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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-01-13EIDIAN- CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP Nty MEETING AGENDA City Council Chambers 33 East Broadway Avenue Meridian, Idaho Tuesday, January 13, 2015 at 3:00 PM 1. Roll -Call Attendance X David Zaremba X Joe Borton O Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird X Genesis Milam X Luke Cavener X Mayor Tammy de Weerd 2. Pledge of Allegiance 3. Adoption of the Agenda Adopted 4. Consent Agenda Approved (pg 2-3) A. Development Agreement for Approval: AZ 14-012 Hill's Century Farm by Brighton Investments, LLC Located 5340 S. Eagle Road Request: Annexation and Zoning of 223.73 Acres with an R-8 Zoning District B. Resolution No. 15-1043: A Resolution Authorizing the City Clerk to Destroy Certain Semi -Permanent and Temporary Records of the Meridian Water Department C. Heritage Grove Sanitary Sewer Easement D. Award of Bid and Approval of Agreement to Custom Electric, Inc. for the "WELLS 11, 17 & 25 CONTROL SYSTEM UPGRADES - CONSTRUCTION" Project for the Not -To -Exceed Amount of $119,900.00 E. Approval of Task Order 10383.A to SPF Water Engineering, Inc. for the "WELL 29 INTERACTIVE DISPLAY, INTERPRETIVE MODELS AND VIDEO DISPLAY INSTALLATION" Project for the Not -To -Exceed Amount of $52,758.00 F. Approve Minutes of January 6, 2015 City Council Meeting G. The Oaks South Subdivision No. 2 Sewer and Water Easement H. Coleman Subdivision Sewer and Water Easement Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda — Tuesday, January 13, 2015 Page 1 of 3 All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian. Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing, please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting. 5. Items Moved From Consent Agenda None (pg 3) 6. Action Items A. Memorandum of Understanding Regarding Capital Improvement Approval Procedure for Rent Credit Eligibility between Lakeview Meridian Investors LLC and the City of Meridian Approved (Pg 3-10) B. Lakeview Golf Course Presentation of Proposed Capital Improvement Project and Request for Pre -approval of Credit Against Future Annual Rent Upon Project Completion and Substantiation Denied (Pg 10-19) 7. Department Reports A. Mayor's Office: Annual Update (Pg 19-29) B. Mayor's Office: Resolution No. 15-1044: A Resolution Appointing John Nesmith to Seat 5 of the Meridian Impact Fee Committee Approved (Pg 29) C. Legal Department: Percent for Art Discussion (Pg 29-37) D. Finance Department: FY2015 Budget Amendment: FY2015 Carryfoward — Grants Approved (Pg 37-38) E. Parks and Recreation: Storey Park Development Dog Park Contract Update (Pg 38-39) F. Parks and Recreation & Purchasing: Approval of Award of Bids and Agreements for "Storey Park Development - Construction" to multiple contractors per the attached schedule for a Not -To -Exceed total amount of $929,721.66. These awards are the result of the Formal IFB issued December 1, 2014 and opened December 19th. Fourteen bids were received for the five different bid packages. Approved (Pg 39-40) G. Community Development: Presentation of Preliminary Findings for Multipurpose & Event Center Project Development Plan by Pegasus Planning & Development (Pg 40-47) H. Community Development: Pine Avenue, Meridian Road to Locust Grove - Non -Transportation Elements and Potential Partnerships with the Ada County Highway District and the Meridian Development Corporation (Pg 47- 54) Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda — Tuesday, January 13, 2015 Page 2 of 3 All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian. Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing, please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting. I. Public Works: FY2014 Engineering Project Close -Out Report Moved to February workshop agenda (Pg 54) J. City Council Liaison/Committee Updates (Pg 54-56) 8. Ordinances A. Ordinance No. 15-1636: An Ordinance (AZ 14-012 Hill's Century Farm Subdivision) For Annexation And Rezone Of A Parcel Of Land Being The West '/2 Of Section 33 And The West 1/2 Of The Northwest '/4 Of The Southeast 1/4 Of Section 33, Township 3 North, Range 1 East, Meridian; Establishing And Determining The Land Use Zoning Classification Of Said Lands From RUT To R-8 (Medium Density Residential District) In The Meridian City Code; And Providing An Effective Date Approved (Pg 56-57) 9. Future Meeting Topics None (Pg 57) 10. Executive Session Per Idaho State Code 67-2345 (1)(f): (f) To Consider and Advise Its Legal Representatives in Pending Litigation Vacated (Pg 57) Adjourned at 6:10 p.m. (Pg 58) Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda — Tuesday, January 13, 2015 Page 3 of 3 All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian. Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing, please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 3:06 p.m., Tuesday, January 13, 2015, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, David Zaremba Joe Borton, Genesis Milam and Luke Cavener. Members Absent: Charlie Rountree. Others Present: Bill Nary, Jaycee Holman, Bruce Chatterton, Caleb Hood, Warren Stewart, Tracy Basterrechea, Mark Niemeyer, Brian McClure, Mike Barton, Todd Lavoie and Dean Willis. Item 1: Roll -call Attendance: Roll call. X David Zaremba X Joe Borton Charlie Rountree . X Keith Bird X Genesis Milam _XLucas Cavener X Mayor Tammy de Weerd De Weerd: Okay. Thank you for waiting. Sorry we are starting a few minutes late. I will go ahead and open the regular City Council meeting for January 13th. It's five -- six minutes after 3:00. Madam Clerk, will you call roll. Item 2: Pledge of Allegiance De Weerd: Item No. 2 is the Pledge of Allegiance. If you will all rise and join us in the pledge to our flag. (Pledge of Allegiance recited.) Item 3: Adoption of the Agenda De Weerd: Item No. 3, adoption of the agenda. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: On the agenda at 4-13, the resolution number is 15-1043. And under 7-B the resolution number is 15-1044. And under 8-A the ordinance number is 15-1636. And with that I move we approve the agenda as noted. Zaremba: Second. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 2 of 58 De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda as read. All those in favor say aye. All aye. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Item 4: Consent Agenda A. Development Agreement for Approval: AZ 14-012 Hill's Century Farm by Brighton Investments, LLC Located 5340 S. Eagle Road Request: Annexation and Zoning of 223.73 Acres with an R-8 Zoning District B. Resolution No. 15-1043: A Resolution Authorizing the City Clerk to Destroy Certain Semi -Permanent and Temporary Records of the Meridian Water Department C. Heritage Grove Sanitary Sewer Easement D. Award of Bid and Approval of Agreement to Custom Electric, Inc. for the "WELLS 11, 17 & 25 CONTROL SYSTEM UPGRADES CONSTRUCTION" Project for the Not -To -Exceed Amount of $119,900.00 E. Approval of Task Order 10383.A to SPF Water Engineering, Inc. for the "WELL 29 INTERACTIVE DISPLAY, INTERPRETIVE MODELS AND VIDEO DISPLAY INSTALLATION" Project for the Not -To -Exceed Amount of $52,758.00 F. Approve Minutes of January 6, 2015 City Council Meeting G. The Oaks South Subdivision No. 2 Sewer and Water Easement H. Coleman Subdivision Sewer and Water Easement De Weerd: Item 4 is the Consent Agenda. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: On the Consent Agenda as noted, Item B is resolution number 15-1043 and with that I move we approve the Consent Agenda and for the Mayor to sign and the Clerk to attest. Zaremba: Second. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 3 of 58 De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda. Madam Clerk, will you call roll. Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, absent; Zaremba, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Item 5: Items Moved From Consent Agenda De Weerd: Item No. 5 is -- there are no items moved from the Consent Agenda. Item 6: Action Items A. Memorandum of Understanding Regarding Capital Improvement Approval Procedure for Rent Credit Eligibility between Lakeview Meridian Investors LLC and the City of Meridian De Weerd: So, we will move right into 6-A under action items and Mr. Attorney is gone. So, Council, we heard this last week and so wondered if there were any questions, any comments about the MOU in front of you? Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Before we start this, we got an e-mail this week that some people had been approached by -- I talked with the patrons and stuff out there at the golf course. If you did, please, note it before we start into any discussion here. If you talked to anybody regarding this item. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: I was contacted regarding this item. De Weerd: Okay. And -- Milam: I, basically, just referred to anything that was already discussed at the previous public hearing and said I wasn't allowed to talk about it, because it was still open. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 4 of 58 De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Okay. Council, any questions, points of discussion? Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: My father is on the golf course review committee. He was there before I -- De Weerd: We won't hold that against you. Borton: Fair enough. But to the extent it's relevant -- I'm not sure it is -- in light of the e-mail that we got earlier, but, nonetheless, there it is. That's it. De Weerd: I think the e-mail just asked that his point be part of the record, which it is. Okay. So, any questions? Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: To that point, can you give me or ask just a snap shot of the golf course -- the committee or the group as far as what it -- What it's going to be doing going forward. Is it -- you know, their members, five members, appointed now? Are they going to be voting at these meetings? It sounds like they are. All of which is fine, but I don't know if I have a good grasp on what the official committee is and does. De Weerd: Well, it would be nice to have one of our attorneys here, because -- Borton: He's coming in right now. De Weerd: We will wait until Mr. Nary gets seated. We are talking about the golf course and it is a little bit more complicated without you, but -- I could have started making things up. Nary: Sorry, Madam Mayor. Borton: Do you want me to reask? De Weerd: Yes. If you would restate your question. Borton: Mr. Nary, I was just trying to get a little background for at least maybe all us on the committee -- the golf course committee, if it's, you know, going forward, you know, if it's to meet and -- I don't know how many members there are. Do they officially vote on approving something up or down to bring to us or is it a general consensus? How does that work? Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 5 of 58 Nary: Certainly. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. So, the golf course committee was a citizens' group that was started a number of years ago based on interested parties that live in and near the golf course. They have asked to be part of a sub group. They were established through the Mayor's office. The membership is folks that have been directed by the Mayor to participate in that. They meet -- in the past they meet generally, if I recall specifically, twice a year has been the normal meeting schedule and mostly it has been to deal with issues surrounding the neighborhood or the neighbors, whether it's operational concerns that they may have had or how the golf course is being maintained or other types of questions of that nature. I think what it was looking at here is -- I wouldn't necessarily say formalizing their -- their workload, but, yes, using them more to the fullest advantage of getting their feedback as members of the golf community there in and around Lakeview. So, that was part of the desire that -- at least our understanding of the Council's direction was for the operators to, then, take annual improvements to that committee to get their feedback, get their recommendation, I guess, and -- to this -- to the Council for an ultimate decision here. Since we don't have a commission or an interim method in which those parties can -- or which the operator could sort of get that level of feedback, this is the -- I guess the desire to -- was to use that group and they have expressed an interest and they have a desire to provide that level of feedback to the city as to whether those levels of -- or levels of capital improvements are appropriate or necessary for the use of the facility. De Weerd: There are three citizens on the committee. One citizen that lives in the surrounding -- well, two of the three live in the surrounding neighborhood. One is -- I don't know if he lives there or not, but he's part of the men's golf association and so they -- and you didn't have to be named Jim to be on it, it just happens to be all three of them are named Jim. The discussions, as Mr. Nary stated, have really centered around some of the improvements that have been out there to give feedback on improvements that may or may not be on the list that we have had in past and to be a vehicle for patrons and neighbors to bring their concerns to the citizen representatives, so that their items of concern could be addressed. Councilman Rountree has been the chair of that committee and as well we have had Steve Siddoway, our parks director, Mike Barton that oversees the operational side of our parks, and Ted Baird from the legal aspect and we are -- we are always joined by Mr. Oaas. Borton: Okay. And -- Madam Mayor? And this has helped from the discussion of the MOU, which I think is great and going to be very helpful. Is the vote or the decision of the citizens or is it the citizens and, you know, our parks director and the city employees collectively all decide? And the reason I ask that is let's say there is a project that Mr. Oaas wants to bring forward that maybe the group doesn't like, but maybe the Council does. Can they -- can the project come forward to us even though that group doesn't recommend it? De Weerd: I would just answer that you are the deciding body. The committee might recommend, so -- Borton: Okay. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 6 of 58 De Weerd: But you are the decision makers. Borton: Okay. Nary: Yeah. It's completely advisory is what their role is. Borton: Okay. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I think -- I think the biggest item I want to get out on this is that every capital improvement I don't feel the citizens have to pay for by forgiveness of the rent. There is a lot of things of capital improvements that helps the operator's bottom line. Well, taxpayers shouldn't have to help a private business's bottom line. So, as a councilman I -- I think we need to -- or I -- I look at does it help the property we got the most or does it help the operator to operate a more successful business. Well, I -- and taxpayers shouldn't have to help the bottom line on a private business. So, that's -- I think we need to make sure that what we say is capital improvement that should be wrote off by the rent is actually just helping our investment in our property. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I agree with Councilman Bird and I De Weerd: Is your mike on? Zaremba: It is, but I'm not talking directly into it. Maybe that's better De Weerd: Thank you. Zaremba: I appreciate what is in the memorandum of understanding so far, but I was thinking that we were going to have a little more exacting definition of capital improvement and the point is exactly as Councilman Bird raised, identifying the difference between a capital improvement and an operational activity or expense, even if it is an improvement, it's -- I believe that's where this discussion has broken down before and I was hoping we would be being a little more definitive. Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Councilman Zaremba, if you look at item three -- under A-3, that it is what was -- I guess what we understood in the direction as to what a capital improvement would be, but the question did come up previously on what discretion does the Council want to have, both now and into the future, on these Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 7 of 58 types of requests. Historically, before this operator -- the prior operator in the past, there was no rent relief, they just paid it. So, this operator had requested that and so it has been a little bit of a moving target as to what would be allowed and as I stated last week, one of the things that we gleaned out of the earlier discussions is that one of the reasons for the disconnect is because requests were being made after the fact. So, the project was done and complete when the request for relief was made and if the perception or definition of what was allowed changed from one year to the next, then, it sort of left the operator with a -- I guess holding the bag, for lack of a better term. So, the desire was to create some clarity as to what types of improvements you're talking about, but to still leave some flexibility, because, again, it's hard to predict between now and the next six, seven years as to whether or not there may be other opportunities and to hamstrung either this Council or future Councils seemed short sided. So, it was defining in 1-3 -- or in A-3 what the capital improvements were intended, but it does leave you discretion that if there is something else that fits the criteria that you're comfortable with -- and, again, it's certainly up to this Council to decide whether or not the improvement is solely for the benefit of the course, solely for the benefit of the operator or a mix of either one, and whether or not, again, some or all rent relief is to be granted for it and whether it's one year or multiple years, again, it's within the discretion of this body. So, it really does leave it all with your hands. We felt from the legal side what was the most critical is that all of it was done before the work was done, so that there was no question whether the work was completed or not or what was going to get done was eligible or not. So, there was no question after the fact as to what would get reimbursed or whether it was not going to get reimbursed. De Weerd: Did that help? Zaremba: It does help. Thank you. De Weerd: Okay. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: Mr. Nary, is -- so -- of A-2, the discretion that that gives the Council -- this Council and future councils, is that discretion to include noncapital improvements if they decide to or only meeting these other -- the three attributes, A, B. C and D, or the discretion to allow any improvement is the question. Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Milam, the -- so, the intent of two is make clear that the Council has a wide variety of discretion. Three is to identify the specific types of projects, but, again, you always have the discretion to see whether those fit or don't. If they don't fit within those and you don't -- this body doesn't want to grant that, we were trying not to hamstrung this Council or future councils from making that decision. It's within your discretion if it fits those. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 8 of 58 Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Uh-huh. Milam: So, really, what I'm asking is if it does not fit this, we -- if the Council just wanted to approve something that is not considered a capital improvement, does this allow complete discretion or does it still need to be a capital improvement discretion? De Weerd: I think essentially what he said is it would be your decision. Milam: But if it meets the criteria. Nary: What I would recommend -- what I would recommend for this Council or future councils is that if you -- if -- if you don't believe it fits any criteria in this contract or in this MOU, then, I would not recommend you approve it. But you have the discretion to decide whether it fits it or not. The discretion is yours on how it -- how to apply the terms in this agreement. Milam: Okay. Thank you. De Weerd: And you would have to have a majority of your Council members agree with you. