Six of every ten votes — that is the bar Nampa's $5 million police levy has to clear on Nov. 3. Civic & Policy walks through what it costs and what it buys, position by position.
The Market has the other decision: Costco walked away from Eagle's old quarry, and the Eagle council takes up what comes next for that land. The Bench carries the Broncos' first-ever win at Martin Stadium. Drive-By History closes on a sandstone house at River and Ash, open to the public today.
Nampa votes Nov. 3 on a permanent $5 million for police
The $5 million a year Nampa police would get from the Nov. 3 ballot measure never expires — that is the word on the city's own levy page, which says the amount "will be assessed permanently." Voters decide the measure Tuesday, Nov. 3, after the Nampa City Council voted Aug. 17 to put it there. And it needs at least 60 percent to pass. "This is not a 50-plus-one, so this is very crucial," Police Chief Joe Huff told KIVI in August.
The same August budget night that sent the levy to the ballot also cut Nampa's Valley Regional Transit funding to $283,193.
The City of Nampa puts the rate at $28.93 per $100,000 of taxable assessed value a year, based on current conditions. On a home with $450,000 of taxable value, that is about $130 a year; city CFO Doug Racine pegged it at $130.39 back in August.
Twenty-four positions, phased in over four years: eight patrol officers in each of the first two years, then four corporals in each of the next two as first-line supervisors. The levy also pays for a new training facility and sets aside money to keep the officers Nampa already has. The city's reasoning is plain — impact fees, the one-time charges on new development, can't cover salaries, and staffing hasn't kept up with the growth. Huff told KIVI that about 64 officers are assigned to patrol, that teams meant to run nine often run with seven, that the department fields 200 to 400 calls a day, and that a new hire takes 32 to 40 weeks to reach the road. Huff told BoiseDev in August that about 80 percent of academy training happens in Meridian.
If you live in Nampa, this one is yours to decide and the mechanics are short: polls run 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3, the threshold is 60 percent, and the city's levy page lists the rate and every position it funds.
Costco walks away from Eagle's old quarry at Idaho 55 and Hill
27.31 acres at Idaho 55 and Hill Rd. just lost its Costco plan — two parcels on Eagle's eastern edge, right at the Boise line. The company told the City of Eagle on Oct. 16 it was pulling its application, and the city made that public Monday, Oct. 26. “They will not be pursuing a Costco in that location, at least,” city spokesperson Laura Williams told BoiseDev. “We'll see what they do in the future.”
What Costco wanted there: a 166,000-square-foot warehouse, a gas station, and 912 parking spaces in the northwest corner. The application had sat on hold since at least August while the city waited for Costco to ask for a Planning and Zoning Commission hearing. None was ever held. Back in September, after social-media posts called the plan dead, Eagle planning and zoning administrator Daniel Miller said the application was still active.
The land carries a longer memory than any Costco. This was the Masterpiece Quarry. Ray Dowding and Myron Stahl bought the gravel pit in 1996 and ran it until Dowding died in 2003, and it has sat largely vacant since. The families proposed Quarry Village here in 2018 — homes, office, retail — and Eagle signed a mixed-use development agreement in 2021. BoiseDev has reported that a 2021 city change capped commercial retail on the site at 120,000 square feet, so Costco applied for an amendment to build larger, along with a rezone.
Tuesday, the Eagle City Council takes up the owners' request to modify that agreement and push its termination date to July 19, 2031, five years past the original. The applicant is Quarry Village LLC, represented by Cindy Greco, and the item was continued from Oct. 13. Miller, in September, read the two applications on one piece of ground this way: he told KIVI it would be one or the other in the end, or something else completely different, potentially, as well. Costco's would have overridden the Quarry Village entitlements. Without it, those entitlements stay available to the owner.
If you live near Hill Rd. and Horseshoe Bend, the extension gets heard Tuesday. If you drive Idaho 55, the road work ACHD had tied to a Costco approval — Hill widened to five lanes, Horseshoe Bend to three, against a projected 7,081 daily trips — depended on an application that has now been withdrawn. And if you just want the warehouse, the valley's next Costco opens at Meridian and Lake Hazel roads on Nov. 5.
