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City Council decides to split rate increases after citizens make impassioned pleas to think of those on fixed incomes
The Mountain Home City Council meeting on Feb. 24, had a passionate audience as the Council held Public Hearings on proposed rate increases to Water and Wastewater Fees. The proposed increases were 30 percent for water and 20 percent for wastewater which had many people upset over the need for such a drastic change, especially after wastewater had increased by 25 percent last year.
Before beginning the hearings, the Council had presentations from the Masonic Lodge which presented a trophy to the Mountain Home Fire Department for winning the 2nd Annual Guns and Hoses Softball game between the fire department and a joint law enforcement team made up of members of the Mountain Home Police Department and the Elmore County Sheriff's Office. The trophy was presented to the MHFD who won the game, for the second year in a row, 25 to 17; Sheriff Mike Hollinshead and Chief of Police Scott Connor were each presented with four dozen doughnuts to share with their officers as the consolation prize.
After that presentation, Steve Fultz of the Southwest Idaho Manufacturers' Alliance presented information on Elmore County being recently added as an "Usage Driven Site" in the Foreign Trade Zone.
FTZ's were created during the Great Depression by Franklin Delano Roosevelt as part of his 'New Deal" era of policies. They are meant to maintain and create jobs, but contrary to how their names sound they are not a customs program or a sovereign region within our boundaries. These areas are "outside U.S. Customs territories" and are set up as a way to help manufacturing and importing industries compete with areas with lower tariffs and duty fees. Within these areas companies can import parts or items and are not required to pay the duty fees until they leave the FTZ. In some instances, like the manufacturing of a vacuum, certain parts could be taxed individually upon importation. Vacuums as a whole do not have a fee amount of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule and therefore upon leaving the FTZ as a fully built item the companies aren't required to pay anything, saving them the fee that would have been charged on the individual parts. Elmore County is now part of one of only two FTZ's located in Idaho with the one based out of Boundary County having lapsed approximately ten years ago from non-usage.
Jon Hoschstasser has been raising money to help the Parks and Recreation Department gather the funds needed to build a dog park for the larger breed of canines. Hoschtasser wanted to thank everyone who has contributed so far saying, "Happy Trails is a really good start," but that people with little dogs tend to be afraid of them getting hurt by the bigger dogs.
So far he has raised $5,300 toward the bigger area and would like to see the money put to use sooner rather than later to fence off the larger area.
Hoschstasser finished his presentation with a challenge to the Council members and Mayor Rich Sykes to personally donate to the cause and to remember the dog park at budget time.
"Please allocate a bunch of money to this," Hoschstasser said.
"Thank you for your hard work, keep it up," Councilman Daniel Brennan said.
After finishing up the nights presentations the meeting turned towards the much anticipated Public Hearings.
Impassioned citizen Larry Martin was the first to speak. Martin was born on Mountain Home Air Force Base and raised in Mountain Home. He informed the room that he felt that the rate increases were an outrage and that the city is trying to squeeze "blood out of a turnip," adding that this is a retirement community and that the council would be committing "highway robbery."
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