Gooding County | minutes | meeting 2026-03-16 | Regular Session Board of County Commissioners source: https://www.goodingcounty.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_03162026-871 REGULAR SESSION, March 16, 2026 Commissioner Bolduc opened the meeting at 10:00 a.m. Commissioner Buhler, Commissioner Eames, Prosecutor Misseldine, Chad Hoeft from the public, and the acting County Clerk, Jackie Fuqua, were present. SHERIFF’S OFFICE-RESOLUTION 2026-03-16 AMEND BUDGET FOR FLOCK CAMERAS Commissioner Eames made a motion to approve Resolution 2026-03-16 for the Sheriff’s Office budget amendment. Commissioner Buhler seconded the motion. Motion Carried. RESOLUTION 2026-03-16 SHERIFF OFFICE BUDGET AMENDMENT WHEREAS, Board of County Commissioners adopted a budget for Gooding County for Fiscal year 2025-2026 at a determined amount which included the Sheriff’s Office as provided in IC§31-1605, and WHEREAS, IC§31-1605 provides in the event of any unforeseen contingency arising, and which shall require the expenditure of money not provided for in the budget, and WHEREAS, IC§31-1605 further provides during the year the county commissioners may proceed to adjust the budget as adopted to reflect the receipt of unscheduled revenue, grants, or donation from federal, state or local governments or private sources, and WHEREAS, IC§31-1605 that such amendments and appropriations may be made provided that there shall be no increase in anticipated property taxes and NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED BY THE BOARD OF GOODING COUNTY COMMISSIONERS, That following appropriations and amendment be made to the Fiscal year 2025-2026- Sheriff’s Office: Increase 01-04-497 $25,000.00 Adopted this 16th day of March 2026 BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS GOODING COUNTY, IDAHO /s/Mark E. Bolduc_____________ Mark E. Bolduc, Commissioner /s/Vern Eames______________ Vern Eames, Commissioner /s/Ronald Buhler________________ Ronald Buhler, Commissioner Attest:/s/Jackie Fuqua Jackie Fuqua, acting County Clerk TREASURER WINES-OPERATION IN FUNDS SUMMARY Treasurer Wines presented the February 2026 Operation in Funds Summary. Commissioner Eames noticed the funds for the 1937 Wood River Rd clean-up have not been received. Treasurer Wines will do further investigation concerning this matter. The health insurance fund had half a million dollars in it. As of last Thursday, another $137,000 went in for a total of $637,000 in the physical account. Further discussion will take place during budgeting. 1000 SPRINGS REALTY-MINOR LAND DIVISION CLARIFICATION/REQUEST Commissioner Bolduc abstained due to a potential conflict of interest. Grant Cooke from 1000 Springs Realty gave clarification to the request presented last week. The rules from 2011 through 2015 did not require landowners to complete all allowable divisions at one time. In 2015, a new administrative rule would not allow additional divisions once a single division had been completed. Parcel RP07S13E140751T was approved to move forward with the division at the beginning of 2015, and the new rules were likely not applied to this parcel. Prosecutor Misseldine would like to draft a letter discussing the likelihood of approval for a minor land division, due to omissions of the new rule by Gooding County, but is waiting to hear back from Planning and Zoning regarding some questions he has. Commissioner Eames made a motion to authorize Prosecutor Misseldine to draft the letter once his questions are answered and satisfied. Seconded by Commissioner Buhler. Motion Carried. ASSESSOR BALDWIN-TAX CANCELLATION Assessor Baldwin presented a tax cancellation in the amount of $874.08 on parcel number RPH3000005011B due to the homeowner’s exemption paperwork not getting properly processed. Commissioner Eames made a motion to approve the tax cancellation on RPH3000005011B in the amount of $874.08. Commissioner Buhler seconded it. Motion carried. SIGN GENERATOR SERVICE CONTRACT-WESTERN STATES CAT This is a renewal contract for the next three years and there are no changes. Commissioner Eames made a motion to approve signing the renewal contract. Seconded by Commissioner Buhler. Motion carried. ALCOHOL LICENSE RENEWAL FOR LUPITA’S GENERAL STORE Commissioner Eames made a motion to approve renewing alcohol license #41 for Lupitas Tesoros Mexicanos. Commissioner Buhler seconded the motion. Motion carried. FRONTIER COMMUNITY SMILES GRANT AGREEMENT Gooding County was awarded a $5,000 SMILES grant to upgrade the county fairgrounds commercial building. Funds will be disbursed upon submission of acceptable documentation showing eligible expenditures up to or exceeding the $5,000 award amount. One of the conditions of the grant is to acknowledge Frontier Community Resource’s support in the project in all communications that recognize donors. Commissioner Eames suggested the fairgrounds manager Don Gill could