Moyie Springs City Council minutes, September 5 |
| October 13, 2012 |
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City Council met in regular session September 5,
2012, at the Moyie Springs City Hall. The meeting was called to order by Mayor Doug Evans. Present were Councilmen Steve Economu, Chad Farrens, Terry Johnson, Bart Klaus, City Attorney Dan Featherston, Fire Chief Ken English and Public Works Supervisor John Nelson. Discussed the minutes of the special meeting on July 25, 2012. A motion was made by Steve Economu and seconded by Chad Farrens to approve the minutes as written. Motion carried. Discussed the minutes of the regular meeting on August 8, 2012. A motion was made by Bart Klaus and seconded by Steve Economu to approve the minutes as written. Motion carried. Discussed the financial statement. A motion was made by Terry Johnson and seconded by Chad Farrens to approve as written. Motion carried. Lori Johnson, David Sims, Lila Finley, Rob Pluid and Sheriff candidate, Gary Leonard, attended the meeting. A motion was made by Chad Farrens and seconded by Bart Klaus to approve Ordinance #116 – Cross Connection Control. Steve Economu – Aye; Chad Farrens – Aye; Terry Johnson – Aye; Bart Klaus – Aye. The motion passed unanimously. A motion was made by Terry Johnson and seconded by Steve Economu to approve the summary of Ordinance #116 for publication. Motion carried. Mayor Evans declared the Budget Hearing open. Sandy Tompkins read the 1st reading of Ordinance #117 – the Annual Appropriation Ordinance. A motion was made by Chad Farrens and seconded by Steve Economu to waive the 2nd & 3rd complete readings – the Ordinance to be read by title only. Motion carried. Mayor Evans read the 2nd reading and Sandy Tompkins read the 3rd. A motion was made by Steve Economu and seconded by Terry Johnson to approve Ordinance #117, the Annual Appropriations Ordinance, in the amount of $832,437.54. Steve Economu – Aye; Chad Farrens – Aye; Terry Johnson – Aye; Bart Klaus – Aye. The motion passed unanimously. Mayor Evans declared the Budget Hearing closed. Gary Leonard, candidate for Sheriff, attended the meeting to introduce himself to the council and to thank them for their time. Gary said he has skills in management, etc. to energize the Sheriff’s office. Gary said he has 25 years in management and is the current chief of the Paradise Valley Fire Dept. Gary said the department was in disarray when he took over. There were only 6 volunteers and now there are 19. Doug Ladely is now the part time chief. Gary said he took over the 4th of July fireworks and a lot of people stepped up to help him. Gary said he doesn’t see people volunteering with the sheriffs dept. Gary was asked what the Sheriff’s primary duty is? He said to preserve the peace. Gary asked what we expect from the Sheriff’s office, and has the current sheriff done it? Gary said he changed to the Independent Party so this would be a two man race. Gary asked if crime has gone up or down, and do we want that to change? Gary said his goal is to get more community involvement. Gary asked the question, why is the current sheriff running for reelection? The Sheriff is the highest office in the County. Gary said he will not serve more than two terms and will do the right things at the right time and the right way for the citizens of Boundary County. Steve Economu asked what volunteers would do? Gary said many different things. Gary also said if he is asked questions, and he starts getting slippery, call him on it. Mayor Evans asked about the Inmate work program? Gary said it should be a benefit to the county and he is for it if there are resources to do it. Mayor Evans said he is more concerned with garbage pickup, and there’s not much of that going on anymore. Doug said he thinks the bus driver volunteered his time. Gary said he is a strategic thinker and will change the protocols of dispatch, if elected. Lori Johnson said there used to be a marine deputy so why were our boat ramps not able to be used until recently and why did the waterways department not take care of the ramps? Gary said he believes the waterways department should take care of those boat ramps. Gary said it would take him 6 – 9 months to get his arms around the business. The sheriff would be the boss of the marine deputy. The sheriff’s office has been $350,000 under budget, in personnel, over the last 4 years. David Sims, the new director of EDC attended the meeting. David said he took Mike Sloan’s position yesterday. David discussed Broadband. He said they received documents 3 weeks ago, some changes needed to be made and they should get the corrected documents any day. David said Nancy Strickland will go over the documents. They are waiting to see the map and are hoping they come to Moyie. They are hoping to approve the documents next week, and the bonds will be sold by the end of the month. Panhandle Area Council will sell the bonds and the service provider will guarantee the lease payments. The service provider is Blackfoot out of Missoula, MT. The build out will probably be 2 years. There was no KVRI report. Comprehensive Plan – Dan Featherston said we are still waiting for the power letter. Sandy told the council the interest rate on the CD that automatically renewed on August 17, 2012, is .15%. Rob Pluid attended the meeting to discuss the mobile home that was illegally