Stories in this Regional News Roundup are excerpted from weekly newspapers from around the region. This is part two, with part one having appeared in Saturday’s Tribune.
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FARMINGTON — The town councilor who accused other city officials of wrongdoing has officially resigned after allegations of hostility.
Councilor Mike Erickson resigned in a March 4 email to Mayor Blanche Rhea and other councilors.
“I have made a decision to resign from council effective today,” Erickson wrote. “I wish you all luck in your future governance of the town.”
Erickson’s resignation comes after the February resignation of former Town Clerk/Treasurer Lynn Yarnell, who stepped down after Erickson questioned the legality of her activities and those of others in town government.
In a letter last month from Rhea to Erickson, the mayor accused Erickson of creating a hostile work environment by calling out employees for failures on the job, contacting the Whitman County Gazette about town issues and purportedly considering hiring legal counsel to address those issues.
Erickson disagreed with the mayor’s assessment.
Despite his resignation, Erickson said he remains concerned about town governance and town officials following state law.
Erickson said he isn’t the first councilor to step down after seeing what’s going on in town government and the mayor.
Four former councilors have resigned in the last 7-9 months, he said.
— Teresa Simpson, Whitman County Gazette (Colfax), Thursday
McCall to present impact area map in May
McCALL — The McCall City Council and Valley County Commission met on Monday to discuss the McCall Area of Impact and will meet again in May to review a new area boundary.
Monday’s meeting was the second time the two boards have met to discuss the city’s impact area, which must be updated by the end of 2025 to comply with a state law enacted last year.
“We just need a request from the city with a map showing what the city would like to have your impact area that meets the legal requirements of this law,” said Commission Chair Sherry Maupin at Monday’s meeting.
McCall Mayor Bob Giles said the city is working on a map showing proposed new boundaries that would comply with the new law.
Once the proposed map is presented to the county, the city and county would schedule meetings to seek public comments on the proposed boundaries.
Previous rules required impact areas to include land that “can reasonably be expected to be annexed to the city in the future.”
The new law requires that timeline to be within five years, and gives counties final authority to define impact are boundaries based on anticipated growth, geographic features, transportation systems and other public service district boundaries.
New boundaries also cannot extend more than 2 miles from the current city limits, but entire parcels only partially within 2 miles can be included.
The city and county received 126 letters about the topic in advance of the meeting.
The city is working to develop an annexation plan for the proposed area to show which properties are expected to be annexed within five years.
“We’re still working on developing that plan,” said McCall Community & Economic Development Director Michelle Groenevelt.
It is also unknown how the new area of impact would be governed, and what rules will apply.
Currently development applications in McCall as well as its impact area are administered by a joint P&Z with four city residents appointed by the city and three impact area residents appointed by the county.
Decisions by that group are then sent to county commissioners for approval.
The area is subject to McCall city codes, which Valley County adopted in the impact area.
Commissioners said it is “confusing” to have city codes applied outside of city limits.
“It’s becoming more and more confusing, more and more frustrating to adopt and implement the city-based code (in the impact area),” Maupin said.
Instead of traditional zoning, Valley County uses a multiple-use concept with no prescribed separation of land uses.
All development applications to Valley County outside the impact area are scored through a nine-point compatibility test to evaluate things like traffic, adjacent land uses and utility service.
According to the city, the change in rules could result in uncertainty for developers, shifts in property values, changes to the scenic corridor and shoreline protections, negative effects to Payette Lake and the expansion of industrial style developments, among other concerns.
Maupin asked the city to suggest improvements to county code to address those concerns.
“What is the city asking us to improve in our ordinances, to make you feel like we’re going to be as protective as the city?” Maupin asked on Monday.
“We are also environmentally concerned with what’s happening,” she said.
— Max Silverson, The Star-News (McCall), Thursday
