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Happy Friday, Meridian! Good news first: there is a genuinely interesting building going up in this town, and it's made mostly of wood. Less good news: a mosquito trap by the Star Road bridge came back positive for West Nile, and you are currently not allowed to burn anything in your yard. Tonight you've got a free concert at Kleiner and a line dancing lesson at Big Al's, both of which pair well with bug spray. Let's get into it.

🧠 Trivia: The art gallery inside Meridian City Hall is named after a real Idaho landmark — a small volcanic butte sitting out on the desert south of Kuna. What's it called, and why does Meridian care? (Answer at the bottom.)

Six Meridian things between tonight and next Saturday: two ways to spend Friday night, a band at Maddie's, a free health class at the Pinnacle library, an ogre on the lawn at Settlers, and a market at the Village. 🎉

☀️ Friday, July 31 — Meridian

Overnight low around 63°F · Areas of smoke · sunny and hot

Another sunny, hot, hazy one. The National Weather Service point forecast for Meridian has us near the mid-90s with areas of smoke and a light northwest wind; the Boise-area readings have been running a few degrees hotter than that, so plan for upper 90s and be pleasantly surprised if it isn't. Overnight is the good part — low around 63, which is your window for the yard, the dog and the run. If you're heading to Kleiner for the concert, the grass will still be radiating heat at 7 p.m. Check the National Weather Service point forecast for Meridian and the DEQ air quality report before you commit to an afternoon outside — smoke moves faster than a newsletter does.

Frontier Credit Union's new regional headquarters in Meridian is set to become the tallest building in Idaho built primarily of mass timber. It's four stories and about 30,000 square feet, at a cost of roughly $10 million, and the Idaho Press reports it should be finished this fall.

Mass timber, if you've never had reason to care: instead of a steel-and-concrete skeleton, you glue and press smaller pieces of lumber into beams and columns big enough to hold up a building. It goes up faster, it's lighter, and the inside ends up looking like a very expensive ski lodge. In a valley where every new commercial building looks like the last new commercial building, this one will at least be different. Worth a drive-by once the scaffolding comes down. Read more →

The Ada County Mosquito Abatement District has confirmed the season's first West Nile virus detections, and one of the two positive spots is here: close to the Star Road bridge over the Boise River in Meridian. The other was near N. Grenville Pl. and W. Cory Ln. in Boise. The first positive sample came back on July 22, and crews ran truck-mounted treatments around both sites.

This is normal for late July and it is not a reason to cancel your summer — but it is a reason to do the boring stuff. Dump the standing water in the wheelbarrow and the kid's pool, wear repellent at dawn and dusk, and if you're down by the river at either end of the day, cover up. Everything fun this weekend happens outdoors at exactly the hours mosquitoes prefer. Read more →

Burn bans are in effect for Ada and Canyon counties, and they're tied to the air, not to somebody's mood. Under local ordinance, all open outdoor burning is banned in Ada County and the cities inside it — Meridian included — any time the air quality index hits 60 or above. We have been well past that.

Practically, that means the yard-waste pile waits, and so does the backyard fire pit. It's a small ask in a week where the grass along every ditch bank looks like kindling and crews are already stretched across the region. If you're not sure whether today qualifies, the DEQ forecast page linked up in the weather section is the number that decides it. Read more →

Brought to you by Meridian Local Scoop.

Meridian's official cooling center: the sprinkler, a folding chair, and enough denial to get to September.

Trivia answer: Initial Point. It's a small volcanic butte out on the desert south of Kuna, and it's the far end of the string that gives this city its name. Back in 1867 the surveyor general picked that butte as the starting point for mapping Idaho Territory — every north-south line in the state runs off the Boise Meridian that begins there, and every east-west line off the Boise Base Line. Meridian Road traces that survey line north; the Odd Fellows lodge that met alongside it named itself Meridian; the town took the lodge's name. So City Hall's Initial Point Gallery is named for a rock pile out in the sagebrush that most residents have never seen — which is a very Meridian way to name an art gallery.

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