Hailey Lewis has a Point of Clarity!

At the last council meeting of the year, the city tackled a street use policy, an access agreement, and the next step on the stage project — and Hailey Lewis made sure everyone understood the context!

Read the full transcript of the video below:

So how did the last city council meeting of the year go?

How’s it going y’all? Aiden Anderson here with the Moscow Minutes. As we look forward to holiday celebrations with friends and family, I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about the last few decisions the Moscow City Council made in 2025.

The meeting began with a large number of reappointments to various city commissions. At the end of the year, there’s always a handful of folks whose terms on their respective commissions have expired. When this happens, if they’re interested in retaining their seat, they will contact the city, at which point the mayor will make a decision to renew their terms or not. That said, even with all the reappointments which went through, there’s still vacant seats available. If you’re interested in one of those seats, send your application in; it’s likely that the city will make decisions about those vacancies once the new year gets going.

Nels Reese took the stand to deliver a report on the Historic Preservation Commission’s past year of activities. Mostly, he focused on the details of this year’s Orchid Award winners, which included the Kenworthy Theater, the Moscow Hotel, the Tomer residence, and the Wylie Lauder residence. Nels also explained the work they have done to develop a historic district on the University of Idaho campus, which they expect to be completed in 2026.

Next up, a professional services agreement between the city and Design West Architects for continued work on the East City Park stage project. Previously, Design West had contracted with the city for a 30% design for the new stage. David Schott of city staff explained that this new agreement would move the design work from 30% to completion, including full designs and a construction bid plan, with work expected to begin in September after the event season is more or less done. The cost for this agreement would be $72,700.

If there was anything which you could call a theme of this meeting, it would be councilor and Mayor-to-be Hailey Lewis offering points of clarity for the audience. So let’s take a look…

…With the discussion otherwise concluded, the city voted unanimously to approve the agreement, with councilor Drew Davis recusing himself from the vote, due to a conflict of interest.

This next action item had made headlines prior to its appearance before the city council. Bill Belknap introduced the Downtown Event Street Closure Policy, which had been brought before council at the request of the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Business Alliance.

The city of Moscow has plenty of events downtown, many of which require street closures during the duration of the event. The concern from the Chamber was that some downtown businesses reported a negative impact from these events when the streets were closed during normal business hours. The policy proposed by the Chamber was a prohibition on such event closures during normal business hours, so Monday through Friday, 8-5, excluding federal holidays, weekends, emergency service and construction, or events hosted by or on behalf of the city.

Councilor Gina Taruscio asked what existing events in the city’s history would be impacted by the policy, and apparently, only 2 events total would be impacted, though we were not told at the meeting what those events were. Julia, Sandra, and Bryce all agreed that the policy was a step in the right direction when it came to regulating the proper use of the downtown space for events in general…The council thus voted to approve the policy unanimously.

The last item on the agenda was an access agreement between the city of Moscow and New Saint Andrew College. This item had a rather detailed history which Bill Belknap was happy to explain.

The city owns a triangular corner property which is a remnant parcel from the construction of the north couplet heading out of town. In previous years, the city had planned to enter into an access agreement with the owner of Cadillac Jack’s, the property just adjacent to it on the street, both to accommodate the city’s plans to landscape the property and Cadillac Jack’s need for parking access. However, before that agreement could be completed, the Cadillac Jack’s property was sold to New Saint Andrews, and so the city approached the college with a similar proposal.

The proposed agreement would grant an easement across 16 feet of the city’s property, with a 20-year lease, $1,200 per year with a three percent escalator. NSA would need to complete pavement and landscaping for the parking areas within 2 years of the start of the lease. The agreement does not preclude improvements the city wants to make in the future to the remainder of the property.

This is the sort of item that would typically appear in the consent agenda, so why was it brought before full council? Let’s turn to Hailey Lewis for the answer…

With that final point of clarification, the council approved the agreement unanimously.

The county commissioners approved their first round of property tax exemptions this week, and held their regular monthly meeting with department heads and elected officials. During that meeting, Disaster services noted the potential for wind storm damage taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday which we have all since experienced. ITS reported on their progress  updating the county phone system. Sheriff Skiles also announced the upcoming purchase of a drug dog for his department, and Commissioner Johnson reminded everyone about an upcoming survey soon to go out to the public about the county jail. We’ll keep you posted when we hear more about that item.

That’s all I got for you this week. Since this was their last meeting on council, I want to take a moment to thank the outgoing councilors and mayor for their service. Mayor Bettge, Councilor Taruscio, Councilor Parker, thank you all for your time and efforts spent serving the city these past years, and best of luck on your ventures ahead. And to the councilors and mayor-to-be, we look forward to seeing you in action.

As always, we’ll have the relevant links posted with this video, and you have any questions, please reach out. I’m Aiden Anderson with the Moscow Minutes. We’ll see you next time!