The Hayden City Council collaborated with City Administrator Brett Boyer to establish the highest priorities for general city projects, or council specific projects.

Boyer has a growing stack of tasks on his desk, each taking its own amount of time, and soon he’ll have to begin building the city budget, so he asked for guidance from the council on what to tackle first.

The resulting list puts the following general projects in the top five, in order of importance based on a ranking system: the city taking over the Hayden Area Regional Sewer Board, redeveloping or discussing the Hayden Urban Renewal District’s boundaries, a city citizen survey, a subdivision cost/benefit analysis and approval of the H-6 lift station, sewer lines and funding.

“The city taking over HARSB, that really is your No. 1, and we’ve started down that path,” Boyer said.

The top three council-specific project priorities include: grading the level of service for all intersections on all sides, a study on traffic impact triggers and adding a financial component to the Hayden comprehensive plan.

The subdivision cost/benefit analysis will be combined with the financial component in the comprehensive plan, consolidating two priorities into one for better efficiency.

“A couple of these that we’re doing are already in process,” Boyer said.

For example, the Hayden citizen survey will likely be ready by the first council meeting in April. If the survey draft is approved in that meeting, it will begin moving into the distribution process and should go out to citizens within weeks.

Dissolving HARSB

Hayden broached the idea of dissolving the Hayden Area Regional Sewer Board in a meeting March 17 with HARSB members and the county Board of Commissioners. Dissolution could give the city administrative control to make decisions around the sewer and wastewater treatment plant.

“The idea would be that the city would take on ownership and management of the treatment plant,” Boyer said in the meeting March 17. “All the HARSB employees would become employees of the city.”

The sewer board and the city agree that it could be mutually beneficial, and could pursue the legal process involved to make that dissolution possible.

“We all want to have this conversation,” said Ed Short, Board Chair of The Hayden Lake Sewer District Board. “It’s not being driven by the city. It’s being driven by this notion that we all agree that maybe there’s a more efficient way to manage this system, and how do we have that dialogue.”

It would consolidate some complicated planning into one team, and the dissolution could be effective, but the dissolution will be a long and complicated process itself.

HURA boundaries

The Hayden Urban Renewal Agency has indicated an interest in moving the boundary of the renewal district, which would allow the district to cover some city expenses with the tax revenue from the district.

New boundaries could allow HURA to cover the cost of some intersection improvements without drawing heavily on taxpayers or city savings. The agency could also cover the cost of a community center, depending on what the council decides.

The next steps will be to schedule a workshop between HURA and City Council members to outline a goal for those funds.

Public Works

Boyer was surprised that moving the Public Works Department into the Lakes Highway District in roughly two years wasn’t a higher priority.

“We’re going to have to figure out what to do with that,” Boyer said.

The Lakes Highway District will be moving to a new building under construction now, and Hayden will move the public works department into the old building.

Public works coordinates public services, infrastructure management, vehicle fleet management, fuel and oil procurement, disposal of hazardous materials and building maintenance for city-owned facilities.

Moving the department gives the city the opportunity to keep its street fleet in one location, and to consolidate staff to one building. Currently the department is broken into a few locations around City Hall.

This story has been updated to reflect the following correction: A quote in Thursday's article in The Press about Hayden's project priorities was inaccurately attributed. It was Ed Short, board chair for the Hayden Lake Sewer District, not Gil Rossner, who said, “We all want to have this conversation. It’s not being driven by the city. It’s being driven by this notion that we all agree that maybe there’s a more efficient way to manage this system, and how do we have that dialogue."