put something on the reader board during the fair and rodeo. Commissioner Eames made a motion to approve signing the Frontier Community SMILES Grant agreement dated March 10, 2026. Seconded by Commissioner Buhler. Motion carried. MILNER DAM REHABILITATION LETTER OF SUPPORT Commissioner Bolduc presented a letter to sign and send to Congressman Mike Simpson in support of the Milner Dam Rehabilitation Project. Commissioner Eames made a motion to sign the letter in support of the Milner Dam Rehabilitation Project. Commissioner Buhler seconded it. Motion passed. BROADBAND Commissioner Bolduc questioned ETS why they were just running the wires on poles above ground when they said they would only run above ground poles if the ground wasn’t good to bury the wires. He has not heard back from anyone yet but will follow up and see how far along things are. MINUTES Commissioner Buhler moved to approve March 9, 2026, minutes with a couple corrections. Commissioner Eames seconded it. Motion carried. CORRESPONDENCE Commissioner Eames received a call back about the invoice from Button Willow Warehouse for a supposed chemical shipment. The state of California must notify the county if a chemical shipment is shipped from one county to another within the state, but if it ships out of state, they don’t have to notify the county. Gooding County was notified in error, and this is getting fixed so it will not happen again. Commissioner Bolduc recessed the regular session at 10:51 a.m. for a short break. Commissioner Bolduc reconvened the regular session at 11:00 am. NEW ALCOHOL BEVERAGE LICENSE Commissioner Eames made a motion to approve Alcohol Beverage License #40 for Pocket Creamery LLC. Commissioner Buhler seconded the motion. Motion carried. There were no comments from the public. HEATHER EASTMAN- IDAHO BUSINESS FOR THE OUTDOORS Heather Eastman, Executive Director for Idaho Business for the Outdoors, said she wanted to have a face-to-face meeting with the board to discuss Gooding County public lands. She asked if there were any issues the board was concerned about, to which Commissioner Eames brought up his concern that he had heard a fairly large solar project between Gooding and Wendell might be in the works, although no application has been submitted. Heather had no knowledge of it yet but will do some checking into it. Gooding County Commissioners expressed frustration that big projects are being discussed without them being included. The board would like to have some input as to what is put into our county as we have ordinances in place for private lands prohibiting projects such as solar or wind energy generation projects. The board would really like to have their comments heard on such matters. Heather states she will collect this information from all counties and present it at the next I.A.C. conference and collaborate what should happen with it. EXECUTIVE SESSION Commissioner Buhler moved to go into executive session pursuant IC§74-206(b) personnel matters. Roll call vote: Eames- Yes, Buhler-Yes, Bolduc-Yes. The Board recessed the executive session at 11:44 a.m. PUBLIC COMMENT Attendees for public comments were Commissioner Bolduc, Commissioner Buhler, Commissioner Eames, Prosecutor Misseldine, acting County Clerk, Jackie Fuqua, Treasurer Wines, EMS Director John Kepler and Sara Berling. Members of the Idaho Congressional Delegation, Mike Matthews, Idaho Deputy Chief of Staff for Senator Risch, Samantha Marshall, Regional Director for Senator Crapo, Jessica Hammond, Regional Director for Congressman Simpson, visited to go over what they do as a delegation. Commissioner Eames brought up that he has heard from a reliable source that there is talk of a fairly large solar project around 12,000 acres, potentially going in between Gooding and Wendell. The delegates have not heard anything about this yet but have a meeting next month with BLM. EMS Director John Kepler said the new ambulance was delivered last week and they are transferring radios and stretchers into it. Gooding Fire District is interested in buying the old Dodge ambulance, but no certain amount was discussed. Sara Berling from Human Resources says there’s an issue running payroll this week, but she is working with PERSI to resolve it. Commissioner Bolduc relayed there will be a SIRCOMM meeting in the commissioner’s meeting room this Thursday and anyone is welcome to attend. SIRCOMM received a threat 3 or 4 days ago by someone saying they were going to burn the building down. Authorities are looking into it. COMMITTEE MEETING REPORTS There were no committee meeting reports on this day. Commissioner Buhler adjourned the meeting at 12:20 p.m. _________________________________ _________________________________ ______________________________ Mark E. Bolduc, Chairman Vern Eames, Commissioner Ronald Buhler, Commissioner Attest:____________________________ Jackie Fuqua, acting County Clerk