City Council - Regular Meeting

Oh,

Oh, I

Oh, ready. Oh, look at that. All right. Welcome everyone. We would We're glad to have you here. This is the uh city council meeting for the city of Rexburg for March the 4th of 2026. Uh we're glad to have such a massive crowd here. Um yeah, John talking to you. Yeah, we're talking quality over quantity. That's right. So,

all right. Um let's go ahead and start this evening with a pledge and uh with a prayer and a pledge. I've asked Council Member Ton to offer the opening prayer after which I've asked Council Member Johnson to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Dear heavenly father, we're thankful for the opportunity we have both to gather as a city and to discuss matters that are important to to the staff and as well as to the community. We ask that thou please bless us that we might be able to have thy spirit to be able to make wise decisions and be able to have discernment. We're grateful for the opportunity we have to be able to live in such a great city and we ask help us to be able to keep it that way. And we say these things in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Please stand. I pledge algiance 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. All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. All right. Let's go ahead with our roll call of our council members, please. Mariana here. Here. Here, here, here, here, here.

Okay, thank you. We have a full quorum. So, we will move forward. Let's go ahead with item number three on the agenda, which is a welcome of uh one of our new employees, our new team member. That is Tanner Grover. He'll be uh joining the wastewater collections team here in Xburg. So Tanner, if you'd come up and just take a minute and help us to get to know you a little bit. Welcome to Rexburg area. I graduated Madison High School and I work for UPS and Golden West Irrigation before this and I like the snowmobile and wildlife department.

Cool. Well, good. Thank you. We appreciate that. Is there any questions for Tanner before we let him go? Well, thank you. We're glad to have you as a member of our team. And uh we're going to give you a big hand. And uh one thing that we would like you to note is is we uh we have our police heroes in the city and our our fire and EMT heroes that do a lot of important work keeping us safe and things and and we regard our water and wastewater people as heroes too because the work you do is very very important. Anything that goes wrong, right, Ryker? We hear about it really quick. Right. So Riker does a great job down there and we're looking forward to having you working there along with him. So that's great. Thank you very much and welcome to your your wife and your fiance. We're glad to have you here with us as well. So great. Okay. Um I meant Tanner I mean Riker's wife and your fiance. Not people that could get misconstrued a little bit. Just wanted to make that clear. Make that clear. Okay. Welcome to all of you. Okay. Thank you. We are going to move on to item number four, which is a time for public comment. This is for a time for items that are not on the agenda. If anyone would like to make us aware of anything, please come up to the podium and state your name and address. Yes, sir. Sir,

Jason, 839 Engleman Street, right on the corner of Engleman and Pioneer Road. Okay.

Want to start off I wrote down what I say so I don't get flustered. I want to start off by expressing my deep deep respect for this council and your honest commitment to our police department. Thank you. I recognize that you're trying to address a critical infrastructure needed on vote and I appreciate your stated goal of keeping your outreach educational. However, after reviewing the minutes from your January 21st meeting, which you made the decision to put the police station bond up for another vote, I'm concerned that the plan strategy by the city as directed by this council, has crossed the legal line from neutral information into active persuasion, which is a violation of the public integrity and elections act Idaho code section 74. The law is clear. Public meetings, funds, efforts, and outreach cannot be used to advocate for a yes vote or in any way have the intention of influencing the vote of the public on a bond. Yet the minutes of your meeting clearly record the following five specific statement statements and strategies that are in violation of this state law. Number one, targeting for persuasion. The city's consultant, Amy Holly, explicitly identified a segment of your community of our community as the quote movable middle. She stated that these voters, these are voters who quote could potentially be persuaded to support the bond through city efforts. Using taxpayer funded a city endorsed surveys to identify which residents to persuade is the very definition of a political campaign, something that should be done by a political party or an activist group, not by the rights of our city government. Number two, sufficient timing for promotional activity. Council President Eric Ericson expressed that quote, "Ensuring voter support is critical." He cautioned that a may vote might risk another failure, meaning that this council's decision was influenced by its efforts to try to time the election in a way that would best get the bond to pass. Council me um

council president Ericson further suggested that the best approach would be to launch a compreh comprehensive public outreach and educational campaign implying that the goal of this was to provide enough time to provide sufficient outreach efforts to get the bond pass. Number three, favorable election windows. Similarly, Mayor Merrill noted that the November election time period is uncertain because other entities like the school district might propose their own bond measures. He stated that he expressed support for a May vote as quote a more favorable timing option, revealing again that the vote has been timed in a way to try to get more people to vote yes. Number four, influencing the no voters. Council member Teen commented that extensive outreach like door hangers is important because some voters only encounter the issue on the ballot. She stated that seeing a reduced bond amount in outreach efforts and on the ballot quotes could prompt some voters to support the measure who otherwise might vote. Revealing that the goal of these outreach efforts is explicitly to try to sway voters to vote yes. Number five, mitigating tax concerns. Miss Holly noted that since residents recognize the need for police stations, their tax concerns quote could potentially be mitigated through additional information. When the goal of information is not to inform, but to mitigate a voter's concerns so that they would instead vote yes, it is no longer neutral information, no longer neutral education. Mayor, you yourself noted that voter concern over taxes is an educational matter, but under Idaho law, the city's job is to tell us the cost and the purpose and the consequences, not to quote bridge the gap to a supermajority,

as was the decision of this very council in January. Your own city attorney, Spencer Raml, warned that if these actions are seen as advocacy, it could quote risk invalidating the election results. I'm here to say that whether or not these actions are seen as advocacy, they are advocacy in clear violation of state's law. Your own words have proven that the survey, the reduced project scope and bond amount, and the timing of the vote are all efforts by this council to secure that the election outcome is the outcome this council so outwardly prefers. If the election is held in May under these influences, it it will be an invalid election. Your efforts to influence the vote may require that you cancel the election. At the very least, because we'll require that you act with integrity to give equal time, consideration, and outreach efforts to inform voters of all the potential negative effects of the bond, including the effect on traffic, noise, and property values in the residential area on or around Pioneer Road. I'm urging the council to cease these attempts to persuade the quote movable middle. Please protect the integrity of the election by sticking to neutral facts and letting the voters of Rex decide for themselves the influence whether intended or not of a government funded persuasion campaign. Thank you very

Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. All right. We will refer those items to our legal counsel and take a look at it. Thank you very much. All right. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? anyone? Oh, here we go. One more. Okay. Okay. Or another, I should say.

