This report is adapted from the official minutes, recorded by Deputy Clerk Shanci Dorius

In attendance: County Commissioner Chair Bill Lewis, Commissioner Brian Jeppsen, and Commissioner Ken Eliason. 

Commissioner Lewis began the regular meeting of the board of county commissioners by requesting a moment of silence for Idaho Legislator and former Oneida County Commissioner David Eugene “Gene” Edwards, who recently passed.

Naylor hearing rescheduled

Ben Naylor with Savvy Investments joined the commissioners via phone to request moving the public hearing currently scheduled for October to a later date. Mr. Naylor indicated the possibility of having a Planning & Zoning hearing in November that could potentially eliminate the need for a public hearing before the board of commissioners.  A motion was made to change the Ben Naylor hearing to January 15, 2024 at 6:00pm, which carried.

Potential data breach

A letter was received by the county from Summit National Bank, a lending institution the county has previously used when purchasing or leasing equipment.  The informational letter was to alert commissioners that some county information might have potentially been acquired. Summit is offering those affected with a free twelve-month membership to Experian, one of three major credit monitoring bureaus. Affected parties must be enrolled by November to take advantage of the free twelve-month membership.    

Commissioner Lewis motioned to have the county enroll with Experian Identity Works and delegate the task to the county clerk’s office of investigating and moving forward with enrolling prior to November 29, 2024.  Motion carried.

 Deep Creek Forest Service Agreement

The Deep Creek Forest Service Agreement was discussed. Oneida County Road & Bridge Supervisor Dianna Dredge and Patrick Kennedy, the Fisheries Manager with the Idaho Department of Fish & Game were present to discuss the particulars of the agreement with Oneida County Commissioners.  

There are four restroom facilities at Deep Creek, two of which are derelict and, pending identification of actual ownership, need to be reclaimed using Waterways funds to complete the task. Fish and Game is willing to maintain two of the restrooms, namely the one located near the turnout and the newer, white restroom near the dock.  Fish and Game agrees to maintain them to the Forest Service’s standards. 

The issue of garbage was discussed, and it was suggested that one small can might be left at the site and signage posted indicating that any garbage packed in must be packed out.  The county Road & Bridge department is amenable to plowing snow to the first peninsula prior to the dam when they are nearby and requesting the state take a pass or two at the turnout on the east end of the reservoir when the state is plowing the state road. 

Weed control language in the agreement was revised to allow Oneida County the ability to spray for weeds without asking permission each time, so long as Idaho code is followed. Prior to the meeting, Commissioner Jeppsen spoke to contacts with the Forest Service who felt that Oneida County’s responsibility would be with garbage removal. Jason Lower with IDAWY Solid Waste District indicated this would be acceptable.  The idea of resurrecting the waterways committee was mentioned, but not discussed.

ATC Phone contract

The communications discussion was revisited. ATC submitted a final cost of leasing versus buying phones.  Commissioners briefly recapped information gathered from Business Phone Specialists/ GoTo, ATC Communications, and Rytel. Additionally, and separate from the phone system quotes, the Solacom issue was discussed. Sheriff Arne Jones will get a bid for what Solacom can (or will) do to help convert the 911 call handling and management system from analog to digital.

Commissioner Jeppsen motioned to table the communications quotes until a future date.. Motion carried. 

L2 extensions

In order to resolve some issues, L2 extension requests were received at the county clerk’s office from Malad City and Oneida School District #351 after last week’s deadline. The L2 worksheet is a process that taxing districts go through that helps determine what tax dollar an entity is eligible for and sets the levy based on the taxable value for that district. Due to a few issues, the local taxing districts that would benefit from the one-week extension were Malad City, Oneida School District #351, Samaria Recreation, Holbrook Recreation, Library District, and Fire District.

Commissioner Lewis motioned to extend the L2 deadline by one week for the following districts: Malad City, Oneida School District #351, Samaria Recreation, Holbrook Recreation, Library District, and Fire District. Motion carried.

