New Stage, New Location (Possibly)!

In the final Moscow City Council meeting of the year, we got an update on the East City Park stage project! It looks like architects are strongly considering a new location for the stage. Let’s take a look at the details, shall we?

Read the full transcript of the video below:

How’s it going y’all. Aiden Anderson here with the Moscow Minutes. I am happy to announce that we’ve made it to the last City Council meeting of 2024. Did all the loose ends from the year end up getting tied off? Well, let’s take a look

The meeting began with a rather large set of mayoral appointments to various city commissions. This is typical for an end of the year meeting, as a lot of commission seats expire at the end of the year and need to be renewed before the council meets in January. Among these appointments was the reappointment of city councilor Sandra Kelly to the Moscow Urban Renewal Agency or MURA.

Normally, there’s not much said about the mayor’s appointments, but at this meeting councilor Hailey Lewis spoke up about the nature of the MURA appointment process, apparently because she was interested in serving on the board herself, but did not have a chance to pass her interest along to the mayor in time, or in a manner that would allow her to be considered for the position. This resulted in some back and forth with the Mayor and other members of council before a vote was called for. This vote to approve the set of appointments as presented passed 5-1 with Hailey being the dissenting vote. 

I think it’s also worth posing a question here. Councilor Sandra Kelly was listed as one of the appointees on this list, and yet did not recuse herself from voting for the appointment list. In other similar circumstances, councilors have publicly recused themselves from voting when an item presents a potential conflict of interest, or at least acknowledged their relationship to the item along with a promise to not let that relationship impact their vote.

It could very well be that this appointment vote was outside the scope of any recusal rules, but without clarity on the rules in the moment, it remains a little ambiguous. I can see such an action raising a few eyebrows since it went unmentioned. It’s one of those subtle things that engaged citizens ought to be paying attention to, and at least asking questions about.

The council heard public comment from some members of the Palouse Pickleball club about pickleball infrastructure needs before moving into their first action item. Scott Bontragger presented on the new city limits ordinance. State code requires that taxing districts, like the city, which alter their boundaries in a given year must prepare and file a new description of the updated legal boundary before the 10th of January of the coming year. The city made several adjustments this year, including the annexation of the Line View subdivision, Wildrose Court addition, and the SOMO business park. The ordinance simply updates the city limits for the state, and thus it was approved unanimously by the Moscow city council.

Police Chief Anthony Dahlinger, wearing the hat of staff liaison to the Moscow Human Rights Commission, presented on the next item. This was a request from the commission to sponsor the annual Martin Luther human rights community breakfast in the amount of $750. The commission regularly sponsors this event and raises the money itself every year, but it was caught off-guard by the recent changes to the city’s procurement policy. As such, the action needed to be brought before council, and the council unanimously approved the sponsorship.

Last on the agenda, an update on the East City Park stage project. The city has been working with Design West Architects on possible options for a new stage at East City Park, since the last one was torn most of the way down earlier in the year due to water damage making the structure hazardous. Cody Riddle of city staff and Ned Warnick of Design West presented on the ideas which the city is currently exploring.

There are essentially two options for the stage; one involves constructing the stage as per its original location, and one involves constructing the stage to share a wall with the park restroom structure, facing the playground and making use of the park’s natural amphitheater. The former faces the challenges associated with increased costs, a smaller seating area, and needing to remove three large trees, while the latter faces difficulties with grading and landscape repair. The former would result in less disturbance of the landscape while the latter would be somewhat cheaper, eliminate issues with the sunset for performers, increase seating space, and minimize paving needs.

Stakeholders associated with the project showed unanimous support for the new location by the restroom, and they are now looking for opportunities for public outreach on the subject through the coming winter and spring months.

Council deliberation brought forth a number of questions about outreach opportunities, logistics of stage usage with the different locations, and ways to honor the previous old stage and volunteers who set up there. In particular, Hailey Lewis expressed that she was much more encouraged about the status of the project than she had been in previous months.

Another repeated idea from the council was that parents watching their children on the playground would have a much easier time paying attention to both their children and events on the stage with the new location than with the old. That being said, this was just an update, and so no action was taken by council other than to accept the report. I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about the stage in months to come.

That’s all I got for you this week. I encourage you all to do what the council is doing next week, and take a break to celebrate the season with your friends and family. I will be doing that myself, but I will still be working to keep you posted on the latest local goings on all the same. 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!