City of Kuna considering move to a new city hall

As first reported in last week's Kuna Melba News, the city of Kuna is considering moving city hall to an 8,000-square-foot building in the Lava Falls commercial complex across from Paul’s next to where Walgreens is building a new store.
The city currently rents space in the former Kuna Life Church building at 763 W. Avalon St., which is owned by J&M Sanitation owner Tim Gordon.
Kuna City Council members have been meeting behind closed doors the past couple of months to discuss “potential land acquisition.” The city will host a town hall style meeting at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, July 21, to get feedback from residents about the potential move.
The city currently rents 8,700 square feet for city offices and the adjacent police substation, for which the Ada County Sheriff’s Office pays and partially passes along the cost to the city through the city’s contract with the sheriff’s office.
The total rental cost per month to occupy the current City Hall space, including the police substation, is $8,247 for 8,700 square feet.
Of that total amount, the city pays $7,113 and the sheriff’s office pays $1,134.
City: Directly pays $5,412.12 per month for approximately 5,648 square feet or $.96 per sq. foot per month, which equals $11.50 per square foot annually.
Sheriff: Directly pays $2,835 per month for approximately 3,075 square feet or $.92 per sq. foot per month, which equals $11.06 per square foot annually.
Total: $8,247.12 per month for approximately 8,723 sq. feet or $.95 per square foot per month, which equals $11.35 per square foot annually.
Of the Sheriff’s portion, the City pays 60 percent indirectly through its contract with Ada County. That is 60 percent of $2,835, which equals $1,701 for 60 percent of 3,075 square feet, or 1,845 sq. feet.
This amounts to $.92 per sq. foot per month or $11.06 per sq. foot annually. Thus, the City’s overall outflow is $7,113.12 per month for approximately 7,493 sq. feet or $.95 per sq. foot per month, which equals $11.39 per sq. foot annually.
That’s the total cost. Utilities, landscaping, insurance, maintenance and property taxes are all included in that price.
Questions that still remain to be answered:
• What is the asking price for the new building to buy outright?
• If the city were to rent or lease, what would the monthly rent be at the new building?
• If the city were to choose a lease to buy option, what would the monthly installment be toward purchase?
• What would tenant improvements cost at the new building?
• Would the city pay property taxes, landscaping, maintenance and utilities at the new building in addition to the monthly rent?
Mike Young, who owns the potential new building in Lava Falls, said he couldn’t talk about the details because it’s all subject to negotiation.
Similarly, still unanswered is whether the city would have to pay for tenant improvements at the new building and, if so, how much those would cost.
City planning director Steve Hasson also declined to answer questions about how much it would cost to move to the new building because the city is negotiating with both sides.
Hasson did say, though, that whether the city stays where it is or moves to the new building, the city will be getting a better deal in the end.
The city now has a survey posted on its website, www.cityofkuna.com, asking residents to weigh in on moving city hall.
Current City Hall owner Tim Gordon said that he has let the city know that he is willing to reduce the rent next year.

Kuna City Council members should pay for security at Kuna Days

Kuna City Council members on Tuesday are scheduled to decide on a request from Kuna Days for $3,200 to pay for added police services during the two-day event.
The Ada County Sheriff’s Office is charging entities for the overtime costs of police officers during special events, such as Kuna Days.
Hoss Grigg, who was last year’s Kuna Days chairman, told City Council members last month that Kuna Days, itself, could be in jeopardy without any help from the city this year.
The city in the past has paid as much as $10,000 from city coffers to help defray the costs of Kuna Days, primarily for the fireworks show. But budget woes have made the city tight with a buck, cutting all funding to such organizations as The Zone after-school program, Kuna Days and the Kuna Chamber of Commerce.
To make matters worse, the city treasurer disclosed last month that an anticipated agreement with Idaho Power for a franchise fee that was expected to generate about $100,000 in revenue for the city is not working out. So City Council members cut their contingency fund down to $39,000 for the year, a precariously low amount.
Still, the city should pony up the relatively small amount of money for an event that benefits the city as a whole. It’s an event that deserves everyone’s support — including the City Council’s.