Courthouse radio antenna 

A quote was received from Teton Communications to remove and reattach the Sheriff’s department radio antennae at the courthouse. The plan is to move the wiring from the west to the south side of the courthouse to eliminate the wires being in the middle of the driver’s license area and to have all the equipment be in one zone on the south side of the building.  This would be paid for using funds from the 911 accounts.

Commissioner Eliason motioned to accept the Teton Communications quote to remove and reattach the radio antennae to the courthouse for the maximum amount of $6,851.00.  Motion carried.

Air Methods MOU

The Air Methods air ambulance service memorandum of understanding was revisited. John Williams with Oneida County hospital met with Air Methods when they brought a helicopter to Malad. The memorandum is not a contract. A potential logistics issue might be that the call center is located in Omaha, Nebraska and dispatching agents may have issues getting timely service because they don’t know the area (for example, there are three counties in the United States that are named “Oneida”). Air Methods assured Mr. Williams that this issue can be fixed.  Mr. Williams noted that the flight pattern times are similar to other services in the area, until there is a storm on the Summit that delays any service that has to fly over it.  When this happens, the closest available service is contacted even if it is the competition. One advantage to signing the memorandum with Air Methods would be the addition of an activation button, which gets the helicopter in the air faster.  Pushing the button immediately mobilizes the helicopter and they call for details while enroute. This is significant in situations where every moment counts.  The memorandum particulars were discussed and there were three concerns. Commissioner Lewis stated he would be willing to sign the memorandum if the indemnification on section 5 were removed, changing the state to Idaho, and removing the line “to the extent applicable by law”.

Commissioner Jeppsen motioned to approve the Air Methods memorandum of understanding contingent upon changing the legal authority state to “Idaho as opposed to “Colorado” and removing the indemnification clause on item five. Motion carried.

Door Access Control bid

Beazer Lock and Key submitted a bid for access control on doors for the county building(s). The quotes showed both server-based and cloud-based controls.  Commissioner Lewis referenced a previous quote put together by another entity in March 2023 for thirteen doors and wanted to ensure the quote from Beazer included all thirteen of those doors to compare it with the previous quote. Tory Richardson, the building manager, will verify and report back to commissioners.  Another point for clarification is the pros and cons of going with the server or cloud-based service.  The server requires no subscription, but it would need to be built and then have someone be in charge of it.  The cloud-based option is simpler and requires a subscription (approximately $670 per year).  Agenda topic was tabled pending more information.

Elevator Service

TK Elevator invoiced Oneida County on 4/4/2024 for service on 12/4/2023 for six-hundred twenty-seven dollars. Commissioners and the county building inspector, as well as the supervisor of the elevator project from DWA Construction, Kevin Tingey, have questioned the validity of the invoice as there is no evidence the technician came in December and then the county wasn’t invoiced until April 2024. Additionally, the tech did not communicate with building inspector or county employees.  When county building inspector Tory Richardson called TK Elevator to discuss the issues with the elevator, he learned that the tech was on the schedule to come.  When he never heard from TK Elevator, Mr. Richardson called again the following week and was told TKE had zero evidence of the request being submitted.  Additionally, the brand-new elevator (still under warranty) did not run at all in December. On January 2, Mr. Richardson made another request for service and on January 4, a technician named Thomas came out and fixed the elevator. The elevator has not had any issues since that day.

Commissioner Jeppsen motioned to deny paying the claim barring any solid evidence the tech came and worked on the elevator on the 6th of December as was invoiced. Motion carried.

Bulk Fuel Tank

An update on the bulk fuel tank and Fuel Cloud was given by the clerk’s office. The system seems to be working well after a few hiccups during the first 1-2 months. Reports will be run monthly to allow each department to assess and pay their fuel usage. Commissioners determined that when the tank reaches the level of thirty-five percent, at least three vendors may be contacted for fuel quotes for a minimum of six-thousand gallons of mid-grade ethanol-free (88-octane) fuel. Additionally, the county was double billed for the monthly cloud service (through Valley Wide at $75 a month and by Fuel Cloud at $95 a month).  After some research, Mike at Valley Wide contacted Fuel Cloud and terminated the billing through them and notified the clerk’s office that Valley Wide would absorb the seventy-five-dollar monthly fee from now on.