placed on his property. Rob talked to the council about the Mobile Home Ordinance. Rob said his mobile is hidden – if someone’s trailer burned down, what would it be replaced with? Rob said single wide mobile homes are starter homes. Rob has had his property for 30 years and at one time there was a doublewide on the property, but was sold when they built a home on another piece of property. There was also a camp trailer on the property for some time. Rob said his motive was to help a friend – a disabled vet. There are still outbuildings on the property. Rob said it isn’t a new development – if the property is going to be used, it would be the same usage as in the past. Rob asked if the council would amend the Ordinance for existing sites? Rob said he was going to ask for a variance, but decided not to. Lila Finley said if it’s clean and neat it probably looks better than some places in Moyie. Steve Economu asked the year of the mobile? Rob said late 70’s. Rob said he was made aware after the mobile was bought, paid for and ready to move. Steve Economu said he appreciates the points Rob made. Steve also said the Ordinance needs to be looked at. Terry Johnson said he has no problem with the mobile being there, but we’ve denied other mobiles. Rob said the others were probably wanting to put a mobile where there hadn’t been before. Dan Featherston said grandfathering says you don’t change the rules. If we start making exceptions with mobiles that are not grandfathered, we are going to talk ourselves into repeating this over and over again. Dan also said any legislation is going to create hardships on somebody. Land use regulation is setting a standard not based on morality. Dan said if we want to give some consideration that things are different in different parts of the city or they don’t fit our community and should be thrown out, we can do that by changing the ordinance. Basically, Rob has brought himself into this situation and we now have to live with the consequences –the city may have to modify the Ordinance so he won’t be in violation. If the council amends the ordinance, Rob agrees he’s the first one that will benefit from it. Lori Johnson said, in their area, there are all kinds of trailers. Dan said we’d have to study the layout of the city – we can’t spot zone. When Ordinance #109 was done, it was to prevent a shanty town in the whole city. Dan said the Mayor and Council serve at the will of the people. Dan said the council can accept this as a grandfathered situation setting ourselves up as to the meaning of grandfathered or insist on the immediate replacement of the mobile. Dan said it’s not a legal risk but a political risk. Rob said the mobile home is there temporarily and he has owned the property since 1983. Dan said Rob and the council could enter into a temporary agreement that both sides acknowledge the problem and until both parties could agree for an X amount of time, so both parties would go in knowing it’s temporary – no assurance the city will change the ordinance but could waive the enforcement of the ordinance against him for a period of time to seek a solution. Dan said Rob has brought up some good points with a good attitude. Dan will make up a Memorandum of Understanding between the City of Moyie Springs and Rob Pluid for the October 3rd meeting. A motion was made by Chad Farrens and seconded by Bart Klaus to approve a temporary arrangement with Rob Pluid until June 1, 2013, and there will not be a waiver by either side. Motion carried. Steve Economu asked Rob is he has the title for the trailer? We need to know if the trailer has an Idaho seal if prior to June 15, 1976. Rob was also told he needs to fill out a site location permit. Discussed the Volunteer Fire Department. Ken English reported there was a fire in the canyon, under the bridge, and a car accident on the east end of the bridge. Discussed the Water & Sewer systems. John Nelson reported we pumped a high on August 9th of 741,600 gpd, a low on the 31st of 190,100 gpd, an average of 318,058 gpd and a total for the month of August of 9,859,800 gallons. John said the water tank overflowed 3 different days. He would like to look into wireless telemetry – it costs about $3500. John will talk to Eric Lederhos. He would like to do this ASAP. John talked to John Tindall, DEQ, and he wants John to schedule a meeting with Larry Comer and him. John has been working on the sewer lagoon – an 18” culvert broke. He is putting in 4” pipe. He had the City of Bonners Ferry bring their camera out and saw drips on the top of the plastic culvert. John said we should buy 5 to 10 acres of property from the Forest Service and have a drain field there instead of below the mill. John said he sees no reason we should have to scrap our lagoon. John said there are some trees in the way of the wireless telemetry between the water tank and the filter plant. About 750,000 gallons water were used because of the overflow of the tank in August. John was told to get more information for the October 3rd meeting. The county chip sealed E. Railroad St. and it cost $7837.31. We will discuss codification next month. Discussed the bills. A motion was made by Terry Johnson and seconded by Chad Farrens to pay the bills. Motion carried. A motion was made by Steve Economu and seconded by Bart Klaus to adjourn. Motion carried. /s/ Attest: City Clerk |