City Council Meeting - 10.24.22

The Mayor and members of the City Council met on Monday night in the Council Chambers for October’s last City Council Meeting.

The meeting began with the usual procedural department head reports.

Library Director Shasta Hochstrasser was happy to report that the library was granted funding for a privacy pod to be used for study space, doctor appointments, counseling, and more was approved. She also reported that a drive-by book drop for library patrons is nearing completion. She noted that she’d be sure to notify the council as soon as a ribbon-cutting date was set. Lastly, she excitedly announced that 800 books would be handed out at the city’s Spooktacular Downtown event, the books were purchased with various funding provided to the library by way of donations.

Following Director Hochstrasser the council heard reports from Detective Lieutenant Ty Larsen speaking on behalf of the Mountain Home Police Department. He noted the success of the “Shop with a Cop” charity event hosted by Brie’sta Coffee which was held to raise funds so children nominated from within the community can be given the opportunity to share breakfast and shop for a special Christmas gift with local law enforcement members.

Fire Chief Moore recounted the success of the Fire Department’s recent open house event — he informed those present that the event first took place in 1977. According to chief Moore, the event led to a record breaking number of fire truck rides.

Public works director Rich Urquidi stated that the department was working on winterizing and cleaning wells.

Moving on to the consent agenda, item “F “regarding the rejection of bids for fiber installation within the city” was pulled for further discussion. The mayor explained that after receiving outside bids, it became apparent that the cheapest avenue for acquiring city-wide fiber connections would be through in-house means. Councilman Brennan showed interest in exploring other potential bids, and other options available to the city. Ultimately, a decision to reject the existing bids passed unanimously. It was noted that between these delays, and winter rapidly approaching, the city’s vision for the implementation of fiber connections may be further down the line than previously hoped.

Following approval of the consent agenda, and without old business, the council proceeded to new business. Due to the absence of the applicant, the second action item regarding findings of fact and the planning and zoning commission recomendation providing a CUP to allow a mobile food concession yard on American Legion Blvd. was removed from the agenda.

The third action item was listed as deliberation/discussion regarding the reduction of impact fees for Leap Housing to the initial impact fee rather than the existing impact fee. Councilman Stokes expressed to the representative of Leap Housing present at the meeting that he feels during a time of high economic strain such as now, increased impact fees are unjustified. Councilwoman Garvey noted that although sympathetic with councilman Stokes’ assessment, reducing the impact fees would leave the city with the responsibility of paying a $175,000 deficit resulting from the reduction. Councilwoman Garvey and Councilman McCain voted in favor of implementing the current, higher impact fees. Councilman Brennan after much thought reluctantly voted in favor of implementing the current fees as well. With councilman Stokes’ solo nay vote, the motion to enforce the current impact fees passed with a general sense of reluctance.

Finally, the council moved to ordinances, voting to approve all three listed on the agenda.

Following ordinances, the council moved to executive session before concluding the meeting.