Legion Grant

A grant was submitted by Jean Thomas on behalf of the American Legion. Kirk Huffaker Preservation Strategies was hired to help get the building on the national register of historic buildings. The Certified Local Government (CLG) grant through the Idaho State Historical Society will match the $6,181.20 amount already paid for this process. Commissioners were asked to sign the CLG Grant Match summary.

Commissioner Jeppsen motioned to accept the in-kind match as reported by the Oneida County CLG and accept the additional funding from the state. Motion carried.

HR Consulting

AmeriBen human resource consulting services have been used by Oneida County for the past few years for salary consulting as well as an employee hotline for employment issues. AmeriBen has decided to eliminate the HR consulting side of the business. One of the human resource consultants with AmeriBen/IEC Group, Sharon M. Jutila (SMJ Consulting), would like to continue with the human resource services. Ms. Jutila contacted Commissioner Lewis to inform him that SMJ Consulting will be offering the same services as AmeriBen HRC. If the county wants to retain AmeriBen’s services in the future by transferring everything to SMJ Consulting, the county needs to sign a form to have files transferred to Sharon Jutila at SMJ Consulting by September 30, 2024. This is not a contract. Commissioners would like Ms. Jutila speak with them at a future commissioner meeting to determine if the county will retain SMJ Consulting services after October 1, 2024.

Commissioner Eliason motioned to move forward with signing the request for the transfer of files electronically from AmeriBen to Sharon Jutila with SMJ Consulting, which does not bind anything beyond October 1, 2024. Motion carried.

Airport Board Changes

Airport board members Michael Hess and Scott Gunter have stepped down, as has secretary of the airport board Roxanne Albretsen. No new appointments have been made for adding board members, so no executive session(s) is needed. Because of her experience in writing grants, the board has nominated Kathy Wray to take Mrs. Albretsen’s role as secretary and will take a wage of fifteen dollars per hour. There is two-thousand dollars budgeted for this, which equates to one-hundred thirty-three hours per year.

Commissioner Lewis motioned that, due to the resignation of Roxanne Albretsen as secretary of the airport board, Kathy Wray has accepted the airport board secretary appointment at an estimated one-hundred thirty-three hours for the year at fifteen-dollars an hour totaling a budget of two-thousand dollars for that job. Motion carried.

Misc

A request for an ordinance to enable the county to collect funds owed was postponed until legal counselor Lyle Fuller gathers more information.

The weed department is requesting the purchase of a Dell Latitude Rugged Extreme laptop that would replace a desktop. This would allow the weed supervisor to run the programs necessary to operate the weed spraying drone and to update information while in the field.  County Clerk Lon Colton could order the laptop in a few weeks with funds from the 2025 budget.

Commissioner Eliason motioned to purchase a Dell Latitude Rugged Extreme 7330 laptop with a cost of up to $5,000 to come out of the computer replacement budget. Motion carried.

Hess Pumice purchased a new 129,000-pound truck and has requested an overweight permit for it.  Commissioner Jeppsen motioned to approve an annual overweight permit for Hess Pumice for the “129” vehicle. Motion carried.  

Arrowhead submitted a quote for a change-order to the work being done in the Sheriff’s office. The original quote called for a desk that would attach to the wall and no one realized that it was not a free-standing desk until it was time to install.  The change-order gives the desk another side and bank of drawers, allowing it to be a moveable desk.

Commissioner Eliason motioned to approve the change-order from Arrowhead Cabinets for a desk in the sheriff’s office in the amount of $1,500 to be taken out of one-time expense. Motion carried.