Right. I wanted to say thank you for not cutting down at the northwest corner of the park area down by the river. It's an awesome tree there. trimmed it up real nice. All the damage you made from and it's going to be a a heritage tree. Thank you. We appreciate that. And yeah, it takes a long time to grow a big tree like that. So, I really didn't want them to cut it down. So, thank you. We appreciate that. Anyone else?

Is there anyone online? No. Hearing none. Then we will go ahead and move forward with our item number five on our agenda which is our staff reports. We'll start with our parks and recreation report with parks and rec director John Lewis. Come on up, John. Number item number one is the update on the Teton River Park and Steiner Park construction. Excuse me.

Yeah. So, uh, as you guys know, this park was, uh, been in the works for quite a while, and, uh, we have finally, uh, started the construction effort for this. Uh, got crews out there, uh, starting the grade. So, we're hoping that construction will kind of go smoothly out there. And just kind of wanted to also update you guys on a couple of changes that we made within a certain section of the park. Um we have a bouldering area that we have uh discussed and initially we're going to have uh three larger boulders and two smaller ones and we kind of switched up a little bit going with four bigger ones and then we'll kind of provide uh some smaller ones for kids to be able to kind of jump on to play around. But uh you know as we kind of met together we just decided that you know if we're going to include this cool feature into it we want to make sure it to where we can get all types of ages out to be able to participate in ability. So whether it's, you know, people who are just beginning or people who want to challenge a little. So that's just kind of where our thought process was there on trying to expand this area.

Yes. Yes. Go ahead. Go ahead. Um, do you know how tall the tallest ones are? Nice. That's awesome. So yeah, it's, you know, it'll it'll pose a little bit of a challenge for some people. And I guess we'll still have the littles to be able to climb around on, jump on as well. Yes. Go ahead. Go ahead. Is that a safety concern with having it be 14 ft? Like do we need to have like like is that a liability issue for us?

So it'll be a squishy type of pad. But I also think at the end of the day too, you know, people should know what their abilities are in that park and even with like younger kids, you know, I'm a parent myself, so we got to make sure that we're watching our children as we're out there, too. If they're not, you know, so we're clear of any potential problems with that. If if a kid whose parent maybe isn't watching falls, are we liable for any injury? Do you know, Spencer? where it's a public park.

I don't think it'd be any worse than like some of our play toys in the in the other in like a nature park. You got that one. I mean, it does have ropes and stuff like climb high. And so I I'm just putting it out there if it's designed to a standard of industry standard. And so if it's again, so we can't rid ourselves of any statutory municipality liability, but whether we're talking about parks, golf course, trails, it's to industry standard. And so if there's an industry standard that's created and so again, without looking into it further and talking with our department head,

I think like John says, you've got that soft fall and they require a certain amount of that for every foot that you go up. You have to go a certain amount of that soft ball so that it absorbs that impact. Yes. Go ahead. Yeah. And my children boulder. So I'm really excited about this cuz I feel like we don't have anything that teenagers can do. And you bring your own crash pad if you know, you know, if you do it, you bring your own crash pad and you put it down, too. So I just think, you know, it's the same as a child who like when my kids were younger, they would climb up on top of the swings that's in the parks if I wasn't watching. So it's kind of like that kind of thing where you got to watch your kids. Yeah. Yeah,

but those concerns are very valid, too. And I'd be willing to to look more into anything that you would want me to uh to be able to explain that a little bit better. So, just if we needed like a sign into the entrance of the park saying that. Yeah, there's going to be signage there. That's that's very typical parks like that that we're not Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah. Question. Got to turn my microphone on. Is that uh natural stone or is it kind of a man? It's manufactured. Okay. Yeah, but we will have uh some natural stone out there which will be the smaller ones that we'll place uh for kids to be able to jump on because believe it or not, those manufactured stones are actually pretty expensive. So, really expensive.

Yeah. Thank you. Yep. And then also um just wanted to kind of uh show what we had uh designwise with Steiner Park. Um we've gone through a couple of iterations uh for this park and um it's not necessarily finalized but just kind of wanted to show uh council was kind of what we had um if the PDF decides to act correctly. Enormous smile.

Uh but yeah, just kind of wanted to point out a couple different things there and you know if you guys see anything that uh you know you would like for us to possibly revisit, we're obviously very open to um to that. But uh so down here at the bottom we have our pavilion that will be here. Um we have a playground that will be uh enclosed with a fence. Um because we do have a canal that is a little bit further back in the park. And one of the concerns that we really had was uh the smaller kids kind of wandering down there. So we wanted to put that closer towards the parking lot in an enclosed area so that it was a little more safer uh for them to be out there. Um, we do have a pavilion that we'll put here along with a walking trail that'll kind of go all throughout uh this park area. Um, this park as of right now um is going to be flood irrigated, but we are going to be doing some more studies to kind of make sure that that's the best way to go about it. We've contacted uh other cities who do similar things and kind of asked them, you know, uh what struggles that you guys have with maybe kids coming out to those parks during those hours. Uh is it something that, you know, disappears relatively quickly? Um so for us, one of the things that we're going to have to do is we're going to have to test it out ourselves and just kind of see where we're at in terms of how long it takes for that water uh to kind of disappear before we make a final decision on how we're going to water that part. Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I do have I do have a question on that. Um because isn't isn't the school in Teton flood irrigated? Correct. Yes. Doesn't that water sit like for 24 hours? It's somewhere around that time frame. Yeah. We we had Cole cuz Cole used to live out there and so he knows the uh public works guy and so he called him and checked with him and he said, "Yeah, it it uh it'll it's just it's just kind of a one day thing. I don't know if it's 24 hours or 16 or whatever, but he said that the people in Teton love it. The kids all they come and they play in the water." They said it's the most popular day of the park because they all come and play in the water and they he says they they love it. So,

