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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-05-12 DVE CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP IMEETING AGENDA City Council Chambers 33 East Broadway Avenue Meridian, Idaho Tuesday, May 12, 2015 at 3:00 PM 1. Roll-Call Attendance X David Zaremba X Joe Borton X 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. Proclamation A. Proclamation for National Historic Preservation Month 5. Consent Agendan (pg 1-5) A. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Order: RZ 15-002 Calderwood Business Park by GGR, LLC Located Southeast Corner of S. Meridian Road and E. Calderwood Drive Request: Rezone of 4.08 Acres of Land from the L-O Zoning District to the C-G (2.73 Acres) and L-O (1.35 Acres) Zoning Districts B. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Order: MCU 15-001 Calderwood Business Park by GGR, LLC Located Southeast Corner of S. Meridian Road and E. Calderwood Drive Request: Conditional Use Permit Modification to Modify the Site Plan and Certain Conditions Approved with the Larkspur Planned Unit Development (CUP 04-025) C. Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Sub-recipient Agreement - Meridian Elementary School Fitness Path D. Bienville Square Subdivision No. 3 Water Main Easement E. Resolution No. 15-1065: VAC 15-002 Calderwood Business Park by GGR, LLC Located Southeast Corner of S. Meridian Road and E. Calderwood Drive Request: Vacate a Portion of Note #14 of Larkspur Subdivision That Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda—Tuesday, May 12, 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. Requires Lot 5, Block 1 to Provide Commercial Access to Lot 2, Block 1 AND Reduce the Landscape Buffer Width from 40 Feet to 35 Feet F. Resolution no. 15-1059A: Amending Citywide Records Retention Schedule To Add Updates To Meridian Police Department Provisions G. Approve Minutes of March 30, 2015 City Council Special Budget Meeting H. Approve Minutes of April 14, 2015 City Council Workshop Meeting I. Approve Minutes of April 21, 2015 City Council PreCouncil Meeting J. Approval of Minutes for April 21, 2015 City Council Meeting K. Approve Minutes of April 28, 2015 City Council Regular Meeting L. Approve Minutes of May 5, 2015 City Council Regular Meeting M. Approval of Contract Change Order No. 8 to the Existing Agreement for Independent Contractor Services for "WWTP Fermentation and Odor Control Project to Contractors Northwest for the Not-To-Exceed Amount of $197,881.00 N. Approval of Award of Bid and Agreement to AME ELECTRIC, INC. for the "WWTP AERATION BASIN PLC UPGRADES" Project for the Not-To-Exceed Amount of$52,486.00 O. Approval of Award of Bid and Agreement to Owyhee Construction Inc for the Water Line Replacement - E. Loch Meadow and N. Laughridge to End Construction Project for the Not-to-Exceed amount of$115,069.00 P. Approval of Change Order No. 1 to Schmidt Construction Co., Inc. for the "NW 8th STREET SEWER TRUNK MAIN — PHASE 3 BROADWAY TO CHERRY LANE" Project for the Not-To-Exceed amount of$133,612.66 Q. Award Agreement to KUSHLAN ASSOCIATES, LLC. for the "URBAN RENEWAL DISTRICT PLANNING" Project for the Not-To-Exceed Amount of $23,850.00 6. Items Moved From Consent Agenda None 7. Department Reports (Pg 5-14) A. Community Development: Annual Update (pg14-18) B. Meridian Development Corporation Annual Report Presentation Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda—Tuesday, May 12,2015 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. C. Petition for Exclusion of Land from Nampa Meridian Irrigation District and Annexation to New York Irrigation District Title 43 Chapter 10 & 11 Idaho Code Approved (Pg 20-21) D. Parks and Recreation Department: 2015 Meridian Pathways Network Map Update (Pg 21-24) E. City Council Liaison/Committee Updates (pg 25-28) 8. Ordinances (pg 28-29) A. Ordinance No. 15-1644: An Ordinance (AZ 15-001 - Paramount Southeast) for the Rezone of a Parcel of Land Being a Portion of the SE 1/4 of Section 25, Township 4 North, Range 1 West, Ada County, Idaho Establishing and Determining the Land Use Zoning Classification of Said Lands from C-G to R-40 and from R-40 to C-G and Providing an Effective Date Approved 9. Future Meeting Topics (pg 29) 10. Executive Session Per Idaho State Code 67-2345 (1)(f)(c)(d)(a): (f) to Consider and Advise Its Legal Representatives in Pending Litigation; (c) to conduct deliberations concerning labor negotiations or to acquire an interest in real property, which is not owned by a public agency; (d) to consider records that are exempt from disclosure as provided in chapter 3, title 9, Idaho Code; AND (a) To consider hiring a public officer, employee, staff member or individual agent, wherein the respective qualities of individuals are to be evaluated in order to fill a particular vacancy or need. This paragraph does not apply to filling a vacancy in an elective office or deliberations about staffing needs in general Into Executive Session at 4:38 p.m. Out of Executive Session at 6:06 p.m. Adjourned at 6:06 p.m. Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda—Tuesday, May 12, 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 May 12 2015 A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 3:02 p.m., Tuesday, May 12, 2015, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Charlie Rountree, Keith Bird, David Zaremba, Joe Borton, Genesis Milam and Luke Cavener. Others Present: Bill Nary, Jacy Jones, Bruce Chatterton, Warren Stewart, Caleb Hood, Jay Gibbons, Tracy Basterrechea, Mark Niemeyer, and Dean Willis. Item 1: Roll -call Attendance: Roll call. X David Zaremba X Joe Borton X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird X Genesis Milam X Lucas Cavener X Mayor Tammy de Weerd De Weerd: Well, good afternoon. I would like to welcome all of you here to our City Council meeting. Thank you for being in attendance. For the record it is Tuesday, May 12th. It's two minutes after 3:00. We will start with roll call attendance, Madam Clerk. 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 is the adoption of the agenda. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: On Item 8 the ordinance number is 15-1644 and with that -- and on item 5-E the resolution number is 15-1065. And with those additions I move that we approve the agenda. Bird: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda. All those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried. Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 2 of 30 MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 4: Proclamation A. Proclamation for National Historic Preservation Month De Weerd: Item No. 4 is a proclamation and I'm going to move down to the podium and I will ask if we can have our Historical Preservation members to come up and join me. If you will just come up and stand up here. So Ralph can take -- C.J. can take the picture. Frank, come on. Thank you. I am joined by members of our Historical Preservation Commission and it's with great pleasure that I read this proclamation. Whereas historic preservation is an effective tool for managing growth and sustainable development, revitalizing neighborhoods, fostering local pride and maintaining community character, while enhancing livability and whereas Meridian has a strong Historic Preservation Commission and historic -- historical society who work together hard -- who work together to preserve the character and fabric of the historically significant areas and structures, to honor and preserve our rich heritage for future generations and whereas it is important to celebrate the role of history in our lives and the contributions made by dedicated individuals in helping to preserve tangible assets of Meridian's heritage, which shapes us as a community and whereas a River Runs Through It -- we have an imaginary river that runs through our community -- and this is the 2015 theme for the National Preservation Month cosponsored by the City of Meridian's Historical Preservation Commission and the National Trust for Historic Preservation and whereas the City of Meridian is very proud to announce Meridian's downtown historic walking tour was presented with the Orchid Award by Preservation Idaho and will be launching the second phase of our historic walking tour. That's a big deal. And whereas -- oh. And, wherefore, I, Mayor Tammy de Weerd, of the City of Meridian, do hereby proclaim National Preservation Month in the City of Meridian and I call upon the community to join me in celebrating and recognizing historic preservation as a key component to shaping our today and our tomorrows and I will present this to our chair and see if you would like to add any words. But while I have you standing here before I present this, I do want to thank each you for the role you play in preserving the history of our community and making it relevant today and for our future generations. Certainly the historic walking tour has been a true treasure, in addition to our downtown, in celebrating our roots and inspiring our future generations -- our elementary school students to caring about where we have been as a community and using it in our schools and telling the story in their own words on a website. It has become a model for other communities in our state and you have really set a new bar -- a new level of what people can be doing in their communities at a relatively minimal cost to preserve that character and the tradition. So, thank you each and every one of you for what you're doing in our community. Johnston: I will make this short. On behalf of the citizens of the City of Meridian and the Historic Preservation Commission, I'd like thank Madam Mayor, City Council, Citizens of Meridian, all of our volunteers for helping us preserve the cultural and architectural history of Meridian and making this a great place to live. Thank you. Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 3 of 30 De Weerd: Jacy, did you want to say anything? After you're done saying something you can turn that around. Jones: Okay. Well, I just want to say thank you to the Historic Preservation Commission for allowing me to do something that I love and for our supporters at the city and with MDC. We couldn't do it without them -- without that awesome partnership that we have. So, thank you to you all. De Weerd: Thank you. I will tell you if you have been in our downtown the last week or so, it's been filled with little third graders that are running through City Hall and our downtown, enjoying this walking tour and learning more about our community and where we have come from and there is just a great deal of enthusiasm and that is really exciting to see. So, this has been a real added plus to our schools and the additional benefit they get when they come to downtown, that they not only now see City Hall and the old school house, they have that opportunity to walk -- to have a history walk and that's something that really lacked in the past and has really been enriched because of the historic walking tour. So, again, congratulations and congratulations on the Orchid Award. It's much better than an onion. So, thank you. Item 5: Consent Agenda A. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Order: RZ 15-002 Calderwood Business Park by GGR, LLC Located Southeast Corner of S. Meridian Road and E. Calderwood Drive Request: Rezone of 4.08 Acres of Land from the L -O Zoning District to the C -G (2.73 Acres) and L -O (1.35 Acres) Zoning Districts B. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Order: MCU 15-001 Calderwood Business Park by GGR, LLC Located Southeast Corner of S. Meridian Road and E. Calderwood Drive Request: Conditional Use Permit Modification to Modify the Site Plan and Certain Conditions Approved with the Larkspur Planned Unit Development (CUP 04-025) C. Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Sub -recipient Agreement - Meridian Elementary School Fitness Path D. Bienville Square Subdivision No. 3 Water Main Easement E. Resolution No. 15-1065: VAC 15-002 Calderwood Business Park by GGR, LLC Located Southeast Corner of S. Meridian Road and E. Calderwood Drive Request: Vacate a Portion of Note #14 of Larkspur Subdivision That Requires Lot 5, Block 1 to Provide Commercial Access to Lot 2, Block 1 AND Reduce the Landscape Buffer Width from 40 Feet to 35 Feet Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 4 of 30 F. Resolution no. 15-1059A: Amending Citywide Records Retention Schedule To Add Updates To Meridian Police Department Provisions G. Approve Minutes of March 30, 2015 City Council Special Budget Meeting H. Approve Minutes of April 14, 2015 City Council Workshop Meeting Approve Minutes of April 21, 2015 City Council PreCouncil Meeting J. Approval of Minutes for April 21, 2015 City Council Meeting K. Approve Minutes of April 28, 2015 City Council Regular Meeting L. Approve Minutes of May 5, 2015 City Council Regular Meeting M. Approval of Contract Change Order No. 8 to the Existing Agreement for Independent Contractor Services for "WWTP Fermentation and Odor Control Project to Contractors Northwest for the Not -To -Exceed Amount of $197,881.00 N. Approval of Award of Bid and Agreement to AME ELECTRIC, INC. for the "WWTP AERATION BASIN PLC UPGRADES" Project for the Not -To -Exceed Amount of $52,486.00 O. Approval of Award of Bid and Agreement to Owyhee Construction Inc for the Water Line Replacement - E. Loch Meadow and N. Laughridge to End Construction Project for the Not -to -Exceed amount of $115,069.00 P. Approval of Change Order No. 1 to Schmidt Construction Co., Inc. for the "NW 8th STREET SEWER TRUNK MAIN — PHASE 3 BROADWAY TO CHERRY LANE" Project for the Not -To -Exceed amount of $133,612.66 Q. Award Agreement to KUSHLAN ASSOCIATES, LLC. for the "URBAN RENEWAL DISTRICT PLANNING" Project for the Not - To -Exceed Amount of $23,850.00 De Weerd: Okay. Item No. 5 is our Consent Agenda. Rountree: Madam Mayor? Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 5 of 30 De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: With the addition to Item 5-A with the resolution number, I move that we approve the Consent Agenda, authorize the clerk to attest and the Mayor to sign. Bird: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda. Madam Clerk, will you call roll. Roll Call: Rountree, yea; Bird, yea; Zaremba, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 6: Items Moved From Consent Agenda De Weerd: There were no items moved the Consent Agenda. Item 7: Department Reports A. Community Development: Annual Update De Weerd: So, we will move to Item 7-A under our Community Development Department and I will turn this over to Bruce. Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Council Members, as I was putting this presentation together it reminded me how proud I am of our Community Development team. Some of them are here. Not all of them. We do have to have customer coverage. Hopefully all of them are going to get a chance to listen in if they are not actually serving customers. But I'd just like the whole team to just stand up for a second. You may know some of them or all of them, but -- if you want to stand up, guys. They -- it's funny how it's kind of fallen into -- there is nobody in the middle. It's kind of like friends of the groom, friends of the bride here tonight. But, you know, we are a small department, but we do a lot and I think it reminds me a lot of the overall Meridian Way, how we try to do more with less. You know, our customers range all the way from just an average homeowner to a multi-million -- multi-million dollar developer. We serve low income individuals through our CDBG program. You know, we work with large nonprofits, small nonprofits. Really very, very proud of this team and what they are able to produce with, actually, just a little. Every year we should remind ourselves of why we exist. I'm going to cover that this just a little bit. Every year I try to cover the threats to our community and some of the responses to those threats. I want to talk a little bit about some recent staffing changes and talk about the state of our development market here, how busy we are. I'm going to talk a little bit about updates and special projects primarily in the planning area. Talk about what's happened with economic development over the past year. Looking forward -- some things Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 6 of 30 that we -- should be on the -- maybe some storm clouds on the horizon for 2015 and at any point, not just at the end, I'd like your