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Something in the last phrasing of what Mr. Nary said -- the discussion -- and I want to make sure we all are on the same page. This memorandum of understanding is focused on whether or not we would agree that something qualifies for rent relief. We are not approving or disapproving their project. The operators are in charge of what happens on the golf course and they are able to do whatever they want. If we voted no on something that doesn't mean they can't do it, it just means we are not going to apply that against rent relief. I just want to make sure -- Nary: That is correct. Zaremba: -- I'm not misunderstanding that intent. Nary: Mr. Zaremba, you are exactly correct. Zaremba: Okay. De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions? Milam: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 9 of 58 De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: So, would we require multiple bids or just whatever proposal that we brought? In essence, if we do a project we require multiple bids, so would we require multiple bids be gotten from the golf course? Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Milam. So, you're not required to do that here, but you certainly can ask the question. I mean it's not unreasonable I would think -- if someone were to say we could do this improvement for X and that doesn't seem reasonable to you or you want to find out how that was reached, you certainly have the ability to do that. If they are asking for rent relief for -- using an example, if you were going to ask for rent relief for 6,000 dollars to do a 20,000 dollar project and in your mind that doesn't seem to make sense or that doesn't seem like it should cost that much money, it's certainly reasonable to ask where would you get that. But at the end of the day they only can get relief for what they actually did and that really was the intent. So, for example, if you had someone re -- if this operator or another operator asked for 10,000 dollars of rent relief over two years to do a 10,000 dollar project, but at the end of the day they provide you all the receipts and all the information on what was paid and they paid 3,000 dollars for it, you're not obligated to give them 10,000 dollars of relief. So, you're still not going to give greater than what was paid for or greater than what you anticipate. So, again, they still would have to show that they actually paid that before they would be granted relief for it. De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions about the MOU? Borton: Madam Mayor? I don't think it's a question. I think that Councilman Milam's comment to Mr. Nary's comment, you know, it needs to be usable and fair for the golf course operator and it's one thing to have a 5,000 dollar project, but you get up to a 30,000 dollar project and -- or anything more than ten, there may be a desire to have it bid as part of the submittal. You know, Exhibit A doesn't ask for it and maybe it's fine as is, but I guess it could get more difficult to feel comfortable with a larger rent relief without it being bid. So, I'm not -- if our first step is voting to approve the MOU -- I'm not so sure Exhibit A needs to change, unless others think otherwise. But that would come into a discussion when a request is made. If it gets big enough, then, you might want to have it bid. That's not even a question, really, I guess. I said it was going to be a question. It's not a question. De Weerd: Uh-huh. Borton: Just a comment on the Exhibit A, so -- De Weerd: Thank you. Council, I guess at this point we are looking for your direction on adopting this MOU and how best to move forward. Bird: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 10 of 58 De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I don't have any problem adopting the MOU and making a motion to accept the MOU, because, as Counsel Nary said, we still have the final decision on stuff. This is just the basis. So, both sides have something to work by. So, I would move that we accept the MOU between Lakeview Investors, LLC, and the City of Meridian. Cavener: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? None? Madam Clerk, will you call roll. Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, absent; Zaremba, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. B. Lakeview Golf Course Presentation of Proposed Capital Improvement Project and Request for Pre -approval of Credit Against Future Annual Rent Upon Project Completion and Substantiation De Weerd: Item 6-B is for Mr. Oaas, who has a presentation on a capital improvement project. Good afternoon. Oaas: Good afternoon. Madam Mayor and Members of City Council, I'm Eric Oaas, P.O. Box 2020, Boise, and I am here to speak to you about a proposed capital improvement based on the new guideline that you -- the basis of the guideline that you just approved and per the MOU and this -- this particular proposal is -- deals with a -- an issue that, quite frankly, we probably get the largest comments on and they are not necessarily positive, but the largest number of comments from golfers who utilize the golf course at Lakeview and that is the number -- the number nine green and the problem with the green is not the quality of the surface or anything to do with the -- with the approach, the problem is that the green has a very peculiar shape and it's not conducive to the average golfer or even the above average gofer who utilize the golf course to -- to find an area to put -- to land your ball, for example, so that you can, you know, have some reasonable chance of getting a one putt on the green. The green is somewhat dome shaped, if you will, and slanted downward toward -- you know, toward the fairway in the front -- toward the approach and so it's not uncommon to have golfers, you know, get -- have a two or even a three putt on that whole, which -- De Weerd: They are in my league. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 11 of 58 Oaas: Madam Mayor, it is an equalizer I grant you that. But -- but all -- you know, all fun aside, it just is -- it just was not designed properly to begin with and it's been a thorn in our side and a thorn in the patrons' side for a very, very long time. To Councilman Bird's point earlier, you know, it is this -- you know, addressing this green, does it benefit the operator more than the city or the city more than the operator or is there a combination. I think the answer to that is that in this case -- and I will refer back to a -- to a specific quote by a member of the golf course focus group who said in our last meeting before the group put forward a recommendation to -- to address the number nine green, this particular member said whether you fix the number nine green or not, I'm still going to golf at Lakeview and I don't anticipate that there will be a large number of additional gofers come -- coming out to Lakeview, but it's something that this particular member of the golf course focus group has been -- you know, has been bringing up over and over and over and over again. So, Councilman Bird, to your point, it's -- it's probably doubtful that the golf course operator will see a huge number of additional golfers come and play at Lakeview because this green has been redone. Highly unlikely. It's -- what draws golfers to Lakeview is the quality of the course overall, the quality of our greens, which is exceptional and due to our fine grounds keeping staff and, really, the experience that is created with the facility and with our personnel and whether this green is redone or not is not likely to have a huge increase in -- in the number of golfers that play. It will just improve the quality of the golfing experience and because -- because it does impact the real estate -- the real property that it will be there for -- you know, until the golf course is -- sees the end of its day. So, with that in mind, the golf course focus group did come up with a recommendation to address this. Excuse me. But the recommendation was -- was, yes, we think it should be redone, but the group itself did not definitively say that -- from a recommendation standpoint it should be the Cadillac version or the Pinto version and there really are two different ways of looking at this. The Cadillac version -- if you look up on the screen, represents a conceptual drawing done by Dave Druzinsky, who is a professional golf course architect here in the valley, who I think, as I mentioned before, has done a number of the greens and golf course designs, you know, throughout, you know, even the top courses here in the valley. He's very well respected, knows what he's doing and -- and from his perspective he said this is really what -- what should happen with that green and I don't know whether I -- I'm not -- oops. I'm trying to -- oh, I used the wrong pointer. Sorry. There. Thank you. So, if you look at this green -- I'm just going to sort of draw a line -- great. Thank you. I'm going to draw -- draw a line of -- around the existing green and you can see what he's -- and, as I said before, the green is pretty much dome shaped, so you're getting -- you're getting -- you're getting your ball, when it hits anywhere on the green, it's pretty much going to roll off one of the edges and most likely come back down this way and -- and so what we are talking about doing here is creating -- let me see. I have got to erase that. So, what we are talking about doing is -- is changing the shape of the green now and creating -- it will have -- it will have a multiple -- or sort of a dual elevation. So, you will have the upper part of the green here and the lower part of the green here, but they will be two -- two sort of independent putting surfaces, if you will, and what that -- what this will do is it will give us -- it will give us a number of different places we can -- we can put the pin to get -- you know, to get, you know, very good play on the green and to, you know, again, to really improve the Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 12 of 58 quality of the experience on this particular green. Right now there is no -- it's all one putting surface and -- and it's -- you know, as I said, it's slanted down toward the front. You will also see the addition here of -- of another sand trap here and another sand trap here. This -- this sand trap will go away and -- and, then, this is the back slope off the -- you know, off the green itself. So -- so, when you look at this, it really is a tremendous improvement. Here is the cart path here and, of course, here is the approach to the green and, you know, again, this -- if we had our -- our druthers and had unlimited dollars to spend, this is clearly the direction we would go. And, again, it's -- it's -- it's designed, developed by Dave Druzinsky, who is a professional golf course architect, and the contractor that we would utilize would be Timberstone Construction that's headed up by -- you remember Clint, who used to be the manager for us out at Lakeview, he runs this particular -- he runs this construction company and it's a specialized -- you know, to your point, Councilman Milam, it -- you know, trying to put this out for bids among multiple potential vendors is difficult, because this is -- this is really a specialized knowledge and if you don't really know what you're doing it's -- but how the ground looks to carve things out and go back and look at it and, then, say, no, we need to make this change here and generally that kind of knowledge is pretty darn specialized. So, it's appropriate I think in many cases to get multiple bids, but in this case this particular company is doing golf course restoration projects in the multi -state region around Idaho, so I mean they are very well respected, they come, you know, with a very good reputation. So, that's why we have chosen them. That's not to say that there aren't others out there, but there are not others out there in the immediate area. The cost -- the cost of this Cadillac version -- if you will refer to the -- to the submittal that we provided, is -- is not cheap. You know, it's just under 36,000 dollars and that's mostly, with the exception of 3,000 dollars, all of that is -- are for services and materials provided by the contractor Timberstone and that includes, you know, 21,750 for the complete redesign and retrofit of the course and, then, rather than waiting for sod -- or waiting for regrowth of the green, we would buy new sod, lay the sod down, so that we would be prepared for the golf season when it started in, you know, April and May. The only -- the only portion of the cost that Lakeview would handle would be -- we would provide some of the surplus labor, but we also would handle all of the irrigation changes as we got into redesigning the -- the green and that -- and, again, the total for that would be a -- it's a not to exceed of 3,000 dollars. So, the plan would be to start this project as soon as possible and to Mr. Nary's point, you know, from our perspective and I think the Council probably feels the same way, it's good to get this out up front so that everybody understands, you know, what the rules of the game are before one shovel of dirt is -- is turned over. And with that I would be open to questions on sort what we are calling the Cadillac version. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I don't have a question on that. I do have a couple of questions, Eric. If we don't -- if we don't forgive the 6,000 dollars, does this get done? Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 13 of 58 Oaas: Councilman Bird, Members of the City Council, what -- what our intent would be -- and I'm -- you know, it's sort of complicated. It called into question the Cadillac and the Pinto version here. From our perspective we -- we fully understand that the 35,000 dollars is a heck of a lot of money and we, as the operator, are prepared to put that money up front, but we would be requesting that -- that there would be rent relief for the full amount of the 35,000 over whatever period of time that fits. Bird: That's what I thought. And you stated that -- that number nine green isn't going to probably cost you any golfers. It hasn't yet. Oaas: No. Bird: I mean you got number eight and number seven's on a slope, too, for -- when you're the world's worst golfer all of them are tough, but, anyway, I -- this is something that -- that I was talking about earlier, Eric, is to me our property will be the same value whether this green stays like it is or whether it's changed. The value of our property don't change. I can -- I got a couple of grandsons that are scratch golfers that have played out there beaucoup times. They love it, because it's a challenge. Because you see it all over, those type of greens. So, if you want to change it as the operator, I think that's great, but I, as a Councilman, don't see where that is helping our investment. De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? Of course I like the idea. I think that's great. I think the thing I struggle with when you relate it to whether or not this is worth rent relief is an understanding that it's a -- it's a common part of the business of running a golf course to change the greens every once in awhile. To my understanding, most golf courses do that on a regular basis, make some changes to the greens and it's similar to a retailer changing their stock, so that people don't come into the store and see the same thing every time they come. So, I struggle with seeing this as a capital improvement. To me, the first example we are given, you know, once we have approved the MOU, is an operational thing that would be true of any golf course to be making these kind of changes. So, I -- help me out if you can, but I see this as something that's just a normal course of business for a golf course. Oaas: I -- Councilman Zaremba and Councilman Bird, I think -- I think that the point here is that -- that whether the enhancement is the -- you know, again, the Cadillac or the -- the Pinto -- and, by the Pinto -- maybe we should talk a little bit more about that first. It might be helpful. The Pinto version would be -- would be, essentially, taking the existing -- taking the -- De Weerd: Would offend anyone who likes Pintos, by the way. Oaas: That's right. I -- someone -- I didn't come up with this. Someone -- De Weerd: Someone might like Pintos and so -- Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 14 of 58 Oaas: Exactly. Zaremba: Can we agree on a Yugo? Bird: No. Oaas: In the -- the Pinto version, you know, where we are talking about the existing -- well, actually, this curves around this -- De Weerd: I'm sorry, Eric, but this is the beginning of our -- of a lengthy agenda, so -- Oaas: We got to shorten it. De Weerd: -- if we can that would be really nice. Oaas: Okay. What we -- all we would -- we would be doing is we would not be changing the -- these, we would retain the existing bunker and, essentially, we would just be rolling this -- getting a sod cutter, rolling it up and, essentially, trying to -- to provide some -- some better possible pin placements so that it's not quite as dome shaped period and we would use the same contractor and we use Lakeview's personnel, but -- but, essentially, it would -- it would accomplish on a much less grand scale, but accomplish the point that's sort of a thorn in most golfers' side and, Councilman Bird, I think -- my personal feeling is because this -- this green is the way it is and the vast majority of golfers have such a problem with it, to me it is -- it is an enhancement of the golf course and it does potentially improve the -- the city's value, because word does get out that, you know, that number nine green out at Lakeview is terrible and, you know, if it affects, you know, ten golfers or a hundred golfers a year, I can't say, but getting that off the table, in my opinion it would enhance the city's value here. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Quick question, I guess. In your opinion is this the most important improvement for the course? Is that why you're bringing it to us? Oaas: Yes. Cavener: Okay. And in your opinion, as the subject matter expert on the course, what's -- what's the better solution for the course, the Cadillac or the Pinto? Oaas: Well, the best solution, without a doubt, would be the Cadillac version, but we -- we -- there is no way that we could afford to do that. There isn't a normal pay back. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 15 of 58 Cavener: Okay. Great. Thank you. Oaas: Other questions? Bird: I have none. De Weerd: Okay. Anything further from Council? Oaas: I'm sorry. And, by the way, the cost of the Pinto version is a not exceed 7,000. We would -- we would be seeking one year's rent relief for that one. De Weerd: So, Eric, I guess I need to be reminded on -- when this lease was entered into the rent relief was really to help offset a number of needed capital expenditures after you bought out the lease and I don't ever thought -- think that the Council at the time thought that the rent relief would go on indefinitely. Oaas: Right. De Weerd: Also I think that the discussion at that time was there would be an expected match dollar for dollar, your Pinto cost would say the taxpayers would give 6,000 and you would give a little over a thousand. So, that's not really a dollar to dollar. So, I'm just trying to say where did we veer off on -- on this maybe an expectation that we have on this discussion every year once the capital list that was the original list expired and were all accomplished and now it's -- if it's the Pinto, the -- we are at a lopsided investment versus the Cadillac, which you still want multi-year then and so there is no longer this partnership, there is just an expectation that the city is -- is the one that does the improvements. Oaas: Madam Mayor, I'm not sure that's entirely true. We are still -- we are still -- as the operator we are still paying for the original improvements for the back nine that was added, you know, with -- with all the -- the free passes that were offered to all the contractors that did work back -- De Weerd: But you knew all of that when we went into the agreement Oaas: Absolutely. But we are still paying for that, number one. And, number two, we are still paying for all of the improvements that -- that went into redoing the three greens ten years ago. So, you know, the -- the thought we are not making contributions or paying for a substantial amount for improvements that were made is just -- it's not accurate. De Weerd: No. I don't think I said that. I just said that each year we have a discussion about improvements and those improvements for that year moving forward, it's more the expectation that the city is the investor and not the leaseholder and that's what I'm asking is where did this all kind of change from the original discussion. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 16 of 58 Oaas: Well, I would say that we continue to -- we don't bring to the Council all of the spending that we do on various projects during the course of the year. De Weerd: Well -- and I understand that that's operational. That's -- that's part of doing business, so -- but I just kind of -- again, I'm trying to -- to see kind of what was discussed and the intent going -- going into the lease and having an annual discussion about lease relief and now ten years later we are still having it and I thought at some point that would all be part of your operational or your lease commitment that these improvements would benefit your business and that business is increasing the enjoyability of play and investing in -- in your lease, because it makes business sense as well. But not -- not expecting that 6,000 dollar lease -- and I kind of mentioned at the committee when you look at what the other golf courses that have kind of headlined the week of our meeting and what they were paying in lease, I had a number of comments from people that said every year you grapple over 6,000, where they are paying 40 plus thousand. So, what -- what's the deal? And I can't answer that anymore. I could when we first went into it, but -- and maybe that's why I'm asking the question now. Oaas: And, Madam Mayor, I guess from my perspective I'm not sure that the conditions are any different now than when -- when we started the lease from that standpoint. I mean these are capital improvements and even more so than when -- than others that were approved in the past, but -- De Weerd: Well, we can agree to disagree. But, anyway, I guess, Council -- Bird: I have no more questions. Let's get on with the question. De Weerd: Any questions? Okay. Anything further, Eric? Oaas: No. We just appreciate your time and your consideration. De Weerd: Thank you. Nice to see you again. Oaas: Thank you. De Weerd: Okay. Borton: Madam Mayor, one quick question, and Mr. Nary might know, Eric might know. Is it -- is it correct that the 6,000 dollar rent was paid this last fall for fiscal year '14, '15; is that correct? Oaas: No. I believe -- I believe it's -- it was for the prior year, wasn't it, Bill? Nary: It's for the coming year. So, it's been paid. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 17 of 58 Borton: The payment made three months ago was for what fiscal year? I'm just trying to get a sense of how many fiscal years -- are we in arrears or are we going forward or remain on the program? Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Borton, let me double check, but I thought the payments are in advance. They are due at the beginning of the fiscal year for that fiscal year. So, that's -- we had the discussion in October. So, he paid that 6,000, that's for this current fiscal year. Borton: Okay. So, there is -- Madam Mayor. There is -- it sounds like there is four fiscal years remaining going forward in this program to get us to September 30th of 19. Nary: Yes. Correct. Borton: Okay. Thank you. Oaas: Any other questions? Bird: I have none. De Weerd: No. Thank you. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Okay. Now, if I understand you right, Mr. Nary, this 6,000 that he's asking relief from is for fiscal year'15 or fiscal year'16? Fiscal year'16. Nary: Correct. Bird: '16 or'15? Nary: We are in 15. Bird: And he paid in September the 6,000 for that or we forgave it or what? Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council -- no. He paid the 6,000 after October 1 for fiscal '15. Bird: Okay. Nary: The current fiscal year we are in. Bird: We are looking at forgiving for'16. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 18 of 58 Nary: Correct. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: I will make a motion. I think in light of the MOU we just approved and looking at the conditions of A-3, A through D, what we are talking about here truly is a capital improvement as we have now clarified and specified, which benefits everybody to have that specificity. Hearing all of the -- the applicant's remarks, I think Option B to include all of the applicant's -- or the -- Mr. Oaas' comments, but specifically about what Option B will be providing for that green, in exchange for a potential rent relief of one year, the 6,000 dollars, and consistent with the delivery dates and specifics and approval process, et cetera, that we have just adopted. De Weerd: Okay. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Okay. Well, that motion, then, dies for lack of a second. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move that we do not forgive the 6,000 rental in 2016 for the golf course, because, in my opinion, that is -- that is an operational improvement, not a capital improvement. Zaremba: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. Discussion? Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Just for maybe a brief clarification. Would the applicant be able at a later time to come with a new proposal for rent relief in this fiscal year would only -- Bird: For'17. Cavener: But not -- no other opportunity? Bird: For'16? Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, he can always ask. His timing was in here -- I think it's a 30 day notice, but other than that he can ask up until the end of the fiscal year. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 19 of 58 Cavener: Okay. Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: Well, maybe I'm a little late on this, but I don't have a problem giving a partial rent relief, I disagree with giving a full rent relief for the 7,000 on the project, but it kind of aligns with what you were discussing, you know, a percentage would I think be an incentive for him to do the capital improvements, which is where I believe this came from in the first place. So, not giving any rent relief, there is no incentive there for him to do the project, but I don't think we should pay for the entire project either. So, I'm somewhere in between these two motions. De Weerd: Any other discussion? Madam Clerk, will you call roll. Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, absent; Zaremba, yea; Borton, nay; Milam, nay; Cavener, yea. De Weerd: Okay. The ayes have it, so -- thank you for being here. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. TWO NAYS. ONE ABSENT. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Borton: And that motion was specific to this particular request that came before us? De Weerd: That's correct. Borton: Okay. Item 7: Department Reports A. Mayor's Office: Annual Update De Weerd: Okay. Seven is our Department Reports. We will start with 7-A under the Mayor's office with our annual update. Simison: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. I will work towards getting to the meat of this to try to help just a little bit back on track. I know that that was an expectation, so I'm here on behalf of the Mayor's office and I'm just going to go ahead and -- you know, we are the public face of the Mayor's -- the Mayor and her staff a lot in what's going on in the community and we all know what the vision is of the city, Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 20 of 58 but we are working to insure that Meridian is a vibrant community whose vision is to be a premier place, a city to live, work and raise a family. I think you will see that -- an update to that pretty soon when the strategic plan comes before the City Council, but for now that is what we are focused on. Just want to quickly touch on a couple things. Out here in the audience you see one of them. We have had some staffing changes in the office for the year. First is we are welcoming Kaycee Emery to the office as the communications manager. She's been with us since about November. She's a U of I graduate -- De Weerd: Don't hold that against her. Nary: It's about time. Simison: Yes. And she's got -- has experience with media, KTVB and, then, was with UC Media Group and most recently worked on the governor's campaign. So, welcome her. You're going to hear from her in a few minutes. Also at this time we are going to be saying goodbye from our office to T.J. Coles. He has accepted a position down at Community Development. He's been upstairs for four years. He started off as a part- time employee and has gone through many changes in this position to the point where he was doing 50 percent of the time in our office, 50 percent on economic development issues and he will now be downstairs, so -- De Weerd: And we won't hold that against him, but it may show up in an evaluation or something. Simison: Yes. And I hold it against Caleb every time get an opportunity to do that, but he is our five tool player in the office and we are looking to replace him, so hopefully we will have somebody new on board here in the next couple weeks. Just want to highlight a couple of accolades. You have heard about Meridian being nominated -- Money Magazine saying Meridian is one of the 50 best places to live. It's the fourth time we have received that honor. That's great. MYAC has received recognition this year. The 2014 Outstanding Youth and Philanthropy award, which was presented by the Association of Fundraising Professionals for all the work that they do here in the community and they were nominated by the Idaho Meth Project, an organization I think many people have a lot of respect for here in the state. Mayor Tammy was selected as an Elected Woman of Excellence by the National Foundation for Women's Legislators this last year and Ken Corder was selected as the City of Meridian Employee of the Year. So, not bad for 2014. There is many more than that, but just thought we would hit on a couple of those accolades. Some of our accomplishments from this last year. I think that you all are familiar with the Next Door application, which was launched this last year working with our police department. We were kind of one of the test communities for that Next Door. We completed the citywide survey. You know, that was really an opportunity to do more than just taking a -- do a pulse check, you know, that was really the strap on the oxygen mask and do the running test to see how the city is doing, what the feedback was, and really kind of layout where we are going for the next couple years. We held the groundbreaking on the Meridian Road interchange. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 21 of 58 That was something that was -- most of you attended and, which was great, and, then, the Treasure Valley Youth Safety Summit, which was expanded down to middle schoolers this last year, so not just in high school, but the middle school, which was something new. And I just want to mention that we talked about transitioning Meridian's Promise from the city and we were successful in taking Meridian's Promise from the city to a 501(c)(3), which is operated by Molly Palmer here in the community. So, we will continue to work with them to insure that that organization moves forward. Just a reminder. Some of the things that we do here in the Mayor's Office and I will just touch on a couple of items that the Mayor had over -- or almost 1,300 meetings in 2014. We had 30 appointments which were commissions and MDC in 2014. We had openings on Planning and Zoning, Parks, and Arts Commission and I think that the Mayor has found some good quality candidates to bring forward next week to Planning and Zoning, so you will be hearing about that. The legislations committee continues to work and we have our legislation that we are moving forward and working with that organizations here. We have issued 27 proclamations in 2014. So, just to kind of give you an idea about some of the things that we have been doing. So, here are our strategic priorities in the Mayor's Office that we really focus on. Communication, customer service, events and programs. This is where we are going to spend the next few minutes and I will be having -- first up I'm going to Have Kaycee Emery come up, our -- the new communications manager, and she's going to talk a little bit about her vision for the position and some of the things that she's going to be working on, so -- De Weerd: Oh. Mr. Bird just complimented you. He thought you were a student sitting there. Emery: Well, I appreciate that. Wow. That is so nice. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, for the record I'm Kaycee Emery. I'm the new communications manager and I'm so happy to be here. I want all of you to know that I'm not just the communications manager, but I'm also a resident of Meridian and apparently a high school student as well. I will take that. So, I will look at everything that I do in my role, not only from the eye of a communications strategist, but also as a resident. I see this role as a lot more media relations there, website, social media, video, newsletters and annual report, it covers the whole gamut of things, so there is a little bit of a public information officer component. Also marketing. Also copyrighting. A little bit of project management involved and all the projects that you oversee that have to do with communications. So, I'm really looking forward to this roll and just -- I will be going over the media relations website and social media a few slides away, but on video I really want to talk to you -- one of the first things I noticed when I got here was what a great video program we have and I don't know if you have met the intern, Ellen, but she's phenomenal and so we are really beefing up our this week in Meridian videos. I really would love it if all of you would watch those. They are on YouTube. We have already had the views go up since I started and it might just be my mom and dad, but maybe -- maybe if you guys could all tune in, too, and if you see Ellen don't be afraid, we are going to -- I'm going to have her introduced -- Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 22 of 58 De Weerd: Ellen is in the lobby. You may want to just ask her to step in so we can -- let's just give updates with the name. Ellen is amazing and she is an intern that's been working directly with Kaycee, with Ken -- actually, with all of us in the office. So, say hey -- Fogg: Hi. De Weerd: You might just tell them what school you're going to and your year in school. Fogg: Sure. I'm going to Mountain View High School, which is just up the road over here and I'm a senior this year, so 12th grade. Almost done. De Weerd: And that's not good news to us. Right? So -- but thank you. We sure enjoy having you and working with you. Fogg: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Emery: Thanks, Ellen. Madam Mayor, thank you so much for recognizing her. She is fantastic and just the videos she puts out. So, I'm really excited about the videos we can do with her, so don't be shy if she puts a video in your face, we want to get you guys on camera more. We want people to learn more about Meridian. The video is a very, very powerful tool to use, so we are excited about that. I'm also right now -- you know, we do newsletters every other week, but right now I am in the midst of the annual report. It feels like a boot camp of sorts for me, because I'm learning a lot, especially in the last few weeks that I have been putting together the annual report. So, I look forward to all of you seeing that in the next few weeks. And, again, I'm happy to be here and I look forward to sharing with you my goals and a few slides, but for now I will pass the baton back to Robert. De Weerd: Thank you, Kaycee. Simison: So, needless to say, we are -- we are excited to have her on board, what she's doing. Customer service -- you know, I think it's really important to acknowledge all city departments give exemplary customer service. I think that our office is the customer service leaders, because we are the first and often the last stop. You know, when they don't like the customer service they get from other people, well, they come to us and sometimes they bypass everybody and just come to us and we work with them. But Ken and Peggy do a great job on that. They are kind of our two people that are the forefront of that. We believe in the CARE values and utilize the Meridian Way in our office to help solve things and just some of the groups that we work with and we don't just take complaints, we also work proactively with many people. That's an important part of what we do. But last year we had 63 -- we attended 63 HOA meetings from our office. There was 47 meetings that were held with the faith community. There was 62 business visits that we helped organize with the Mayor, many of those, and we had at least 221 official public inquiries last year. Those things that we can easily track through e-mails, letters, phone calls that are logged, or those last stop complaints or Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 23 of 58 first stop complaints, as we like to call them. But we are always looking for solutions and try to do the right thing for the community when we are looking at those solutions. Another one of our areas that we focus on are events. Activities and events are part of the way we work to connect with the community outside the walls of City Hall. We just don't do these check boxes when we do these, because they matter that they get us outside of the walls that you have an opportunity to interact with people in different ways. And life is important, because while we were higher than the northwest and national average through the course of the city survey, public involvement and local decision making is an opportunity for improvement here in Meridian and these types of events and activities and activities so create those types of connections to points. So, for town hall meetings, for example, when we are doing town hall meetings we are trying to -- geographically trying to get to different parts of the community and we also -- we look for opportunities to have discussions about issues which are pertinent in that area. So, like when we have town hall meetings, like we focused on the temple or when we were downtown where we had a conversation about the new bus route, you know, we try to see what's going on in the community and create an opportunity for people to come and have the conversations. Much in the same way Coffee with the Mayor. You know, we really need to use this opportunity to get and connect in 12 local businesses and let people see what our new businesses are. We have seen great increased turnout this last year. I don't know how many of you went to the library, that was the first time we had one at the library and we -- it was a great turnout at the library with hitting a new demographic that we probably haven't seen a lot and even for the ones we did, with training and Coleman Homes and Gramercy Park. They all brought in some new people that we haven't seen before. State of the City, we do that annually. Six, seven hundred people, 182 people at Meridian Business, our office works with that group to help make that a success. And, then, our Neighborhood Star Award where we had about a hundred people show up for the same people who received awards. Programming. This is another thing we will look at from our office. And, really, our office is focused on some of the youth programming and in accordance with the city survey again, 26 percent of the respondents identified programs for youth as an item that the city should prioritize. That was the third highest item in the survey, but I'm proud of the things that we are doing in our office related to youth and that we have been able to even expand that from not just the MYAC, but down into the middle schools with one of their -- with their youth safety summit that they were able to do this last year and the work that we are going to continue to do that you will hear a little more about later. But the CEO book club now in its ninth year. We had seven at the -- seven of our sponsors this year out of the eight are return from last year. It just shows that there is a continuous investment by those people. Our youth scholarships continue to be funded through the State of the City, which is great, and now I'm going to have Ken come up and talk a little bit about MYAC from the office. You hear from MYAC a lot, so it's going to be pretty brief compared to what you normally would, but I know he has got a few things to say. Corder: Thank you, Robert. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, good afternoon. I am -- for the record I'm Ken Corder, the community liaison for the city. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 24 of 58 De Weerd: And employee of the year. Corder: There is that. Thank you. I am very passionate about my position and so I would love to highlight some involvement we have had from our community in some of these programs. Starting with MYAC. Through grant sponsorship opportunities and partnerships, we were able to gain 15,500 dollars to support activities and events, such as the National League of Cities trip we just recently took in Austin and Ball and the Hall, our annual fundraising events and also our culmination of our MYAC year where we have the youth come and dance with the Mayor and myself, hoping some city council representative and their parents. In addition to the -- the new teen roadway safety assessment program and as well as the youth safety summit program. So, it's not just the community giving to MYAC, MYAC also gave back in 2014. They were able -- they were able to raise 2,500 dollars for Buckle Up For Bobby and the American Heart Association, in addition to approximately 500 dollars for the Meridian Food Bank through our recent trunker treat events. There are those numbers. We would prefer those to be a little bit higher. All the aforementioned agencies were very appreciative of the high visibility events that we held here or at the Village at Meridian or other locations. So, MYAC being sort of a -- the teen organization and spotlight, these partner agencies we work with are able to boost of their endeavors as well. So, it truly is a cyclical relationship. In regards to the faith ambassador council, our quarterly meeting of all of the faith entities in Meridian, we have actually seen the number of those attendees double this last year. We were holding the meetings in the Council conference room. We have actually had to move them to Conference Room A and B to accommodate the larger group. We have made a tremendous emphasis on having all of denominations at the table and I am proud to say we have achieved that goal. So, there is a true balance and we come together, the Mayor and I, we challenge our faith group to -- to get involved and truly take church beyond their four walls. We have seen them really -- really ramp up their efforts to help fund care, which is really something that our faith community is passionate about. They saw a need with our food -- with our food bank this -- this holiday season where they were really low on those beginning supplies and -- turkeys and such. So, they just jumped right in and helped with that. Additionally, something that we found from our listening tour last year was that our community is really passionate about homelessness and although Meridian is perceived to be very new and everything is going, you know, we are just like this move where we didn't having this. We had about 400 of our students who were homeless under the age of 18 and 67 over. So we challenged our faith community to get involved with Catch, which is the charitable assistance group that partners with the district, as well as Help Hope, which is another leg with the district helps homelessness for those age 18 and above. They were willing to locate financial resources, as well as lower rents and some of the different needs that some of these folks need, to -- in regards to our Faith Ambassador Council, tremendous group, it's growing by the day, and, again, we challenged them looking forward to a positive 2015 with them. So, one of my -- one of the hats that I wear is I am the liaison to our HOA's, the Chamber of Commerce, as well as various other businesses and there is a little thing on my job description that says job search, that's a huge one for me. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 25 of 58 De Weerd: That's my favorite one. Corder: Mine, too, Mayor. So, one way to sort of acknowledge folks in our community is through the Neighborhood Stars program and I know Robert had mentioned it previously. We did receive -- we did have ten recipients of the neighborhood stars this year as nominated by a neighbor or an acquaintance. The nominations vary from organizations such as Kendall Ford with their Kendall Cares program to the genesis service dog program or just your common HOA -- actually, I shouldn't say common, folks that work at HOAs go above and beyond. Our HOA folks, who do so much in their neighborhood and oftentimes go unnoticed. So, I'd like to actually highlight one of those stories. We had two ladies, Edee White and Carol Standley who are absolutely passionate about the removal of puncture vines, also known as goat heads. If you're a bike -- bicycle enthusiast you will know that they will damage your tires, but these goat heads are actually oftentimes located near our playing fields, primarily -- case in point would be Sawtooth. So, these ladies, they take bread sacks, put them over their shoes, and actually go out and walk around and dance on them. Took the story to MYAC, the new council actually would like to get involved with them and so we are going to be having a dance party sometime this year, because they -- De Weerd: A goat head dance party Corder: I goat head dance party. I know. We intended to do this goat head removal with them as part of Rake Up Meridian, but it's hard to remove goat heads or leaves when there are nine inches of snow. So, we will be making this up later on. But as a result of this goat head removal we will permanently be part of Rake Up Meridian. So, a little victory for the community as a result of the Neighborhood Stars Award. So, I know this is a strategic look ahead, but in order to look ahead we must look back. So, I wanted to report on these same entities next year and I want to thank you for the opportunity to serve our community. I will stand for questions. De Weerd: Any questions for Ken? Okay. Thank you, Ken. Simison: Okay. So, moving on. And I should have just had Kaycee come right back up, instead of me coming up here, so, Kaycee, you can kind of come up and talk about the communications priorities for 2015. Emery: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, this is my favorite slide. I am very excited about the year to come. First and foremost you see there is a website redesign. I met with the team that's working on that. It's a local Meridian business and the website looks fantastic from a design point -- standpoint. Now, we have a lot of work ahead of us. We have to map it out and, then, put it together with all of our IT components. So, there is more work to be done, but we are looking at mid March for that completion. So, that is definitely something you will see come to fruition in 2015 and that's very exciting. And, again, that's where the resident in me helps as we start to design this stuff, because I'm on a website paying my utility bill. I have been on the website trying to find events going on, what's going on in the park. So, all of that is in Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 26 of 58 the back of my head as I design this website. What are residents going to want right when they come to our website. So, that's helpful. Next on the list is the stream town halls. We do want to -- we do want to be able to stream these town halls for our residents, because people want to be involved, they just can't always make it to the location. Another thing I'd like to look at, another component, is to do webinar sorts where they can even be interactive, ask questions via that webinar tool. So, that's something we are researching right now and looking into, but we are definitely looking at making -- streaming something that is -- something our residents can expect anytime we have a town hall meeting, which I think that will be really good for outreach to our community as well. When it comes to increasing connections, we want to do that across the board on social media. Social media can be a very powerful tool if used correctly and so we are really bolstering our social media. Since I have been here we have implemented a platform tool where we can schedule posts, so if we know there is going to be road construction delays, we can schedule that post to go out right before those road construction delays made the day before, so we don't forget it, because there is constant information coming in and we want to share that with our residents, so we have implemented that tool and we are using that, the few of us that are on social media. We have also added Linkedln, so we will be communicating with people via Linkedln, Twitter, Facebook is a big one, and YouTube. YouTube is where all of our videos will sit and I'm going to try and push those out on social media as well to bring people back to our YouTube page and one thing about the Facebook is I hope that all of you have liked our Meridian City Hall page and if you have we want to double the likes on that page this year. So, please, share that page with your friends, tell them they will not regret following it. We are going to have lots of information, maybe some fun things, do faces in Meridian. We are going to introduce people to some residents across the community. So, it will be an information stop and some fun as well. We are really excited about all of our social media initiatives. De Weerd: And, Kaycee, I think it would be important on the faces of Meridian that we want to highlight and show who are the faces of Meridian. Our residents and those people that are out there, like our Neighborhood Star Awards, the unsung heroes that are making Meridian this premier place to live. So, if you have some recommendations, we are always interested to meet people, to hear their story and to share it. So, please, let Kaycee know as we -- as we can -- to really shine the spotlight on our residents and what they are doing in their neighborhoods to make this a great place to be, so -- Emery: Yes. That is a fantastic idea. In fact, my e-mail address is kemery -- k-e-m-e-r-y @meridiancity.org. Anytime you have a faces of Meridian idea or even just a post you think is relevant to the community, you can send it my way. It doesn't mean that I will post it, that's part of my job is to be a filter of what we think is actually relevant to our residents, but, still, just send it my way and that's very helpful to get as much information out there as possible and that's part of our community service, too, to our residents is to get that information out to them in all avenues. Communications or branding plan. I am a huge branding nut. The people in the Mayor's office that work with me have already realized this. I want to have Navy blue and gold day around -- in Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 27 of 58 the city where everyone has to wear Navy blue and gold, like they do blue and orange on Boise State days -- De Weerd: Or green and yellow or some ugly color like that. Bird: I don't think anybody wants to wear green today. Emery: No. No. No. No, we are not doing that. But we are very much -- I love -- I love our symbols, I love our branding, Navy blue and yellow, I really want to see that everywhere, I want people to identify that with Meridian. I have even been looking at this wall throughout this meeting wondering if we need to paint the wall back there in a blue -- I'm a little bit of a branding nut, but we will be looking at the communications plan to make it really effective and to make sure that all of the material we are putting out into the community is very branded, so that when people know when they get something they know it has come from the City of Meridian. It's really important in identifying yourself with your residents. We want to be proactive in media relations and part of that includes department training for media publications. So, I'm looking forward to that, training everyone on how to best deliver the city's message, no matter who is talking to them, whether it's a reporter or just a friend or a resident, just always being able to deliver our message correctly. And, finally, we want to work on a welcome video for new customers. How this will be delivered we are still -- we are still thinking about this, but We -- we did put out the idea of maybe a thumb drive. When you first move to the city you get a thumb drive from us and it has a video on there and it says Meridian on the thumb drive. It's something they can reuse, but it also has that welcome video that they have that welcomes them to the city and talks to them about the amenities that they have here. So, that's about it. Does anyone have any questions? De Weerd: Any questions for Kaycee? Bird: I just got a statement. Don't bring up the black and gold, though. Okay? Emery: Those are nice colors. All right. Well, thank you so much for your time De Weerd: Thank you, Kaycee. Simison: The other goals and priorities that we are going to have for our office this year -- the listening tour, you heard Ken say on the listening tour about 16 months ago, but if the city survey is, you know, putting on through the running test, this is just, you know, going through your doctor's office and having them take your blood pressure, but we will be out meeting with probably 150 to 200 folks here in the community to get their feedback on how we are doing. We are going to be launching a Mayor's Walking Club for kids. There will be more information coming out about this, but we have got a great partner set up with Blue Cross at this point in time on that -- on that program, so more information coming. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 28 of 58 De Weerd: Well -- and just to add to that, just met with St. Luke's yesterday, too, who is really interested in that as a community partner and a lot of this stems from the Mayor's walking challenge in October. We had seven elementary schools that participated. Our talk letters. Peregrine had 100 percent participation from all of their students in their school that walked in the walking challenge and Ponderosa Elementary, who is the leader in all elementary schools in the valley and I'm sure the state, they walked over 7,000 miles and so it's just incredible the energy from these -- these kids and just the excitement. Hey, I was even crowned Queen Tammy at River Valley. So, I got the first sash I have every had in my life and so it was really fun. The kids are inspired to be active and the Mayor's Walking Club is really -- the idea was to continue to challenge them to walk, not just the month of October, but year around and to make it fun and we do hope that it transitions into the history walk, into the Meridian -- Move It Meridian and other activities that fits into our strategies for our five year strategic plan. Simison: And speaking of strategic plan,, you see on there strategic plan implementation. That's a big one, which we don't know exactly how that's going to be working. We know that our office will have a major roll in making sure that that is implemented. So, more to come on that, but that would be one of our goals and priorities to make sure that there is a process and accountability towards that plan. De Weerd: And we are hoping with Lori Jones sitting in the office she looked at that youth market or youth farmers market and thought, uh, how can FFA be involved in that. So, we are planting a seed, Lori, and bringing a unique farmer's market to the City of Meridian that's a nitch that will not be replicated anywhere else and, again, show our strategy and priority to youth in our community. Simison: The last one I'm going to mention, then, is Do The Rights and I'm going to mention that by saying you will find out more about that at the State of the City, so -- Zaremba: Stay tuned. Simison: -- stay tuned on that. So, future goals. I just wanted to use this time really quick to give you a precursor to what you might see in the form of budget enhancements this next year from the Mayor's office. Some of the things we talked about doing is we would like to update the City of Meridian videos. Kaycee mentioned a welcome video. We do have some videos -- it's been about four years since they were last done. They will probably be updated, so that may be something we look is to do a budget enhancement if we need to do that. The other thing is newsletter in the utility bills. When you look back at the city survey where do people get their information from the city, the number one place that they identified was the utility bills and, you know, there is a cost to put something in the utility bills. It's not being budgeted for now, so we were talking about doing a small quarterly newsletter that we can put out in the utility bills. But there would be a cost to that as it's done by a third -party vendor and it's not something we can just pay for ourselves. So, with that you will see those here in about seven months. But Todd already sent out the information to us, so it's coming real soon. So, with that I will stand for any questions or comments. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 29 of 58 De Weerd: Council, any questions? I see none. Thank you, Robert. Simison: Then I'm just going to stay here with Emily. Milam: Thanks, Robert. Bird: Thanks, Robert. De Weerd: Yes. And thank you to the Mayor's office staff. You are awesome. Just saying. Bird: We are not going to say that. B. Mayor's Office: Resolution No. 15-1044: A Resolution Appointing John Nesmith to Seat 5 of the Meridian Impact Fee Committee De Weerd: Yes, we are. I already did. It's on the record. Okay. Council, under Item 7-D, you have Resolution 15-1044, a resolution appointing John Nesmith to the seat -- Seat 5 of the Meridian Impact Fee Committee. That seat was vacated by Treg Bernt. It's traditionally been held by someone in the Parks Commission and so John stepped up and I'm asking for your confirmation of this appointment. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we approve Resolution No. 15-1044, appointing John Nesmith to Seat 5 of the Meridian Impact Fee Committee. Zaremba: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 7-13, the appointment of John Nesmith. Mayor --Madam Clerk. Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, absent; Zaremba, yea; Borton, absent; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT. C. Legal Department: Percent for Art Discussion Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 30 of 58 De Weerd: Item 7-C is under our Legal Department for discussion from the Mayor's -- or the Meridian Arts Commission to get some feedback from our Council members. Kane: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of Council. I'm Emily Kane. I'm a deputy city attorney in the City Attorney's Office and I provide staff support to the Meridian Arts Commission. So, I'm here today to talk to you about a proposal kind of kicked off by the Meridian Arts Commission for a percent for arts ordinance. On their November 13th meeting the Meridian Arts Commission recommended that Robert and I start a conversation with City Council moving toward the adoption of a percent for art ordinance in the City of Meridian. A percent for art -- what is a percent for art ordinance? It is an ordinance establishing that a percentage of a government agency's budget or other revenue source will be invested in public art and that money can be used for installation, maintenance, or administration, depending on how the ordinance is set up, but it's just a commitment that a government agency will spend part of its budget on public art. So, why do we need public art? Art, as you have heard before I'm sure, enhances the esthetics and character of a community for residents, people that live here, and people that visit Meridian. It contributed to economic development and makes this an attractive community for businesses and families. It establishes a sense of place, so it makes it so that our community is different from other communities and helps us express our identity as a community, it helps neighborhoods express their identity. It's also mentioned in our Comprehensive Plan, Meridian envisions a vibrant arts and entertainment scene, integrating the arts experience into every day life and enhancing the spirit of our city. So, it's something that we value as a community. A percent for art ordinance is a way of funding public art. It's a long term commitment to art in our community. It expresses our community's values and makes it kind of official, makes it a more formal statement of our -- the value that we place on art and it ties funding to a consistent source. Several other agencies nationwide have percent for art ordinances. Twenty-five states, including our neighbors, Oregon, Montana, and Washington. At least 350 other cities -- I realize that that's a pretty old statistic, so at this point that's probably much higher. Approximately a third of that are cities that are smaller than 150,000 people. There are six cities in Idaho that have percent for art ordinances. One of them is Boise. They have a 1.4 percent percent for art ordinance, so 1.4 percent of all city projects go toward art. They have a Department of Arts and History and a visual arts advisory committee that make recommendations regarding the investment of that money in art. Boise has spent about three million dollars on public art from the percent for arts ordinance since 2001 and they are -- I have learned that their art projects are connected to the project -- or the department that generates those funds. So, for example, if it's a public works project that generates the percent for art monies, then, that art is at that public works facility or another public works facility. Simison: And just the -- I'm sorry. The airport is an example of it. They also have their own fund and, then, the funds are -- things are done there at the airport. Kane: Correct. Coeur d'Alene also has a percent for art ordinance. Theirs is 1.33 percent. Their parks director administers those funds. They also have an arts commission and they have spent about 630,000 dollars since its passage in 2000. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 31 of 58 Hailey is about 1.25 percent of all city projects over 25,000. They have an arts commission and they have spent about 135,000 dollars since 2008 on public art. Moscow is at one percent of city projects over 25,000. They have an arts director and an arts commission and they have invested about 83,000 dollars since 2009. Rexburg, their percent for art is 1.25 percent of city projects over 25,000. Their parks and recreation department -- well, their parks and recreation and cultural arts director, with their arts council and city beautification committee administer those funds and they have invested about 246,000 dollars since 2005. Meridian has expressed a commitment to art in their Comprehensive Plan. One of their goals -- one of your goals say that the city will allow all Meridian residents and visitors an opportunity to experience public art and, more specifically, a goal is to evaluate and establish a percent for art ordinance. Our city code provision in empowering the arts commission also expressed some of those goals with regard art to highlight our rich cultural resources, enhance our esthetic environment, promote the development of economic, educational, recreation and tourism opportunities through public art. So, there is some decision points if you would like to implement a percent for art ordinance. One is the purpose of funds, the source of the funds, the percentage to be dedicated to art and, then, who and how we would administer those funds, just the mechanics of getting that done. So, if it's all right, I think we would like to have a discussion about maybe the -- how that might look and what might work, some direction from you about how to set up our own percent for art ordinance in Meridian. Simison: Yes. And I'll just chime in right here. I think that when you -- I will preface really -- as Emily mentioned is to come to you and find out if you're interested in having a percent for art ordinance and, if so, what that might look like. There are many different ways -- you saw what most of the other cities here in the Treasure -- around the state did, where they have dedicated a one percent of capital projects on things over 25,000. But we have had discussions with the Finance director, Mayor, and I know others that there are other options, we don't need to tie it to a capital -- capital amount in that process. We could look at doing a percentage of what's returned to the capital improvement fund at the end of each year. We could tie something to population, which has a not to exceed number, so, you know, as our population grows a little bit more goes in there, but you would have a number that you're comfortable with. But those are some of the -- some of the options that we could be looking at and, then, there is also another decision point related to funding, depending upon what you -- how you may or may not want to do something is the Enterprise Fund, should the Enterprise Fund be utilized for things that -- and we know that they have to be used on -- on Public Works property, if it was to do it, but, for example, reservoirs in the park -- at Settler's Park, if you would like -- if it would be great on that, it could be a percent of art for those type of projects or at the various well sites around the community. I don't think that we have personally talked about going towards the projects that Boise has done in terms of manhole cover art, you know, that we don't know that you can see a lot driving 35 or 55 miles an hour to maybe appreciate some of those pieces, but those are other decision points in terms of what type of projects will we be looking at. Will we be looking at primarily capital projects, do we use the arts commission's strategic plan or do we need to create a new one that would focus on specific type of projects here in the community, Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 32 of 58 say that this could only be used for public art projects -- in essence, the 25,000 dollars, or to implement this street box art program would be another example. So, that's where we are. We'd like to open it up for any questions you may have or any comments the Mayor may have on -- on this topic. De Weerd: Thank you, Robert and Emily. Questions for Council? Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Does the arts commission have a recommendation or a request that they -- for us to proceed? Is it more just to gauge our thoughts and feedback? Kane: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Cavener, the arts commission did establish a subcommittee and started digging into some of those details, so there are -- not specifically a recommendation, but certainly some ground has been covered by members of the commission. I have also done some research and I have a draft prepared, but without direction from Council -- there are a number of blanks to fill in. So, the short answer is -- is, no, the arts commission does not have a recommendation with regard to the mechanics of the ordinance. Certainly they could make those recommendations, but for now it was -- it's a general recommendation that we move forward. De Weerd: I think it would be safe to say that the arts commission -- they are appointed to the arts commission because they have a dedication to public art and so they are looking for something that is a funding source that can progress the goal of public art in our community. They are hoping to know kind of from Council what are the sideboards, what is the city's vision that they can utilize to help bring back a recommendation that's -- that fits within the vision and the sideboards that -- that Council would support. It's -- it's hard to work with a blank sheet of paper and know what the interest and the commitment is from the decision makers, you don't want -- it's kind of like going in and buying a car and walking away saying did -- did I get a good deal, did I pay too much, did -- you just never know. So, they are looking for the sideboards. Ms. Milam. Milam: Madam Mayor. I support the idea -- the percent for art, but as far as the mechanics go, I mean I don't -- that's the same thing, blank piece of paper, you know, where do we start. I would love to see some recommendations or see -- you know, what other people have to say, but I definitely support this project. The ordinance. Simison: If I could speak at least for -- if you're looking for some recommendations based upon at least what has been presented. I think from staffs perspective, from the things that we feel most comfortable with would be either tying it to a population figure, if we were looking at a not to exceed type of number. Secondarily would be a percent that would be returned from the capital improvement fund each year. Again, tied to a not to exceed number. The issue with that one -- and that was some of the Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 33 of 58 recommendations, both from the finance director and others -- some years you don't have anything to return from -- from those funds. Some years you have a lot. You know, it really varies and I think that part of the goal is to try to come up with what is the city comfortable with in a dollar amount. No one's asking for a million dollars, but I think that they would like, you know, more than 2,000. 1 mean you can't do a lot with 2,000 if the goal is to try to put public art into the community. So, that -- that would almost be my first question for Council is if you have a dollar figure in mind about what you think would be appropriate, we can work towards what type of mechanisms are out there to do that. Milam: Madam Mayor? Robert, so why do you recommend doing it different from the way that every other city in Idaho has done it? Simison: We think for transparency reasons. Rather than hiding it in -- and I'm not saying other people are hiding it, but rather than burying it in a one percent for every project that gets done, just you're much more open about one lump sum transfer, for lack of a better term, you know, carving out a portion that you know is for that. And that was really the comments we heard was -- to do it this way, other than the way that other people, is better for transparency. At least that was the thought. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: And, Robert, I agree one hundred percent on that and -- but I have no idea how much money -- great idea. Support it. Now we got to figure out the mechanics of -- and, you know, public art and stuff goes on regardless of what the economy is going on. You know, if the economy goes down you still might be in the middle of some public art and you don't want your funding to go away. So, tying it to certain -- like projects and stuff -- projects right now, yeah, we are a new city, we are growing fast. The other cities that we got up on the screen there are old cities that aren't growing near the percent that we are. So, you can tie it to projects, but I'm like you, Robert, I want that thing transparent, so that everybody knows where that money is coming from. Nothing is hidden. Even though we don't want to hide it, it can get hidden. But I don't know where -- I don't know the amount or -- I think the commission -- I think the commission is -- are the people that should come back and say we'd like to work with this amount of money a year, that we can -- then we know what we can do and, then, we -- you guys can sit down and come back with us with a recommendation of how we obtained that amount every year. Simison: If I could -- and this is a cart and a horse discussion, because I think they are in the exact same place. If you look at what was -- what has been spent, I mean to do the Under The Sky and Dreaming piece, you know, was about 100,000 dollars. So, if you were to look at funding that's 50,000 dollars a year, every other year you could do one large project or each year you could do one, maybe two smaller projects, if -- if the goal is to put -- I think the one that was done over in Centennial Park, the park -- thank Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 34 of 58 you. Piece. I think that was about -- was that about a 25,000 dollar piece, if I'm not -- if I'm not mistaken. Bird: Kentucky Fried Chicken I think was about 35,000. Simison: Exactly. So, I think that -- I think that we are in that -- we are in that area somewhere probably -- De Weerd: It wasn't a chicken, by the way. Bird: No. No. De Weerd: Just for the record. The welcome piece of art Simison: I think if I could just speak from a lay person's stand -- staff standpoint, I think if you look at the current budget that this Council does, you would put -- you're putting about 100,000 dollars a year into pathways each year. I think that there is a certain amount of money that's trying to be earmarked for streetlight type projects. I wouldn't see this being above those type of investments. So, I think that you're talking below a hundred thousand dollars for certain, but that's -- yeah, I personally like tying it to population, do a half a cent per person, with a not to exceed of 50,000 dollars once you hit the 100,000 mark and if Council wants to revisit that when we reach 100,000 people in the community, they would be welcome to do that. But we can definitely bring back some proposals. I know the Finance director is supportive and wants to find a way to do this that is transparent and meets the goals. If the Council is willing, we will bring back some options. Bird: That would be my -- Madam Mayor, that would be my recommendation. Bring us back some -- what -- you know, what you -- what they think they could use a year and -- you know, and bring it back to us and with some ideas of how we can obtain it. And I have no problem with doing like we do with pathways or something, sticking it in as a budget item, a line item, under the arts commission. You know, I have no problems doing that. I just want it to be very transparent and know some kind of amount. I don't want to give 100,000 if they only need 50. De Weerd: Then added to the transparency is what those dollars would also be used for and tying it to the five year strategic plan or what would be qualifying projects. So, some of those items for discussion for Council would -- would at least give a better sense to Council what their vision is and to the commission in return what the Council's thinking is. Mr. Zaremba, did you have something? Zaremba: Just to chime in with what's already being said. I think that I agree with it. I like the idea of -- of having a -- a specific line item for art projects. I think that's far more transparent than saying every other project will make a contribution, you kind of lose that in the budget if you do it. I think having a specific line item where we can say this is the proper or appropriate amount of money to go. I think this has been said as well and Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 35 of 58 putting that together, look back and see what we have spent on art in the last five years, let's say, because we have made investments and just add that up for us. If somebody can sort that out of what -- of what's been done, add that up for us and use -- maybe use that as a guide. But go for it. Yes. Kane: Thank you. De Weerd: Mr. Borton Borton: Okay. Madam Mayor. I'm really glad to see this come forward. From my perspective I would -- I would want the arts commission to take the lead and defer to their kind of ground of level expertise in ways to structure it. It's not a matter of -- of placing a line item on a budget I don't think and us electing to fund it or not fund it, so to speak, but really -- and a lot of things that we try to do are set up a structure for this city to be successful when all of us are gone, 20, 30, 40 years, and I envision if we are going to do something like this it needs to be structured in a way that it doesn't necessarily raise adequate revenues in year one, it's intended to be consistently applied and grown over the years to do that long term. So, with those guidelines I think the arts commission really is the right group to bring back that direction. One area -- and maybe when you started you might have mentioned it and I apologize if I missed it. There are some communities that have structured these where private enterprise and development is assessed a fee as part of a development project, allocate a portion of the -- the project cost towards arts -- I didn't know if you talked about that. That's a totally different animal -- much more problematic in my eyes. But it doesn't sound like that's what you're discussing. Okay. Good. Kane: Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, no, I understand that's an option, but as far as I know no one in Idaho does that and we didn't explore that as an option. Borton: Okay. Kane: I think in other states it's called an art -- art in public spaces. It's almost an art in lieu fee -- or fee in lieu of -- they -- you sub in art for something else. So, it's an incentive -- incentive program. But that's -- you're right, that's different. Borton: Okay. Simison: And, Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, if I'm not mistaken, I'm going to kind of defer towards -- look towards Caleb and Bruce in the audience, but I believe businesses have the opportunity to put art in as part of meeting their development applications if they so choose to, for certain -- if that's the case. So, I think there is an option for development if they want to do that. De Weerd: I think there is a qualifying allowance for open space or -- or other showing amenities as part of commercial developments and -- yeah. And maybe it's even a Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 36 of 58 matter of strengthening some of that language, too, to get those incentives. Okay. Does it -- yes, Mr. Cavener. I'm sorry. Cavener: Sorry. If I could maybe just chime in real quick. And Councilman Borton put my point I think probably much more eloquently than I will. But I will maybe -- maybe I'm in right field here on my own, but I for one am completely in favor of one percent of all capital projects going towards art. My concerns with a line item, that's something that can easily go away and I don't want to have that happen and to the -- to the point of transparency I think that if it's something that we do moving forward, we are transparent about that and maybe it's one percent of the capital projects with an annual cap. And, again, I may be alone here in right field, but I, for one, am completely in support of that and I'm happy that the arts commission is doing this. But ultimately I think we want to see the arts commission come back with -- with a plan. Simison: And, Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, when we say a line item, I think what we are talking about is an ordinance. So, it will be established, it will not be subject to Council's discretion, unless you change the ordinance. Cavener: Okay Simison: For whatever is envisioned, whether that's a percent for art or a set amount. If I can just ask one other question. Any thoughts on Public Works type of projects, if you think that funds from that should go towards beautifying the Public Works facilities? Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: If we go off of projects, certainly, they should -- their projects should be treated the same as anything else. And I realize it has to go on their deal, but they do a lot of stuff where public arts can go. De Weerd: But I do believe it should be related to the utility as well. Bird: Yes. De Weerd: So, I think, again, setting parameters of what would qualify and what that would be. Simison: Okay. De Weerd: Anything further from Council? Bird: I have none. De Weerd: Thank you both. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 37 of 58 Simison: Thank you. Kane: Thank you. D. Finance Department: FY2015 Budget Amendment: FY2015 Carryfoward — Grants De Weerd: 7-D is under our Finance Department. I will turn this over to Todd. Lavoie: Good evening, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. I'm here to present to you the -- or discuss with you the fiscal year 2015 carry forward for grant funding. This is an annual protocol kind of function that we do. These are all funds that were presented to -- to you as a Council in years past. This is just a process to carry the funds from fiscal '14 into '15 to allow the project managers, program managers for the grant funds to move forward with spending authority and this year the value that we are requesting to carry forward from 2014 into 2015 is a little over 227,000 dollars. So, again, all those funds were approved and presented to you as a Council in prior years. This is just a -- part of the protocol to get the funding and spending authority for the project managers for any grant funds for fiscal year '15. So, with that I stand for any questions. De Weerd: Maybe you need to work with Robert in teaching him how to present a short discussion. I'm kidding, Robert. Council, any questions for Todd? Bird: I have none, Mayor. Lavoie: Thank you. De Weerd: We like that. Short and sweet. Lavoie: Perfect. Have a good night. De Weerd: Again, this is just procedural and you have already seen each of the grants that this represents as the carry forward. Any questions or do I have a motion? Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move that we approve the FY 2015 budget amendment and FY 2015 carry forward grants of the amount approximately 227,000 dollars. Milam: Second. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 38 of 58 De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Madam Clerk, will you call roll. Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, absent; Zaremba, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. E. Parks and Recreation: Storey Park Development Dog Park Contract Update De Weerd: Item 7-E is under our Parks and Recreation Department. You will have an update on where we are at with our dog park. Barton: Good afternoon, Madam Mayor, Members of Council. Wanted to give you an update on our dog park project at Storey Park. As you remember last summer we bid the project and -- and bids came back significantly over budget, so we recommended that we didn't award that -- any of the contracts and kind of go back to the drawing board, which we did. So, we took the project back and looked at some value engineering items. We looked - we had an eye towards things that wouldn't compromise the project, did some additional soils testing and we were able to reduce sections under concrete and still -- still maintain the integrity of the project. That, together with a favorable bidding climate in mid December -- we opened bids on December 19th. We were able to bring the project back below our budget and would like your approval of the five contract bid packages for the amount -- in the amount of 929,721 dollars. And with that I will stand for any questions. De Weerd: Thank you, Mike. Council, any questions? Bird: I have none. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: This is kind of a sideways question, I guess. Are we doing any work out there right now? Barton: Madam Mayor, Councilman Zaremba, thanks for the question. That's a Public Works sewer project that is part of the iron and manganese removal system for the well house that is bringing sewer across the property. They are installing a manhole that we are going to tie into for our restroom building. So, it's not a parks project, but it's on part of the park that will be developed. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 39 of 58 Zaremba: Great. I'm glad to hear that. Part of my concern as I drive by on Watertower every once in awhile, I have never been absolutely certain where the property line is between what we traded with speedway or the dairy board and it always looks to me like they are encroaching into our property and I was concerned about that. But if that's our work that Public Works is doing, that's fine. Barton: That's our work. Zaremba: Okay. Thank you. F. Parks and Recreation & Purchasing: Approval of Award of Bids and Agreements for "Storey Park Development - Construction" to multiple contractors per the attached schedule for a Not -To -Exceed total amount of $929,721.66. These awards are the result of the Formal IFB issued December 1, 2014 and opened December 19th. Fourteen bids were received for the five different bid packages. De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Well, Item 7-F is also related to this item. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I'm going to do this -- I move that we approve the contracts -- and I'm going to give the contractor and the amount for each bid, so it is publicly. Bid number one package is sidewalk, utility and asphalt, Alta Construction for $400,233.66. Bid package number two for landscaping and irrigation is Sterling Landscape for 263,657 dollars. Number three -- bid package number three for fencing and gates goes to Butte Fence for 106,500 dollars. Bid package number four, the prime building package goes to Wright Brothers for 126,126 dollars. Bid package number five, electrical systems, goes to Energy Enterprise for 31,205 dollars. And with that I move that we approve these contracts. Cavener: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 7-F as read into the record. Any questions or comments? Madam Clerk, will you call roll. Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, absent; Zaremba, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. And thank you, Mike, for you and the team to work on how we could carve -- carve off some items to make it affordable and within budget. Appreciate that. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 40 of 58 MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. G. Community Development: Presentation of Preliminary Findings for Multipurpose & Event Center Project Development Plan by Pegasus Planning & De Weerd: Okay. Item No. 7-G is under our community development project and just for the record I will tell you that we are going to reschedule 7-1 under the Public Works 2014 engineering project close out. Staff had to attend to after hour restrictions, like daycare and that kind of stuff. So, they went home. And so we will reschedule that to another agenda. Thank you, Warren. De Weerd: Bruce. Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Council Members, just a brief introduction before Sean launches into the meat of his presentation. First off, we are very excited to get your thoughts and some preliminary directions for the project development plan for the multi- purpose and event center. You may remember, just by way of explanation, that originally we were looking at three main uses. A number of those that Sean will go through in his presentation came out of the economic development strategy and audit that we did a few months back. First we were going to look at a Conference center as a catalyst project. Also a performing arts center. And, finally, we threw in, really almost for good measure, the idea of an outdoor sports and concert venue. That -- of those three projects, as Sean will describe, we found both data and antidotal evidence that there is a demand for two of them, the conference center and a performing arts center. That is for a right size, right located, properly executed project. Not so much, though, for the outdoor sports and concert venue. I think we wanted to include it, because we knew it would -- it would come up. It certainly wasn't a straw man to be knocked down, it was -- it was definitely an intellectually honest approach to whether or not downtown or anywhere in Meridian could benefit from such a venue, but we just don't feel the same traction or the same demand or really the same level of energy from all of our stakeholders about that particular facility. So, Sean wanted me just to mention that that's -- you know, we can talk about that a bit more. There is more to that discussion than -- than just those brief comments I just made. But I just wanted you to know that that's where we are with that piece and we can get more into this if you want. We are -- of the alternatives that you are going to be seeing and the concepts, there are many, many other possible alternatives, iterations, locations for these uses. What we have tried to do is based upon conversations with numerous stakeholder groups, individuals, folks -- institutions in the community, we have tried to come up with the ones that really rose to the top. Pretty much the cream of the ideas that are out there. And so, really, that's what Sean's going to be presenting. There are many, many other alternatives that could have been presented, but these are the ones that came to the top. So, we are going to be very interested, if you all agree -- Sean will also be giving this same presentation to MDC tomorrow morning and also to chamber as well, our partners in this project. So, excited to get your thoughts on this important project. Sean. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 41 of 58 De Weerd: Welcome back, Sean. Garretson: Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. Let me get situated here. I'm glad Bruce gave that introduction. In all seriousness I actually had about a 45 minute presentation, so I am condensing this into about 15, just in the nature of a long meeting. So, there is going to be some data and charts that I'm not going to go into in a lot detail. Just know that. If you have questions at the end, happy to talk about it. So, Bruce mentioned this a little bit. You remember this slide. The catalyst project that we talked about, the downtown conference center and Venture Meridian were two of those catalyst projects. I understand you might be moving forward with the Venture Meridian, which I think is a great idea. You will see that as a little bit related to what we are talking about today and -- okay. So, what goes into this hole -- I say secret sauce, but this project? You know, ultimately we have been working on this for about two months and we will be coming back in early February for a final presentation and you will get a report then, but we have done a lot of data analysis on the conference center space throughout the region, done some case study analysis, had a business -- online business survey, analyzing sort of what people need in terms of meeting space, what the demand is. Focus groups, interviews, several site visits, and, then, again, a couple presentations with the chamber and urban renewal board. So, we have inventoried all the space within zero to a two mile radius and, then, a five mile radius. In zero to two miles, basically, you have about almost 8,000 square feet of space. In two to five miles you have a total of about 96,000 square feet of conference center meeting room space. Some of that is actually outside of Meridian, kind of on the fringe. You can see geographically on that is kind of distributed, with a lot of that outside of that blue circle is the -- is the zero to two mile radius -- two mile radius. So, what we have done is -- you know, what is the -- what's the demand for future meeting space and if we look at your current meeting space per capita, you're at about 1.26 per square feet. Boise is about 3.4. Eagle is 1.6. Nampa is 3.4. So, it's a pretty conservative ratio and if we just apply that to your future population you're going to need an additional 40,000 square feet of conference center space through 2025. What we are proposing -- we will talk about it here today -- is about half that space. So, the two charts on the right are directly from the online survey. You can see how the businesses responded. There is the need and a demand and interest for more meeting space. A couple of things -- of all the interviews and the focus groups, there is definitely a need for more meeting space in Meridian. Most of the meeting spaces you saw is not in downtown, it's farther from downtown, almost a mile or two miles from downtown. And a couple of those things that we now understand in looking at some of our case studies is that strict municipal conference center spaces that don't have a private component to it, there is always a lot of subsidy that is involved with that, since you know that going into it. And, then, had a lot of conversation with the Boise center and was very gracious with his time. Understood, you know, what they are getting ready to do, you're probably familiar that they are getting ready to expand another 50,000 square feet of space and when they do that, that -- they are doing that specifically to be able to attract a much larger national audience. When that happens a lot of the smaller meetings that they have been having will be looking for additional space. That's -- he also thinks that's actually very good for Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 42 of 58 Meridian. So, just on the performing arts center space -- and we looked at a conference center and, then, a performing arts center space. On the performing arts center space we have met with just about every stakeholder that is with an art or performance arts group in the Boise, Meridian region. There are several groups in downtown Boise that are looking for a new space, particularly the Opera Idaho and -- is it Ballet Boise or Ballet Idaho? De Weerd: Ballet Idaho. Garretson: So, both of those. And that downtown location where they are at, they need to move. They are actually interested in this space, being in Meridian. All of them -- of everybody that we have talked to, they want to be in downtown, they are familiar with what the school district has proposed recently about, well, maybe we can expand upon our performing arts center space. That is not of interest to them and I don't know how to -- I mean not to sound ungrateful, but it's just not the kind of space they really need. The Boise -- the performing arts center space that's in Boise, you may recall there was a similar study that I'm doing for the Boise area and -- and it recommended that one of the existing facilities, not the Morrison facility, can be expanded, but, then, Morrison came out and said, you know what, we know our space is too large, it's cavernous, we will just put a drape in the back and we will call it a day and, basically, at that point the whole project fell -- fell apart. So, this idea of the school district, you know, providing that sort of an alternative, is similar in feel to that process that was worked through with Boise. Space needs that they need. All of them need about 800 to 1,200 seats. They need an orchestra pit, some office space for some of the arts groups and, then, a couple of things at the bottom I will come back to. We have found one location, the Harvest Church, which I think would be an ideal location. If you haven't been in that, it currently has 800 seats, it's a very nice performance and would accommodate everything. It would need to be expanded a little bit and we are doing another site tour tomorrow with some folks that can give us some cost estimates for making that happen. Here is just quickly the case studies that we kind of looked at. We are -- we profiled every one of those, too, and it's going to be in a final report. So, we have looked at, you know, what may be successful, et cetera. What the cost per square foot was and it really ranges from a hundred dollars -- 150 dollars a square foot to around 750 dollars a square foot, which is extremely expensive, but if this is something you want to pursue, that cost estimate is something that would be directly dependent what kind of finish out you want. So, when we -- after all that analysis, after all the stakeholder meetings, et cetera, we know -- we now know what types of projects or project concepts that we are looking for and it really breaks down into these two types. You can see Concept A and, then Concept B-1 and B-2 at the bottom. Concept A is the performing arts center. Concept B is a conference center. B-1 is without a hotel, B-2 is with a hotel. So, all of those parameters that we put in there before we started analyzing sites was based on that analysis, based on the stakeholder feedback. So, these are the sites -- we looked at a lot of sites throughout Meridian. Definitely have kind of narrowed it to downtown. So, these are the two main sites that we are looking at. Right next to us, so -- I can color here, right? So, we are right here right now in City Hall, so Meridian, Idaho, Pine, and Main Street. So, this is the -- this is the -- the Harvest Church site, A, and B is what Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 43 of 58 we just referred to as the old city hall site. So, of course, you own this property, Urban Renewal owns this property. So, between the two of you guys you own the majority of that block. I will come back on that. I want to get to some site plans that we have. We took the liberty to kind of go as far as we can on it. So, this is the Harvest Church site. You know, again, the Harvest Church owns a majority of this. This is a small single family or actually duplex residential area caddy corner from the Boys and Girls Club. I think this definitely has great potential being mixed use redevelopment at some point. But this is the sanctuary right here. So, the sanctuary and the performance arts center space is here, but, then, this is a large meeting room space and, then, the basement of that is an unbelievable amount of well finished out -- right now is I think used for children's groups, but they could easily be used for offices, et cetera. And, then, the Harvest Church office here, they own that, in this area up through I think this. So, that's that one site. Again, we will get into a little bit more detail. So, B, as you know, you all own this property here. This is the old city hall. And, again, these are the two urban renewal owned properties. This is where the Children's Theater is right now. This is where the wine venture was going to go to. So, we talked just a little bit about the performing arts center space in that location. So, again, we are just referring to that as the A area. So, the cost of this -- the Harvest Church being reused, repurposed, as a performing arts center space. We know what the cost is. The Harvest Church is actually interested in talking about it, in terms of them selling all of their assets there. And, again, tomorrow we are going to find out what the cost might be to get that up to a -- to a level where it would be adequate for performing arts. You can see some of the uses at the bottom that have definitely expressed interest or they are kind of ready to be on board. Then the -- when you get into that in a little more detail, you can see the purple outline. Again, that's all the Harvest Center -- excuse me -- Harvest Church area. The green area is currently empty. Our recommendation would be just to kind of activate that space with, you know, a food truck area, plaza. This building here we recommend that that would be removed, so that you could have more parking throughout this whole area. And, then, in terms of the pros and cons implementation, the reuse of the church is really the best cost-effective alternative. Having it downtown versus the church, provides a much larger economic impact to the downtown. It would really help with a lot of revitalization, put a lot of more pedestrians on the sidewalks, which would help your retailers. The one thing that's nice is that that sanctuary is only used twice a week, so there is actually in the building now in the short term for the performing arts groups to start talking with them and using that before you go into a much larger facility. Again, it is right across the street from the Boys and Girls Club, so there is some good interaction there. Cons, you know, a green field sight might be better in terms of tailoring to each user needs and also for all the performing arts users are going to have to coordinate. Each of them have about three -- three events per year, but there is a lot of time that they need to set up and stuff like that, so a lot of coordination, but very doable. So, back up on the B on the conference center, so first B-1, which is no hotel, so what we are recommending there is removing the old city hall building, creating more parking for -- for this whole event and, then, this is the location -- primary location down here for the conference center space. So, 18,000 square foot. Building footprint, two stories, 15,000 square foot of conference space on the bottom and, then, on top, if venture lab does move forward moving into city hall -- gets moved Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 44 of 58 in to the second floor of this and, then, I have children's museum, but, you know, I have had a conversation