so there's not a risk to like if they drink it or like not any more than you know if they're drink I mean there obviously there's always going to be some risks but but generally I don't know canel water I swam a canel when I was a kid and I'm sure I drank some but

but but you know of course that might explain some things but anyway you know I I don't think there's a huge risk anymore than it's just kind of like what Spencer was saying it sort of sort of comes with the territory of the of of the standard way that you that you do things in certain situations. And so, and you know, our our our liability is an umbrella coverage that would cover any claims. But I I honestly I I mean, like Keith does the same thing at his house. He waters the lawn and, you know, the kids go out and skim board on it and everything. And and so I think it I think it'll be a really fun activity. And I I I can't imagine it really being a terribly risky thing. Probably not less than a lot of other things that kids can do. So anyway, any other thought or discussion? Yes. Go ahead.

The white patch there in the tree. That's a that's the uh the that's a Yeah, it's a collecting pond for the drainage. And when when you get a lot of like a big huge rainstorm, we'll have some that might run out of that pond down on the bottom through underneath and it'll run down in there and collect, but then it disappears pretty quickly, too. So So these will just be wide open fields. Yeah. Are there any plans to make them into any kind of sports field? They're just going to be kind for anyone to Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's kind of an area where people can go and just kind of do what they want, you know? They can play frisbee. They can set up volleyball standards and just kind of kind of an open thing. Uh, you know, if you've got a if you're coaching a soccer team, you could take them up there and practice or whatever. But we're not going to, you know, we're not going to stripe them and make them official. It's just going to be areas where people can go and use it and and have fun. And maybe over time, I don't know. Who knows? Maybe we'll up in that big upper part, maybe we'll look at some kind of a who knows. I don't know. There's all kinds of possibilities. Playground equipment or exercise type things, you know, that you see in the magazines and stuff, but right now we just we only have the money to

to do that this part. Yes. Council member Eric, is there a way we can incorporate maybe a Frisbee golf into this part because it is wide open. It is areas that maybe we could do another small frisbee golf course right there. I mean, you could, but I don't think the and I'm a part of the disc golf community myself.

I don't think that space is going to be big enough to really put a really good course on it. Um, there are courses like Macau Park down in Idaho Falls is like a smaller pitch and putt type of a deal. Um, but I think for this area, I don't think it would necessarily like the greatest fit. um just because you need kind of ample space for some of those courses and uh it can be a little dangerous if you got a lot of people in the area too. So

yeah, and that's and that's one of the things we got to think about too is you know the Teton River Park is more like Council Member Johnson said for teenagers and up. This one is going to be really kind of more for smaller kids and families that live in those apartments over there and stuff. So, and we actually when we when we develop a north part of Peton River Park, we've got a lot of area out there that I think we could do more frisbee golf or sorry, disc golf disc golf courses and things because there'll be a lot more space, you know, out there for that kind of thing. So, yeah. So, anyway, that's kind of what we're thinking. Yes. And Okay. But then so since the playground's going to be fenced in, even if parents didn't want their children in that water when it's standing, they could just the playground will be fenced in. So yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. We want to fence that all the way around and just have a gate they can go in and out because you know you got the street on one side and you know the canal down on the other end. So we want parents to feel comfortable if they're sitting on a bench there in the playground that the kids can't really get away without actually sneezing. Yeah, that was one of the major things we wanted to make sure that was incorporated. So it was a little safer. So yes, Mr. Mayor John, um, timing, what do you see timing wise for this realization of this?

Yeah. So right now we're hoping to do something uh this summer. Um, a lot of the funds for this park are going to be coming from urban renewal, I believe. Um, so we don't have a distinct timeline nailed down for it yet, but when we do, I will make sure that I provide that to the rest of council. One of the things we might point out to him is one of the thoughts that we had is we're we're kind of following the Keith Davidson model of how he his yard was done with this. Uh we think that we will be able to just start mowing because that was a pasture before. So there are grasses already growing there. Um so we're we're just going to have our parks go out and just start mowing it and just kind of see what kind of grass develops. um cuz that that's what he did with his yard and you go out there now and it's a really nice grassy yard and so that will save us a fair amount of money over you know digging it all up and killing it you know what's there and and replanting it residing it or whatever. So we think we can we can do it fairly inexpensively that way and then just plant all the trees and and things. But on the upper part of course it's it's been just farm so we'll have to we'll have to do it differently. um it'll be more a little bit more conventional way, but we do have the tree grant that we're going to be ordering a bunch of the trees to be able to try to get them in this year along with the irrigation system to to make sure they get watered. So,

yep. This summer is going to be a busy busy summer. Any other questions, comments on this? I had a question about the Teton River. Um I just saw some things online. Uh, was that done all by a grant? Is that right? That all the money for the Teton River Park came from a grant or has that been budgeted as well? It's budgeted. That's budgeted, but it's not from a grant. I wish it was. Yeah. I just I wanted just to Yeah, we been clarify that. Yeah.

And we're we're we're constantly always looking for, you know, grants. You got the land and water conservation and some of those different grants that come up on a rolling basis and we try to put applications in for them, you know, all the time. it. But sometimes they're pretty competitive and you don't get them. So then it's another two years on some of them and another year on others. But but we're always looking for more of those to be able to supplement what we're doing and take the pressure off the general fund for those. So

Okay. So with that with the parks budget, are we looking towards fixing up some of the parks that we have? because I know that's that when I was out doing campaigning that was a lot of people were concerned that we are building a new park but our other parks have not been quote unquote well maintained. That was what they were saying. So is that something that we're looking into to make sure that we're making we're balancing?

Yeah. So I'm working with our parks uh crew to uh kind of make sure that we work on some projects this summer to uh ensure the upkeep of the current parks that we do have. Uh we know that there are issues out there and uh I've been meeting with uh Greg extensively to kind of come up with a plan for this upcoming spring to be able to address those. Um so we are working on that. Okay. Awesome. Thank you.