thoughts and direction. So, please, do interrupt. There is nothing worse than a static slideshow that's not interactive. Please do. I invite you to interrupt -- to interrupt with any questions or any comments. Why do we exist as a department? First Community Development was created because two of the major portions of our permitting system were in different departments. Development Services and Public Works and planning was its own small department. This gives the Mayor that span of control over development review, the permitting system. We can look at it as a coherent whole and hold the team accountable and they are accountable. Very, very important. We are Community Development even before Economic Development became part of Community Development three years ago, has always been part and integral to our economic development efforts. We can't divorce those two things. That's a big reason why we do a lot of what we do. And first and foremost we are here along with other city departments and our partners in the community to enhance and preserve Meridian's quality of life, to take those things that are great about our community, make them better, and to build on what we already have. We do have three divisions in Community Development. Development Services, sometimes called the Building Department, but it's more than that, of course, with our very strong land division. The Planning Division and Economic Development. And I showed this to you last year, but I'm just going to flash it now. These three divisions get involved from beginning to end with the development process. Community development is not just about the development process, but that's often what you all see and often you see in your land use hearings -- a good portion of your hearings are planning issues around entitlements and that sort of thing. But there is -- there is much more going on and so Economic Development and Development Services, often you're not seeing a lot of what they are doing from beginning to end. But all the way from business recruitment to trying to retain the businesses that we have -- everything in between, all three divisions work together to do that. Last year we talked about several threats. At the time multi -family housing was really going gangbusters. It still is to a certain extent. But we also felt -- I think a lot of us were feeling that the message about the need to have diverse housing in our community wasn't completely getting -- getting across. The -- the market really was then and continues to play catch up and those are the most I think visible growth pressures besides things like traffic and construction projects. The fact that folks are turning out and are concerned about apartments, about multi -family, was really -- I think felt like a -- a bigger threat at the time. So, at the time we said we need to redouble our education efforts. We also need to redouble our efforts to try to make sure that different housing types are compatible with each other. The planners do that, of course, with every -- every application they work on. Keep our zoning code up to date and we are continuously doing that. Continue to promote fair housing, the law of the land, to make sure that we have diverse housing opportunities available for everyone. Some of this is quieted down a little bit. We still need to keep our efforts going, but the housing market has cooled somewhat, but still I think our multi -family housing market would be the envy of many other communities. But it's not -- and as you will see the numbers here in a minute, it is not as strong as it was. Perhaps it was -- it was actually overheated and the market was correcting itself. We also said last year that we felt that we were at a competitive disadvantage compared to other communities, in business recruitment. At the time we lacked clear economic development Meridian City Council workshop May 12, 2015 Page 7 of 30 targets. There was some issues around enough of available industrial sites at a price point that were suitable for some of the users that we were trying to attract. Urban renewal was not really part of our incentive package and we lacked an organized and coherent ready team to respond to these issues. I'm really happy -- and we will talk a little bit more about this as I go through it, but I'm really happy that every single one of these responses that we talked about a year ago we have made significant progress on. Perhaps we still need to work on the available industrial sites. Part of that is -- part of that is a market effect that we really can't change, that industrial land is simply more expensive in Meridian than -- than elsewhere. It's hard for us to write that down, but on each of these other points I think you will see we have made a significant progress from just a year ago. So, those are the 2014 threats. Very quickly I wanted to talk about some of the staffing changes. As you all remember, we did add one position and that was that of building official. Brent Bjornson was promoted to fill that position and he's doing a fantastic job. I think as Council Member Zaremba said at the time, it's difficult to -- we had a contractor in that role before. You can outsource work, such as plan review or inspection. Much more difficult to outsource authority and so now we have this ability to really push the Meridian Way and our CARE values through our building official, where it was much more difficult to do that in the past. Also happy that we have been joined by Sam Zahorka. He was part of