Cottonwood City Council meets
The Cottonwood City Council held a public hearing on the proposed fee increases. There was no public input.
Later in the meeting the council approved Resolution 2026-05 which adopted the proposed fee increases.
The council also approved Resolution 2026-06, the contract with Simmons Sanitation. Simmons will become the city’s sanitation service beginning Oct. 1. They will start dropping off their bins around town after Walco’s final pickup on Sept. 30.
Ordinance #272 which deals with a franchise agreement with Avista was read and approved.
Pay raises for city employees that were in the recently adopted budget were formally approved.
A contract amendment for JUB was approved for about $11,000 worth of extra things that came up in the water project.
In the reports, Mayor Keith Holcomb said he is working with the county sheriff’s office to get reporting of their coverage of Cottonwood.
Debby O’Neill reported the city pumped 8,349,700 gallons of water in August and sold 8,060,710 for a loss of just 2.53%. In the copper-lead tests, all but one site tested very well and they are investigating that site. They are working on getting all the wells coordinated with the electronics so they don’t have to go manually turn on any of the wells.
They are looking at getting reservoir #2 cleaned. That would get both reservoirs on the same cycle.
In the sewer report Brett Miller deferred to Amy Uptmor of JUB Engineers. She reported they have had several meetings with the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality (DEQ). Some good news is that they have allocated an additional $2.8 million in funding for the sewer project. She said they are looking at rebidding Phase 2 with bid opening to be late November or early December. There was a question about making removal of the agriforest part of the bid or trying to do that ourselves. Joe Wright said maybe former mayor Denis Duman would remember what they did previously when they removed the first batch of trees.
Kristine Holthaus reported they have done some grading on the streets. The city crew reported the sweeper motor, which had been recently rebuilt, quit after just 4 hours. The company will make it good on repair as there was a 1 year warranty. It would help the life of the sweeper a lot if they had a separate vacuum truck as that is what the sweeper is used for most of the time. However, you are looking at about $400,000 for a vacuum truck.
Most of the signs came in from the sign grant. They are missing the 98 yield signs ordered. They are supposedly on the way.
In Land & Buildings, Linda Nida reported the Boy Scouts want to put a bench in the park. Nida said she is looking at the area near the Credit Union. Nida also reported Rick Johnson has installed the TV monitor which can display the pavilion schedule as well as weather and other things. There are packages available for $60 and $96 per year which would allow many more options to be displayed. Nida said she would like to revisit that in the spring. She also reported there is interest in a basketball court being installed, maybe on the pumphouse end of the park. She also has a sign company working on a sign for the Community Hall. It would be made of metal.
Holthaus reported that Idaho County has some training scheduled for the airport on Oct. 29. The airport would be otherwise unavailable that day.
The fire department had 2 calls in the past month. On Sept. 10 there was a false alarm at the hospital. On Sept. 14 there was a grass fire along Keuterville Road.
Uptmor talked about the fiberoptics that Inland Cellular is looking to install in town. The hope is to have fiberoptic available to every house and business in town. The city crew’s concerns is location of the underground portions as they are looking at a lot more of that than originally thought. They don’t want to have to dig up a broken water line and wind up cutting the fiberoptic cable. City attorney Joe Wright said they have to put their lines where the city says and if the city needs lines moved, it is at the company’s expense.
The meeting adjourned at 9:49 p.m. The next regular meeting is set for Tuesday, Oct. 13 at 7 p.m.