Yeah. And one of the things just to just to add that a little bit is last year it's kind of a bad year for you to be c campaigning because last year we had we had some pretty bad issues that we had to deal with. you know, we had that really big line break over there at the uh Riverside Park and so our fields were, you know, typically people were always raving about how our fields were the best ones anywhere that and last year it was not that way because they didn't have water on them for a long time and they they got bad and stuff. So, so you know there was a little bit of a perception there that uh you know that we don't take very good care of them and there are little things here and there like some of the equipment you know it'll get broken or whatever and it takes us a while to get the parts ordered and things like that. So there's always little things here and there but overall we've generally had pretty good uh pretty good perception on you know the maintenance of our parks and but we want to we want to do it better. Yeah, there definitely areas that we can improve on and and we intend to do so.

Yeah. Okay. All right. Any unless there's anything else for John, we'll let you go. Thank you. Appreciate Appreciate all the work you do. Thank you very much. All right. Let's move on to item number two, which is our police um facility bond discussion. And we've got uh we've got Josh Road, both Chief Roads here along with Assistant Chief Gary Hagen to talk about that and give us an update.

The opportunity to be here and address some of these things and just give a update on where we're at with the process here. Mr. Alred, I appreciate your comments. Uh as we move forward, there's a lot of concern. There's a lot of things being brought up through social media, a lot of concerns with survey. And so we've met ever since uh to move forward. Every Thursday we're meeting and working on a plan to to educate and we try to provide all the information that we can for the community. And right now um a lot of the information has been updated on the website. So that's our first focus was to to use Portland Square to get all the correct information that we could get it out for the public so we we have that full transparency of where we're at changes that have been made. And so as as you can you have time to jump into it, but uh there's a lot of information the survey results. Uh one of the the big concerns from the beginning was the number of people that came out and voted and also the number of people who participated in the survey. We we believe through the survey we did get enough to gather some information. Um of course we would love to get everyone out and provide that accurate information. And so that that has been our goal is to to be transparent, give all the information that you can. Um, so if you do click on some of this information, Portman Square and Sarah from the city has done a phenomenal job of just helping put this together, help it, help us get organized. Um, I'm not going to jump into all of it, but highlight a few things. So as you as you click through some of

these, it'll give all the changes in square footage, the cost, the layout, the the site plan design reduced uh from our original plan took out the gray space. So this just shows what the conceptual design would be. Uh with that, like we explained earlier, the design if moved forward would would have the the ability to add on. So this shows some of that gray space in a different area for that future growth in 20 to 30 years from now. Um as we've gone through uh we jump back the FAQ is another one of the frequently asked questions. We've we've really tried pulling questions from the a lot of it comes from social media when there's a lot of the the concerns that come up trying to answer some of the questions here in different different categories and Portman Square along with the bond council or legal council has kind of gone through to help us make sure that we we are in that phase of just educating and putting out the information. We're working uh with some of the officers pulling some of our statistics and concerns that people have had about noise concerns from the police station. Currently, we get credit for a lot of the an ambulance noise that leaves this general area. And so we we we can't be 100% accurate um just because we don't know what type of calls are going to be be called in every single day. But but statistically we're we're trying to pull our numbers from the past year to just show the number of times officers leave the station uh running codes uh for the emergency lights and sirens. And so we can we can give a statistical number of that. We've

looked at different traffic surveys on Pioneer Road, different ways to pull some statistics there. And so those are things that are in the works. So we we are working to pull the numbers and from actual statistics and then potential growth if the station's not there, the complex goes in. There there are a lot of different things that we're looking at and ways that are trying to to show both the pros and cons where we're at. We've we one of our officers has spent some time doing response times response times from our current location to some primary areas like like Walmart, BYU Idol campus, high school, junior high, all different areas of the city. And so they pulled together numbers from current location and compared those response times from the pioneer location. So there there are definitely some slower response to the hospital compared to here the hospital but then some of the response times are quicker from from there to certain spots on BYU Idaho campus to the high school to certain junior high schools. So So there are definitely some pros and cons. Those are things that we're in the process of working on. We meet together every Thursday with Square and media team to just try to make sure we're putting out the the accurate educational information. Um we have I don't know if they she did update the tax impact calculator. So that's something you can go in. Uh I know Matt's explained this in the past u as far as the the total cost and the taxable cost. And so um some of the other information, contact forms, ways that we can answer questions

and ask respond. Portman Square's been working with us on some of these responses to just make sure that we're providing a a non-biased educational information back. Um, let me jump back. One of the other concerns, like I said, it was we didn't get a a large voter turnout. So, there are some more information in here too to encourage more voters um to to explain the early voting, absentee voting if they're not registered but live here. um to teach and educate people on how to to register to vote. So, doing our best to try to help get more of the public opinion. Um so, we

like I said, we're we're in the process of doing a lot. Uh we meet every Thursday just to to gather information. uh we have a an educational plan for putting out different uh social media posts to to help educate on different aspects that are all covered in the website. So, we're we we don't have it all finalized at this point, but um but we're we're in the process of of a plan. Um, and Portman Square has been working with us to help put those messages together for that educational uh, purpose. Um, we do have a a few town hall meetings scheduled. Uh, one on a Saturday and I I think I don't know if the dates are on here, but if they're not, we'll get them out there. We'll make sure they're part of the information. And then we have

three tours of the police station, the current station uh scheduled right now. And so we we'll put all that information out and and do our best to to help educate where we can and answer questions. And again, we're we're always open to meet with members of the community. We've had quite a few people just stop at the police station and ask for a tour, and we've accommodated when we can. Most of the time we've been able to accommodate, but there are days where it's busy that we haven't been able to to accommodate, but most cases we have. And so we're happy to walk anyone through and explain. So

questioning any of the negative information you're gathering with this, you said there's pros and cons. Are any of all the cons included on any public information being submitted? you get posts and things like that. Yeah. So, for example, all your concerns have been resolved. So, one of the things like I mentioned, we're we're looking at like the response times.