with Discovery Center downtown, they are definitely very happy in that location, but they would be interested in exploring how they could be involved in that -- in that type of a location. I want to just say if this happens, venture lab should -- I believe you should still move forward with that on city hall. The timing for this would probably be, you know, closer to three years out, so you'd still get a very good return on your money and -- and you would build up that entrepreneurship base in the downtown. So, this is sort of a site plan. Brian McClure did these for us. Did a great job, obviously. So, this is with the no hotel. So, it's reversed a little bit, so, again, you can see this is Meridian, Pine, Idaho and Main here. So -- so, that you can see the conference center space where the B is right there and, then, all of the parking that would be for all of this. We really see this whole district becoming sort of a performing arts and conference center district, which I understand -- you know, I think some of the folks in the city have been wanting to have the opportunity to redevelop on a couple of city blocks -- at least one city block. So, I think this gives you that opportunity. Pros and cons. Pros it enlarges both the city -- city -owned property and the urban renewal owned property. You know, construction cost in this example, without the hotel, is just the conference center, so it would be lower. Eliminate that discussion that you have to have with the private sector. A mid size conference center would definitely do well. I think it would be filled up just based on all of our analysis. Cons with it. As I mentioned, the conference centers without the attached hotels sometimes have a little bit difficulty, you know, generating enough revenue to make it work and, then, you know, having a hotel as part of it would really give you much large economic impact downtown. So, B-2, with the hotel -- so, you can see the yellow area now is all the city -owned property. This would be the site for the hotel here and, you know, what we suggest regardless of the hotel, not hotel, this linkage becomes a very important linkage between where the performing arts center main -- main entrance would be with a potential conference center and hotel. I have talked a little bit about this already with the hotel, only about 150 room hotel. We know there is a demand for that, just in our analysis and looking at your occupancy as well, and I think I have talked about the other aspects of the conference center, so I'm going to move forward. So, this is what the site plan looks like in B-2. Again, you can see this -- this pathway connecting the two, the performing arts center over here with the hotel and, then, the conference center in this location. So, pros and cons of that, you can probably guess what I would say there. Again, you're still leveraging both the city and the urban renewal owned properties, again, with a -- with a private sector entity you're probably going to be a little bit more financially sustainable and, again, it's going to generate a much larger economic impact. The cons, on the other hand, you know, it would to the overall project cost, it would take a little bit longer time. You know, right now most hotels are, you know, along Meridian. I am actually staying in the only lodging location next to downtown. What do you think it is? De Weerd: I hope it's not the Knotty Pine. It is Knotty. Garretson: It's an air B and B. Well -- anyway, it's an air B and B right on Meridian Road. So, having that downtown -- having it downtown would just -- you would get Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 45 of 58 more people walking around. So, my last slide here -- I'm just trying to move on from that. De Weerd: I know. I'm just -- that was my outside voice. Garretson: Those who know me know that I would have taken that and run, but I'm biting my lip. So, in terms of next steps. Again, we are going to try and come back February 3rd for a final presentation. You know, at that presentation and the report we will have a lot more on the cost and the implementation. We really need some feedback on this week from you, from your urban renewal agencies, a board and chamber, about the options that we presented, A and B-1 and B-2. Performing arts center in terms of next steps, you can kind of read through this, but I think there are definitely some discussions that can happen right now with Harvest Church and whether or not that's with the city and Harvest Church or with some of the performing arts groups, there is an individual who could potentially be a benefactor for almost all of that. That would not, then, put it on the shoulders of this city, which I think is another reason why to kind of look at that sight. And on the multi -use conference center, again, I would definitely move forward with venture lab I think in the location of city hall and I'm actually south of Austin in San Marcos, I'm opening up a co -working space incubator myself in about 9,000 square feet of space and there the economic development group is providing all of the finish out costs and it works out to be about 70,000, because they recognize that as a city they don't do much entrepreneurship very well. Public sectors don't do entrepreneurship very well at all. So, for them it's the equivalent of one FTE that basically handles that and becomes very successful. So, we will move forward with that. I think it is worthwhile to have some discussion sooner, rather than later with the hotel operator. We did meet the last time I was here with one and, then, based on that I think it's -- it's -- I am so sorry. So, that I think is next steps -- all next steps and with that if you have any questions be happy to answer them. De Weerd: Thank you, Sean. Council, any questions? Bird: I have none at this time. Very good presentation. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: Sean, this might be in the final report, but there was talk about funding tools, a component of making choices: Garretson: Yes. Borton: Other than paying cash to complete some of these projects. Is that included in the more detail? Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 46 of 58 Garretson: Absolutely. Yeah. And we -- we have looked at those options. We are really just waiting to kind of see of all of these -- B-1 and B-2, for example, which one are you all the most interested in us pursuing further and, then, we will focus a lot more on -- on the funding mechanisms and how other communities have done that. So, any feedback you can give me on that tonight would be -- would be helpful. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: Option B-2 is intriguing, at least to have that question answered. It involves much -- a much more robust public-private relationship to make that successful with a hotel, so that probably opens up different tool boxes to make it happen. So, that is the most interesting to me. Garretson: You know -- and there is some interesting things there, too. I mean Marriott, for example, you know, it's -- it's an LDS owned facility, you know, Scentsy has had plans for awhile to have conference center space, but, you know, they may be looking at a different option. So, I think that's an interesting angle for you all there and Scentsy is one that is interested in partnering a little bit, they just want to kind of see what it looks like before they -- before they commit, obviously. De Weerd: I guess just the process on Option B of putting it out for project proposals and that sort of thing, I -- we have never done anything like that, but even a process or an example of -- of what that would look like and so -- and there is -- you have shown two -- two options in blocks and we also have one on the other side of Main Street or on the other side of 2nd, so our -- when you come back will you -- will you further explore other opportunities or -- you just gave us a template of what could be explored? Chatterton: Well, Madam Mayor, Council Members, just a thought on the idea of going out to bid, you all may remember that before the Greater Boise Auditorium District settled on the really fairly recent expansion right where they are downtown at the Center on the Grove, they -- back about six years ago they had actually brought in a developer John Q. Hammons, who was bringing in Marriott as the flag hotel and the idea was a similar model to what Sean was talking about, they were going to create a -- basically a new separate convention center integrated with the hotel. We have learned a lot from talking with Pat Rice and the GBAD folks and I think we might want to talk to them a little bit about how they were going to navigate exactly that -- that issue, Mayor, and rebuilding it on GBAD owned property, but they were also going to try to deal with the issue of a privately developed convention center that would also serve the public interest and how they were going to navigate that and get the room nights and the public interest, in addition to filling up rooms for Marriott and giving revenue for Marriott, would have been - I think that -- asking those questions I think would have been -- they thought that they -- they could have successfully done that. I think we should talk with them some more about that. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 47 of 58 Bird: Definitely. Garretson: You know, related to that, the -- the city -- we were out doing a co -office space, they did a Marriott Hotel conference center that is private -public partnership. So, the CVB is involved in that, so I can get a lot of detail on one that's actually been built, too. De Weerd: Oh, perfect. Garretson: To your question about sites, we looked at the -- at the site. We looked at a lot -- we looked at so many different sites. The sites that we presented today really are the recommended sites for us to -- we are recommending those as the sites for these projects for a lot of reasons. Some of those sites across the street, there is just a lot of questions still in terms of ownership, you know, who is --who is doing what, etcetera. It would be an ideal site to do it. You know, it's a great front entrance gateway into the city and that was actually the first site we talked about. But I think because of those issues I brought up we are recommending these other sites. De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions from Council at this point? Garretson: Thank you. H. Community Development: Pine Avenue, Meridian Road to Locust Grove - Non -Transportation Elements and Potential Partnerships with the Ada County Highway District and the Meridian Development Corporation De Weerd: Thank you. Okay. Item 7-H under Community Development also. McClure: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I'm here to speak with you tonight about that Pine Avenue project from Meridian Road to Locust Grove. The purpose of the project is to improve bike -- bike and pedestrian connectivity. I do want to emphasize up front this is not necessarily a road project. There are some roadway components, but the emphasis is on the biking and pedestrian connectivity. City Council has previously indicated that they would be willing to partner on this downtown entryway project, so the purpose of this discussion is to understand a little bit better what you may mean by that and what you maybe want to do with that. If at the end of this discussion Council is still agreeable, then, tomorrow morning staff will be meeting with MDC to, basically, have the same presentation discussion and at some point we will have to get into an agreement and a cost share with ACHD and MDC. Just as a note as it moves through. There is a number of bullet points. Bike lanes always are one of the required -- or one of the included elements, except for between Meridian and Main and in all cases with the proposed options -- option one is more expensive and option two is less expensive. Just a little background. Last year you approved this cross-section and adopted it as part of the Comprehensive Plan. This is from Meridian Road to East 3rd. It has a similar cross-section from East 3rd to approximately East Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 48 of 58 6th. This location here -- everything you see here sits within the existing right of way. There would be no impact to property owners within that area. Noted, however, the curb alignment in here is in an ideal location. What ACHD is currently proposing has a curb alignment in a different location. It's closer to the center line of the road, which means -- or farther out from the center line of the road, which means you have less space between back of curb and edge of right of way to make the streetscape and parkway improvements. Because this is not a roadway project and because relocating the curb and adjusting the surface of the roadway and adjusting the crown, with the expense of it, it is not included with this. So, I just want you to understand as I move forward that some of these don't work as well as we would like them to, but it's because we are dealing with costs that are much lower than the typical wipe out the roadway and redo it sort of thing. So, this is -- I'm going to go through these in chunks. I'm not going to break it down into each section. If at the end of it you would like to get into more details we can certainly do that. This is a smaller chunk, because it's unique. It is the section from -- of Pine between Meridian Road and Main Street. It is the one section that does not have a bike lane, which is why I kind of wanted a special look at it. This is because the signal at both Main and Meridian Road has a turn lane. There is also on - street. There is also on -street parking on both sides and so that limits your ability to have bike lanes on the street. As a result of this all of the options you see here would incorporate shared zones in the street and, then, children of people who were sensitive to riding in the street on a bike would have to use the sidewalks. Option one, which is -- or I'm sorry. ACHD's baseline scope, which is what they are going to do regardless; includes retain the existing sidewalk, usually four to five feet, especially on the north side of the street. South sidewalk includes seven and a half foot parking and new curb and gutter where it does not exist already, primarily on the north side of the street. Option one is a seven foot sidewalk, eight foot buffer, and eight and a half foot parking. There are possible right of way impacts to this and, again, that's on the north side of the street. The south side of the street is already complete. Option two, which is preferred, is a seven foot sidewalk, six foot buffer, and seven and a half foot parking and, then, option three, which would be the least costly, is six foot sidewalks, six foot buffer and eight and a half foot parking. Main Street to East 3rd is kind of the bulk of this project. It is the area typically considered to be within the downtown. It's kind of where the urban renewal area ends off of East 5th, East 6th area. ACHD's baseline scope, it includes using existing sidewalk where possible. In sections where it was only four feet it would be one to five. In sections where there was no curb or gutter or curb and gutter was in disrepair would be either -- or repaired. They do spot repairs on curb, sidewalks. There would likely be some tree removal as a result of sidewalk easements and they would preserve parallel parking throughout. Option one includes seven foot sidewalks, eight foot buffers, and has right of way impacts. Option two, which is preferred, has six foot sidewalks, six foot buffers and fits within existing right of way. Option two is a compromise, because the curb location is set and because the minimum -- the minimum distance you can put street trees in the parkway is six foot. That's what we set the parkway as. It's been felt throughout that this was important for just look and feel as a downtown entryway corridor into the core area, so it's kind of splitting the difference there. It's not ideal, but it is a compromise. East 6th to Stonehenge Way is also unique. It's where you see the Five Mile Creek paralleling the road over there. Jay Gibbons Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 49 of 58 added the temporary extruded curb and asphalt over there two years ago I think or close to two years ago. But that is ACHD also see that it's temporary and so project it would be -- baseline it would a seven foot attached sidewalk along the creek on the north side, it would have curb, gutter, and attached sidewalk. It would have a five foot sidewalk on the south with a six foot buffer, curb and gutter, and at this point no parallel parking occurs anymore. There is none there now and they would not be building any when they did this project. Option one would be a seven foot attached sidewalk along the creek north. Same. Seven foot sidewalk south and eight foot buffers south. So, the difference here is really on the south side of the street. You're limited on what you can do on the north side. There would be significant right of way impacts on the south side of this section here where there is houses. Option two, which is preferred, the seven foot attached sidewalk, creek along the north, again the same, six foot sidewalk and six foot buffer on the south, along with curb and gutter. This is the last section. Stonehenge to Locust Grove. ACHD's baseline here is seven foot attached sidewalk on the north, five foot sidewalk, existing on the south and a six foot buffer minimum on the south. There is some considerable setbacks on the south side of the street, so the buffer may be much greater in some areas, just because it's already there. And, again, just to reemphasize, there is no parallel parking. One thing to note here is from Stonehenge Way to Locust Grove, there are a number of subdivision access points and industrial access subdivisions as well. They would be proposing to do -- with this kind of -- with curb and gutter on the south side of the street and formalizing that street edge, you have a lot more room for a turn lane, so a turn lane would be part of this project, even though it's not really a road project. Option one includes a seven foot sidewalk on the north, the same, eight foot buffer on the north, not the same. Five foot sidewalk, six foot buffer, curb and gutter and significant right of way impacts on the north side of the street. Option two preferred is to kind of go with ACHD's baseline minimum. That would be seven foot sidewalk -- attached sidewalk on the south, curb and gutter, and, then, basically, keeping what's on the south as formalized with curb and gutter and the turn lane. I want to bring this one here. This is -- we went to the transportation commission last week. The church between East 2nd and East 3rd, the Methodist Church, they currently have angled parking in front of the church. Anyone who has driven up East 3rd knows you have a blind turn there and you also have a bike lane behind the angled parking, which is generally frowned upon. The church, however, relies upon this parking. It's well used. Anyone who drives by there usually sees cars there. So, there is a balance there. The transportation commission generally has -- didn't give us a formal recommendation. Some thought -- they had some other ideas. Some thought the parallel parking should go in and some thought the angled parking should stay there. However, since we met with the transportation commission, leadership with Methodist Church has gotten with city staff, who have met with them and they were inclined to see parallel parking there to address some of those safety concerns. I do want to just note that I feel that would be a burden for them. They do use that parking and they have been -- both now and in the past have been willing to work with the MDC or the city to look at other parking opportunities in that vicinity. So, while they are willing to see parallel parking go in there, they would also like to see some partnership in the future addressing parking issues they have. So, what does this mean? ACHD's baseline construction that their cost is 1,470,000 dollars. They also still Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 50 of 58 have some design fees in there, but that's what it would be for construction. The city and MDC costs that would be shared -- if you went all option