What do you think? Post an opinion below and vote in our online poll at www.kunamelba.com.

Looks like ACHD will be pushing roundabouts

The Ada County Highway District appears ready to move ahead with plans for more traffic roundabouts in the county.
ACHD representatives made a presentation to Kuna City Council members last week detailing a draft policy and guidelines for roundabouts that they hope to have approved by ACHD commission members as early as this summer.
Roundabouts are intersection traffic devices in which drivers enter a traffic circle by way of yielding to traffic, if any, already in the circle. Drivers can then exit the circle in any number of directions without stopping. A roundabout is used as an alternative to stop signs or traffic signals.
Terry Little, ACHD traffic services manager, told council members that safety, relieving congestion, reducing delays and air pollution and improving aesthetics are benefits of roundabouts over four-way stops and signalized intersections.
While public attitude is generally very negative toward roundabouts before a roundabout is installed, the public’s attitude generally turns just the opposite once a roundabout is put in, Little said.

You can read more of this in my Editor's Notebook in this week's Kuna Melba News.

Is the city of Kuna looking for a new city hall?

Kuna City Council members went into an executive session last week to discuss potential property acquisition.
The original posted agenda for the April 7 City Council meeting stated only that City Council was going into executive session to discuss potential litigation. But then when it came time for the executive session portion of the meeting, Kuna Mayor Scott Dowdy announced that they needed to add an item to the agenda to also discuss potential property acquisition.
A couple of dozen people were originally in attendance at the meeting but left after the consent agenda was approved. The mayor requested to add the agenda item only after everyone left the meeting.
I had to inform the mayor and council that in order to add an agenda item, a motion was required to add the item, including a statement of the good-faith reason that the item was not placed on the original agenda. Idaho Code 67-2343, Paragraph (4), section (c): “An agenda may be amended after the start of a meeting upon a motion that states the reason for the amendment and states the good faith reason the agenda item was not included in the original agenda posting.”
Readers of this column are aware of past indiscretions by this council in what I consider abuses of executive session. Last year, the council spent a couple of hours in executive session to spend $1 million out of the sewer fund to buy 107 acres for a park, then earlier this year, council went into executive session to agree to spend $1.3 million toward the local improvement district that’s funding the new wastewater treatment plant.
So here we go again. I would think the city would know better by now.

You can read the rest of this opinion in this week's Kuna Melba News.

Kuna city taxpayers on the hook for ballfields project

The city of Kuna already has spent several thousand dollars on making sure the city park ballfields will be ready in time for opening day of the youth baseball season April 10.
Several thousand more dollars likely will be necessary in the coming weeks to get the job done.
Kuna city engineer Gordon Law said that the parks budget has about $8,000 in unspent money from a capital expense that he can use toward finishing the ballpark, including buying backstop netting and sod.
But City Council member Rich Cardoza is even more concerned about future expenses related to advertising and promotional expenses that have been promised to business owners.
Cardoza’s concern seems to be a harbinger of potential problems. The question remains as to whether the Kuna Baseball Park Redevelopment Committee accepted money in exchange for promises of advertising signs and pavers and naming rights and whatever else. At least one business owner has informed the city that he paid $5,000 in exchange for advertising. Is the city now on the hook for these promises?
I hope a financial accounting is done soon so we can sort this out.

Company wants to put a shed up in city park parking lot as part of vehicle emissions testing

A company is proposing to put a shed in a parking lot at Deer Flat and Linder roads as part of the new DEQ-mandated vehicle emissions testing.
The proposal runs contrary to what the contractor company stated two weeks ago about the nature of these operations.
Bill Dell of SysTech told the Kuna Melba News in February that the company was looking for existing businesses that can do the tests themselves, have a covered area for the tests and have adequate facilities for customers, including a waiting area and clean bathroom. The Kuna Lube N Go would be a good example of a business that might conduct the tests, Dell confirmed.
However, Kuna City Council members have an item on their agenda for Tuesday night from a company called L-N-T, which claims to be doing work with SysTech to provide vehicle emissions in Kuna.
They are proposing to place a 12-foot-by-8-foot-by-11.5-foot shed in the parking lot of the city park at the southwest corner of Deer Flat and Linder roads. The company is also proposing to place a 4-by-4-foot sign on a couple of wooden posts at the site.

