Yes, the city had their budget hearing this week, but that’s not the only thing they talked about! We dive into their discussions on a number of topics, including a new city mural, an interesting public comment, and new regulations around sidewalk cafés!
Read the full transcript of the video below:
At long last, the city had the budget hearing. Let’s talk about it.
How’s it going y’all? Aiden Anderson here with the Moscow Minutes. As I just alluded to, the city had its annual budget hearing this past week and we’re here to go over the discussion.
Just an aside, we went through the budget for FY2025 in detail in another video, which we’ll link to with this one. If you want the details on the budget, check that video out. If you want the details of the meeting, keep watching.
Let’s start with the consent agenda. Typically, all of these items passed as a block, but council member Julia Parker requested that one item be pulled for separate consideration by the council. This item was a license agreement for shared mobility scooters provided by a company called Spin. The city has previously interacted with E-Scooter providers interested in bringing their services to the city, and this is the latest of those. Julia said that she pulled the item to make sure that the city highlighted and reiterated the work they’ve done related to e-scooter use, safety, and accessibility within the city. The agreement was then approved unanimously.
Now let’s look at the public comment. This should raise a few eyebrows…
…For context, I don’t think any city officials have made any public statements explicitly related to the current Israel-Palestine conflict, and I’d be surprised if they did. That issue has, like many issues of our day, a pretty significant degree of distance from the role the city plays as far as governance goes. This comment goes out of its way to highlight ways that this issue plays with the local side of things, so it’ll be interesting to see if there’s any response.
Moving on! Tina Hilding, vice chair of the sustainable environment commission gave a report on the commission’s past year of activities, highlighting the commission’s continued work with the city’s climate action plan and the urgent need to take action on climate issues based on the recent heat waves and fires in the area.
Next, Megan Cherry presented on the now-selected artist and design for the new mural planned for the city building on the corner of Jackson and A Street. Boise based artist Jay Rasgorshek was one of three artists selected by the project’s committee, and his design for the mural, which focused on local native flora and fauna, received a number of favorable comments from citizens on city pages and social media. The council in turn unanimously approved the planned mural artist and design.
Alright. We’ve made it to the budget part of the video…
Bill Belknap delivered the city’s summary of the proposed budget for FY2025. The official final total for the budget this coming year is $133,145,026. The city intends to take the statutory allowed 3% inflationary tax increase, an additional 1% foregone tax recovery, as well as 90% of new construction and annexations which are $103,925 and $3,128 respectively.
According to the Latah County Assessor’s office, the assessed taxable valuation within the City increased by 7.8% this year, which resulted in a reduction in the City’s levy rate from $3.58 to $3.52 per $1,000 in taxable valuation.This brings the city’s property tax levy to the aggregate amount of $8,614,902.
Overall, Belknap said that in the past year, the city experienced reduced revenues to the street and general fund due to court decisions which resulted in the elimination of the street light utility fee. In response, the city eliminated 6 staff positions in FY2024 and is looking to reduce discretionary expenditures in each department’s budget for FY2025.
The general goals of this year’s budget, according to Belknap, were to address staff needs, cover operations costs, and work towards the goal of $1.4 million in accumulated capital. Staff is watching the horizon for the potential for declining revenues in the future, depending on how inflation behaves, and how the state acts. Belknap proceeded to go through an outline of the budget document itself before turning things over to council.
During the public hearing portion, long-time city council attendee and commission member Victoria Seever praised the council and staff for the work put into this year’s budget, and reminded the audience about the difficulty of accounting for how budgets shift year to year with different expenses being highlighted at different times. No further public input was given, and the mayor closed the hearing.
Council deliberation was brief and minimal. Drew Davis commented on his desire to help the public better navigate the budget documents and the decisions that are all a part of the budget process, and Gina Taruscio praised the staff for their hard work. The budget for FY2025 was then approved unanimously by the Moscow City Council.
