Review of the December 14th, 2009 Mountain Home Idaho City Council Meeting.
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Surprise, Good and Bad
This was the first city council meeting I have attended in Mountain Home. I was pleasantly surprised by the friendliness and respect the city council showed our citizens. All council members and Mayor Rist seemed upbeat, attentive and personable plus the meeting started right on time. This is in stark contrast to council meetings I have attending in other cities.
There were some other surprises that were not so good however. The meeting room I guess one might call "city council chambers" is quite small. Of course, this is not the fault of the current leadership and it does make for a cozy atmosphere for the 30+ citizens in attendance on this night. Unfortunately there is only room for about 50 citizen in this small room.
Some Subjects Covered
1. A gentleman that represented a local businesses organization called something like "Business to Business" addressed the council. His main concern is that local businesses don’t get enough "city business". He attributed this lack of local city support to ignorance on part of the city. In other words, local businesses need to educate the city in what they have to offer and the services they provide.
2. A couple addressed the council on a cat issue. They don’t like the current law that fines cat owners whose pets get picked up by animal control and are taken to the animal shelter. What this issue boiled down to was a neighbor to neighbor problem and not really an issue with the city.
3. A couple addressed the council about the high cost of a "transient merchant license" they would like to obtain. This couple would like to open up a very small income business that has no brick and mortar storefront. The city of Mountain Home charges a $130 a month fee for "transient merchant license" and this couple had some heartache with the high cost of the license.
I couldn’t stay for the entire city council meeting and left at 7:30 pm. Overall, I was impressed with the entire process but came out with more questions than answers which is a good thing don’t you think?
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Questions
1. Can anyone tell me more about the "Business to Business" organization that has formed in Mountain Home? This pertains to Subject #1 above.
2. Who is the lady that was videotaping the city council meeting? Is this her official job or is she from the news media?
3. Is there any publicly available tape recording of city council meetings? How does a citizen watch/listen to these recordings?
Thanks,
Tim Bondy
Bondweb.com webmaster