City Explains Need for Water Work
On Tuesday, September 9, the city of Council held a regularly scheduled city council meeting at City Hall. As with the meeting last month, the room was full of concerned citizens, most of whom had come to hear about the proposed water rate increase. All city council members and Mayor Bruce Gardner were in attendance.
Mayor Bruce Gardner welcomed everyone in attendance and called the meeting to order. First there was a report on the Airport. Kayla Brown said via zoom that Summit Construction has been making progress. All the asphalt had been removed and stockpiled for later projects, where it will be reused. They have completed all the excavation and are currently placing rock. She said they are on track for asphalt paving next week, and have been tracking within a few thousand dollars of budget. There were a couple small unforeseen expenses. They are looking at around October 3rd for substantial completion. The lighting project electrical team was out. They will be asking soon whether the city wants to go with LED or halogen lights.
Kathy Hughes, chair of the Airport commission,, said that the airport sold almost the entire tank of gas in the last two months. Sales for the year were almost $30,000, net revenue $26,000. Hughes mentioned an incident at the airport regarding a pilot landing and said that reports have been filed to the FAA. She said she will keep the city appraised. Murry Carter will be leaving the airport board at the end of September, they have a new volunteer.
City Clerk Ashley Scott stated in her report that the county has provided the city with the redline surveyor plat, but they are waiting for information on easements. The city’s new online payment portal was up and running. So far 39 users had signed up and 13 people were on autopay. The mayor is planning on participating in the Mayors Walking Challenge with Blue Cross, 2026 dog tags have been ordered, and there was a possibility that City Hall would be shut down October 4th-11th due to staffing challenges.
Caleb Shumway, Public Works Supervisor, said that they worked with Adams County Road and Bridge to patch the asphalt in front of the shop. The asphalt was left over from an IDT project so was free for the city. There was a big water leak on Friendship Lane that they fixed, and he wanted to talk about increasing the budget for water distribution repair parts next year as there have been several instances where he has had to borrow parts from other cities.
Next, Mayor Gardner gathered everyone’s attention to the subject of the increasing water rates. He said it was apparent at the public hearing last month that the public was still in need of a lot of information, so Ashley Scott had prepared a presentation on the water and sewer rate proposals to answer some of the questions.
Ashley Scott said the water project had been discussed in open meetings for over three years and they have been as transparent as is required by Idaho law. A judge deemed the new water system necessary after a judicial review. Public notices, two articles and reports on the City County meetings have all been published in this paper.
The city strongly encourages attendance to public meetings and/or reading the minutes online.
The new bill for water and sewer rates, effective October 1, 2025, would be $125. Broken up, this would consist of the residential water rate increasing from $29.30 to $51, and the residential sewer rate increasing from $72.24 to $74. The minimum water rate included a base allotment of 7,480 gallons (1,000 cubic feet) of water. For the next 7,480 gallons, it increases $7.50. For the next 7,480 after that it increased $10, and for every 7,480 gallons thereafter it increased another $12.50.
Once the project is complete the city will have two loan payments through DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality). The total amount borrowed will be $2,342,709. The yearly loan payments will total $140,607. The payoff dates for one will be 2047 and 2057 for the other. DEQ required a portion of the payment amount in a savings account for ten years. The city decided to do one increase this year to satisfy that amount all at once rather than having to increase more over the ten year period to satisfy this requirement. Idaho allows cities to increase the water and sewer rates 3-5% annually without any public hearing.
This project will be replacing approximately 19% of the city’s mainline pipes, and will include a backup generator for power outages, as well as the equipment for chlorination should chlorination become necessary. It will also include a new booster pump station as well as pressure reducers to make the pressure more consistent throughout the city and meet the state requirements for low pressure areas. It will also include a new water storage tank and replace approximately 150 water services. The last update to the city’s water system was over 30 years ago.
Scott said that if a property owner has a connection from the water main line to their property they are charged either a system maintenance fee or an active user fee. The cost to maintain lines outside city limits is higher, also those systems were also not installed or inspected by the city. The rate for outside the city limits residents has been double the city rate since July of 1986. She said during development of the Council Greens Subdivision, the subdivision defaulted on the promise of a lot for a new well location, the new booster station is required to help deliver adequate fire suppression water pressure to the subdivision as well as other areas of the town.
The city is not planning on forcefully annexing anyone into the city limits, there are new statutes in place about annexing that would make this extremely complicated. The water fund is an enterprise fund, which does not allow for intermingling of funds. Ashley Scott mentioned the rate of cumulative inflation the United States had experienced recently and that the increased water rates would be keeping up with inflation. She listed water fund expenses, including power, payments to licensed operators, maintenance and repairs, water testing, software, and postage. She mentioned that DEQ has implemented new regulations that will be substantially increasing water testing.
One of the previous questions had been whether funds from the industrial park be used for the water project once it was sold? Scott explained that once sold, the funds would transfer to the general fund, but since the water is an enterprise fund there can really be no intermingling of funds.
After Scott was finished with her presentation Mayor Gardener said he hoped that answered questions and that he hoped people would “now see the necessity for the rate increase that we are going to be imposing.”
The city council motioned to adopt Resolution 2025-07, fee schedule. All members were in favor and the motion passed.
Next, the City Council approved Resolution 2025-09 regarding the area of impact boundary, and Resolution 2025-10 which was a declaration of intent for surplus property. The council heard two applications for kennel licenses. Letters were sent out to property owners within a 300 ft radius. For the first one, 25 notices were sent out, 9 were returned positive, 2 were returned negative. Non responses were considered yes votes, Mayor Gardner said. The applicant was present and cleared up some confusion the city council had. She said they have only three dogs, but her adult daughter was temporarily displaced and was currently staying there with her dogs as well. She said she understands the complaints and she would be complaining too, as all the complaints were related to the puppies, who she said were on their way to new homes shortly. The city council approved the kennel license. For the second application there were 20 letters sent out, 4 returned in favor and 2 against. The complaints were that there were too many dogs. The applicant was not present. The city council approved the license but Mayor Gardner reminded everyone that the city does retain the right to revoke kennel licenses if situations change or the rules are not being followed. Council member Dave Tubridy requested that kennel license applicants be present in the future so they can ask questions.
