Enter the Board of Equalization

Public hearings and quasi-judicial matters were on the county commissioners’ brains this week. Let’s take a quick look at their decisions!

Read the full transcript of the video below:

How’s it going y’all? Aiden Anderson here with the Moscow Minutes. The county commissioners have been busy this week. Let’s unpack what they’ve been up to.

In the first part of the day, the commissioners convened as a Board of Equalization. The Board of Equalization is a quasi-judicial function of the county that handles a number of decisions that the commissioners can’t make in their capacity as a board of county commissioners. If that sounds confusing, think of it this way: in order to make judgements on certain subjects, the commissioners need to take off their board of commissioner hats, and put on their board of equalization hats. When they’re done, they switch hats again.

In my experience, the Board of Equalization deals primarily with appeals of property tax assessments. Every year, the county assessor’s office reviews and assesses properties to determine their value for a variety of purposes, including property taxes. Citizens of the county can appeal the assessment if they think it is incorrect, whereupon the Board of Equalization will meet and review the assessment. Depending on the circumstances and case made, they can make adjustments to the property assessment, or uphold the original value.

This week, the commissioners heard seven appeals of property assessments. These proved to be pretty straightforward, as the assessor’s office confirmed that the county had made errors in their initial assessment, some related to new developments with the properties in question, unseen damages, or incorrect zoning designations. With those errors cleared up, the new assessments were presented in the appeals, and the board approved all the corresponding adjustments.

The other major thing that the commissioners dealt with was a series of public hearings related to their planning and building department. The first thing the commissioners had to do was determine if they were in fact going to hold a public hearing on a couple of subjects. These were contained in Resolution 2025-07, having to do with the county’s comprehensive plan and changes to the county boundary.

The head of the planning and building department explained that both the comprehensive plan adjustments and the boundary updates needed to be approved in order to implement the other decisions on the county’s agenda. These changes were being made due to state legislative actions, and thus the county was now required to incorporate them into their code. As such, the commissioners decided to forgo the public hearing, and approved the resolution unanimously.

Next up, Ordinance 407, which was a series of amendments to land use regulations and the county zoning map, also mandated by the state. Again, no public hearing took place, and the ordinance was approved unanimously.

Now for the public hearings. The first considered amendments to county building code regulations, including changes to the section of code dealing with work exempt from permits, and language changes related to building inspections and penalties. No public testimony took place at the hearing, and the commissioners approved the amendments.

A second public hearing dealt with new county fees for agricultural protection areas, as well as exemptions and fees for agricultural structures and re-roofs. These changes were made due to changes in state code, with the re-roof fees in particular being implemented to account for new inspections which state code may now require. Like the last one, there was no public testimony, and the hearing resulted in the approval of the new fees by all the commissioners.

That’s all I got for you this week. A recurring theme in these public hearings is the lack of public testimony. And it’s hard to have public testimony if folks don’t show up to the meetings. You’ve heard it from me before, but if you want your voice to have an impact, show up to the meetings. 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. We’ll see you next time!