A Tip for Keeping an Eye on the County

As our Valentine’s Day gift to you, this week’s report comes with a short tip for those who want to be more involved with our local county’s goings-on! We hope you enjoy!

Read the full transcript of the video below:

Happy Valentine’s Day y’all. Aiden Anderson here with the Moscow Minutes. On this holiday, some of us go on dates, some of us eat chocolate, and some of us report on local civics. We’ve just got a few brief notes to cover today from the county, so let’s get started!

Firstly, the commissioners sat through a presentation by Krista Baker on the Idaho Office of Broadband, outlining the principles, goals, and projects associated with the group. Latah County has been working on broadband projects for some time now, and this is one of the other organizations they work with to see these projects through. 

Beyond just being an overview, the presentation also covered some of the funding details related to ongoing projects. Baker further answered some questions related to the impact that recent federal orders might have on these same projects.

There was also a public hearing related to opening the county budget in order to make a variety of adjustments. Anytime a current budget needs to be changed, even if it’s just for corrections, it has to go through the public hearing process. The county financial officer went through a list of the planned adjustments, including changes related to grants, state takeover of certain payments, increases to the museum fund, and changes related to salaries and insurance benefits for certain county staff positions. With no public input provided, the commissioners approved these changes unanimously.

Those are the highlights from the commissioners’ meeting this week, but I’ll say one thing more. Part of the reason that the commissioners didn’t receive public input on that open budget hearing is that almost no one from the public was there at the hearing. If you want your voice to be heard on these sorts of issues, you’ve gotta show up for the meetings. Here’s a tip to make things easier for you.

County Commissioner agendas for future meetings typically become available on Fridays, the week before. By going to the Latah County website, you should be able to click on the “Current BOCC Agenda” link and be presented with a document detailing the items to be discussed at a coming meeting. Just check that the date is correct, and you should be good to go.

A typical agenda is pretty accurate with its scheduling, so if there’s an item you’re involved with or have an interest in, it should tell you pretty solidly what time it will come up in discussion. You can also just scan through the agenda to see if anything strikes you as worth looking at. Either way, it’s always better to know what’s going on, so that you can be informed, and plan your participation as a citizen accordingly.

That’s all I got for you this week. If you decide that attending a county meeting might be worth your while, I look forward to seeing you there! 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!