Gardner Passes Torch to Wilson
On Tuesday, January 13, the first city council meeting of the year took place for the city of Council. This was a highly anticipated meeting at which the newly elected mayor would be sworn into office. The room was packed to standing room only and there was a reporter from KTVB as well as from The Record Reporter.
Mayor Bruce Gardner called the meeting to order and started with the Airport Report, which was first on the agenda. Kayla Brown Via Zoom said that the airport lighting project had received seven bids and the lowest bid was from a company out of Spokane that they were familiar with, although they were all competitive bids. It did look like there may be some surplus funds, of around $18,000, after the project was done. The pavement project closeout report was submitted to the FAA and they would be getting started on the permanent pavement soon.
Kathy Hughes said they are planning on doing the new hangar build sometime in spring and were still waiting for the FAA to officially change them to runway 18/36. In 2025 they sold 5,520 gallons of gas for $3,832 of net revenue for the airport. They have already sold almost half the tank since they reopened the airport. The next Airport Commission meeting will be on January 26 at 6:30 p.m. at hangar #5 at the airport.
Next, City Clerk Ashley Scott gave her report. She said the city has sold 47 business licenses and nine liquor licenses this year. So far, they have only sold 74 dog tags, numbers are poor, and she is working on sending out reminders. The Deputy Clerk is back full time. Title closed the previous day on the transactions between the City of Council and Adams County, as well as the City of Council and Brian Goodwin. Public auction for Industrial Building C is scheduled for Saturday, February 7th, at 11:00 a.m. and there will be a notice in the paper.
The comprehensive plan is in the final steps of completion. The city has saved $6,000 using the city attorney as prosecuting attorney.
There has been a string of vandalism in the public restroom downtown. Scott said Brian Goodwin has stated he plans on leaving the surveillance cameras at his old location and Scott wanted to look into how much it would cost to keep them running, and putting some up at the restroom too. Council Member Dave Tubridy said that there are some in New Meadows and they also lock the restroom at night. Scott said they don’t want to put money into updating the restroom with vandalism going on. Council Member Dan Huter mentioned that Midvale has nice restrooms and they are right off the highway, the council should see what they are doing.
Next, Caleb Shumway with public works gave an update. He said he is working to finalize things with the water project. DEQ has required them to do initial monitoring for PFAS 6. They need to collect one sample from each water well from now until June, and another from July to December. He also wanted permission to purchase a gas monitor for entering confined spaces, which the council thought was a good idea.
Next, there was a public hearing scheduled for a conditional use permit for Council Guns in their new location, there was no public comment so the hearing was closed. Later in the meeting, the City Council granted the conditional use permit to Council Guns to allow for a sporting goods store and indoor archery and pistol range. The conditional use permit was required in the industrial zone where they were relocating the business.
After this the new city officials were sworn in, starting with Malvin “Gabe” Wilson as Mayor, and then Mendy Stanford and Dan Huter who were starting a new term. Newly sworn in Mayor Wilson thanked everyone for coming and thanked former Mayor Gardner for his over 27 years of service to the city. “Here’s to new beginnings,” he said.
The next agenda item was to elect a new City Council President. Dan Huter and Mendy Stanford nominated Council Member Dave Tubridy and all were in favor.
The next item addressed was a discussion of a joint powers agreement between Parks and Recreation and the City of Council. Attorney Jeff Schroeder helped to explain what it would do. It would create a joint board to administer joint facilities. The current Parks and Rec board was at the meeting and board member Lana Wessels said they had looked over the draft and thought it sounded good. Council Member Mendy Stafford asked if a joint agreement would help them get grants and Schroeder said yes, he thought so. Council President Dave Tubridy asked if this was a provision to provide oversight. Stafford asked if they can bring this up next month, and the council decided to address it then.
The Council Chamber of Commerce had a park use request for July 3rd and 4th also tentatively for October 24th if they started the Trunk or Treat Festival again, and Dec. 6th for the tree lighting. Council Member Stanford moved to approve the Chamber’s use of the park, with stipulations, and all were in favor. Council Member Tubridy wanted to know the status of signs for the city. Chamber President Katie Church said the Chamber would shortly be getting a new board and some board members had opinions about the signs. She said she will hopefully have an update next month if she is still president.
Next, the Council Mountain Farmers Market had a park use request, the same as the past seven seasons, for the first and third Friday of each month starting in June, and the first Friday in October, and for the use of power. Mayor Wilson had a couple questions and asked if the market was a non-profit. Market Manager Amanda Gratton said no, they were not, the market was its own entity with its own bank account, and the money brought in went to the market needs. They charge the vendors a fee for a space with the exception of non profits, the schools and organizations, or youth who are interested in a booth. Tubridy asked if they donate to any of the local businesses around town and Gratton said unfortunately it doesn’t generate enough revenue to do that, the money it just goes back into the market needs.
Mayor Wilson had a proposal for the board. He said that for any person who wants to use the park they charge $50 per use, but they charge the Council Mountain Farmers Market $35 for the year. “I would like to entertain raising that, no offense, to the normal $50,” said Mayor Wilson.
“And why did you want to do that?” Asked Council Member Dan Huter, “just to standardize?”
“Yep,” said Mayor Wilson, “inflation.” Stanford asked if the market was able to do that and Gratton said yes, and it was very helpful to have the power and they really liked having the market downtown, it had become a staple in the community. Stanford moved to allow the Council Mountain Farmers Market to use the park for the requested days for the single use park fee of $50 for the year. All were in favor.
Next, the Council awarded the bid for the Airport Lighting Project. No local funding was required. Then there was a discussion on the new City Hall remodel. Ashley Scott said in the new location they will add two office spaces, a platform for City Council and Mayor, will upgrade flooring to ADA slip resistant, and replace a couple windows with drainage issues. She said the goal was once Council Guns was out at the end of the month, the contractor would tape out the plan, and then arrange for council members to go in person to check it out. In addition, Scott wanted to request a budget for herself for outfitting the new space. They wanted to create a more inviting reception type area. She proposed a number for outfitting the space and said she would also go over everything with the mayor. The remodel will eat about half of the budget they have for it, over the summer there will need to be new stucco repair and repainting. It may need a roof repair in the future. There were two bids for the remodel, they awarded Weiser River Customs the bid for $49,000 for remodeling the new City Hall location and also gave Scott a $15,000 budget for furnishing and outfitting the new space.
The Council voted to keep Dave Tubridy on the Stibnite Advisory Council. Tubridy gave a quick update and said they are doing construction on prefab housing for 1,000 workers right now and are hoping to be drilling by summer. The weather hasn’t been great there, too muddy. They are mining antimony and this will be the only domestic source in the continental U.S.. They will also be mining copper, gold, and zinc. The work is expected to last at least ten to 20 years. There was an issue with Warm Lakes Summit, which was never plowed previously, and they had to plow it to keep it open during construction. People are upset because they want to gate it so it’s only available to Stibnite traffic, but recreationists are upset about the loss of access. So they are working right now to create some additional groomed trails for recreation.
Next, they had to execute the grant agreement for the America 250 Celebration Grant, which they received in the amount of $2,500, and were hoping to use for fireworks.
At the end of the meeting, attorney Jeff Schroeder had a presentation for the Mayor and City Council on their role and responsibilities. It was an informative training on the power, duties, and responsibilities of the city elected officials.