my team when I worked in a neighboring town. Was really happy that we were able to recruit him. Sam has lived in Meridian. He lives just what -- you say you're four minutes now? Five minutes. Has three kids he's raised in Meridian. Very much a part of our community and really wanted to join us. He's going to be along with Brent. Very good fit for our -- our customer service culture here. De Weerd: Welcome, Sam. Zaremba: And his last name starts with a Z. Chatterton: There you go. Paula's not here? Yeah. She's one of the folks helping with coverage. We are also really happy to have brought in Paula Middleton. Paula had been a temp with us and just fit the role of permit technician to a tee. You notice Paula standing there. Well, she's got -- because she was concerned about the effects of too much sitting on her health, like a lot of us, she was able to work with IT and her management to get a stand up position there. I don't think I have seen her sit down since they got that work station where she can stand up. So, she's always there ready to greet customers and work with them. She has been a great addition. In the Planning Division -- as you all know, Bill Parsons was promoted to planning supervisor when Justin Lucas left us and went back to ACHD and he has been, again, a great fit with his knowledge base and we were happy that we could steal C.J. from the Mayor's office and he's doing great things as well. We are really happy to have him. You have also heard quite a bit from Sean Kelly, our CDBG administrator. Sean has -- is new to us and is currently in a part-time position, but has really had a lot of life experience and career experience and is really filling that role I think very, very well. Gives great presentations here from the podium and I think our CDBG program is in -- is in great hands. We are going to talk a little bit more about the CDBG program coming up. Well, the numbers. Under Planning, certificates of zoning compliance are -- note there is no single number that tell us how we are doing. One might Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 8 of 30 think, well, it's the number of dwelling units or it's square footage commercial. There is no single number that tells you. We like to look at a -- at a variety of numbers to see how busy we are and how much our community is growing. Just one of those -- there is several here -- is the certificate of zoning compliance, the number that we have processed in a given year. This, again, is an administrative process wherein the -- we make sure that the -- the use and the folks moving in have the zoning occupancy and that the conditions -- development agreement conditions, CUP conditions, have all been met. But -- so that's an administrative thing which you all really don't see in a public hearing context. So, those have increased from 124 to 156 in the current year. Conditional use permits are about the same as -- as last year. Preliminary plats have almost doubled. Final plats holding about the same as a year ago and annexations ditto. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Borton. Borton: Go back to that previous slide. Chatterton: If I can. This is -- something is going on with the -- I know. The icon is not there. Caleb, can you reverse to that one? It's only going forward up here. Bird: There you go. Borton: You made a comment of preliminary plats had doubled. Are the dates transposed on this? The -- Chatterton: Very sorry. Yes. That's -- no, I believe that those are -- are they transposed? Hood: No. They are correct on here. Chatterton: I read it incorrectly then. Rountree: Plats are down. Chatterton: Yeah. Thank you for pointing that out. Yes. So, we -- yeah, there actually is a reduction of some of those numbers. Some of the matrix that we have. It's great to get the co-op at The Village. You have all have been, of course, the city's partner on the Boys and Girls Club gymnasium well underway now. Recreational uses such as Roaring Springs. The expansion of the Kendall Ford dealership. Meridian High's expansion. Victory Middle School and others. So, these are just a few of the prominent projects that we have had. No problem with transposed numbers in this case. For single family, again, we are holding right about the same as last year. And I should point out that this is a year since I last spoke to you with the annual update. Single family values are almost identical. Multi -family, again, has fallen, but, again, it may have been overheated and the market was -- was correcting. So, we are running right in at about -- a little bit more than 50 Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 9 of 30 percent of what we were doing last year and multi -family values, of course, are -- were down as well. Bird: Bruce? Excuse me, Madam Mayor. De Weerd: Uh-huh. Bird: Don't you think in the multi -family -- apartments and stuff usually take longer than a year to build, where a single you're getting, you know, four or five months. I think you probably -- a lot of that 47 million come into this year also. Chatterton: And, Madam Mayor, Council Member Bird, absolutely. One of the things we report to you is pipeline of available units and so that would be part of the supply chain for those units. Absolutely. For commercial. Again, holding steady the past two years for both the number of buildings and the overall value. New commercial square footage, again, is very comparable. TI has fallen somewhat, both -- not so much the number of projects, but in their overall value