Residents sensitive to smoke should leave area during burn

The American Falls police department is planning a bicycle rodeo to teach area children bicycle safety on the morning of Saturday, June 6, beginning at 9 a.m. The police force will be partnering with local volunteers, the school district, and the city parks and recreation department to put on the rodeo.
The rodeo will teach bicycle safety, with a bicycle safety inspection and safety course set up on Idaho Street in between the city parks and on Bannock Ave. in front of the courthouse. The American Falls City Council, in their meeting on Wednesday, May 20, approved the closure of the two roads for the evening of Friday, June 5, and the morning of Saturday, June 6. The rodeo is open to all ages.
The rodeo is a safety component of the Safe Routes to School program, said Jeremy Piersol, city parks and recreation director. The city council approved Piersol’s application for additional funding for the city’s Safe Routes to School program. Several sidewalks are being installed as part of the program. The Safe Routes to School program constructs walkways and provides city improvements to help children walk or ride bicycles to school in safety.
Safe Routes to School is all about living an active lifestyle, said Piersol, by helping kids be able to exercise safely between home and school each day. Several local business have donated bikes to be given away at the end of the school year in participation of the program. Local students have been earning raffle tickets by walking or riding bikes to school, or walking at school if they live too far away to have an opportunity to walk.
The city council approved another road closure, for Saturday May 30, at 9 a.m. for the fire department to have a controlled burn of a dilapidated building. The building, a former gas station, sits across Oregon Trail Street from city hall. Roosevelt St. and Oregon Trail will be closed that morning for the burn. Traffic on Idaho Street may be rerouted to the far side of the street, away from the fire.
Fire chief Pete Williams says that anyone who is sensitive to smoke and lives in that area should go to a neighbor’s house or should leave the area for six to seven hours.
In other business, the city council moved a recessed meeting from June 17, which conflicted with the annual conference of the Association of Idaho Cities, from Wednesday, June 17 to Tuesday, June 16. At the AIC conference, Mayor Amy Wynn will be representing the city as a delegate, with city council president Norm Wright replacing her in the event of an emergency.
The city council approved Randall Kline and Susan Dietz to two year terms on the American Falls tree committee, and discussed the annual education foundations’s golf tournament, to be held on June 20.