Um, the way it's the officers designed it and we'll we'll make sure it it it reflects the the accurate information. It'll it'll show um different locations. Um, we'll say if you have to, you can just let it um it it'll reflect a a positive uh meaning it's an increased response time from that location or a negative increase from that location. And so we're we we want to get that information out so it is accurate. So there I mean there

specifically to response time there's some some pros and cons. Um and so That's that's that's where our focus is to to make sure we're getting all that information out. So, one last thing on um increasing voter turnout is awesome. It's great, but the goal of increasing voter turnout is to influence the election one way or another. Like if the goal of this body and increasing turnout is to try to get it pass and that's in violation. No, and and we understand that too.

Yeah. Yeah, our our our goal is to get public opinion. Um, and that's with with the survey. We wanted to gather as much information. So, if there are concerns, there's issues that need to be addressed, we want to be able to answer those questions and address it for those people. I think obviously you know addressing your concerns we just want we want a big turnout so that we

not necessarily so that passes we want a big turnout so that we have an accurate reflection of what people If we had 90% of people come out great and it went down in flames then obviously you know we want to know that we're not going to go back and we've done public comment so yes

no and Mr. You're all right. I as we've met, as we work together, we we want to get the information out as best we can to provide all the educational knowledge that we have to to get as much public support, public information, um and the public opinion. And that's where these public gatherings for the um what am I the town hall meetings uh our walkthroughs through the police station is to be able to to gather that information and the at the FAQ on the website those are areas a lot of those are based off the questions and concerns that that people have had and so that's our goal is to address those questions and concerns because I mean obviously it's it's the public that we want to to serve better um and to be available to them and to provide the best services that we can from the police station. So,

thank you, Chief. I have a question. Yeah. Go ahead. Um when we talked about having Portman Square help with the um the bond, uh did they we talked about having them lower their rates. It did do you know if that happened or not? Like if we went back and we were able to negotiate on that? But they they did um Um, Matt has that information. I don't have all all the information. I just I know I know when we met with them, they did lower it. Um, yeah, they they reduced quite a bit. And then when we met with them on the survey, they actually came back. They had lowered their rates there, too. But then when they we got our final invoice, it was significantly lower than the original. And so,

they've they've been really really good to work with. um they've been quick to help us answer questions and concerns that people have. Um and and our our intent with that is to make sure that we are answering questions in in the right way. Um, and then they're they're helping us with a quicker response, working with Sarah. And we we have some of the the questions and concerns that came up last time that they they're working to have kind of loaded answers like for some of the questions that we get are very similar. Um, so we want to answer accurately, but some of them are just a way that we can respond quicker if it's the same question being asked multiple times. Uh, and so that that those are some of the things that we're working on is is working to to figure out how to get information out there um to as many people as possible so they're aware of what what the bond really is about.

I just want to thank you, Chief, for all the work you're putting into this and your team to be able to get the information out there. That's one thing we've seen on the survey that trying to provide that information, trying to get that out to the public. So, thank you for the work you're doing and the meetings and pushing that forward. Well, thank you. Yeah. So, the first town hall will be the 18th of this month prior to city council. Yeah. So, it'll be I think we planned on five o'clock so to give enough time. Last time we didn't have enough time to cover all the questions and so and then the next one would be on a Saturday to try to bring in people that might not be able to make it on a week night. So

yeah, so we'll we'll get all that information out. So if there are no other questions, I I appreciate the time you've given us. So

thank you. Yeah. So, thank you, Mayor. So, we have a supplemental agreement um on that contract uh for that design of the road. Um and that's an additional $500,000 um in there. 527,000 on that and so we're just seeking council's approval on that to move forward.

Yeah. Just uh so this is the design of the road and bridge going from Barney Derry Road to 7th north n kind of running along 9th east. Um and so as we've gone through that design and and gone through the different studies with ELTAC um the consultant with the extra things that had to be added in there, there was additional costs that came in into it. Eltac is funding the majority of these costs were picking up the um our proportionate share which is like a little over 7% of that. This is just the design.

Yeah. Yeah. No. So, the construction is coming up with that. So, the the idea on this one is that we are going to be um entering into uh agreement with ELAC on funding the construction side of that. Uh the estimated cost for that section is a little over 11 million. Um with ELTAC coming up with additional funds. We originally were thinking it was going to be in the neighborhood of like 67 million. Um and so ELTAC was be coming up with additional funds to help fund that as well as uh the city urban renewal on funding that.

Excuse me. But those those funds are not secured. the construction funds at this point from ELAC. Yeah, they they are anticipating that they will be secured um coming in because they're looking at a bridge fund that the state has that they can draw those funds from. So typically they they don't usually go or correct me if I'm wrong, but don't once you they give you the money for the design.

Yeah. Generally speaking, it just depends when there's large dollar increases on there and where they can get the funds from. Yeah. And so and so with that with our discussion with them, it sounded promising that those funds were going to be coming out for it.

Okay. If there are none, then I would entertain a motion to approve this agreement for the road. Mayor, I'll make that motion to approve this agreement on 7th North and Barney Road. Okay. Thank you. Is there a second to that motion? Second by council member Rigggins. Any further discussion or questions? Hearing none. All in favor? Any opposed? All right, that motion passes. We will go ahead with with that item. Okay. So, I've got a couple other items

other items to bring up that aren't aren't on the list. Um, first off, uh, just to bring your attention. So, Max Eert, who is our maintenance facility coordinator, has retired. Um, so he retired, some things came up, and he retired sooner than what we're expecting. And we were anticipating hiring another full-time employee to work with Max and get trained up before Max officially retired. But uh with the thing the the changes and things like that, Max ended up retiring February 20th. So we've been in the process of interviewing uh candidates to fill that position. And as we've interviewed the candidates on there, we um actually have two really good um candidates that that we were interested in. And what what we thought would be uh beneficial is if we could hire both of them. Obviously, we have talking with Matt, we have it in the budget because we were going to

have Max in this additional employee. We have one that's got some electrical experience. Um that's a journeyman electrician. Uh that would be beneficial um in the building maintenance, but also outside in our public work side. We have a lot of street lights. We have we'd like to get someone um trained as backup on our signals. So, our traffic signals uh as well as um we've got in our water and wastewater um all the electrical stuff. And so we were originally we had um we were working with the building department with their electrical inspector, Alex. Um but he has gotten busier and busier with all the new construction going on. Um so we are unable to use utilize him and so we have to hire out a lot more of the electrical work and we felt like this would be a good opportunity but we wanted to kind of seek council's input on that on that direction.