Kuna City Council members set LID connection fee

Kuna City Council members have given local improvement district landowners a break on sewer connection fees — and provided an incentive to pay their assessments in full by March 22.
City Council members, on a 3-1 vote, approved a resolution Monday night that designates the $3,233.75 assessment as a credit toward the payment of a sewer connection fee. In addition to the assessment, if landowners pay in full within the 30-day open pay period, they can receive a sewer connection for an additional $500, which represents a discount on the current sewer connection fee.
Currently, a sewer connection in the city of Kuna costs $4,326. A big question that has been lingering for months is whether the LID landowners would have to pay that full amount in addition to the $3,233.75 that they’re paying as part of their assessment that’s paying back about $26 million in construction costs on the new sewer treatment plant.
The question was key, as it was a vital unknown for many landowners who were trying to make a business decision about whether to walk away from their land or not.
The resolution appears to be a good-faith effort on behalf of the City Council to address some of the complaints and concerns of the LID owners, many of whom likely face foreclosure on their property because of this assessment.
Although the resolution resolves some important financial issues, it likely won’t be enough to avoid a lawsuit, which many landowners have threatened.

You can read the rest of this editorial, including what happened with the EDU transfer registry, in this week's Editor's Notebook in the Kuna Melba News.

Streak of attending consecutive Kuna City Council meetings comes to an end

All good things must come to an end. On Tuesday night, I missed the Kuna City Council meeting. This was the first Kuna City Council meeting I've missed since Oct. 3, 2006. The longer my streak lasted, the harder it was to miss a meeting. But this Tuesday, I was just overwhelmed. In addition to just trying to get a newspaper out, I had an interview with Mel and Brenda Coulter, the Kuna parents of Charisa Coulter, who's in a Haiti jail on child trafficking charges. Before heading over there, though, I got word there was a double-fatal house fire in Melba, which I drove down to and covered for this week's issue. So by 5 p.m., I still had to finish the paper, edit photos from the Melba fire and write two stories. Needless to say, I was not going to City Council that night. I felt a twinge of something around 7:30 p.m., knowing council members were meeting without me. I guess I'll just start over again and see if I can break my first record.

Kuna schedules an open meeting on LID

Kuna City Council members will hold a special meeting at 6 p.m. next Tuesday, Jan. 26, at City Hall to meet with landowners participating in the local improvement district.
The purpose of the meeting is “to go over numbers,” according to council member Jeff Lang. The council scheduled the meeting after an hour-and-a-half executive session Tuesday night to discuss “potential litigation.”
Ostensibly, next Tuesday’s meeting is supposed to make up for the deliberations and decision-making that went on during two previous executive sessions last month, after which council members announced that they were going to reduce the LID’s assessment by a couple million bucks and have city ratepayers pick up the difference.
Although council said the meeting is for LID members, the repercussions are huge for every city taxpayer. The general public is invited and encouraged to attend. Let’s hope the council doesn’t go into executive session.

Kuna City Council has a new council president. Find out who it is in this week's Kuna Melba News.

Kuna City Council members offer some relief to LID landowners

Kuna City Council members voted Tuesday night to ease the financial burden to the landowners participating in the local improvement district that’s funding the wastewater treatment plant.
Acknowledging that the new facility is oversized beyond service to the 2,700 acres of land in the LID, council members agreed to drop the price attributed to the LID and agreed to have the city pick up the remaining cost.
“We’ve discussed a balanced approach that helps the LID owners but also, unfortunately, puts a little bit of the burden on the city and a burden on the community,” council member Lisa Bachman said. “But given the way things have turned out, we didn’t have much choice.”
Based on preliminary assessment notices sent out in October, LID landowners are on the hook for about $27.4 million in construction costs for the sewer plant, which is in operation now near the southeast corner of Lake Hazel and Ten Mile roads.
Based on that assessment, a sewer connection costs $3,205.18. A landowner with 35 acres in the LID, for example, has a benefit of 105 sewer connections and an assessment of $336,543.90.
Under the new scenario approved Tuesday night, though, LID landowners are on the hook for only $25.3 million in construction costs. With that price tag, the 8,353 sewer connections promised in the LID would cost $3,028 each. So, for example, the landowner with 35 acres in the LID, would now be on the hook for $317,940.
The city also agreed to remove two pieces of property from the assessment roll totaling 253 sewer connections, dropping the total number of sewer connections to 8,100.
In the end, the city would need to make up the difference owed to the banks, which totals $2.8 million.
A revenue bond or judicial confirmation are two of the options for the city to come up with the money, Kuna Mayor Scott Dowdy said after the meeting Tuesday night.

