us for it as they use it. changes for this year. Um, previous years we've gone with four zones. Um, this year we're moving to five. Um, the reason for the change is a couple fold. Um, primarily because we're fully staffed in streets with our plow operators. We couldn't do this if we didn't have all of our operators running. Um, each zone gets two operators. So, it's a plow uh jump dump truck driver and a loader. But there's a night shift as well. So if you do the num do the math, you need everybody here. So if we lose some staff during the winter event or the the winter, we may have to revert back to a four zone. But we're going to start with this and and see uh track how we how much more efficient we can be getting through especially through the zones, the maintenances that we have um are the planning that goes into this. my my staff, my guys took a lot of time um working out these new zones and figuring out all these different routes because everything changed and now all the operators have to learn new routes. But really a lot goes into it anytime you make a little change to winter operations. Staffing were great so far. We have a full staff. That's keep our fingers crossed there. Um plow gates, they take extra time. So, um, we we emphasize that when we get calls that it does take longer because we're using plow gates, trying to minimize the BMS that each resident receives, but it will take longer to get to you. Um, and then we go through how we operate. We do have some outreach. I'll talk about that and list the other priority priorities go. Um, other challenges are mailboxes. We get a lot

of calls about mailboxes um, and hoops and vehicles and trees. um mailboxes in particular because of the way the the plow gate operates um it can only carry snow especially wet snow so far before it has to release it. It's just too much. It can't push it as well. A lot of times the mailboxes are on the far end of driveways. It has to be released at some point and sometimes it's released in front of a mailbox and people are not happy about that. We do our best but we can't please everybody. The other um I'll talk about basketball hoops. Um it's been about three or four years ago we implemented a program where we went out and um tried to identify people who had passable hoops that hung out over the road because that's an um a problem for our plows, loaders, dump trucks. They'll hit them. We'll damage their equipment. They'll damage ours. We're trying to help each other. So we've gone out and reached out to all these residents who have them. When we first started, we had over 200 basketball hoops um at residents that we asked to get back on their property or at least out of our way. Um we get a major most of them to do that. Some complaining, but most people are willing to do that. Um this year we're down to under a hundred that we identified. So, we'll have to take a route out and take a look and talk to people, but seems like people are getting the picture that that uh that's a benefit for both of us. The last one is roundabouts. Roundabouts take uh longer to plow. If you can imagine going through a signalized intersection, you've got a a gang of plows, pushing through it, turn around, come back the other way, you're pretty much done. A roundabout, you have to take each leg and zigzag all the way around them. It takes quite a bit longer to plow it. Um these are a couple uh there's two slides here um how we go through our outreach. Um we'll post this on our

social media and it talks to people about um what they can do and what to expect um during winter operations. And these uh these will be put out. They haven't been put out yet. They will be shortly. Here's another one. Um it talks about and even goes through the codes and what to look for. Um this is a program that we did last year. Um paint a plow. Um since we didn't get as much as many plowing events, the the um the artwork is still there. So, uh we didn't need to Oops. We didn't need to uh go back and redo it. So, we're going to run with it again. So, uh that's awesome.

Get to see their their artwork out there one more year at least. So, in closing, um we continue to to get experience. Um I think we have four new plow operators this year that are haven't plowed before. So, we're practicing. We had a a snow uh rodeo. It's a training event where they we set up a whole event with plows and they get timed and um that was pretty fun training just recently. So, um they take pride in what we do. Uh we operate within our snow plan and um and that's posted on our website for everybody to see. We we send people there and uh and we take uh take all the calls and correspondence that we get really seriously. So we jump on it. If if there's anything we can do, we'll do it and uh we care about the people that drive on our streets. Um contact information. So that number there um is for Rhonda, our department specialist. She'll take that um during the days. um there'll be messages there for in the morning and she'll deal with them then. Um and then there's always the uh snow issues email that uh we'll we'll get. So with that, I'll take any questions that you might have.

I just like to say thank you. Yeah, I remember when we looked at snowgates 12 years ago, 15 years ago, and we're told they were not feasible, they didn't work, etc. So, uh, we've come light years and, uh, I think that's all for the betterment of our our residents and and, uh, you know, people want to complain. You mow too, you mow, you plow too early, you plow too late. I mean, your folks are out there in times of night and day that I don't want to be out there. So, I I just really appreciate the effort and the time that you guys put in.

Yeah, they say sacrifice quite a bit as they uh, work out overnight and through the holidays and and all that. So, kudos to those guys. Um, lastly, I'll say, uh, if anybody would like a plow ride, you're more than welcome. Just give me a call, shoot me an email, and, uh, we'll figure out a time where you can hop on a plow and and, uh, see what it's like. I highly recommend it. It was a lot of fun. All right. Thanks, sir. Thank you. Next up, I can't hardly wait. And I'm just going to say if you're going to talk about duck regulations tonight, I would suggest that like the second meeting in January, you bring back for reconsideration the requirement to license cats. [laughter]

Oh, Mr. Mayor, I just got three kittens today. Did you get them licensed yet? We had people They're microchips and it was unbelievable. So, but wait till January, please.

