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Residents of Moscow had the opportunity to express their concerns about the recently made Hawkins agreement Tuesday at a forum titled “The Hawkins Agreement: What does it mean and where do we go from here?”
The forum was held to discuss the agreement City Council made in a 5-1 vote early in February with Hawkins Companies to sell 65 acres of water rights to build a 700,000 square-foot shopping mall just across the state line between Pullman and Moscow.
The forum consisted of four panel members: City Council members Wayne Krauss and Tom Lamar, Wine Company of Moscow owner Dennis Baird and Tri-State owner Gerard Connelly.
During the forum, residents expressed concern toward the Council for taking part in a closed door meeting held in Spokane to settle the agreement in February.
Lamar was the only Council member to vote against the agreement.
“Legally I think we didn’t run into problems with the meetings, morally I think we did them wrong,” Lamar said. “I felt that with such a strong change in policy we were making that night we needed to have some public discussion.”
Lamar also said that he that with such a strong change in policy the Council was making that night they needed to have some public discussion. He said that he would have liked to see some sort of retail study done before the agreement.
“We simply lose Moscow business out to that location,” Lamar said. “Will businesses in the Palouse Mall want to move out there?”
Baird said that the city agreed to keep their mouth shut.
“The City Council could learn a lesson to not move so fast and be so secret.”
According to Baird, the City Council made an agreement that was bad for Moscow.
“I have problems with the substance of the agreement,” Baird said. “It moves scarce resources out of the state forever.”
Tom Handy, president of the Pullman Chamber of Commerce, said he believes that with respect to the planned development and its proximity to Moscow it will continue to fuel retail sales from Pullman people.
“A significant number of people from Pullman will spill over into Moscow retail (because of the agreement),” Handy said.
One of the concerns people who attended the forum had was whether or not the city’s waste water treatment plant was capable of treating the waste water that the city had agreed to treat in the agreement. Krauss said that right now Moscow’s waste water treatment plant can treat four million gallons, and that currently it treats two million gallons of waste water.
Kevin Brackney, a Moscow resident, said that he does not like the idea that the city of Moscow is subsidizing a private developer’s water and sewer in Whitman County.
“It’s a goldmine that we’re supplying infrastructure that they don’t have to provide the capital to develop the water and sewer,” Brackney said.
According to Lamar, the next step is the Idaho Department of Water Resources needs to supply a permit allowing the city of Moscow to grant the water rights transfers.
Krauss said that the council has learned a lesson from all of this.
“We learned that there should be more public comment,” Krauss said.
The forum was sponsored by the Moscow Civic Association, the Moscow Chamber of Commerce Community Development Committee and the Palouse Water Conservation Network.
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