You can read more of this story in this week's Kuna Melba News.

Congratulations to Rich Cardoza and Doug Hoiland on Kuna City Council

We can now officially congratulate Doug Hoiland and Rich Cardoza, who were both confirmed as the top two vote-getters for two seats on the Kuna City Council after a recount last week.
A local businessman who runs an insurance agency on Main Street, Rich won re-election to a second four-year term. He has shown himself to be a contrarian voice on the council, voting against the streetlight fee, voting against annexations and seeking a closer review of the police budget. I think that’s what helped him get re-elected. Many residents, rightly, want to make sure there are some checks and balances on the council and that not everyone is simply rubber-stamping proposals placed before them.
I will offer that up as a suggestion and recommendation to newcomer Doug Hoiland. I put it to you, Doug, to make sure that you question decisions and proposals that are placed before you and hold them in skeptical regard. I ask you to remember that the city attorneys, the city engineer, the planning director, treasurer, etc., all work for the city residents and that you are our representation to them.

Kuna LID protest hearings turn up some (scary) revelations

Kuna City Council members are expected to make a ruling or rulings in the next couple of weeks regarding the protest hearings held last week about the local improvement district that is funding the $27 million wastewater treatment plant.
City staff members are putting together their evaluations of the individual protests as well as the larger, overarching legal issues surrounding the LID itself. Primarily, that analysis is of a legal nature but also involves technical considerations of certain specific properties and their encumbrances from the LID. It appears that City Council might make a ruling at its regular meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 15, but nothing has been scheduled yet.
One of the biggest shocks of last week's protest hearings, for me, came when one landowner said he needed more information from the city in order to make a business decision about what to pay or even whether to pay. He cited a clause in the city’s assessment notice that reads, “the city may increase any assessment or assessments up to twenty percent (20%) of the original amount thereof without giving further notice and without holding a new hearing.”
He drew blank stares from council members Lisa Bachman and Jeff Lang, who apparently had no idea what he was talking about.
Yikes. Either they didn’t get a copy of the six-paragraph assessment notice or they didn’t read it closely, or they didn’t read it the two times it ran in the Kuna Melba News, even though the notice is signed, “By order of the City Council.”
It’s scary that the decision makers aren’t paying very close attention to the biggest issue facing the city in probably decades.
They’d better start paying attention, because I can guarantee you everyone else is paying close attention — especially the banks’ lawyers who attended last week’s hearings.

You can read more of this editorial in this week's Kuna Melba News.

City of Kuna hires two new city attorneys

The city of Kuna has a new city attorney — two city attorneys, actually.
Kuna City Council members last week approved a contract to hire lawyers Richard A. Johnson and Richard T. Roats to serve as city attorneys. They will be paid $100,000 per year.
They replace city attorney Randy Grove, who resigned last month, citing conflicts with his role in the formation and execution of the local improvement district. That issue appears headed for a lawsuit, and Grove said he would find it difficult to serve as counsel to the city and as a witness in the matter. His last day was Nov. 6.
Grove’s salary was $93,540, but health benefits pushed the cost to the city well over $100,000. A $100,000 contract without health benefits actually saves the city money, according to Kuna Mayor Scott Dowdy.
Dowdy said he received inquiries from a number of candidates interested in the position. Dowdy said that he, city engineer Gordon Law and city planning director Steve Hasson interviewed three of the candidates, and all three agreed independently that Johnson and Roats were the top candidates.