and in the square footage. So, commercial overall in terms of new commercial remain very strong. TI has fallen somewhat. In terms of definitive improvements, I think The Village probably had quite a bit to do with a lot of things we were permitting the previous year. One measure of how -- of our development activity has been revenues returned to General Fund. I hasten to add this is not profit from Community Development, these are -- these are revenues in excess of projections and as you can see we are back in the neighborhood of 2005, 2006 levels in terms of the amounts being returned to the General Fund. We are very happy that, you know, we have been able to contribute to the General Fund almost 14 million dollars since we have been tracking these numbers. Mostly planning projects. We found that our architectural standards that the -- the design guidebook that we had really was not the best. It was not well organized. It didn't fit our particular zoning districts that well in our particular settings and so Brian McClure has been working with other folks within Community Development and also with the development community on new architectural standards. These are much more coherent, clear, and they really fit Meridian's needs much better. It's important to adapt tools to what we are trying to do with our own particular setting. That's one of the reasons why we don't simply go and copy a zoning district from another city. We might take some ideas from it, but each city is different and with the -- with the project cut sheet from stickler you can -- you can lay out any setting -- what's appropriate and the examples here are appropriate developments for mixed use and, then, that transportation context is important as well. This is really important, because I think as everyone knows from time to time design review has been under attack in our state legislature. There are those that think that it's arbitrary, that it's the planning police, and some of the thoughts --some of the comments that have been made are that it's -- it's arbitrary. Well, it's really important to lay out clearly what our design standards are and that's what this -- that's what this -- what these architectural standards do. And as always working with the development community to develop them, we will have tools that work well for us. Transportation projects. The Saturday fun run was a real hill to be taken and it really helped us sort of get our -- our feet wet on -- on transit. Obviously, the Meridian Road interchange is a big impact on our community. Currently maybe somewhat of a negative one from Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 10 of 30 construction impacts, but it's going to be a wonderful, positive for us ongoing. And, then, ongoing coordination of transportation with agencies such as VRT, COMPASS and ACRD. The code amendments that you have already seen this year and will see include -- and, again, we are working with a developer work group on these, not in a vacuum. We have made a lot of improvements to our standards for fencing next to pathways and open space, irrigation easements and common lots. Open space. Residential dimensional standards. Gravel mining. We almost don't allow at all, compared to what we -- the things -- the way things were just a year ago. And we have also begun looking at the -- our minimum sizes for single family homes and do those make sense and do we need to adjust those. So, I think there will be more to come on that. Current projects for our Community Development Block Grant program. The Idaho Avenue sidewalk project. The Meridian Elementary fitness path. The Storey Park ADA restrooms. Those are all examples of projects in our community. In general, not just the low and low moderate income targets of that program. We have been able to help the Meridian Food Bank and introduce the CATCH program to really help homeless families in particular gain housing. We are happy that we are going to be seeing an increase of about ten percent in the -- in the program. So, this upcoming year we will have available to us in the neighborhood of 330,000 dollars. Looking forward on some of the planning recommendations, we are talking with Nampa in particular about land use, mostly within the fields district and our common border all the way north to south, because we are growing together and we will talk about that in just a second. The ongoing UDC and design manual amendments -- and, again, working with the stakeholder groups, for growth management we -- part of our strategic plan is to develop and implement a sustainable development model to make sure that the patterns -- the development patterns that we are creating in Meridian are sustainable for us into the future, economically and otherwise. And, then, looking at our neighbors, north, south, east, west and how we expect to build out and to the extent possible talking to them and ongoing efforts in south Meridian on annexations within our own area of impact. Economic development. It was a year and a day ago that Sean Garritson with Pegasus presented the economic development strategy plan and audit to you all. As you remember, that plan laid out some industry targets, catalyst projects, and how to best use our limited resources for economic development. A lot has happened since then. The approach from Pegasus that he really worked on in concert with City Council, the Mayor, and other stakeholders was that we needed more than anything to collaborate more closely with our partners. MDC. The