County Interested in some Council Industrial Park Property
On Monday, June 16th, the Adams County Commissioners held their second monthly meeting at the Adams County Courthouse. First on the agenda was Adams County Emergency Management Coordinator, Carol Walsh, who had the All Hazard Mitigation plan for the commissioners to approve. She said she also still needed the City of New Meadows to approve the plan, and then it would go to FEMA. The Commissioners signed Resolution 2025-14, adopting the All Hazard Mitigation Plan. Walsh said they would be on the ground for fuel mitigation work starting in July, beginning in the Bear/Cuprum area. Commissioner Viki Purdy asked if they were going to work on Meadow Creek this year. Walsh said no, they don’t have the funding for that now, but they will be able to next year if they get the Western States Grant.
Next, the commissioners talked about the lots the City of Council was planning to sell. They commissioners were interested in purchasing one of them for Road and Bridge, and another one for elections and additional office space. They also were trying to decide between buying one of the empty lots adjacent to the current county property, or one of the lots that already had a building on it. The city was giving the county first right of refusal on anything they were interested in. Resident Danna Barnhart came in and gave some history on the buildings. She asked why they should be sold and not remain as public property. She also pointed out some problems with the survey. According to state statute, the County would be purchasing them for the appraised value. Commissioner Ward said they had to decide what was in the best interest of the county, and what they had the money for. The commissioners had a few questions about the properties, so Commissioner Iveson stepped out and called Ashley Scott at the city who answered some of his questions, He arranged to have everyone go look at the buildings at 10:00, since the interview they had scheduled for that time was canceled.
Meredith Fisher, with Planning and Zoning, said the staff report for Norhaven with Mountain Origins would be coming later that day and there was a Zoom meeting that evening that she reminded the commissioners they were invited to.
County Clerk, Sherry Ward, had an update about the Idaho Power Judgment. She said she talked to the state after the meeting last week and they said the county did not have to do a judgment levy on the county portion. She asked the commissioners if they still wanted to anyway and they did not.
The Commissioners went into the Board of Equalization to accept a casualty loss for a property in New Meadows.
Steve Shelton, with Solid Waste, said they are lining things up for the wells but will need two pumps for them. They will be finishing the pond liner on Tuesday. They should not need to budget anything for the landfill expansion project next year because it will be done! The commissioners were very excited to be done with the project. They started talking about arid exemptions and the pros and cons of getting one. Commissioner Ward said that people he talked to didn’t think they could even get it. Commissioner Iveson said if they did get an arid exemption it would kick them off the small county exemption. “I don’t know if that’s smart,” he said. Commissioner Purdy said they were being pushed to do a regional landfill but they didn’t want to do that because it would put other counties over their needs and take away a lot of their control. Commissioner Ward said he’s never had a good answer for how long the expansion should last. Shelton said he was told 75 years. Commissioner Iveson thought 25-50 depending on growth and how much trash is coming in. “It is busy all the time now, it’s nothing like it was even two years ago,” said Ward.
Prosecuting Attorney Peter Donovan arrived and said he looked into the road that had a “private” sign on it and he thought it was a county road called Oling Rd or possibly Dick Ross Rd. The “private” sign is inside the right of way, which Donovan said they might be able to go after them if they wanted to, but thought the owners probably just thought the road was theirs too. The commissioners said to just call the owners and talk to them, which they told Adam Balderson, with Road and Bridge, to do, as he arrived next. The road is used to access the National Forest.
Then, everyone, including the commissioners, Sherry Ward, Peter Donovan, and Adam Balderson, walked over to the city buildings down the road to look over them. Caleb Shumway with the City of Council met them to show the buildings. The Commissioners were particularly interested in the building that used to be the Starkey Springs offices, and they were surprised at how much room was in it. They would use the offices for elections and storage, but they would also consider moving over departments there as well, and probably the commissioners meetings, as there was a much larger space that would be appropriate and could accommodate more of the public. They were also interested in one of the large warehouses for Road and Bridge. They liked everything about it except they would need to put in at least one larger garage door for some of the bigger equipment.
When they returned from the impromptu field trip, Adam Balderson said he received numbers from a contractor estimating the culvert repair on Fruitvale Glendale Rd at $41-47,000. Dust abatement would be starting next week. They were planning on doing Goodrich, Airport, Lost Valley, and the Transfer Station. It usually lasts most of the summer.
Danna Barnhart asked if they had a sweeper and could sweep for the Fourth of July. Balderson said they usually wash the street before the parade. She mentioned it would be nice to do the area for the car show too.