You can read the rest of this, including the backgrounds on Roats and Johnson, in my Editor's Notebook in this week's Kuna Melba News.

City of Kuna backs off powerline ban

It looks like the city of Kuna is backing down from Idaho Power in its dispute over the placement of power lines along Meridian Road and Kuna-Mora Road.
City planning director Steve Hasson tells me that he sent an email to City Council members on Monday letting them know that he’s removing the language in a text amendment to an overlay district ordinance that would ban any new utility structures within 660 feet of the highways.
I applaud the city for making an effort to try to make the city look nice, but I think this is a wise retreat. Idaho Power was holding up a franchise fee agreement that could bring in $100,000 in new revenue to the cash-strapped city budget. Plus, it seemed to me that the city was going a little overboard on keeping power lines out of the Meridian Road corridor.

You can read more of this in my Editor's Notebook in this week's Kuna Melba News. I'm also writing about an Urban Land Institute study in Kuna, the Kuna Chamber of Commerce's economic development committee and an update on the city park ballfields.

On fighting and conflicts of interest in the city of Kuna

As we enter the final couple of weeks of this Kuna City Council campaign, I want to implore our readers to make an informed decision, and I ask all Kuna residents to quit our seemingly obsessive compulsion for silly rumor-mongering and inaccurate perpetuations of tired myths.
We’ve had a couple of council candidates of late start leveling accusations of conflicts of interest on the current council and we had one candidate who, as far as I know hasn’t been to a single council meeting, tell the Boise paper that he’s tired of seeing all this fighting on the council.
I write this not as a defense or an endorsement of the sitting incumbents. To the contrary, there are plenty of issues that an informed, intelligent candidate can raise as a legitimate campaign platform: the handling of the local improvement district and the $27 million bill for the wastewater treatment plant, the $324,000 gaffe in last year’s budget, the elimination of funding in this year’s budget for the Zone, the Boys & Girls Club, the Chamber of Commerce.
But this insistent issue of conflicts of interest simply doesn’t hold much water.

If you want to read the rest of this editorial, you'll have to buy a copy of this week's Kuna Melba News.

We're in the midst of the goofy season

The Kuna City Council race is starting to get weird and heated. With 10 candidates running for two seats, it shouldn’t come as much surprise. In 15 years in the newspaper business covering dozens of cities in five states, I can assure you that Kuna is not unique in its penchant for small-town politics and bickering over petty slights.
But I can assure you that it’s never really much fun and it usually adds little to civil debate about issues.
You know that saying that the only two things certain in life are death and taxes? I would like to add another: Fights over campaign signs during an election. From Carlsbad, N.M., to Chardon, Ohio, to San Mateo, Calif., to Greece, N.Y., it’s always the same. Usually it’s about someone stealing someone’s campaign signs. In Kuna at the moment, we have some confusion over where campaign signs are allowed. Apparently, the signs are allowed on public property, but they can’t be in the public right-of-way, which apparently is where some candidates are placing their signs.
Terribly pressing issue that will decide the fate of the universe, right?
One of the candidates, Dave Szplett, wrote an email to all of the candidates saying, “I am amazed that nine people believe that they are qualified to run for city council but can’t even figure out what is public property. Worse, is how can someone break the sign law and still ask for the public’s trust. Maybe the news people will write up something on this obvious issue. Maybe if they cared.”
That spurred another candidate, Corinna Stiles, to respond, “And I’m amazed that a council candidate would be so disrespectful to his peers and make allegations towards people he knows nothing about. Perhaps that’s the issue for the news people.”
For those of you who plan on basing your election decision on road signs, I have noticed another candidate who should be getting your attention: Mr. Blowouts, Sprinkler Blowouts. He even puts his phone number right on his sign.
Speaking of Szplett, I had the hardest time getting a hold of him for our candidate essays. He wouldn’t answer his phone when I called and he wouldn’t return my emails.
Cheryl McCord and Bill Clark, Kuna Farmers Market organizers, had similar problems when they organized Meet the Candidates sessions at the Market. They received responses back from the other nine candidates, all of whom attended, but no response from Dave.
At the insistence of one of our readers, Szplett did finally submit an essay. But here we are again. I’ve asked the candidates to answer a few questions about police services, the LID, etc. Eight responded without any problems. On Oct. 8, I received an email from Szplett’s email account: “The Professor is still elk hunting. Elk season runs through Oct 12th but deer continues until October 20th. Maybe he’ll be here sooner.”
But then I saw him at El Gallo Giro the very next day. Odd. No elk in sight.
The next day, another email: “I am the Professor’s clerk. It appears that he was in Kuna for a short time yesterday. I have a bunch of notes from him. He reports sending out “some” emails. There were lots of them before he started though. Did he get to yours? I hope that he responded to your needs. If you need anything more, he should be back in town late on the 21st. He has jury duty on the 26th though. He never sits idle.”
Although voting is the most basic and pure expression of democracy, I’ll be glad when the goofy season is over.