Following right behind the budget every year is the fee resolution. This resolution has to do with any fees that the city is charging going into a new fiscal year, and has to be voted on separately from the budget. Whenever a fee is increasing by more than 5% going into a new fiscal year, a public hearing has to be held, and that’s exactly what happened.
Again, Bill Belknap took the stand to present the fee resolution for FY2025. Here are some of the fee increases which prompted the public hearing requirement. [SEE VIDEO]
With no public comment, the mayor closed the hearing, and the city council quickly and unanimously approved the fee resolution for FY2025.
After a short break, the council returned for the final item on the night’s agenda, proposed amendments to the city’s sidewalk cafe standards. In the past, Moscow’s sidewalk café regulations have prohibited the service and consumption of liquor within licensed sidewalk cafés unless the establishment is a full-service restaurant. Drinking establishments that are not full-service restaurants are technically allowed to have a sidewalk café so long as liquor is not served or consumed withi] the sidewalk café area.
The City has historically denied licensing sidewalk cafés to drinking establishments that serve liquor, because of the difficulty in policing the “no-liquor outside” rule. In the city’s mind, this has led to disparity and discrimination of sorts when it comes to the allowance of sidewalk cafés downtown. This new ordinance eliminates “the full-service restaurant” requirement for liquor to be served and consumed at a sidewalk café, as well as adding clarifying language related to allowed uses and ordinance violations when it comes to a restaurant applying for a sidewalk café.
Council member Bryce Blankenship expressed his support for the amendment in light of up-and coming businesses that would benefit from such a change, such as Neat and the Garden. Julia asked a question related to public intoxication and the ways that restaurants who already have sidewalk cafés address this problem. Gina expressed her initial skepticism upon seeing the amendment, but has since been able to see it as an evening of the playing field for all restaurants. The amendment was approved unanimously by the Moscow City Council.
That’s all I have for you this week. Like I’ve said before, you really should take the time to look at the city budget yourself, because by doing so you’ll find yourself better equipped to understand not just city finances, but also many of the actions that the city takes going into these next few months. 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 ya next time!
Murals and Budgets and Liquor, Oh My!
Yes, the city had their budget hearing this week, but that’s not the only thing they talked about! We dive into their discussions on a number of topics, including a new city mural, an interesting public comment, and new regulations around sidewalk cafés!
Read the full transcript of the video below:
At long last, the city had the budget hearing. Let’s talk about it.
How’s it going y’all? Aiden Anderson here with the Moscow Minutes. As I just alluded to, the city had its annual budget hearing this past week and we’re here to go over the discussion.
Just an aside, we went through the budget for FY2025 in detail in another video, which we’ll link to with this one. If you want the details on the budget, check that video out. If you want the details of the meeting, keep watching.
Let’s start with the consent agenda. Typically, all of these items passed as a block, but council member Julia Parker requested that one item be pulled for separate consideration by the council. This item was a license agreement for shared mobility scooters provided by a company called Spin. The city has previously interacted with E-Scooter providers interested in bringing their services to the city, and this is the latest of those. Julia said that she pulled the item to make sure that the city highlighted and reiterated the work they’ve done related to e-scooter use, safety, and accessibility within the city. The agreement was then approved unanimously.
Now let’s look at the public comment. This should raise a few eyebrows…
…For context, I don’t think any city officials have made any public statements explicitly related to the current Israel-Palestine conflict, and I’d be surprised if they did. That issue has, like many issues of our day, a pretty significant degree of distance from the role the city plays as far as governance goes. This comment goes out of its way to highlight ways that this issue plays with the local side of things, so it’ll be interesting to see if there’s any response.
Moving on! Tina Hilding, vice chair of the sustainable environment commission gave a report on the commission’s past year of activities, highlighting the commission’s continued work with the city’s climate action plan and the urgent need to take action on climate issues based on the recent heat waves and fires in the area.
Next, Megan Cherry presented on the now-selected artist and design for the new mural planned for the city building on the corner of Jackson and A Street. Boise based artist Jay Rasgorshek was one of three artists selected by the project’s committee, and his design for the mural, which focused on local native flora and fauna, received a number of favorable comments from citizens on city pages and social media. The council in turn unanimously approved the planned mural artist and design.
