A Spicy Monday at City Hall!

Through the course of three hours on Monday, things got intense at City Hall! In this video, we unpack the Moscow City Council’s various discussions, from public hearings to arguments over stage designs. Also, congratulations to Anthony Dahlinger for taking the oath as city police chief!

Read the full transcript of the video below:

How’s it going y’all? Aiden Anderson here with the Moscow Minutes. If the intro didn’t already make things clear, the nearly three-hour-long Moscow city council meeting this week was a bit more lively than usual. Let’s get into it.

The meeting began with mayoral proclamations for Bike Month and Public Service Recognition Week. This was followed up with some staff recognition and a new appointment to the sustainable environment commission.

Moving into public comment, the council heard from several people this week, including candidate for Idaho State Representative, Kathy Dawes. A number of folks, Dawes among them, spoke about the ongoing legal disputes between the residents of several local mobile home parks, and their new landlord, Hearst and Sons LLC, who purchased a number of the parks several months ago. 

Residents of the parks spoke in favor of the formation of resident-owned communities for the people living there, and asked the council how they could consider lending their support to the idea. Dawes echoed her support for the residents and also spoke as regards a law that her opponent in the coming election, Brandon Mitchell, put forth this past legislative session, which restricts the ability of local governments to control rents.

And now, a celebration. Residents and family members gathered at the meeting for the swearing-in ceremony for our new city police chief, Anthony Dahlinger.

With the ceremony concluded, the council moved on to hear the annual report from the Pathways Commission. Commission chair Tanya Denison went through their past year of activities, including the annual bike and pedestrian tours, and their ongoing efforts to make the paths around town more accessible to all residents.

Ok, now we’ve got some public hearings… so buckle up.

The first public hearing involved several items, including an annexation, comprehensive land use designation, zoning designation, and a preliminary plat. The applicants, Joe and Pam Juscen had a proposal involving a 22.93 acre plot located east of Moser Street. The plan was to have the plot annexed into the city, the zoning switched from Ag Forest (AF) to Single Family Residential (R2), and the plot divided into 40 lots for the future Pine View Subdivision.

Sidenote: who comes up with subdivision names? Is there a reason that they’re always named after plants?

Anyway, planning and zoning recommended approval with eight conditions, a ninth of which was appended later. There was some public testimony in favor of the development, with questions related to foot traffic and possible pathways through the future subdivision. Council deliberated briefly, and then, one by one, voted to approve each of the items presented in the public hearing. 

The next public hearing presented a similar list of items, with the addition of a planned unit development application or PUD, to be approved immediately before the preliminary plat item in the list. The applicant, Provvidenza LLC, represented by Dave Dale at the meeting was proposing the annexation of a 2.53 acre property roughly between Wildrose Court and Flomer Lane, a rezone from R1 to R2 single family residential, with 16 lots planned on the property as part of a new Wildrose Court subdivision. City Staff member Mike Ray went through details of the lots, including some concepts for the proposed units which had a focus on sustainable materials and higher density. Planning and Zoning recommended approval of the items with six conditions.

A number of residents, in particular the neighbors, spoke in opposition to the proposal at the public hearing, citing concerns about the diminishment of green space, the lack of similarity of the proposed development to the neighbors, and impingement on the area’s surrounding properties. Dave Dale, the applicant, explained his history of working with and on this particular property, and expressed his frustration at how difficult it had been to get things to this point. At this point, there appeared to be no other persons looking to speak, and so the mayor closed the public hearing. Another resident who had previously sent in material to the council via email arrived at that point, but with the hearing closed according to Idaho law, she was not permitted to speak.

Council deliberation was somber, but more-or-less unified. Many of the councilors expressed their solidarity with the neighbors while also acknowledging their consistent past support for infill development and new options for more accessible housing. Sandra Kelly called the actions before council “heartbreaking” and asserted that the decision before council to approve the items in question was a sad and frustrating, but also right decision. Bryce Blankenship called it the hardest decision he had so far faced in his time as city councilor, and also felt that at the moment he was still not ready to make a decision one way or the other. With that the time came for a motion, and then this happened…

Immediately following this, the council voted on the items presented in the public hearing, and all of the items in the list were approved either 5-1 or 4-2 by the Moscow City Council. With that, the council took a short recess to stretch their legs before moving on to the next item.

This next item was similarly not an easy one to get through. Deputy City Supervisor Cody Riddle presented a Professional Services agreement related to the conceptual design of a new stage for East City Park for $18,700. Just some background info, it was determined some weeks back that the stage roof structure was rotten to the point that it needed to be removed immediately before something happened. This means that repairs and improvements need to be made to the stage ahead of the city’s schedule. 

If this agreement were approved, Design West Architects would produce a 30% conceptual design and updated cost estimate, that would inform a funding and timing strategy for total replacement of the stage at East City Park, and it would be based on previous plans the city had worked with back in 2010.

There was a lot of disagreement in the council on this one. Hailey Lewis in particular was not a fan of the cost when it came choosing between this design concept, and buying material to simply replace and refurbish the existing structure. Other counselors also voiced similar concerns about the footprint of the original structure being changed and not getting more public input ahead of time if things were to change. Changes or not, others voiced concerns over not having an functional stage structure at all and that this design option could at least be a movement in the right direction. 

The vote was a three-three tie, with the mayor breaking the tie in favor of approving the contract. Even after the vote, discussion continued as City Supervisor Bill Belknap expressed his concern over a lack of consensus on the decision to approve the contract when it came to making decisions on it in the future. Regardless, the vote was cast, and the city will be moving forward with this design exploration.

The rest of the meeting was a lot more calm. Bill Belknap presented on two connected items, namely a franchise agreement with the Port of Lewiston and a subsequent conduit lease agreement. The Port received a grant to install fiber optic cables from Lewiston to the city of Moscow, and had requested to install cables within the city’s right of way. With the terms and conditions worked out between the two parties, the city will receive 5% of the gross revenues from the port from leasing the fiber to internet service providers. This was followed up by the lease agreements regarding the construction and installation of conduits related to the fiber project. Both of these items were approved unanimously, and with it being almost 10pm at this point, the city voted to forgo reports and adjourn for the night.

So, a bit of a wild Monday night. Generally our current city council is of one mind about most things they handle. Meetings like this are demonstrations of what happens when the issues at hand are complex enough to warrant disagreement, and it’s important to see when, what, and how your city leadership disagrees on things. As always, we’ll have the relevant links posted with this video, and if you have any questions, please reach out. I’m Aiden Anderson with the Moscow Minutes. See you next time.