City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to our meeting tonight. We will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance led by Tammy. Let's have a roll call.

Randall Kempchen.

Here.

Aaron Richards. Jim Lawrence.

Here.

Bruce Casper.

Uh-huh.

Brian Thackeray. Rick Robison. McKay Francis.

Vermeer.

Here. Tammy Geddes?

Here.

Tina? Here.

OK, thank you.

Oh, did we get everybody? Did I say Dan Hanna? Dan Hanna, are you here?

I'm here.

OK, thank you.

Thank you.

We have now some business from our mayor. Mr. Mayor, please.

All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate Vice Chairman Kimpton. I appreciate that. Yeah, we're here to honor Sally Smith, of course, who has been on planning and zoning for quite a long time. I appreciate Sally because she was one of my city council people before Planning and Zoning and apparently hadn't had enough and said that she was willing to serve on Planning and Zoning as well. So I really appreciate Sally for all the years. If you add it all up, it'd be 20 something years probably. So I appreciate all of Sally's willingness to help with the development of our city and all of the good things she's done for us. I always told Sally I appreciated her willingness and her courage to speak up and sometimes make a motion when it wasn't a very popular thing to do with the crowd that was here. And Sally always had the courage to do that, even in the face of sometimes some uncomfortable situations. And I've always appreciated Sally's courage and willingness to step up and be the one who was willing to take the fire a little bit sometimes. And I appreciate that about Sally. So we'd like to present you with this plaque. And thank you so much. We'll give you your name tag. You can do what you want with that. It's a plaque. We have a blanket that says America's Family Community, thank you for your service. It's a little hard to read, but now that you know that's what it says, to keep you warm on some of those chilly nights that we have in Rexburg, although it might be a while before we have one of those judging from the weather outside. So we would like to give you that too, and thank you very much.

It's not a Madison cat blanket?

No, it's the city of Rexburg. This is not Madison High School, Bruce.

Hey.

It's red.

Publicly in front of all these people. Yes. I wrote you a note telling you about all the garbage and the ugly entrances to these two places. And there's been young ladies out there pulling weeds, cleaning up, looking after the flowers and watering them and spraying them. Pat yourself on the back because you probably won't hear another good thing during your tenure.

No, actually, I appreciate that, Bruce. I've had a lot of people, actually, that have noticed how good it's looking out there. And we're still working on a little bit more on the side hills. We've still got more to do. But yeah, I think it's looking nice. So thank you, I appreciate that. We won't do any back padding, but we'll continue to try to do some good things. So thank you for that. We appreciate all of you, but tonight we wanna go ahead and introduce Tina Lesh to our planning and zoning. And thank you, Tammy, for, sorry, Tammy, you've got some other ones that you've referred. Tina was referred by someone else, but... I visited with Tina and I feel like she's got some good experience and things that will add a lot to the Planning and Zoning Commission. And if you would, maybe just take a few minutes and just kind of introduce yourself to the rest of the panel and let them know what your experience is and just anything that you'd like for them to know about you. Okay?

Well, I'm Tina Lesh. I moved to Rexburg in 2020, right before the pandemic. Didn't necessarily plan on staying, but I ended up getting married to Robert McCorder, Rusty McCorder, here in Rexburg, and we're staying. So that's been a surprise and a great blessing. I am the mother of seven children. I own commercial real estate in Washington and here in Rexburg. I also have my master's in marriage and family therapy. And I've done some work with managing some new tech startup. And that's kind of a good sum total of what I'm doing right now.

Well, thank you very much. We're glad to have you, and we want to say welcome. And let's give her a big hand for being here. And the rest of you, too. We know that planning and zoning is kind of a wild beast sometimes. You know, you have meetings like hopefully tonight where it's not much. It's kind of a yawner. And you have other meetings that go on for hours and they can be a little uncomfortable. But we appreciate all of your willingness to take that on and help us to develop our town here in a way that we all feel like is beneficial and we can just keep it the great place that it is. So thank you all very much for all that you do. And I want you to go ahead and continue on. Thank you very much.

CHRIS JERRAM, Thank you, Mr. Mayor. All right, we now have the duty or the need to, because I am done and Sally has been finished with her service. She was the chair, I was the vice chair. We need to now elect a new, or point, elect, I guess, a new chair and vice chair of the commission. And so we'll open that up, I guess, for nominations. Oh, and Jim has also done September, so he would not be willing to accept that nomination. It wouldn't make a lot of sense.

I'll nominate McKay.

Thanks.

For chair. Okay. I'm second. Seconded nomination, okay.

I think we need some further discussion here.

Yeah, good. Any other nominations? All right. Seeing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. OK. Congratulations. We'll let you take over as chair. And then a matter of vice chair, is that also something that we elect as well? Or is that something?

We can wait until your replacement comes on board.

OK. I'll continue to serve as vice chair then until then. All right. OK. Excellent, then we move on then to an approval of the planning and zoning minutes for June 18th. And does anyone want to make a motion relating to that?

Thank you, Sally.

I think President Trump's speech is going to be more interesting than you guys.

Sally, take care.

I would make a motion for the approval of the minutes as written for our June 18, 2026 meeting.