I just have a comment. I just know this has been discussed during the last budget process and we was definitely moving forward with Max on doing this to try to get a licensed electrician in there. I think it's a great thing because of as we grow to have to be able to take that burden. I'm sad to hear Max left earlier than than get him trained up and that because there's a lot out there to learn that's going to leave a big hole there to try to teach them and get them up up to par, especially their swimming pool and so forth. So So I think we should move forward on it.

Yeah. And and the primary funding for the position is going to come through public works. So, we're going to be looking at streets. We're going to be looking at um water, wastewater, um and then also a small portion of the general fund. And it would be helpful because then they can also back up on obviously all the building stuff as well and have additional person trained where we just had max uh before on that. So, I think there's a benefit there as well. You have a question. I just want to make sure

understanding when did you say we were planning on him retiring Max? I forgot already. It was going to be next year. Okay. So, we were looking for a full year of training um with Max so that way we can get him up to speed especially with the pool. Um also with um the ice ring coming online, I think having additional personnel would be beneficial there as well. Um but but yeah, we were looking that with the splash parks and all that a year of training al also with all our HVAC uh equipment and things like that in our different buildings that that training is definitely valuable and that's why there'd be no budget adjustments because

Yeah. Yes. And actually, and Max has agreed to uh Isn't he going to come back and kind of help brain them to just for as long as it takes kind of a thing? Yeah, we can. Max is willing willing to come help him out a little bit just to get him oriented. Yeah. So, he's not he hasn't just said, "I'm out." Max is definitely a great employee for the city. He's willing to help out where is needed on that. Yeah. So, Okay. Okay. All right. Any other questions? Uh, all right. Let's see.

So, it's not an action. Yeah, that's not an action. So, if council is okay with us proceeding down that that path and we'll see and we'll go through the budget adjustments this next this coming cycle and putting all those things in. So, okay. All right. Thank you.

All right. And then the the last item I wanted to go over and council member Johnson um we had a discussion and she thought it would be good and which I think is is good as well is to kind of go over our sidewalk replacement criteria. So that way I know we have new council members and not everybody has seen that. Uh but just to kind of give a brief overview um we put the we have this on our website. So when people have frequently asked questions on less to go and say you know what do the engineers go out and look at for replacement criteria on sidewalk and curbing gutters. And so when you look at that you can see the things that we're looking at right are safety hazards and then condition of the sidewalk. And so we look at vertical displacement of more than a half an inch. Um, and then if we're looking sometimes what we have when we talk about this inch and a half or greater between the sidewalk and back of curb, that's when we have the sidewalk and the curb together. When we get that separation, what happens, especially if the sidewalk drops, we get the water running down in between there and it will erode out and we'll get voids underneath the curb and gutter and sidewalk in those areas we want to protect against. And so that's what that one's kind of referring to. The other one is spalling or surface damage. Um, generally we're looking at 50% of that spalled to a depth of a quarter inch. So really that surface has come off of the sidewalk. And then also if we're looking at missing pieces or chunks out of the sidewalk um that could cause stripping hazards. And then when we're looking at crack or fissures along there, we're looking at in a section of the sidewalk. if there's there's 10 ft or more of cracks in that sidewalk or if that the crack is a half inch or wider for for three feet along there. So the and then obviously voids under the sidewalk depression. So anywhere that like if we got a depression and water

can fill in there and freeze then we've got a ice hazard. Um, and then obviously if there's not existing sidewalk, then we'd be requiring the sidewalk to to be put in at that location. And this is when we're coming in doing street reconstruction projects. So, is there questions on on that? Yeah. Yeah.

I appreciate you doing this. The reason I wanted to go over this is because um in our last meeting when like Somerfield for specifically because I I live close to their stuff. Um and I have a picture here that I took of what they're asking to replace there. And um so is this does this fall into the 10 feet or more per um like which one does this fall into? You know, I would say definitely that north one and I haven't gone out to measure them up or anything like that. uh cuz it looks like that crack is wider than/ an inch on that north piece and then the other cracking and the holes in it. Uh would look like it would fall within those those parameters of of just those two pieces being replaced

cuz when when we were out there, I mean, I I didn't feel like it met that criteria. I bought my husband, too. And um I just think that we would build more trust in our residents if we did everything we could. Like we could grind that. Like I don't know why that has to be replaced. I have sidewalk that looks like that that's two years old. Um it looked like that after we lived in our house for two years. So, I mean, I know maybe everyone else disagrees with me, but if that's our standard, because that sidewalk is about 10 years old. Um and so to me, that's too high of a standard. Um because in this area where we have this harsh climate, it looks like that after a couple years. So, why not grind that down and not make them replace it?

Can I say something in this year? So, so in in in where we live, right, because we have freeze and melt and freeze and melt. That's what I'm saying. So, the issue here is when once you get those kinds of cracks,

you can grind it all you want, but it's going to move next year. You're going to have to grind it again. It's going to move next because the water goes in, it freezes, it expands, and so it makes that crack wider. Then the water goes in and expands again and makes that crack wider. and then it gets underneath, right? And then as soon as it it's then it swells and so it lifts. So there's this constant movement that's taking place. The issue um and you know I don't know if we want to raise our standard there's there's multiple little things happening. One there's guarantee you there's no steel in that uh to hold it together so that it doesn't lift and so you're going to get cracks no matter what you're going to get cracks. Concrete's going to crack. It's just going to crack no matter what you do to it.

But there's probably no steel in there, which which causes it to separate the way you see that separation. Number one. Number two, I don't know what we're requiring for for preparation for concrete ahead of time. when when when when a an or a a company like this is building a a uh neighborhood and they're putting in the sidewalks, are we asking them to put the the right kind of base underneath it so that so that this can be controlled, right? So anyway, but this you can it'll just be an annual with time just because of where we live uh and what it does. Water is the most destructive element we have.

