Storage Unit Showdown!

It’s all about storage units and libraries in one of the most lively Moscow city council meetings of this year! We’re here to dive into what happened.

Read the full transcript of the video below:

Drama! In the Moscow City Council Chambers! Are they breaking up?!

Ok. Fully kidding. How’s it going y’all? Aiden Anderson here with the Moscow Minutes. Things took an interesting turn Monday night at the Moscow City Council meeting. Mayor Bettge jinxed us. He said it was only gonna take about 45 minutes, and it ended up being nearly two hours long.

In this video I’ll break down the items that were discussed at the city meeting on March 4th, and go through the city council’s lively discussions.

The first item that came up was a Public Hearing regarding an ordinance amending Moscow City Code. Specifically, City Code Title 4 Chapter 3, regarding self storage facilities. City Staff member Mike Ray conducted a presentation in which the code amendment, put together by the city’s planning and zoning commission, was unpacked. The short of it is this. The city has been allowing the development of more efficient and innovative housing as a means of using infill rather than sprawl to provide for housing needs. This has, in turn, created a need for more storage options for people in the city. Previously, self storage facilities were limited as to which zones they could be built in. The PNZ (Planning and Zoning Commission) thus put together an amendment that allows for such facilities to be built in more residential and commercial zones. Mike Ray then went through the new regulations and building requirements for self-storage facilities contained in the amended city code.

It was a public hearing, so the mayor then heard testimony from folks in the audience. Former City Council candidate Evan Holmes spoke in favor of the ordinance, but with caveats. Specifically, he asked whether the city could consider changing the setback requirement, related to how far the storage facility’s buildings are from the edge of the rear of the facility’s property, from 10 feet to 20 feet. So if you imagine the property line that the storage facility has. Wherever the buildings start, there’s a bare minimum distance that they have to be from what’s considered the rear of the property, and that’s what the setback requirement is. As it’s written in the ordinance, the setback requirement is 10 feet before buildings can start being built, and Evan was wondering if the council could consider changing that setback requirement to 20 feet, just to clarify that. Moreover, he asked if a Conditional Use Permit could be made a requirement for such a facility’s construction. Testimony was also received from Miriam Kent, a storage unit user herself, who asked about the possibility of mitigating noise when it came to folks using these facilities.

At this point it was the council’s turn to deliberate. At first there was general consensus around the need for this ordinance to go through to meet the needs of the city. There was some conversation about the points brought up during the public hearing portion, particularly around the CUP and 20 feet setback suggestions. This resulted in a motion from council member Gina Taruscio to approve the ordinance with an added amendment changing the setback requirement from 10 feet to 20 feet, and this motion was seconded by Julia Parker. That’s when things got interesting. 

The conversation immediately turned to whether or not the 20 feet requirement was worth it and whether it would be impactful or not. Safety concerns as well limited space use concerns were tossed around before the council voted. The vote was a 3-3 tie, which means the mayor has to step in and break the tie one way or the other. Citing the extensive work and contingencies which PNZ had put into the original ordinance, Mayor Bettge voted no, and urged the council to reconsider the ordinance as is. A few more minutes of discussion later, Sandra Kelly motioned to approve the ordinance as it was originally written, with a second by Gina Taruscio, who made the original motion. This new motion passed 5-1, and the ordinance amending city code was then approved.

Item number two: a resolution in support of the Latah County Library District, expressing confidence in its board of trustees and library directors. This resolution was put together in response to “proposed legislation” at the Idaho statehouse. Other cities such as Aberdeen, Blackfoot, Shelly, and Firth have put forward their own very similar resolutions.

I believe the proposed legislation in this case is SB 1289, which deals with procedures to restrict minors from certain materials at public libraries, and allows parents to pursue legal action against libraries who do not not abide by these procedures. Discussions surrounding this bill at the state level have been mixed to say the least, with some folks speaking against the concept “banned books” and others speaking in favor of “preventing kids from accessing pornography”. But rather than opening that can of worms, let’s see what the city council talked about…

Julia Parker (speaking at the council meeting): This is a hard thing to say. So, I am totally support of our library. I think it’s a great asset. I think it’s extremely unfortunate that libraries have been attacked, both in Idaho and nationwide. But this is kinda odd for us to do. Like, we don’t usually do this. We really on council have stuck to more nonpartisan things in running the city. So, I’m just curious why this particular resolution and not a resolution on… women’s rights to choose, LGBTQ issues, you know, a lot of things a lot of us would support, and you know, why this one? That’s my question.

As you just saw, Julia Parker acknowledged the somewhat partisan nature of the resolution, which is something the city doesn’t usually get involved with. Why put together a resolution on this issue and not on other similarly partisan issues. The answer to Julia’s question eventually came from City Supervisor Bill Belknap that the city provides financial support to the library building, and thus has a say in its operations distinct from the particulars of the issue.

There was some substantial back and forth on this one, with each of the councilors expressing support for the district, while not being as sure about the resolution itself. Sandra was the strongest standing in support of the resolution and the need to stand by our libraries in this time of need. Drew Davis stood the strongest in opposition to the resolution, stating that such a resolution would be too easy to ignore, and preferring a face-to-face conversation with the lawmakers instead. Hailey Lewis expressed concern about the possible direction the legislature might take if they passed this bill and if the city passed this resolution, while Gina expressed concern about setting precedent when it came to making resolutions about partisan issues. After discussing these issues, at the end of the night, the resolution passed 5-1.

Meetings like this are typically few and far between. Seeing consensus form out of debate is always interesting. Also, I learned way more about storage units than I ever expected to learn at a Moscow City Council Meeting. If you want to watch all two hours of the meeting, the city always live streams their meetings on their youtube channel. We’ll have a link posted with this video if that’s something you want to check out. As always, reach out if you’ve got any questions. This is Aiden Anderson with the Moscow Minutes. See you next time.