Kuna local improvement district issue coming to a head

Kuna City Council members are scheduled to meet with property owners who are part of the local improvement district that’s funding the new wastewater treatment plant.
Council members will meet in a special meeting with LID members starting at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 29, at City Hall.
The council scheduled the meeting after getting out of executive session last week. The executive session was held to discuss litigation or potential litigation on two cases, according to city attorney Randy Grove. One case apparently concerns potential litigation over the local improvement district.
Grove said “there is a noticeable rise in the anger and tension” among LID owners as he saw at a meeting a couple of weeks back. That’s certainly understandable.
The ironic thing in all of this is that LID members jumped into the LID four years ago under the assumption that they wouldn’t be able to develop their property at all if they weren’t a part of the LID. But now, landowners who are not in the LID may actually have an easier time developing their property and purchasing sewer connections on an as-needed basis. It seems to me that the LID owners have plenty to be disgruntled about, and the city would do well, however late, to listen to their concerns.

Add a small caveat to the debate over small houses in Kuna

Mic, a general contractor and Kuna business owner, pulled me aside after the meeting to point out something regarding a column I wrote a couple of weeks ago about smaller house sizes in Kuna. I think it’s a good point that’s worth repeating. Mic said that smaller houses, valued at, say, $87,000, don’t pay nearly enough in property taxes to cover provided services. That’s why it behooves the city to require larger house sizes that generally have a higher assessed value, which in turn triggers higher property taxes. With smaller house sizes and not enough property tax to cover provided services, the end result will be higher taxes for everyone.
I pointed out that my column did say that I agree with allowing smaller houses temporarily, as a short-term fix but not a long-term solution. This fiscal year, for example, the city is expecting to collect about $1.4 million in property taxes. Nearly all of that — $1.24 million — goes toward police services. The city relies on building activity for a large chunk of its general fund revenue, which totals $2.8 million this year.
In 2009, smaller houses, which pay the same amount as large houses in building permit fees, have made up the bulk of single-family building permits. Had the city prohibited builders from building these small houses, the city’s coffers would have been considerably smaller. If the city were to disallow small houses in the coming 12 months, the city might see a fraction of building permits pulled. If that were to happen, the city could see its $300,000 in annual building permit revenue decimated. Then, come next year’s budget cycle, the city would be faced with either making hundreds of thousands of dollars in cuts or, you guessed it, raising taxes. More likely a combination.
So, as I suggested in my column, the city should allow some smaller houses now to capitalize on the market trend but not let it go on indefinitely.
That said, Mic pointed out that I should have taken it a step further. The city needs to come up with a formula for determining just how many small houses, medium-size houses and large houses are required in order to strike the proper balance, not only for the look and feel of the city but also for the financial impacts they have on the budget.
That’s an excellent suggestion. I would like to see Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council members have a tool like that the next time a developer comes before them requesting smaller houses.

Will it be possible for the city of Kuna to compromise on smaller house sizes?