Next there was an executive session, after which the commissioners talked more about the buildings for sale. They thought they definitely needed to buy the two buildings. They thought maybe one empty lot as well, for additional parking. One of them had a public utility easement going through it. Ward thought they should try for the two with building, but wasn’t sure about the lots. They all thought they needed to go over the money. Clerk Sherry Ward said she did hope the survey was cleaned up before they set on the two buildings. She also wanted to double check using the money for a specific elections fund for the purchase of property, which is where they were planning on getting the money. The commissioners said they’d have to crunch numbers “If we had unlimited money we’d get all of them just to make it a county complex, but we don’t,” said Ward. There was still time to decide on things because the city was still finishing the plat.
The Forest Service arrived next to give an update. New Meadows District Ranger, Dana Harris, and Council District Ranger, Paul Klassner, both gave updates, and also brought Rangeland Management Specialist, Andy Bumgarner, to talk to the commissioners.
Dana Harris said there would be a closure Southwest of Lost Valley Reservoir for a couple weeks due to logging operations. It would be open by the Fourth of July. They were burning 50 acres but wanted to redirect the firefighters to be ready for wildfire instead of babysitting it, so they put it all out in the rain. With the rain also came lightning, and there were several small fires but they were able to jump on all of them. There were a few smoke reports that they still haven’t been able to locate though so some may be still smoldering. Logging would be going on by Lost Valley and Granite Goose was moving forward.
They have closed the New Meadows office to public traffic. They didn’t have enough staff to keep it open right now. Council was open and the supervisors office in McCall was open. They have consolidated all the admin people left to keep those two offices open. C&M was selling firewood permits and there was a QR code for downloadable maps on the door of the New Meadows Office. It will be closed until they can do hiring again. “This isn’t the first step to closing the offices that we’re aware of,” said Klassner “It’s just a temporary thing. Paper maps would be available to purchase in Council and McCall.
Paul Klassner said that logging was going on for the Lava salvage. The closure on Little Weiser Rd had been lifted, but the bridges were still out. The closure was lifted by Big Flat but the campground was still closed. Cabin Creek Campground construction was done and it was open now. There was some exploration going on for mining but it was all in Washington County.
Andy Bumgarner introduced himself to the commissioners and gave some of his background. He came to talk about how they approach livestock grazing after fires. He said each fire is different, and they are all a challenge. Traditionally, they have often wanted to keep livestock off for two growing seasons after a wildfire, which he hasn’t always agreed with. In 2018 they started using new tech that showed satellite imagery of how hot the fires burned in each area. It shows high, moderate, and low severities. When looking at the data, they noticed that the moderate areas were similar to prescribed fires, but they didn’t require rest after prescribed fire, so his proposal was to err on the side of the resource, but give one growing season to moderate severity, and two to the high severity areas, but not require any rest for low severity burns. He showed them a map of the Lava Fire, which had a lot of high severity burns, and the Wolf Creek Fire, which had very little.. He said that everyone in the room knew how important the livestock industry is and what it means for a permittee to lose their allotment for two growing seasons. It’s very hard to find a place to rent, and it’s devastating to have to sell out and start over. It was very important to keep them on as much as they could.
They talked for a while about White Top and other noxious weeds. Some of the disaster relief money they received for fires last year will be going towards weeds. Also in the disaster money they asked for collars and towers for virtual fencing. They started a virtual fence program on the OX ranch last year and it was really successful. The Forest Service buys the towers and the livestock permittee leases the collars. Keyhole Ranch will be using them this year. It is a pretty big expense, but it is very exciting. They came up with this plan in the first place to keep cattle out of a trout stream on the Woodhead Fire and it worked really well. It is a sound stimulus first and then a shock, the same idea as the dog invisible fences.
Commissioner Iveson said he really appreciated what they were doing as a permit holder. The commissioners thought it would be a good idea to get a range update once a year in the future.
After the Forest Service representatives left, Sheriff Ryan Zollman said that Prosecutor Donovan had the lease company to make the changes they requested on the contract and thought it looked good. Zollman said he had a citizen request to get on the agenda for next week to talk about dogs barking all night. The county currently has no ordinance about dogs barking, and Zollman thought would be a problematic, discretionary sort of ordinance. In the past, they tried to charge someone with disturbing the peace for having their dog bark all night, but the charges didn’t stick because it wasn’t a willful and malicious act. Prosecutor Donovan had a few ideas and said it may be possible civilly to sue a neighbor for a dog that’s eternally barking. Zollman thought that the civil nuisance route may be the best.
Also on the subject of dogs, he wanted to bring attention to the number of dogs in the courthouse, especially the ones from county employees. His personal opinion was that it was unprofessional and employees shouldn’t be bringing their dogs to work. He said unequivocally he did not want dogs coming over to his side of the building, but the commissioners could do what they wanted on their side.
There were 23 state inmates and 6 county.