If that's allowed, I'll second that since I was here. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. And any opposed? And any abstentions?

I abstain. I abstain.

Jim Lawrence and Tina Lusch will abstain.

And I abstain as well.

Tammy Geddes.

So I have Jim, Tammy, Tina, and who else was not here?

And who else is, Vern Muir is abstaining from that as well. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next item on our agenda is the Platte Home Depot subdivision. And we'll turn that time over to City for presentation.

This is the location of the property.

Most of you have probably already seen. And it's not just that parcel. It will actually take in this one also. So you have this whole 40 acres that's involved in the plat. We did a lot line separation so that Home Depot could purchase this lot and start construction while we finished up the plat. So that's how they've done it. It will be included in this plat. And if you do run into questions, Dan Zoldak, a representative for Home Depot, is online. And he can answer questions if you have it. This is the plat, as you see it, on the, that was, oh, where did you go? Always fun when it does that. As you can see, here's where the Home Depot will be going. And then there are other lots associated with this. With a new road going in here, this one will be dedicated to the city to become a public road.

That comes in from the light?

It's going to be a new stoplight.

No.

Get to my parcel here. This is OK. Here's the temple right here. This is Walmart. Yeah. This is the Teton River Road and it will continue right on through and then curl up in like this. There will be a new stoplight that will go in at this spot to service that and the other area. That's what the TIS recommended in their study. As far as staff has gone, we've reviewed everything. They have met all the requirements of the plat and staff is recommending it to you for approval or to recommend approval to city council.

Will that light impact the light there at the north exit?

No, the distances, Keith has looked at that, and this meets all of the standards they need to be able to get the right distance between them so you don't have as much stacking. But to make this really serviceable with what's happening on the west side along with what's on the east side, the warrants from the traffic impact study says you have to have a light here or you're going to have problems.

I just wondered, maybe you could take the light out.

No, you'd actually make the problem worse, because then you would have that many more people coming down that, because it's going to increase the traffic on the north end, and it's being able to make those left turns off of the freeway onto second east. You need that stoplight to give you that timing to be able to do that. So it's going to be fun. It's going to be interesting. You could see some expansion in that one in the near future. We don't know. One of the things they're looking at is southbound, the right-hand turn to go to the south. They may end up putting in a second lane there, just a free right turn. so that people can just go right off. And that will stop some of the congestion that piles up on the north side of that overpass. But those are things that are not associated with Home Depot, but we are working on also.

Are those all state? Let's go Q&A after. Let's keep proceeding.

OK. Thank you. Yeah. So as far as the plat, yeah, they've met all the requirements. If you have questions for Mr. Zoellick, he is online.

with the plan so there is no public hearing let's wait let's hear from the applicant and then get into uh discussion and then alan stay up there for questions okay dan if you want to go ahead you've got a moment here to speak to the group yeah uh first i'd like to thank you alan and staff uh it was really great working with you guys um pushing this project along and good cooperation between both parties. I'm here to answer any questions. Eric's also on the line. I think he's just not a participant, but he's listening in. Home Depot owns approximately about 25% of the 40 acres, and then the overall developer is also online if there's any further questions, but the plot does represent 40 of which Home Depot is About 10 of those acres. But again, yeah, we've gone through all the engineering, the traffic impact studies worked close in hand with the city staff. And I think it was a good team effort to get to where we are at. Appreciate the city's help. Here for any questions.

For the applicant.

He mentioned that they're 10 acres. Where's the Walmart building going to go?

The Walmart building. Home Depot.

Home Depot. Sorry.

They own this 10 acres right here. That's where they are building. The rest of this is the developer that will be developing some of the other.

So this green portion is what we're talking about.

Yeah, no, you're talking this whole, you take this one and this one, and that's the plat. This is what Home Depot owns, but they are part of this plat. So there are going to be a signature on it also, along with Eric Isom, who was listed. He's the developer on the project.

Alan, do you have any idea what's slated for those other lots?

We do not.

Okay.

There's no applications at this point.

Okay. Okay.

And they've left some of that to where there may be some future amendments to the plat, depending on if they need to split it up into smaller, but that's tomorrow. We'll have to approach that.

Just south of the Teton River Temple Street there, just south of the Teton River Temple Street, there's a little carve out there that says not a part of this plat.

That is this one right here. This is owned by, I think it's Idaho Credit. Yeah, that's the credit. And so they are a separate entity. They are not included in the plat. All right.

Have you had any feedback from them on this?

They have contacted Home Depot, and Eric and them have been in full contact with them. They're working together to make sure access works for both parties. So yeah, they're working through that.

By the time a clap hits us, it's gone through all the different. City offices to ensure that roads, utilities.

And for so making sure, even when we're done, make sure everything is information.

Can I have any signature? They have to sign on the plow.

That's pre or post? No, it's on the plow.

So they've already signed off?

They haven't signed off. Nobody has signed off yet. The city council has to sign off, and then it goes to them, and they sign off before we sign off. yeah the city is the very last person to sign on this other than the recorder at the county so when it's recorded they sign off but we don't sign anything until all signatures are gathered prior to us where this is a single entry with a dead end is there turn around for yeah vacate you vacate the shirt