And uh and once you get those kinds of cracks in there, it's going to go and it's just going to widen and just it just continues to move year in and year out. Yes. Go ahead. I guess that's what I mean I know I you might disagree with me. I guess that's what I'm trying to say is um if we're making people replace their sidewalk after every two years, you know, um

then that to me that's too high. So our residents are saying these bills are too high for us. I'm just trying any ideas I can come up with to lower the bills. Like, why don't we try to make it easier for the residents? So, I'm I'm just throwing things out there. I'm I'm doing my best to try because they say, "Hey, this is too expensive for me." So, I I think we could try. I It's going to look like you're going to replace it and it's going to look like that again in 3 years. Because that's what happens, you know. So, so that was my point was that you you're going to fix it. It's going to look like that again in just a couple years because of what what council member Rian said. So

I don't know. That looks like probably someone ran over it would be my guess of why that's cracked like it is. But I would say the other thing that right we look at is is we're not coming back probably for 30 40 maybe even 50 years. And

people don't go generally on their own. That's not always the case. There's some people that go out and say I want to fix my sidewalk. I'm going to come in and do it. But I think if you look throughout our community at the sidewalks, we don't have very many people that go and do that. And so if we're going to be back here in 30, 40, 50 years, that's a that's a long time, right? It's not like we're coming in every couple years saying, "Hey, you got to you got to fix that again." Um, so I mean, I do get that that concern that if we were coming in two years and being like, "Oh, that that broke again. Now you got to fix it again." Um, But I think when we look at it on the engineering perspective, how long do how long is it going to be before we get back into there? And it's going to be a number of years before that happens.

Question. Yes. Go ahead. And Keith, you'd know this better better than I, which is why I'm asking. Is there anything to do where you could seal that up with some kind of a material to keep the water from getting in there, or is that crack too wide for something like that to work? and, you know, get by for a little longer with it.

Yeah. I mean, there's different attempts people make. Um, you can see it in different areas where they try and come in and fill those cracks in and seal it up. Um, it's it's difficult, right? Because expansion, contraction, um, generally trying to come in and doing something like that, a lot of times it's probably cheaper just to pull the concrete and reour it. Um, a lot of times we find when if you're grinding, the amount of time it takes to come in and grind a section of concrete down. Um, those are things that that we do look at like if a homeowner came and said, "Hey, is there a way I could come in and grind this?" Um, to probably if we were hiring someone out, they're going to be far cheaper to just pull it and then pour another piece of concrete in its place.

Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. if it's something that's a quick grind because I I've seen my like council member Johnson said I've seen some places and actually we've done it here in a couple places too where where it's lifted up and you can just grind off the edge and smooth it down so that it's not a trip but the rest of the concrete's in good shape and I think there's things like that that you can do that you can do fairly quickly that are cost effective but you know if you're Yeah and I think we would look at with working with a homeowner because I mean obviously a sidewalk we allow the homeowner to do the repair um themselves on that. And so if the homeowner came in and said, "Hey, this is what I want to look at doing." We'd just take a look at it and say, "Okay,

whether we we say, "Yeah, we think that we're okay with that." If we were to come in with our general contractor that we hire and try and do a bunch of these things, I think our cost would be extremely high. Yeah. Just as much. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. We appreciate that. You know, let going over that. I think that was good exercise to go over those uh requirements so that all the council members are aware of that. That's good to know. Yeah. And we'll probably have more things with it. The L committee is meeting tomorrow night at 5. Um and so we're going to be going over different different ideas that that maybe we can have that we can do as a city with that. So Okay. Thanks.

All right. All right. Thank you very much. Okay. Let's move on to item number six, which is mayor's business. Um, it's been a lot a lot going on lately. Um, one of the things, uh, just report a little bit on our John Schmidt concert, uh, that we had, we had a gayla event, uh, the Friday night that he was here and then the concert on Saturday night. And uh I don't have any official numbers, but I think between the two events we raised probably right around $150,000. I think uh wouldn't you kind of ballparking it would should be about close I think don't you think?

Yeah. Yeah. And then the uh and then the Gayla event was I think there were $40 $50,000 raised from that. So So they were good events. U it was it was a really nice event. I think people enjoyed it and that kind of a thing. So So uh so it was good. Uh at least we got something. We appreciate BYU Idaho's uh willingness to help us out there with the with the venue and and all of the the ticket sales and all those kind of things. So thank you for that. We appreciate that. And uh Beehive Credit Union, of course uh for their support in sponsoring um Mr. Schmidt to get him here. That was great as well. So Um we had um we've had several ribbon cutings uh that I've attended. A lot of different businesses around town that uh are popping up here and there. And a lot of them are, you know, small uh just uh local people owned businesses. And then of course some of the others that we've got coming up are going to be more some of your national chain type things and that kind of thing too. But but there's a lot of uh business activity in in the area. So, that's that's a good thing. Um, we do have the business competition this Saturday. If you've ever wondered what those are like. Uh, you're welcome to come here. Um, I think it starts at 10:00, 10:00 a.m. And, uh, they'll be going for several hours. You could kind of come anytime during the day and just watch what's going on. If you have any questions about that, you could, uh, talk with Scott or Aaron and they can give you more details on that if there's certain things that you'd like to see uh, there. So, that'll be interesting. Uh we have um uh let's see we had an interesting I attended the LAPC meeting this morning and uh Brett Kandle was there along with our IT director uh Todd Smith and um let's see who else from the city was there. I think that was that was it. Oh