The city of Kuna should be in for some tough decisions regarding smaller lot sizes and smaller houses.
Right now, the city of Kuna is the hottest real estate game in town, mostly because of the quick sales of some of the smallest houses in the Treasure Valley. At 850 to 1140 square feet, houses in the Silvertip Subdivision, south of town off Luker Road, have been flying off the shelves, something to the tune of about 50 houses built and sold in just the last three or four months.
I’ve had the opportunity to meet some of the new residents of these houses, and they are to be considered a welcome addition to Kuna. One woman I met, a widow who moved back to the Treasure Valley from Florida, was looking for a smaller house and yard to take care of but large enough to hold a lifetime of belongings. The one-story, 1100-square-foot house was perfect and the small town of Kuna reminds her of the town she was born in in Kentucky.
She will be turning her entire back yard into a vegetable and flower garden — no lawn to mow. She’ll have no stairs to climb, but she’ll have enough room for relatives to come stay with her.
In a way, she’s a perfect argument for building smaller houses. She’s a model citizen and she’s part of a growing generation of empty nesters looking to downsize.
However, as I wrote a couple of weeks ago, city planning director Steve Hasson recognizes that we have to avoid becoming the “starter capital of the world.”
I think Hasson has the right idea with allowing some concessions in the short term without making blanket changes to development agreements.
For example, if someone with a 100-house subdivision wants to build smaller houses, let him build one phase of 20 or 30 houses at a smaller square footage but require houses thereafter to be larger.
That way, the city can keep the hot Kuna market going and still protect its future.

In defense of urban renewal district in Kuna

It seems that it is necessary to back up the trains on the urban renewal district debate. Since writing about the issue a couple of weeks ago, I’ve received a couple of letters to the editor and a couple of posts at my blog. The responses have been largely arguments against urban renewal districts, that Kuna just shouldn’t even go there.
I feel this is an important and good debate, and I think it’s good to step back and discuss the merits and drawbacks of urban renewal to see if there’s some sort of middle ground (time limits on frozen values, who is elected to run the district, limits on indebtedness, etc.)
Properties within an urban renewal district still pay taxes to pay for services up to a “frozen” amount, the amount at the time of the formation of the district. Property owners still pay money to the library district, the fire district, the cemetery district, etc.
Without urban renewal, though, you’re probably just going to see stagnation of property values and even worse, a decline in property values, which would provide less property tax revenue for everyone. Property owners, particularly in historic downtowns, need more help because the buildings are older, infrastructure is older, existing sidewalks need to be upgraded and widened, aging facades need to be improved, parking lots need to be carved out of existing developed spaces — all problems that new buildings don’t face.
Everyone benefits from an urban renewal district because it improves a city’s core, its identity, attracting other businesses and investors and bringing residents down to the rehabilitated area. With more businesses, the tax burden is eased on everyone.
The reality is that time and again, when a city does nothing, what has happened across the country is that these downtowns deteriorate and become a blight and a drag on the entire community. The record is rife with American cities that let their historic downtowns deteriorate only to come back years later to try to rehabilitate them.
The reason the area along Kuna’s Main Street is unique is because these are historic structures that speak to Kuna’s history, which is its identity. A Walgreen’s or Outback Steakhouse, while providing vital services to residents, don’t really distinguish themselves as unique to Kuna. Further, because these are older buildings with older infrastructure, they need a little more help than a brand new building.
In addition, a major problem we have here in Kuna is one of perception. Downtown is not just a bunch of bars. In downtown, we have a gift shop, an ice cream shop, a coffee shop, a hardware store, a couple of thrift stores, a consignment shop, convenience stores and gas stations, a post office, a community hall, as well as service offices, such as a newspaper, investment adviser, dog grooming, insurance, accountant.
But make no mistake, bars and restaurants are a major draw to bring people downtown. They are the foundation upon which you get people downtown, walking around, visiting, browsing, window-shopping, which leads to other businesses moving downtown. The historic downtown is the only place that can provide a unique experience that tells people, “You are in Kuna.”
Finally, what alternative is there? If the city does nothing, the historic downtown will continue to deteriorate, businesses will continue to flee downtown and move into nondescript strip malls scattered here and there, and the downtown buildings will become vacant shells that are a blight on our city. Then what?