Council approves RV ordinance

PRIEST RIVER — The City Council took up a previously discussed recreational vehicle ordinance last week and chatted about public feedback they had received since its introduction to the public.

In the past few weeks, members of the public had barraged the mayor and council with complaints about the proposed ordinance’s fees. Councilman Jeff Connolly said the fees were not designed to be a revenue source to the city. Councilman Greg Edwards opined that since residents didn’t show up to city council meetings, they were uninformed as to the intent of the ordinance and took some educating to properly inform about the ordinance.

Priest River Mayor Jim Martin said most objections had come with regard to the short term permit requirement, which applied to people staying more than three days. Speaking of the ordinance, Martin said “It was designed to address people bringing camp trailers and living in them full time in somebody’s yard,” he said.

At the Sept. 6 meeting, Edwards said it might not be worthwhile to require a permit for a Friday through Monday visit by relatives. Councilwoman Peggy George chimed in pointing out the senselessness of requiring a permit of grandparents coming to visit their progeny for a long weekend. Other cities required permit for more than three day-long visits, said city attorney Katie Elsaesser and the mayor. Regardless of the length dictated for short term permits, the ordinance would give the city “the tools we need to address some of the problems that people have had,” said the mayor. After deciding to stick with the more-than-three days requirement, the council then approved the ordinance unanimously. It goes into effect Jan. 1, 2017.

City water supplies became uncomfortably low recently thanks to a malfunctioning telemetry-based pump system, reported city public works director Greg Snow.

Snow told the council that his crew members had been rotating on and off every two hours at night to manually operate the city’s water pumps to bring the city’s water levels up to a more comfortable amount. He later explained that the city had about a million gallons left when the water dropped to about 11 feet. Snow said he likes to keep the water levels between a comfortable 24-28 feet.

In the short term, Snow said that the system is up and running properly again. However, in the long term, he said he wants to use the radio communications as a backup and a hard-wired connection as the system’s primary means of communication.

“The city has already paid to have fiber installed from the reservoir site to city hall, we need to have it run from city hall to the treatment plant as well. In the meantime, we can use the new fiber and couple it with the cable Internet that is already at the treatment plant, until we can get the fiber installed. The fiber would be owned by the city and therefore only be used by the city for security purposes,” Snow said. “It would in fact be dedicated solely to city infrastructure. I would expect to have that module installed within two weeks as our contractor is currently out of state.”

Martin suggested that the fiscal year 2017 capital improvements budget might be able to pay for such a fiber.

In other news, a representative from Mountain Waterworks advised that the city use additional funds to pay for pipe replacement via pipe bursting. That method would not require the city to dig up the pipes. Instead, the pipes would be burst underground, and then a new pipe poured in its place. He also reported that 30 percent of wastewater engineering plans have been submitted to the city.

Connolly asked Snow about moving money from the water meter replacement fund to the water account, and contract the water meter replacement work to an outside source.

Water meters in city storage were a source of frustration for the councilman, who had also discussed the issue with city clerk Laurel Knoles prior to the meeting, he said.

“It’s just not right to have three-quarters of the city metered, and the other quarter not.” He also asked that the fire hydrants in the city be improved. Snow said that they’re on a list of capital improvements to be handled.

The city council’s next regular meeting will take place Sept. 19 at 6 p.m.