Dylan Riley had 22 yards through three quarters on Saturday in Pullman. He finished with 128 and two touchdowns. In between, No. 21 Boise State turned a 10-10 slog at Martin Stadium into a 31-10 win — the first one any Boise State team has ever gotten there. The Broncos are 6-1 now, six straight, and the fourth quarter was all theirs, 21-0.
The tie broke on a grind. Boise State opened the fourth with a 15-play, 70-yard drive that ate 7:14 off the clock and ended on Maddux Madsen's 6-yard touchdown pass to Cam Bates. Madsen finished with 14 completions for 149 yards, that touchdown and no interceptions. He has 14 touchdown passes and zero interceptions this season. Then Boen Phelps picked off Owen Eshelman and ran it 13 yards to the Washington State 33. Two plays later, the thing cracked open.
That was Riley's quarter. The box score ignored him for 45 minutes — 10 carries, 22 quiet yards. Then a 33-yard touchdown run with 11:40 left, then a 72-yarder with 6:26 to play. Thirteen carries, 128 yards, two scores, 106 of them in the fourth alone.
The defense bought him the room. Boise State held Washington State to 53 yards on the ground and 244 all told, and Lopez Sanusi got home twice for sacks. Washington State even won time of possession, 30:48 to 29:12, and lost by three touchdowns anyway. The Broncos sit 3-0 in the Pac-12, tied atop the league with Oregon State, who visits Albertsons Stadium on Nov. 14. Washington State, coached by former Bronco receiver Kirby Moore, fell to 1-7.
Next is Halloween night on The Blue. Texas State visits Albertsons Stadium Saturday, Oct. 31, at 8 p.m. Mountain on The CW. Were you in Pullman Saturday? Hit reply and tell us.
The sandstone cottage at River and Ash, built the year she was born
There's a little stone house down where River and Ash streets meet, right at the edge of downtown, and it's open to the public today. That's the Erma Hayman House. Erma and her second husband, Lawrence Hayman, bought it in 1948. She lived there until she died in 2009, more than sixty years in one small house. Boise State Public Radio reported she was 102.
A stonecutter named Chester Thompson built it in 1907, the same year Erma Hayman was born. His father, William Thompson, was an early River Street pioneer. It's about 900 square feet on two narrow lots, hipped roof, recessed porch, and it's barely been touched since. The sandstone was what set it apart. Most of the neighbors' houses were simple wood frame.
River Street was home to immigrants, working-class families, and later Black Americans who were generally kept from buying homes in other neighborhoods. In an oral history recorded in the early 1980s, Hayman said she was told properties had been sold once sellers learned she was Black. The neighborhood was cut off, too: an Oregon Short Line rail spur separated it from the rest of the city. Then in the 1960s they widened River Street, and the houses just south of hers, at 633 and 635, came down. Hers is the last single-family home on its block.
After she died, her grandson Richard Madry sold the house. The City of Boise acquired the place in 2018 and opened it as a cultural site on Sept. 22, 2022. A lilac tree from Erma's gardening years still grows out there.
📍 617 Ash St., at River and Ash streets downtown. Free, open Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; other weekdays by appointment at 208-608-7837. Go on a Tuesday like today, stand in the 900 square feet she kept for more than sixty years, and find the lilac that outlived her.
A 2015 dig on the site pulled up about 10,000 artifacts and five recorded oral histories.
That's the one you tell at dinner.
- ●Claremont Fire recovery - 5-Mile Gulch bridge rebuild and off-trail damage — Bridge completion; any restoration closures in the burn area this fall (watching since 9/24) · Δ updated 10/22
- ●Vista Point Subdivision, 2017 W. Victory Rd. — Final plat and building permits; HAWK signal installation (ACHD); any application for the development west… (watching since 10/22) · new to the ledger
- ●BSU Pac-12 transition — at Washington State, Oct. 24 (4 p.m. MT, USA Network); then Texas State at home, Oct. 31 (watching since 6/23) · Δ 10/20: AP No. 21 after the bye; previewed the Washington State game
- ●Dutch Goose lot purchase — 3515 W. State St. affordable housing — Whether the sale closes this month, and the development agreement that sets unit mix and names a developer (watching since 7/17) · Δ updated 10/20
- ●Albertsons Caldwell — The Charles Marketplace at Karcher and Lake — Fall 2027 opening; building permits (watching since 8/14) · Δ updated 10/20