Unless your neighbor registered his vehicles many years ago, now he must register them in the same county where his homeowner’s exemption is located.

And, he still pays ACHD and Ada EMS fees because his vehicles are registered in Ada County.

Any citizen can register their vehicles in any county they wish, but the homeowner’s exemption clause in statute decides which county is their ‘home’ county.

Check with the Ada County Assessor to confirm.

EDITOR NOTE–WG, you identified the problem, but apparently many folks make false residency claims when they register vehicles.

Or stay silent, anonymous and complain.

ALL 7 cars have a Valley County license plates and only one ever gets driven to McCall where they have a cabin. They go to McCall about once a month.

What a rip off for those of us with second homes in other counties.

And yes the rental car issue is even worse.

Another example is the southwest corner of Locust Grove Road and Franklin Road in Meridian. That nearly 3.76-acre corner parcel is a stormwater pond built when Franklin was widened. If I recall correctly, it cost ACHD nearly $1 million to buy that plot of land to become a pond site because of commercial zoning and having to pay for highest and best use.

When the engineers were asked if it could be piped to a less valuable piece of land, their response was it would cost $300,000 more for pipe. But it was on a piece of land near the railroad tracks that was much cheaper, I think $100,000. (Figures may be a bit fuzzy in my head since that has been 14 years or so). The savings would have been $600,000 to do this, but the process was biased toward the most optimal solution rather than completed through the lens of “value engineering.”

Now, look at the Maverik at Locust Grove and Overland a mile south–a land use similar to what that Locust Grove/Franklin parcel could have been if not an untaxable stormwater pond. It’s a 1.8-acre site valued at $1.65 million. So, that pond could be more than $3 million in value to the city and ACHD instead of an untaxable piece of land.

The recent statements by the ACHD Commission President (on a Facebook live forum and in the Ada County/ACHD joint meeting at the end of May) that level of service is really just a “comfort” factor is also one to watch as the agency unveils which projects are on the chopping block. If level of service is only for comfort, then it stands to reason that any evaluation process to determine the projects would not lean so heavily on traffic level of service or include several other factors. Yet, the preliminary “chopping block” list of projects given to ACHD Commissioners includes “Level of Service F” as a reason for the projects.

There are many other ways they could streamline costs (narrower travel lanes, hourglass road design rather than continuous two-way left turn lanes where there aren’t driveway conflicts, moving bike lanes to curb level rather than in-street, etc) that also increases increase return on investment and improves safety.

I’m sure there are other examples, but I would need to make sure that status quo practices are not going to be part of creating future funding shortfalls before I can get more comfortable supporting a rate hike.

After he has lived here for 40+ years and being on the Commissioner for 4 years.

I expect every person who has lived in Boise for any amount of time has enough friends registering their vehicles in Valley County, Blaine County, Elmore, or anywhere else… that they realize it IS a big problem.

Not collecting the money that should be collected and wasting too much of the money that is collected.
More failed leadership.

Meanwhile we drive on Main Street in that is more like a logging road in Valley County than a street worthy of a city. And ACHD has plenty of Public Information Employees- including a job opening in that department, right now.

Idaho Legislature missed the opportunity to improve our roads (Ada and state-wide) when fuel dropped to nearly $2/gal. Should have done an fuels tax increase.

ALL users should pay equally.

That exact method is still happening, we are still taxed into poverty, but now it’s done without objection. The magic elements in modern America are to have the surfs believe they are not surfs, and, to believe they are getting something valuable for the taxes paid. How do they do that? Brainwashing about “government knows best” in the schrewels & MSM (otherwise known as the dumbing down of Americans). Additionally and most importantly, by having the taxes divided up into small tolerable slices of the overall pie while never never never displaying the entire taxation pie.

If one looks at the overall taxation of the typical family in Boise earning about $60-90K a year they are losing about 50-55% of their gross pay to some sort of tax or government fee. (I included all the extra bullshit on utility bills because utilities are basically quasi government).

Request someone compile a complete list of all the typical taxes/fees heaped upon a typical Boise resident with two cars. Also request someone find a state to state comparison of the overall vehicle tax/fee structures. I suspect total Ada/Idaho vehicle taxation is already surprisingly high in comparison.