Nez Perce County is taking its fight over Lewiston's urban renewal areas to the next level by asking a judge to order the city to close two contested districts.
The county has been pressing the city to close districts in North Lewiston and the Nez Perce Terrace so that it can reclaim property tax dollars that have funded the districts and their respective infrastructure projects since 2005. Last month the Lewiston City Council pursued a compromise by returning tax receipts for the coming year to the city and county in the form of a "rebate," and instructing the Lewiston Urban Renewal Agency to spend the next nine months analyzing possible new projects.
But Nez Perce County Prosecutor Dan Spickler said the city is required by law to close the areas once its slate of projects has been completed.
"Idaho statute says that when they issue an annual budget, and the budget shows that they have enough money to pay off all the expenses for the projects, at that point they're supposed to shut it down," Spickler said.
The petition he filed in 2nd District Court asks a judge to order that the areas close, and prohibit the urban renewal agency from taking on additional debt or spending any tax dollars collected from the two districts. The case has not yet been assigned to a judge.
Spickler said he is fundamentally opposed to amending the city urban renewal plan to fund new projects because it is a misuse of what is supposed to be a limited tool.
"Urban renewal funding was never intended to be nothing more than a piggy bank for the city to use for economic growth," he said, adding that the state designed urban renewal to address "deteriorated areas" that are dangerous to the health and welfare of the community.
And calling any of the areas in question "deteriorated" is a stretch, Spickler said. The city should also have partnerships with private companies confirmed before it moves ahead with projects like an extension of Nez Perce Drive in the terrace area, he said. The city hopes that connecting the street with Gun Club Road will create the flow-through traffic that will attract new business.
"It's not a 'Field of Dreams' kind of thing where you build it and they will come," he said. "So they kind of got the cart before the horse."
The city also overstepped its statutory authority by granting the rebate, according to the filing.
"Nowhere in the Idaho Code is an urban renewal agency authorized or empowered to 'rebate,' transfer, reallocate or by any other means allow funds (be) allocated to it pursuant to (state law) to be used by local government entities as part of their general budget as is proposed by both (the city and the urban renewal agency)," Spickler wrote in the filing, which is signed by county Commissioners Douglas Zenner, Douglas Havens and Bob Tippett.
Lewiston City Attorney Jamie Shropshire said she couldn't comment directly on the pending legal action, but cited Idaho municipal code sections that say an urban renewal plan can be modified at any time, and that funds in excess of the amount needed to repay bonds can be distributed back to taxing entities like the city and county.
Shropshire also said changes in Idaho's Local Economic Development Act allow urban renewal districts to address areas that are merely underdeveloped, not just deteriorated or blighted.
She said the city is planning a formal response to the county's petition. Spickler said he does not welcome a legal fight, but believes this is the only recourse left for the county.
"We did our best to go talk to them," he said of county officials' appeals to the city. "We did our best to show them what we think the law said. They wouldn't talk to us. In my opinion, they dismissed out of hand what we had to say."
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Mills may be contacted at jmills@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2266.
