History Newsletter, Preservation Awards Planning Make Progress

MOSCOW – A resurrected historic preservation newsletter would be online only, the Moscow Historic Preservation Commission decided at its Thursday meeting. The decision in effect was made for the board when, as for all city commissions, its budget for 2026-27 was heavily cut. See related article at https://moscowidaho.news/2026/07/23/human-rights-scrambles-to-hold-events-as-city-commissions-see-funds-halved/

The commission’s original request was for more than $3,000 – much of which would have helped fund a paper newsletter – but the board receives $1,000 in the City Council’s proposed budget, which is to be finalized in August. 

Commissioner Kayla Youngren noted that an online newsletter likely would reach a broader audience, including more of those unfamiliar with Moscow’s historic preservation efforts. She said she and Commissioner LaRae Tomera will work on ideas to present to the commission in the next couple of months.

Among their ideas for a monthly newsletter were to condense and rerun articles from past issues of Preservation Moscow, which ended publication in 2019, and to add new content as relevant. Past issues of Preservation Moscow are available at https://www.ci.moscow.id.us/Archive/48

Youngren planned to contact the city’s social media content manager, Corey Oglesby, to determine the best ways to distribute the online newsletter.

Newsletter guidance, as well as historic signs, structures, education and awareness of Moscow’s preservation efforts, were among the topics discussed by the commission for its two questions to be added to the city’s citizen survey this fall. The group determined to vote on the questions at the August meeting.

Recognition of one historic structure, the midcentury water department building at Main and A streets – originally built as a savings and loan – is moving forward with help from the state. A Historic Properties Mitigation Bank grant from Preservation Idaho will fund research and writing of a proposal to list the building on the National Register of Historic Places. 

The structure has won both city and state Orchid Awards for excellence in historic preservation.

Orchid Awards from the Moscow Historic Preservation Commission will be celebrated at a public ceremony at 7 p.m., Nov. 12, in the 1912 Center. The commission Thursday continued preliminary discussion of a few residences and people it might consider for the awards. 

Among the more unusual is the Woodbury housing development in northeast Moscow. 

“I’m very high on Woodbury,” said longtime Commissioner Nels Reese. “It focuses on new urbanism in a way no one in Moscow has done before. I think it is beginning to look like a work of art.”

New urbanism is described as emphasizing human-scaled design based on the principles of how cities and towns were built for centuries – before low-density, car-dependent suburban developments became popular. New urbanism embraces walkable blocks and streets, housing and shopping in close proximity, and accessible public spaces, according to the Congress for the New Urbanism at https://www.cnu.org/

The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Moscow Historic Preservation Commission will be Aug. 27.