no no no one of our GIS Greg from our GIS was there too. And if you don't know what LAPC is, that stands for local emergency preparedness committee. And we meet once a month. Um, and uh we we talk about different things uh that we are doing uh to be prepared for emergencies. And this morning was interesting. We did a tabletop exercise about the measles. As you as you maybe have heard in the news, there's been a few measles outbreaks. We we had one here, one case here in Madison County that came up from Utah. Um, and they've had quite a a fairly goodsized outbreak down there in Utah. And so so we talked about what we would do, all of the different we have we have the hospital, we have the health department, we have the schools represented, we have churches, we have uh Brett from BYU, Idaho as well as some other folks from up there. And we talk a lot about okay what would we do and how would we handle these emergencies we try to do a lot of coordination and you know who would do what and that kind of a thing. So, so if you've ever wondered if think bad things happen, who does what, well, that's that's the meeting where we talk about who who's going to do what and uh we try to be as organized and ready as we can. And of course, we can't see every everything, but we do try to try to figure out what what what the best procedures would be. Um, and then today here at in this room, we had uh our city employees also did a safety training on emergency procedures, you know, if we had emergencies here. And uh Brandy laid out a bunch of different procedure, different things that could happen like, you know, tornadoes or uh shootings, different things like that. and we talked about where things are and what we would do and you know those kind of things you know where the exits are that everybody would know the fastest

way out. We had a fire and a lot of things like that. So we're we're trying to be proactive and uh ready for for unforeseen events and usually when you're ready they don't happen. So that's what we're trying to do, right? Make them not happen. Yes. U did they do that for all the buildings or just city hall like how to get out? Uh we did that for this building on this particular one, but then she Brandy will be scheduling. I think uh I'll have to ask her for sure. But yeah, um I don't know that those are on the agenda right now, but I can ask her about it and see if they're looking at doing some of those as well, because we probably should. I think

you're interested to try and do one where um we have to clear the romance in the tabernacle. Yeah. No, that's true. True. Um, yeah, I'll make a note of that. That's probably That's not a bad idea. She may have that on the agenda. I just don't know. I We didn't talk about that. So, but I'll ask her. Either Brandy or Mariana might be taking on that role from what I understand. Is that Is that true? So, yeah. So, anyway, you heard what Council Member Tan suggested, right?

And uh that's probably not a bad idea. So, okay. organize emergency drills at other buildings. Okay. Okay. Thank you for that input. Um the senior center asked me to come over and do a another state of the city address at their uh lunchon yesterday. So I was over there uh visiting with them and they were asking me lots of questions about what's coming to town. You know, interested in different businesses coming to town. So, that's always a a fun event to visit with them. If I I don't know that you'd want to watch it, but if you do, there's on East Idaho News and on Channel 8 on their Facebook pages, they the Channel 8 News guy was there and he recorded the whole thing. So, like 48 minutes. So, um all right. Uh I believe that's about all of the things that I have uh on my list here to report on. So, let's go ahead and move to item number Well, we have nothing on item number seven. Item number eight is calendared bills. We have two second readings that we need to take care of. Item number one is ordinance number 1344, which is the annexation and reszone of approximately 1600 North Second East into the city of Rexburg and to reszone from transitional agriculture zone to community business center. Uh, is there any questions or comments about this item that we that we uh voted on last time? Is there any uh things that have come up or any questions or comments that anyone has on this?

If there is none, I would entertain a motion to consider ordinance 1344, second read. I'll make a motion that we consider ordinance 1344, second read. Thank you, Council Member Johnson. Is there a second to that? That second by council member Reer. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? I.

Any opposed? Right. We consider ordinance 1344, second read. Ordinance number 1345 is the creation of local improvement district 55. Excuse me. The boundaries encompass real property primarily along Birch Avenue, Ash Avenue, fourth west from south, second south to 5th south, 7th south from 12th west to the west end of Somerfield subdivision as well as several miscellaneous properties. This is ordinance number 1345. Is there any questions or comments on this item before we move forward? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion to consider ordinance 1345. Second for head.

Mayor, I'll make that motion. Consider the second. Okay. Thank you. Is there a second to that motion? Second. Second by council member Eric Ericson. Uh any further discussion on that item? Hearing none. All in favor? Yes. Any opposed?

All right. That motion carries. We will consider ordinance 1345 read. We have no third readings. And oh, excuse me. We do have one third reading. Got to turn the page. Ordinance number 1343, which is to consider the Rexburg Police Facility Bond Election Ordinance to seek funding for the construction of a new police facility in the May 19th, 2026 election. Uh, this is a third reading. Is there any uh questions or comments on this item before we move forward from council? Yes. Question. Yes.

So, in light of what we've heard tonight, Spencer, do you see any problem moving forward with this? Okay. Thank you. Okay. All right. Then, uh I would entertain a motion to consider ordinance 1343 red. moved by council. Okay. Thank you, council member Riggins. Is there a second to that motion? Council member Colin Ericson. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? I.

Any opposed? Right. That motion will be considered third read and we will go ahead and move forward with that. All right. Item number nine is the consent calendar which consists of the meetings from the February 18th, 2026 meeting and the approval of paying the city of Rexburg's bills. Uh is there any questions on any either one of these items? Any corrections to the minutes or any questions on any bills? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion to approve the consent calendar. Mayor, I'll make that motion to approve the consent calendar and pay our bills.

All right. Thank you, Council Member Colin Action. Is there a second to that motion? Second by Council Member Wiggins.

All right. All in favor? Any opposed? All right, that motion carries. We will go ahead and enter the minutes and and get the bills paid. All right, at this time, item number 10 is the roll call vote to move into executive session. as per Idaho state statute 74-2061F to communicate with legal council for the public agency to discuss the legal ramifications of and legal options for pending litigation or controversies not yet being litigated but imminently likely to be litigated. So I would need uh I would need a motion and then we'll have a roll call vote. So first I need a motion to move into executive session. Is there such a motion?

All right. Thank you, Council Member Wiggins. Is there a second to that motion? Second by Council Member Reer. Any further discussion? If not, I would entertain or sorry, I would I need a mo roll call vote to to do this. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

All right. It is unanimous. We will move into executive session. Uh thank you all for being here. Executive session we do have to clear the room and uh after which we will come back into regular session to adjourn. Uh so at this time we will go ahead and move into executive session. Thank you all for being here. We appreciate your attendance. Uh if you want to come back for adjournment, you're welcome to do that, but that's not usually too exciting. Thank you. Oh, uh yeah, we'll talk about that so that we all know

that'll be Sounds like