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the Prairie for Health
The Cottonwood City Council held their regular April meeting Monday, April 10. Ron Grant and Jack Duman shared the results of their review of the conditional uses permitted by the city ordinances in residential zones. They suggested some minor tweaks which the full council agreed with. It was then referred to city attorney Joe Wright who will incorporate the suggested changes and present them at the next council meeting. Shelley Dumas of Grangeville represented the Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF) and presented information on their proposed shelter. They are looking for volunteers to serve on the board of directors and once it gets going they’ll need volunteers for day to day operations. They have a half-acre site in mind donated by the city of Grangeville and expect to need about $900,000 to put up the building they want. They then expect annual expenditures to be about $80,000. This shelter would be for abandoned and abused domestic pets, mostly dogs and cats. Jessaca Austad of Idalew was also in attendance. She is looking for a new board member from Cottonwood since Denis Duman is now the County Commissioner representative on their board. She talked about several new businesses and jobs created in Idaho and Lewis Counties in the past year or so. John Mager of Mager Bargains also appeared before the Council to address complaints they may have received about his business and the work he is doing to address them. He reported in the past 5 years he has sent over 180,000 lbs. of scrap metal to be recycled. He addressed parking concerns, cleanup of the carport areas that collapsed this winter due to snow and a drainage problem he’d like the city to look at for safety reasons. The Idaho County Recycling lease was discussed. There was some discussion as to whether ICR is even using city property, and if not, they wouldn’t need a lease. Roy Uhlenkott said he’s very sure that the site isn’t within 10 feet of actual city property but is on railroad and privately owned ground. This will be investigated further with a report back at the next meeting. Uhlenkott discussed the new “Dig Line” law that was passed last year. He said the city chose not to be a part of this in the past so that those that want to dig on their property would have to talk with city crew to find out where city services are located. Now the new law says they have to be a part of this and he sees it taking up a lot more of the city crew’s time to address these matters. An engineer for sidewalk inspections was approved. HMH of Coeur d’Alene is the firm recommended by Duman. The sidewalk project has money budgeted for an inspection engineer. The city gets to pick them but negotiation for compensation will be between the engineer and the Idaho Transportation Dept. Monday August 28 was set as the budget hearing date. In reports Pat Holthaus reported the city pumped about 2.5 million gallons of water last month and sold about 2 million for a loss of 20%. Uhlenkott reported they fixed two water leaks and they may have another one but it is acting funny for a water line leak and may be runoff instead. Grant had nothing new to report in the sewer department. Duman reported the city will be getting their own mag chloride this year and won’t have to go through the bid process. He said they will be looking at some sealcoating again this year. He is also working on a permit to clean out Cottonwood Creek. In particular the tree near the Tire Guy warehouse shed and back behind Gem Builders. Shelli Schumacher reported the concrete has been poured at the south end of the hall so that the main floor kitchen door can now be accessed. Temporary hand rails are up. Grant reported the Fire Department had just 1 call in the past month, a rural power pole fire. They had some of the crew attend the fire academy recently in Kamiah and Uhlenkott said they will take some of the newer guys on a tour of downtown businesses so they’ll know what they could be up against. The meeting adjourned at 8:32 p.m. The next regular meeting is set for Monday, May 8 at 7 p.m. |
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