Jessica Klein-Lewiston City Council

6/3/24- Work Session
City Council meeting this afternoon was a long one! Thank you everyone that bared with us.

Citizen comment by Steve Carlton to let council know that people have storage unit businesses in town, even though it's against code to have one on your property in most zones. It's what people want. To do what they want on their property and that the ones he sells are top quality.

There was a badge pinning for the promotion of Pilice officer Tanisha Earl to Sargeant.

The East Orchards Sewer expansion needed 85k to fund half of a rock depth study, the remainder to be paid for by the URA. It will help in making decisions about prioritizing which lines should be installed first based on if there is nore work/money involved in dofferent sections.

The Main St Corridor Improvement project was discussed with a timeline on the actions that will be taken to try and get community involvement in the project so people aren't surprised by the outcome and have a say if something they are planning is out of line. Making Main st and D st both 2 way had caught the council off guard last time it was discussed. They will be launching a website this month and the next presentation to council will be on Aug 12th.

Shipping containers and the lack of enforcement over the years was discussed with an ask of direction on how the council would like to proceed with it. The council voted to pursue having code removed that addressed having shipping containers on your personal property and it will go to Planning and Zoning for a public hearing to decide how the public feels on the matter. There are currently over 100 houses with shipping container that are technically in violation of the code and it has only been enforced if someone complains.

There was an update on the diesel mitigation at the fire staions. So far they have scrubbed and painted and removed carpet and installed filtration systems. In order to update the stations as recommeded by the firestation study, it would take $1.885million to update the downtown station, $865k to update the Grelle station and $375k to update the airport station. The airport station would take the least amount of funds but is in a location that no longer makes sense for response time in our growing community.

It was decided to try and get community input about what people want with Bert Lipps pool before getting bids to fix it. Approximate amounts for a splash pad will be 500k to 1 million or a pool will be around 2 million. With this amount of money it is important to get as much input from the local community as we can.

2 different parcels of land were brought up for discussion on whether to surplus them. I moved to have legal look into selling a 100ft by 500ft chunk of Cemetary land along Southway ave. They will come back with the best options for proceeding with the sale so funding can go back to support the needs of the existing Cemetary. Legal and the Mayor will also dig into what is involved in selling a piece of airport property owned by both county and city that runs along Bryden Ave around the 8th st. Exit.

I discussed with the group what could potentially be done about the lack of code for restricting people from living in the parking lots of public places. The Mayor is going to work on that with legal along with other parking issues that need addressed.

I made a motion to consider relocating the work sessions and regular council meetings to the community center so we could have 1 location with more parking and consistency and it was shut down by Kleeburg, Schroeder and Forsmann.

Agenda- https://lewistonid.portal.civicclerk.com/event/314/files/agenda/1255

Video-
https://www.youtube.com/live/z1wcC4rUhSE?si=o57ouKfW23c0nu6F

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4/8/24 City Council Meeting

I appreciated all the citizens who showed up for comments this evening.
3 new firefighters received their official pins and were warmly welcomed to the team by their fellow Firefighters.
April 6 through 12 is officially The Week of the Young Child in honor of early childhood development
Valley Vision gave an update about what they do and have done since last year and what they anticipate happening the rest of the year.
Hops and Vines was approved for a liquor license.
The fire department asked the council for an additional $51,634 to bring in mobile housing and meal perdium for when they are unhoused during the diesel particulate cleanup. I voted no on the matter because I feel like this, along with the 150k to do the cleanup should have been in the budget initially. It also seems to me like food could still be made in a microwave or come from a fridge for the 2 months of displacement.
It was voted on to approve the 1st reading of Ordinance 4914, which would give licensing for daycares to the state of Idaho, allowing for more freedom for daycare owners and from what I understand, is cheaper. If you have any issues with this, please state your concerns at the upcoming council meetings.
Ordinance 4910 was passed related to wastewater.
I asked for an update on the Bryden expansion project at the May 6th work session. I feel like most citizens don't want this project and want to know why for those that do.

Agenda: https://lewistonid.portal.civicclerk.com/event/322/files/agenda/1121

Video: https://www.youtube.com/live/0sHgFsOLOLM?si=huo8fWbcJHtjushO

(There seemed to be some technical difficulties)

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