Okay, I will. No problem. Uh Bob Seal, community development director. Um mayor and council, at the last meetings, councelor Stigle leader brought up the comment that uh we had previously heard at a planning and zoning meeting uh a request from a citizen to consider modifying the duck regulations in the city. Currently, we do allow for ducks uh up to 10 ducks. Uh but you have to have about an acre of land. Um as you know, a lot of the properties within the city are not an acre. Um, so we were requested to consider them more like chickens. Uh, planning staff uh did hear that comment at that meeting and has been poking around with different regulations and and looking to see what is out there concerning ducks. Um, when you do find regulations, they often do uh start with that acre minimum for livestock and that's usually what they fall under. I know in previous towns I've worked for, we did have regulations and yes, it started at an acre. That being said, I do think that there could potentially be room within a small parcel to house a handful of ducks uh in a similar manner that you would house chickens. Granted, they have ripped

a gaggle of ducks. It's [clears throat] geese. Or is that geese? I don't know. I think I know it's geese. What is ducks? A flock?

A bunch of ducks. Um and I do and I did listen to um the the resident's comments as well and it did kind of fall in line with stuff that we have seen and read that you know while we would allow for 10 ducks on a pro or sorry 10 chickens on a property in the city maybe we should look at a lower number five or six that is currently an arbitrary guesstimate. Um, but I would uh if the council wants us to, we will continue to look into the regulations that other cities have created and come up with a uh a route that would work for the city of Post Falls and that would also likely include kind of a number um here tonight. Just kind of looking for further direction. Should we continue doing some research and bring back to you uh at a later date currently tentatively scheduled for May?

Question I Yeah, that's fine. Do it in May. Uh question question I have is are ducks the other white meat like chicken or what? Oh dear. Aren't they more brown? Okay, they're duck. Thought I'd ask one. And uh just just for the record, a group of ducks is a waddling if they're on land and a paddling if they are swimming. What? That tracks also known as a raft. I have a raft. Raft is also listed on here. Group of ducks swimming together. It's trivia. trivia night. I think I say uh pursue it a little bit more. Um

I agree. Can I ask that depending on what you guys think, maybe we don't just look at other cities and what they've done, but we ask like some like a zoologologist or like a duck expert. Well, I will note that a city, a farm town that I worked in previously, they did do indepth research as to the habitability for animals on parcels. And I will note that they did start at that one acre. But um so there are a lot of things to consider and I do believe that yes honestly going you know having some conversations like that uh are absolutely necessary and often lead us to a similar conclusion. Okay. The reason we look at other cities is a lot of other cities have gone through the same efforts. Um we need a duck per acre ratio.

Sure. Was the duck per acre ratio. Yeah. Yeah. I just you know if you approve them per uh Mr. Davis may have touh to tolerate my ducks being he's off the corner of my back property there. So, well, and as they noted, they are a little bit messier, but they are funny. I had a couple at one point in time, unfortunately. So, will you have they didn't survive ordinance with foul language then? Oh jeez. [laughter] Bada boom. It's getting late. It's the end of the night. Thank you, sir. Thank you, guys.

One more point on that is while we're looking at ducks, I wouldn't mind taking a second look at the number of hens because we're capped at 10 hens right now. I have fewer than 10 hens. So, we've had a couple a couple deaths, but our um the coupe that I have on our our property could hold at least 15. And it seems the shame to leave some of it empty when it doesn't make much of a difference if there's 10 hens or 15 hens. It's kind of the same. That's what you say. Your neighbors may think differently. [laughter] Sounds like a public hearing. No. Yeah. We'll we'll take a look at see what's out there as well as kind of talk to potential zoologologists. I just Yeah, I don't duck. Duck expert. I don't know. Yeah. No, thank you.

Don't disagree. Thank you guys. Mayor and council comments. No, not for me tonight. It's been a long day. How about council? We do need an executive session to last no longer than Can we do it in 15? I move to enter into executive session pursuant Idaho code 74-206F to communicate with legal counsel for the public agency to discuss the legal ramifications of and legal options for pending litigation or controversies not yet being litigated but immediately likely to be litigated. Second further that no action would make during the session and that the session will last approximately 15 minutes. Second.

Now you're motion second. Further discussion. Roll call, please. Stigler. I. Ziggler. Hi. Davis. Hi. Blue. Hi. Weslin. I. Motion passes. lender executive.

Call the meeting back to order. Are there any motions to come forward? Move to adjurnn. All those in favor? I adjourn.