Post Falls City council chambers were full of plastic ducks Tuesday night as leaders unanimously approved amendments to the municipal code allowing ducks on single-family detached lots. 

Mayor Randy Westlund referred to the policy amending domestic animal regulations as the “making ducks great again” ordinance.  

The changes were prompted when a resident previously asked council members to consider that ducks be treated like chickens in city regulations and not livestock.

Single-family detached lots can have 12 fowl and no more than six can be ducks. 

The fowl can't cause a nuisance to neighboring properties and can’t have unsanitary conditions.  

Single-family detached lots may also keep up to three dogs and four cats per the ordinance. 

“To have chickens or ducks, you just have to have a single-family touch lot regardless of the size,” associate planner Justin Sauder said.

Residences also have to have enough space for setbacks on the property.  

City Councilor Nathan Ziegler asked about how space works out for fowl enclosures. 

“I have a question about chicken and duck equivalency,” Zielgler said. 

Sauder clarified that if there isn’t a run for the birds, according to an expert on ducks, more room is required for ducks since they don’t roost. 

"I just wanted to make sure we have our ducks in a row,” City Councilor Marc Lucca joked.

City Council members also adopted the All-Hazard Mitigation Plan prepared by Kootenai County Emergency Management Team, EMS, fire, school districts and other local agencies. 

Staff engineer Chris Schneider presented various scenarios that could cause hazards in Post Falls such as wildfires, snowstorms and electrical outages. 

“We had a couple of meetings together to brainstorm what the community sees as issues and how we’re going to address those,” Scheider said.  

The plan was last updated and adopted in 2020 and was approved by FEMA in February.  

“Recently, cybersecurity’s been on the rise, public health emergencies have become a bigger concern since the 2020 update,” Schneider said.  

City Councilor Samantha Steigleder asked whether the items spanned hazards based on data for the biggest risks or based on opinion. 

The responses were largely gleaned from the opinion of members among the local agencies. 

Some examples of hazard mitigation that the city of Post Falls put into effect from the previous plan was purchasing chain saws for when windstorms knocked down trees or road clearing equipment and de-icer for severe winters. 

Other items include improving firewalls and other digital vulnerabilities, urban forestry work with Avista to mitigate fallen trees and education and outreach about emergency scenarios. 

“We're working on it, we care. We want to make improvements,” Schneider said. 

The All-Hazard Mitigation plan works similarly to a master plan. 

“Can we say no to this?” Steigleder asked. 

Schneider said Post Falls could technically reject the plan, but that would have a lot of ramifications. 

“What that would mean is unless we put in the time to make our own plan, we would no longer be first in priority for those grant dollars if an emergency happened. So, if a wildfire took out the whole south side of the river, other jurisdictions will get money before we do because we don’t have this plan,” Schneider said. 

The current plan has been in place for at least 10 years and the document was just the next available update. 

Lucca recommended that in the future, plans include power failure identified separately as a mass power failure EMP or generation issue. 

“We should have some plan to mitigate that,” Lucca said. 

The measure passed unanimously. City Councilors Aaron Plew and Jack Mosby were not in attendance.