Hazard Plans, Salmon Homes, and More

With Thanksgiving on the horizon, the city and county wrapped things up quickly this week. Nevertheless, some important steps are being taken on some significant projects.

Read the full transcript of the video below:

How’s it going y’all? Aiden Anderson here with the Moscow Minutes. It’s been another week of relatively short meetings for both the city and the county, so let’s get started.

The Moscow city council meeting began with the pledge of allegiance led by the local Scouts and a public comment from William, who offered his thanks to the Moscow community for their support of his family and business in the midst of some medical and financial challenges.

The council was scheduled to receive an update on the survey which was put out a couple months ago, but since the results are in the last stages of being finalized, this item was postponed for a later date. The council instead turned to address the Latah County All Hazards Multi-Jurisdictional Mitigation Plan. What a mouthful.

Alisa Anderson of city staff presented on the plan itself, which was developed by Latah County to identify different kinds of hazards which are present throughout the county, assess their impact, and propose cost-effective actions to minimize risk to citizens. An example of such a hazard would be forest fires, and the various ways that local governments like the city of Moscow can respond to such events, as well as take preventative action. Such a plan is necessary to satisfy local, state, and federal requirements for certain kinds of grant funding as well.

Alisa highlighted a few new items for Moscow identified in the county’s plan, including the future purchase of street barriers, a natural gas backup power generator for the HIRC building, and floodplain bank stabilization work. The council then voted unanimously to support and facilitate the implementation of the plan.

The county commissioners began their series of meetings this week with a presentation from Idaho Fish and Game on a new fish habitat project. As explained by the presenters, the project is focused on the West Fork of Little Bear Creek #3, and will aim to improve the environment of the river to make it more suitable for steelhead salmon in the area. The commissioners approved a landowner acknowledgement form, which allows the project team to begin the work over the course of the next year, focused in the Troy area.

The commissioners moved pretty quickly through the next series of items, which included a release of funds for the Princeton-Hampton Sewer district, the appointment of Dan Schoenberg and Phil Rheingans to the Latah County Zoning and Planning Commissions, respectively, and a solid waste collection fee increase of 3.5% for rural residents of the county to account for future service costs.

The county also held their monthly meeting with the department heads and elected officials this week. Highlights from that meeting include updates on the county’s AI policy for its internal networks, a new head of the Noxious Weeds Department, and an update on the recent local elections from the Clerk’s office, which included a recount taking place for the Juliaetta city council election.

That’s all I got for you this week, and if I haven’t said it already, have a happy Thanksgiving next week! 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!