HomeLatah CountyTax Deeds, Bagel Shops, and Class Action Suits: Just Another Week in Latah County
Tax Deeds, Bagel Shops, and Class Action Suits: Just Another Week in Latah County
January 25, 2025
There must be something in the water, because we’ve had a lot going on this week. From the City of Moscow filing a class action claim, to Latah County putting its new commissioners through the wringer. Let’s try and get into the details!
How’s it going y’all? Aiden Anderson here with the Moscow Minutes. Now, is life in Latah County really as interesting as I just made it sound? Let’s look at the details.
With the mayor absent, new council president Julia Parker led the Monday night City Council meeting. This meeting kicked off with a series of public comments, including a photo-op with Tim Thompson, the local rotary club president, and Amanda Argona of city staff, as well as a request from Tim Park for the city to make efforts to make the Yard Waste Transfer station safer and more user friendly. The highlight of the meeting, however, had to be this comment from William of Shagetz Bagels. Let’s go to the clip!
This is not the first time William has brought this sort of issue before the city council during public comment time. Only time will tell if his concerns will be addressed and if the city will adopt his requested statements.
City Attorney Mia Bautista presented the only action item on the city’s agenda this week. That item? A resolution for the Moscow city attorney to submit a claim on behalf of the city for the Payment Card Interchange Fee Settlement. Now what’s that?
Back in 2005, 1,200 or so merchants brought a class action suit against Visa, Mastercard, and their associated banks for violating antitrust laws related to interchange fees. 15 years later, a settlement agreement was reached, with Visa and Mastercard paying out a whopping $5.54 billion to the merchants affected. Bautista explained that, as an entity that accepted visa debit and credit cards between 2004 and 2019, the city of Moscow qualifies for a settlement payment.
If the city council were to approve it, Bautista as the city attorney would submit their claim, and the class action administrator would take some time to calculate how much the city will get, which will be a lengthy process, but not take up much of the city’s time. It’s then just a matter of waiting to see what the payout will be. As such, the council voted to approve the resolution unanimously.
The county commissioners dealt with a substantial number of items this week, mostly having to do with taxpayer adjustments and property tax exemptions. The variety of items on display meant that new commissioners Jason Stooks and Tony Johnson got a pretty wide view of the sorts of things that the county regularly deals with.
One less-common item that appeared before the commissioners this week was a tax deed property hearing. This happens when the ownership of a given property is completely unaccounted for, both in record and in taxes. At this point, if no owners come forth, the county acquires the property via the tax deed process and prepares it to be sold at a future tax deed auction.
In this case, the property in question is a roughly 2-acre plot which was last owned by Edith A. Jones, who has since passed away. With no heirs to be found and taxes left unpaid, the county is interested in acquiring it via tax deed. The Idaho Transportation Department did reach out to the county, expressing interest in acquiring it from them. As per the process explained by the county treasurer, BJ Swanson, the county will acquire the property, and ITD will be able to bid on it at the next tax deed auction. This course of action was approved unanimously by the commissioners.
The commissioners also held their regular monthly meeting with the department heads and elected officials this week. The main highlight from that, of course, was the new commissioners being able to introduce themselves to the rest of county leadership that they had not yet gotten a chance to visit with. Jason Stooks stated that he hopes to have an open door policy with county staff to ensure that they as commissioners are being as helpful as possible, as well as wanting to address billing times to ensure that the county pays minimal late fees. Tony Johnson said that he hopes to visit and job shadow each of the county departments in the coming weeks.
The commissioners, the mayor, and at least one member of city council will be out of town next week to visit the Idaho Associations of Counties and Cities respectively. There they will sift through state legislative issues related to local governments and present their requests and concerns to the representatives at the statehouse.
We sadly won’t be following them down to Boise, but in the meantime, there’s plenty of other things happening locally that we’ll be sure to share with you. 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!
Tax Deeds, Bagel Shops, and Class Action Suits: Just Another Week in Latah County
There must be something in the water, because we’ve had a lot going on this week. From the City of Moscow filing a class action claim, to Latah County putting its new commissioners through the wringer. Let’s try and get into the details!
Read the full transcript of the video below:
Alright. This week, we’ve got tax deeds, we’ve got lawsuits, we’ve got… antisemitism?
How’s it going y’all? Aiden Anderson here with the Moscow Minutes. Now, is life in Latah County really as interesting as I just made it sound? Let’s look at the details.
With the mayor absent, new council president Julia Parker led the Monday night City Council meeting. This meeting kicked off with a series of public comments, including a photo-op with Tim Thompson, the local rotary club president, and Amanda Argona of city staff, as well as a request from Tim Park for the city to make efforts to make the Yard Waste Transfer station safer and more user friendly. The highlight of the meeting, however, had to be this comment from William of Shagetz Bagels. Let’s go to the clip!
This is not the first time William has brought this sort of issue before the city council during public comment time. Only time will tell if his concerns will be addressed and if the city will adopt his requested statements.
City Attorney Mia Bautista presented the only action item on the city’s agenda this week. That item? A resolution for the Moscow city attorney to submit a claim on behalf of the city for the Payment Card Interchange Fee Settlement. Now what’s that?
Back in 2005, 1,200 or so merchants brought a class action suit against Visa, Mastercard, and their associated banks for violating antitrust laws related to interchange fees. 15 years later, a settlement agreement was reached, with Visa and Mastercard paying out a whopping $5.54 billion to the merchants affected. Bautista explained that, as an entity that accepted visa debit and credit cards between 2004 and 2019, the city of Moscow qualifies for a settlement payment.
If the city council were to approve it, Bautista as the city attorney would submit their claim, and the class action administrator would take some time to calculate how much the city will get, which will be a lengthy process, but not take up much of the city’s time. It’s then just a matter of waiting to see what the payout will be. As such, the council voted to approve the resolution unanimously.
The county commissioners dealt with a substantial number of items this week, mostly having to do with taxpayer adjustments and property tax exemptions. The variety of items on display meant that new commissioners Jason Stooks and Tony Johnson got a pretty wide view of the sorts of things that the county regularly deals with.
One less-common item that appeared before the commissioners this week was a tax deed property hearing. This happens when the ownership of a given property is completely unaccounted for, both in record and in taxes. At this point, if no owners come forth, the county acquires the property via the tax deed process and prepares it to be sold at a future tax deed auction.
In this case, the property in question is a roughly 2-acre plot which was last owned by Edith A. Jones, who has since passed away. With no heirs to be found and taxes left unpaid, the county is interested in acquiring it via tax deed. The Idaho Transportation Department did reach out to the county, expressing interest in acquiring it from them. As per the process explained by the county treasurer, BJ Swanson, the county will acquire the property, and ITD will be able to bid on it at the next tax deed auction. This course of action was approved unanimously by the commissioners.
The commissioners also held their regular monthly meeting with the department heads and elected officials this week. The main highlight from that, of course, was the new commissioners being able to introduce themselves to the rest of county leadership that they had not yet gotten a chance to visit with. Jason Stooks stated that he hopes to have an open door policy with county staff to ensure that they as commissioners are being as helpful as possible, as well as wanting to address billing times to ensure that the county pays minimal late fees. Tony Johnson said that he hopes to visit and job shadow each of the county departments in the coming weeks.
The commissioners, the mayor, and at least one member of city council will be out of town next week to visit the Idaho Associations of Counties and Cities respectively. There they will sift through state legislative issues related to local governments and present their requests and concerns to the representatives at the statehouse.
We sadly won’t be following them down to Boise, but in the meantime, there’s plenty of other things happening locally that we’ll be sure to share with you. 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!
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Aiden Anderson