Minutes
(Minutes subject to council approval)
CITY OF NEZPERCE, IDAHO
REGULAR MEETING
February 14, 2022
MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE NEZPERCE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NEZPERCE, IDAHO, HELD ON February 14, 2022.
PLACE: Training Room, Nezperce City Hall, 606 Maple Street.
THE MEETING WAS CALLED TO ORDER BY MAYOR BATEMAN AT 5:30P.M.
PRESENT were Councilmembers Steve Bateman, James Zenner, Mike Jensen and Tyler Nelson; Maintenance Supervisor Craig Cardwell, Clerk-Treasurer Rhonda Schmidt and Office Assistant Kim Johnson. Councilmember Kimberly Ingram and Fire Chief Dave Kuther were absent. Guest present was JUB Engineer Amy Uptmor.
Pledge of Allegiance: The pledge was led by Mayor Bateman.
PUBLIC COMMENT
No members of the public were in attendance to make comment.
MINUTES of the previous meeting of 1/10/22 were approved as emailed upon a motion by
Cm. Zenner was seconded by Cm. Jensen, motion carried.
TREASURER’S REPORT AND MONTHLY BILLS:
The Clerk’s Monthly Treasurer’s Report dated February 14, 2022 was examined and approved, showing the following:
Funds on Hand $782,366.66
All bills and payroll disbursements were examined and approved for payment upon a motion by Cm. Zenner and seconded by Cm. Nelson in the total of $64,154.53 check numbers 16268 through 16311. Receipts since the last meeting were shown as $. Checks and stub approvals were signed appropriately by all parties as well all signed the Payment Approval Report for February.
BUSINESS TO BE CONDUCTED
1. Land App – Property Acquisition Update (AI): Amy reported to the council the status of negotiations for the property purchase over the last month. She met with the Payne’s to discuss purchase options. Mayor Bateman added that Amy has done a great job of informing the Payne family that this property is the best option for what the City needs to accomplish. $210,000 was agreed upon by the Payne’s for the 30 storage acres. Amy pulled in an attorney from Grangeville to help with the purchase and sale agreement. As of this morning Ron Payne informed the mayor that he would like to sell the property in one lump sum sale. $210,000 for the 30 acres and 420,000 for the 70 acres of farm ground making the purchase a total of $630,000. At this time Rural Development doesn’t have an opinion on the purchase. Amy explained that we would get an interim loan to pay for the land until the bond can be opened. The council turned to discussing what options the city has until a project is developed as there will be approximately 5 years of farming before the project. Cm. Nelson moved to purchase the 100 acres at $630,000 so that the city owns it entirely; motion was seconded by Cm. Jensen, motion carried.
2. JUB Contract for Airport Runway Widening Project (AI): Clerk Schmidt had emailed the contract to the council to review prior to the meeting. Cm. Nelson moved to approve the contract as presented, Cm. Jensen seconded the motion, motion carried.
3. Senior Center Water Damage: Cardwell informed that the center has been gutted. The blowers continue to run to dry out the building. Cardwell will make sure the upstairs bathroom water shut off is completed before they start putting the building back together again.
4. Building Inspector: Clerk Schmidt informed the council that she has been speaking with Kile Allen who is the building inspector for Nez Perce County. He is working on getting insurance so that we can contract with him as we have with our inspectors in the past. The other option is to hire him. There are only 2 permits on the horizon that Clerk Schmidt sees coming so we have a little time for him to get things together.
5. Nuisance Letter – Gehrke: Sheriff Davis has been to the office and is aware of the letter to Gehrke as his 30 days to clean-up is almost over. No clean-up effort has been made thus far. The sheriff’s office will issue parking tickets if parking in the road continues.
6. Blue Cross Community Grant: Mayor Bateman and Clerk Schmidt attended a webinar on the Blue Cross grant for $85,000. This grant is for communities that own the property for the grant and are ready to go on an outdoor project. Mayor Bateman explained the idea of replacing the bathrooms at the Tennis Court Park, covering a part of the basketball court and taking out the outdated park equipment and installing a splash pad. The council seemed to like the idea. Maintenance Cardwell described his idea for new bathrooms which would house Youth Sports equipment too. Cm. Jensen added that some work needs to be done to the chain-link fencing and concrete repair to the courts. The grant is due on February 28th and grant awards are mid-March.
DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS
- Maintenance
Parks: The new lawn mower should arrive in April. New tires were purchased for the backhoe.
Streets: Cardwell would like to look into a street broom that one rides for cleaning streets after chip sealing cause those chips are hard on the street sweeper.
Sewer: Maintenance shut down the pond so not discharging at this time. The sewer line on Maple was flushed following a service line fix at Bryant’s. Cardwell reported that he and Ben took a NPDES class on Zoom recently and met a guy who really knows the ins and outs of land app and would like to work with the city when we get to the point, we are getting a project together.
Library/CC Center: Cardwell would like to get someone to look at the rain gutter on the building. It appears that we have two areas that water is somehow getting into the building. We need to figure out how to resolve the problem.
Summer Help: Cardwell reported that we will need to start advertising for summer help.
Miscellaneous: Cardwell informed the council that the new owner of 310 Willow found out after purchasing the property (Block 9, Lots 1-12) that the undeveloped lots beyond the alley have neighbors service lines running through the property. We have researched the situation and believe that Mort’s and Hardisty have services that run across the property and Stach’s sewer line runs across the lots and ties in with the owner’s sewer line. Cardwell preformed dye tests to confirm. The owner is having a survey done to mark his property and is asking us what we will do to fix this problem as he wants to develop the property and the service lines are in his way. Clerk Schmidt is looking for easements while we await the survey results.
2. Clerk – no additional report
3. Fire Department – No Report
COUNCIL COMMENT
Mayor Bateman and Maintenance Cardwell met with Jen & Greg Branson to discuss the idea of a development south of town. They are interested in creating a subdivision of sorts; the city is involved as once the development is completed the city would take over the maintenance of the roads and the new owners would be on city services. Greg spoke with engineer Amy Uptmor who will turn Greg over to another in her firm to help him develop the idea.
ADJOURNMENT: Meeting adjourned at 7:16PM
Other/Upcoming Events:
Upcoming Council Meetings: March 14th and April 11th at 5:30PM
Holiday Closures: February 21st
The next regularly scheduled city council meeting will be on Monday, March 14th at 5:30PM at City Hall.
__________________________ _____________________________
Steve A. Bateman, Mayor Rhonda J. Schmidt, Clerk-Treasurer