Alright. We’ve made it to the budget part of the video…
Bill Belknap delivered the city’s summary of the proposed budget for FY2025. The official final total for the budget this coming year is $133,145,026. The city intends to take the statutory allowed 3% inflationary tax increase, an additional 1% foregone tax recovery, as well as 90% of new construction and annexations which are $103,925 and $3,128 respectively.
According to the Latah County Assessor’s office, the assessed taxable valuation within the City increased by 7.8% this year, which resulted in a reduction in the City’s levy rate from $3.58 to $3.52 per $1,000 in taxable valuation.This brings the city’s property tax levy to the aggregate amount of $8,614,902.
Overall, Belknap said that in the past year, the city experienced reduced revenues to the street and general fund due to court decisions which resulted in the elimination of the street light utility fee. In response, the city eliminated 6 staff positions in FY2024 and is looking to reduce discretionary expenditures in each department’s budget for FY2025.
The general goals of this year’s budget, according to Belknap, were to address staff needs, cover operations costs, and work towards the goal of $1.4 million in accumulated capital. Staff is watching the horizon for the potential for declining revenues in the future, depending on how inflation behaves, and how the state acts. Belknap proceeded to go through an outline of the budget document itself before turning things over to council.
During the public hearing portion, long-time city council attendee and commission member Victoria Seever praised the council and staff for the work put into this year’s budget, and reminded the audience about the difficulty of accounting for how budgets shift year to year with different expenses being highlighted at different times. No further public input was given, and the mayor closed the hearing.
Council deliberation was brief and minimal. Drew Davis commented on his desire to help the public better navigate the budget documents and the decisions that are all a part of the budget process, and Gina Taruscio praised the staff for their hard work. The budget for FY2025 was then approved unanimously by the Moscow City Council.
Following right behind the budget every year is the fee resolution. This resolution has to do with any fees that the city is charging going into a new fiscal year, and has to be voted on separately from the budget. Whenever a fee is increasing by more than 5% going into a new fiscal year, a public hearing has to be held, and that’s exactly what happened.
Again, Bill Belknap took the stand to present the fee resolution for FY2025. Here are some of the fee increases which prompted the public hearing requirement. [SEE VIDEO]
With no public comment, the mayor closed the hearing, and the city council quickly and unanimously approved the fee resolution for FY2025.
After a short break, the council returned for the final item on the night’s agenda, proposed amendments to the city’s sidewalk cafe standards. In the past, Moscow’s sidewalk café regulations have prohibited the service and consumption of liquor within licensed sidewalk cafés unless the establishment is a full-service restaurant. Drinking establishments that are not full-service restaurants are technically allowed to have a sidewalk café so long as liquor is not served or consumed withi] the sidewalk café area.
The City has historically denied licensing sidewalk cafés to drinking establishments that serve liquor, because of the difficulty in policing the “no-liquor outside” rule. In the city’s mind, this has led to disparity and discrimination of sorts when it comes to the allowance of sidewalk cafés downtown. This new ordinance eliminates “the full-service restaurant” requirement for liquor to be served and consumed at a sidewalk café, as well as adding clarifying language related to allowed uses and ordinance violations when it comes to a restaurant applying for a sidewalk café.
Council member Bryce Blankenship expressed his support for the amendment in light of up-and coming businesses that would benefit from such a change, such as Neat and the Garden. Julia asked a question related to public intoxication and the ways that restaurants who already have sidewalk cafés address this problem. Gina expressed her initial skepticism upon seeing the amendment, but has since been able to see it as an evening of the playing field for all restaurants. The amendment was approved unanimously by the Moscow City Council.
That’s all I have for you this week. Like I’ve said before, you really should take the time to look at the city budget yourself, because by doing so you’ll find yourself better equipped to understand not just city finances, but also many of the actions that the city takes going into these next few months. 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 ya next time!
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About The Author
Aiden Anderson