one would be -- and this is -- these are just scope estimates -- 300,000 to 525,000 dollars with a ten percent contingency. There is also -- developer built in some -- particularly on the high end, some expensive buyouts and damages. The city and MDC costs for all option two would be 150,000 dollars, with ten percent contingency and you're less likely to incur those buyouts and damages. If you want to know, this does not include landscaping. So, that would be leaving an empty parkway. That would be entirely on the city and MDC to do. So, question for you. Direction you'd like to give staff is what is Council's preference for sidewalk widths, parkway buffers and need for right of way acquisition. For example, all option one, option two. Option one, the core area or option two in the core area and baseline outside of the urban renewal area or any mix and match. What sort of elements would you -- Council like to see explored for landscaping, if any. Example trees, landscape rock or grass, and if Council feels comfortable partnering, what would be your preferences in terms of working with MDC. Do you have any idea how you would like to see that cost broke down. Do you have any direction you would like to give us -- give to them tomorrow, any questions. So, any help would be appreciated. De Weerd: Thank you, Brian. As usual very concise and detailed. I would say that as we look at partnership with MDC on whichever option Council prefers, MDC's area is 4th to 4th, so 1 guess We -- in my opinion if they would do from Meridian to 4th and the city would do 4th to Locust Grove, I think that is a great partnership. So, with that, Council, any questions or comments at this time? Certainly Brian is looking for direction. McClure: Madam Mayor, I would also note you have ACHD present, too, if you would like to ask them any questions as well, so -- De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Brian, the preferred option, is that the preferred option from the transportation committee? Is that the preferred option among staff? Who is -- who is saying this is the preferred option? McClure: Both. Transportation commission was generally in favor of all option twos and in the streetscape and community character group working with city staff, that includes parks, and community development and legal and public works generally were in favor of option two as well. Cavener: Okay. It was my preface as well. I just wanted to find out who was making those types of recommendations, so -- Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 51 of 58 De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I have to apologize that as much as I appreciated your presentation to the transportation commission and this one, I totally missed something and apparently I missed it a year ago when we approved the cross- section. I thought that the ultimate goal was to widen Main -- widen the -- Pine to a five lane roadway and if we do this project we would have, essentially, said that's nothing going to happen. And I'm -- De Weerd: I think we are very sure that's nothing that's going to happen Zaremba: But it will never happen to five lane? De Weerd: That's correct. Zaremba: Is that because traffic engineering studies have said it's not necessary? De Weerd: Caleb. Hood: Madam Mayor, Councilman Zaremba -- Zaremba: And I'm sorry to be bringing this up now. I must have missed it entirely at some point. Hood: Well, it's a good question. We should have maybe clarified that a little bit. Brian said this isn't a roadway project, so it wouldn't necessarily preclude it from ever happening, but right now in ACHD's CIP, their 20 year plan, it's only planned for a two slash three roadway. So, at most what they would be doing is adding a center turn lane. Obviously, you have to transition from the west leg of the Locust Grove -Pine intersection, which is five lanes now, down into something. But most of it that I recall it is -- we didn't want five lanes of traffic coming into our downtown necessarily, it would transition from Locust Grove to, you know, Main Street at some point to be a two or three lane roadway if you had a center turn lane running that entire length. So, that part coming -- working from the core back from west to east again, as Brian did in his presentation, the on -street parking seemed to be more important than capacity improvements to our community's needs. So, that's one of the reasons why, again, this isn't a roadway project, there is not a lot of value to the transportation agency for moving vehicles -- motorists really don't get a whole lot of value out of this, but for bicyclists, pedestrians, it does help that -- that -- those users and is funded, then, through another pot over there at ACHD and through the -- like other roadway projects that do add capacity. But I don't know that it's ever been fully vetted through Council to say, hey, do you realize that Pine is never going to be a five lane roadway, but it has been that way for some time, at least at ACHD through their modeling and assumptions that it would be a two or three lane roadway at most. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 52 of 58 Zaremba: I can live with that. Sorry I missed it before and I appreciate the explanation. De Weerd: Thank you. Other comments from Council? Milam: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: Well, the way I look at it is just that everybody that's done these hard core studies recommends plan B and that makes the most sense to me and as far as the split goes, it seems common sense for both MDC and the City of Meridian, for them to cover their area and, then, we take on the rest, so -- McClure: Madam Mayor and Council Woman Milam, I do want to -- I don't want to make this more confusing, but I do want to just point out two things. One is not really to hard core studies, it's just what -- looking at what seems cost effective versus what you get out of it and the second would be all option twos per staff recommendation leaves more in on the MDC than it does on the city end. It's a lot harder to do the good improvements in the city end, because of right of way than it is in the core area where there is a lot more right of way. Their right of way locations are much heavier outside of the urban renewal area. Just a point of consideration. De Weerd: Any other comments? Bird: I have none. Hood: Madam Mayor, can I just ask one more relating to one of Brian's bullet points here. If you do do option two, what would you like to see that planter strip improved with? This is something we talked to parks about, but what is the -- I won't skew that where I'm maybe hoping your answer goes, but what would you like to see in that -- and there are some issues with whatever your answer is, we need to talk about irrigation and maintenance of those things and we want it to be consistent depending on what you do. Now, rock, obviously, there is not a whole lot of maintenance there, but some of these other options if you want it to be this entryway corridor in our downtown and you do dress it up well, how are you going to insure if the adjacent property owners that maintains that, how are we going to guarantee the same level. We can't. Maintenance of that, is that parks' thing even if it's in the urban renewal area boundary -- but, again, just to start simply with what would you like that planter area to look like and, then, that will help us kind of work through some of those other things. Can we even make it look like that. De Weerd: Well, I guess, Caleb, I think it would be easier getting the recommendation from the Parks Department with an associated cost of maintenance. Certainly we have set a gateway presence on Main Street from 1-84 into our Main Street area. That might be a little bit too -- too intense, but a combination thereof. Certainly it is an entry into the downtown. I would imagine that MDC -- and they have had a discussion on continuing Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 53 of 58 a streetscape pattern and making all of that look the same, so you do know when you're in the Old Town area, as well as you are closer to Pine and Locust Grove, will probably want some kind of an entry sign, you're entering into Old Town or downtown. So, some kind of an identifier there, too. So, then, the rock would be appropriate, but -- and maybe that's for the block until the pathway begins and -- but I would like the Parks Department to kind of weigh in on an appropriate balance that is affordable, but is something that is a desired look for that -- that type of an amenity into our downtown. Because that has been expressed almost -- the several downtown discussions I have been on both the different planning processes that's been expressed as a -- as a priority. I don't know if anyone else wants to weigh in on that, but, again, it would be probably easier to -- to look at something that has -- has some cost and some ideas to it than kind of making it up on the fly, which I feel like I just did, so -- Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I -- I agree. I think that while I'd like to see other stuff, the landscape rock in areas is -- is very good, but if we start doing the landscaping in there and the grass and the trees and stuff, then, our parks has got to put in the electrical, the -- the irrigation and the cost goes up to the city and MDC, because ACHD isn't going to put their third in that one I'm sure. So, I'm kind of like the Mayor, I'd like to see some ideas. If it's feasible I'd like to keep it really nice and stuff and not just have rock, but if it isn't just having the road redone that way and stuff I can stand rock. McClure: Mayor? I don't think -- I don't think I said it, but just to be clear, all landscaping costs and all associated landscaping costs would be on the city and MDC. De Weerd: We were probably more aware of that -- painfully aware of that. Bird: Yeah. De Weerd: We are hoping that conversation might come up again. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I think Brian wants to know are we willing to partner. This is one Councilman that is. De Weerd: I think, again, we go back to a number of different public processes and our -- our citizens have expressed that downtown should be clearly identifiable and we should show our pride in our downtown. So, I certainly would echo what Mr. Bird just voted on, yes, I think a partnership is -- is something that can be discussed and is probably more -- you know, more robust when we get to numbers to discuss as well. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 54 of 58 But even what you have shown, Brian, in my opinion, is -- is reasonable and I think you can get a commitment from MDC and the city on those. It's, then, what the additional costs would be in the landscaping aspects. Other comments? No? Any additional feedback you need, Brian? McClure: No. I think -- Madam Mayor, I think it was just that you are willing to partner still and hear more, so that's helpful. Thank you. De Weerd: Yes. Thank you. And thank you again for your work on this. Thank you, Caleb. And Justin. I won't call you a traitor at this point. Okay. Zaremba: He's not a traitor, he's actually a spy. Bird: Yeah. De Weerd: You're just continuing your great work on behalf of Meridian in a different agency. Zaremba: His new position -- yeah. In a new position he's helping us. I. Public Works: FY2014 Engineering Project Close -Out Report De Weerd: We -- we are going to reschedule 7-1 if that's still appropriate? Stewart: Yes, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I do appreciate that. Several of my -- members of my staff were going to present projects that they had completed last year and due to child care issues and one thing and another they are not able to be here, so if that's okay we would like to postpone that until they can actually present in person to you. De Weerd: Okay. Thank you, Warren. J. City Council Liaison/Committee Updates De Weerd: 7-J is under Council liaison and community updates. I know there has been a recent change of guard in many of our departments. If you want to wrap up your other ones and maybe kick off your new ones -- I don't know. I'm just going to turn this over to you all and ask Mr. Zaremba to kick it off. Zaremba: Oh. I didn't realize I was going to need to say anything. De Weerd: Only if you have something to share. Zaremba: Yeah. Well, if the idea is -- I thought these were settled, but if we were supposed to be mulling them over for the week, I'm happy with what I got and -- if that's the question. I'm satisfied. Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 55 of 58 De Weerd: I don't think anyone asked for agreement or not. You were just told Zaremba: Well, I was happy I was told. De Weerd: I'm just -- I'm just asking -- I'm just asking if you have an update on either your old or your new departments. Zaremba: Oh. Oh. No, but I -- what I would say about Community Development, which I enjoyed serving with for the last year or so, was actually presented by Bruce and Sean. That's the most recent stuff going on and Caleb and Brian, so you have actually directly from them about those and I have not yet started my meetings with the newly liaison groups, so -- apart from saying I'm happy, I was happy last year, I will be happy this. I'm satisfied. Nothing to add. De Weerd: Okay. Very good. Mr. Borton. Borton: Madam Mayor, nothing to add. On the 29th I'm going to kind of close out some discussions with Finance and start the discussions with Fire and get on my way. So, nothing until then. De Weerd: Well, great. And I will just note that Councilman Borton and I did start a couple of discussions for the upcoming budget processes and that sort of thing and I do expect him to continue that. You can't just initiate something and, then, let it go. So, I so appoint you to continue on on that vein and -- and look forward to those continued discussions. Borton: And will do so. De Weerd: Okay. Mr. Bird. Bird: Madam Mayor, on my old, the police, they are doing great as usual. The building is going good. Our staff out there does a fantastic job, thank God. And on my new ones Finance I have talked to a couple times. We will start having our monthly meetings. As a Council we are going to do this -- do some discussion on -- on the budgeting and how it's -- how some of the stuff we might be doing a little different this year. And on my other deal, my Parks, we got -- we heard about that today and we had a meeting with the -- the Parks Department had a meeting with the speedway group, the Dairy Show Board, and Adam from the speedway, so that we could have some good -- be good neighbors while the project was going on and -- and I am very pleased with both departments. They are going great. De Weerd: And I will say that Todd put out a draft schedule for the budget and we will put that on a future agenda, just to get any feedback that you might have. As I was saying, we spent, after our last budget hearing, some time with each one of you getting feedback on how you would like to see things enhanced. We have been collecting that Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 56 of 58 feedback. I have been working with the Council liaison at that time, as has our finance director. So, you will see some of that feedback implemented into the draft that will be brought in front of you and do appreciate your frank discussions and your ideas, because each year I think our two longer term Council Members would say each year it gets better and it gets better because of your feedback and we appreciate that. Mrs. Milam. Milam: Madam Mayor, I met with both of my departments today. So, I do have updates. With the Police Department, the body cameras that we approved have arrived. Infrastructure is in place, policy is being developed, and deployment is anticipated for May and the construction is going great, nothing out of the ordinary. The Clerk's Office -- the Information Services, the biggest issue is the passports. So, they are receiving approximately 50 voicemails a day for people having questions about passports and those calls have to be returned and it's actually eating into other -- other staff times and passport appointments are about two to three weeks out and they are working with -- the department has put together annual lists of records that can be destroyed per the retention schedule and, then, IT is working with police and fire department on their transition to the software record reporting and computer aided dispatch. So, busy, busy, busy. Our Arts Commission meeting was cancelled this month due to no quorum and SWAC hasn't met since October I think, so looking forward to that. De Weerd: Very good. Thank you. Cavener: All right. I will -- I will be brief. I was fortunate enough to meet with both of my liaison duties today, so I had -- I started my morning with Community Development and it was a touching base meeting and kind of outlining my goals for the year ahead and our plan of -- plan of attack. Much of what we discussed this morning was presented this afternoon and, then, my other liaison duties with human resources I met with Patty this afternoon and had a very spirited discussion about human resources and her philosophy and I'm really excited for my two new liaison duties for the year. In addition I will be attending the Parks Commission meetings. Next -- tomorrow night's is cancelled, so I will have a report potentially in March. So, that's it. De Weerd: Very good. Thank you. We appreciate that. Item 8: Ordinances A. Ordinance No. 15-1636: An Ordinance (AZ 14-012 Hill's Century Farm Subdivision) For Annexation And Rezone Of A Parcel Of Land Being The West % Of Section 33 And The West % Of The Northwest'/4 Of The Southeast'/40f Section 33, Township 3 North, Range 1 East, Meridian; Establishing And Determining The Land Use Zoning Classification Of Said Lands From RUT To R-8 (Medium Density Residential District) In The Meridian City Code; And Providing An Effective Date Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 57 of 58 De Weerd: And, Madam Clerk, will you, please, read Ordinance 15-1636 by title only. Holman: Thank you, Madam Mayor. City of Meridian Ordinance No. 15-1636. An Ordinance AZ 14-012, Hills Century Farms Subdivision, for annexation and rezone of a parcel of land being the west one half of Section 33 and the west one half of the northwest one quarter of the southeast one quarter of Section 33, Township 3 North, Range 1 East, Boise meridian, Ada County, Idaho, as described in Attachment A and annexing certain lands and territories situated in Ada County, Idaho, and adjacent and contiguous to the corporate limits of the City of Meridian, as requested by the City of Meridian. Establishing and determining the land use zoning classification of said lands from RUT to R-8, Medium Density Residential District in the Meridian City Code, providing that copies of this ordinance shall be filed with the Ada County assessor, the Ada County recorder and the Idaho State Tax Commission as required by law and providing for a summary of the ordinance and providing for a waiver of the reading rules and providing an effective date. De Weerd: Seeing that there is no one who would even voice the option of reading it in its entirety, do I have a motion from Council? Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we approve Ordinance No. 15-1636 with suspension of rules. Milam: Second. Zaremba: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 8-A. Madam Clerk, will you call roll. Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, absent; Zaremba, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Item 9: Future Meeting Topics None De Weerd: Council, any topics for consideration on future agendas? Seeing none -- Item 10: Executive Session Per Idaho State Code 67-2345 (1)(f): (f) To Consider and Advise Its Legal Representatives in Pending Litigation Meridian City Council Workshop January 13, 2015 Page 58 of 58 De Weerd: We don't have a need for Executive Session on this agenda. It will be moved to next week. So, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Bird: So moved. Milam: Second. De Weerd: All those in favor say aye. All ayes. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6:10 P.M. (AU D DING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) —/ d-? _/ 6 - MAYO MY WEERD DATE APPROVED o ATTES or �F SEAQ. r�k, X54-FiYk /iEe T0.E�",QY