chamber. Really promote a downtown business association and through that collaboration work to create several catalyst projects. We didn't have names for them at the time, but it was suggested that we needed a tech center or a start-up center downtown. A downtown multi -use center and also take a look at the Ten Mile area, which is -- we have been -- it's been a subject of concern and interest from us for a long time, ever since we did in 2007 the -- the Ten Mile plan and through collaboration move those projects forward and I think you will agree we have had a lot of progress towards those goals. We talked earlier about the need and the lack of a ready team within Meridian. That is a group of folks from the business community that are energized to help us in our recruitment activities. Well, we have that now through the Meridian steering committee and the Meridian steering committee, which is under the auspices of the chamber also has strong representation from MDC and from the -- from our downtown business association as well and from other sort of folks that are Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 11 of 30 -- perhaps just care about Meridian and that has led really I think to a new spirit of cooperation, a new energy and I'm really, really gratified at the response of our community. It's been a big change from even just a year ago. Already we have been able to take some hills. As you all know the New Ventures Lab opens next month in old city hall. We are very excited about that. We expect to do great things for our community and our downtown in particular, but if we had just taken that hill for the New Ventures Lab, that gives us the ability to -- to accommodate millennials in our downtown, to make our downtown a more interesting place. You know, you probably heard that a Pre Funk is opening in the Heritage building. That, along with Pie Hole -- there is some real interest I think in our downtown -- you know, Meridian -- downtown Meridian might actually be -- end up being somewhat cool by the end of the day. But even -- De Weerd: What? It already is cool. Chatterton: It's cool. And even if we just do some economic gardening that is around the New Ventures Lab, that's a great thing. We expect and know that we are going to go much further than that. De Weerd: Who are you? Chatterton: I have kids who are millennials, okay? And the -- the Ten Mile specific plan we, of course, produced a few years ago, now the chance to see that come to fruition with possibly a -- really launching a plan to -- for an urban renewal district and under the right circumstances perhaps attracting a large user. So, using urban renewal, then, as an economic development tool and as a way to promote business recruitment. And, of course, our downtown projects, the other projects that we are very keen on. The performing arts center. We say convention center here. The correct term, obviously, is conference center and we hope a hotel as well. And, as you know, the request for proposals will be issued next month for that project. We will learn a lot and I think it will be very, very interesting. We have had a lot of -- a lot of great feedback from the development community to date. Sort of the year in review for some of the numbers for economic development. According to the Department of Labor industry increases were retail, healthcare services, accommodation and food services, arts, entertainment and recreation and wholesale trade. The total number of jobs created in 2014 were 2,000. If you look at our economic development activities -- and, of course, this is primarily, but not limited to Brenda Sherwood, you will see that a lot of her work breaks down to business retention and expansion, business assistance, business recruitment, but there is also focus, there if you see the star. A lot of her work and my work now is really being devoted to economic development initiatives and this really would not have been the case from a year ago. It's a little bit sort of untraditional for an economic development program to focus on the catalyst projects, such as a hotel -conference center, performing arts center, New Ventures Lab, but it's a good thing. It's a good thing. But it's a big change from the way in which Brenda and others involved with economic development are spending their time from -- from a year ago. Looking forward. Really want to end on just not a down note, but just some things to be looking forward to. We are running lean. That's sort of the flip side of doing things the Meridian Way and rolling things up and doing more with Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 12 of 30 less. The Development Services Fund, which is the Community Development portion General Fund, we have been told by Finance that we have had the smallest growth in overall budget over the past five years of any city department. We have also had the lowest increase in positions over the past five years. We have added just half an FTE during that period of time. There were a couple of years there where we actually got rid of some FTEs that -- we went down and that's -- we have added half an FTE versus a total of 53 for the rest of the city for that same period of time. We are currently undergoing a heavy workload for the subdivision infrastructure review portion. Our land division. We have a wonderful system for tracking sureties, bonds, other instruments that are our way of insuring that developers do what they say they are going to do in terms of infrastructure that's built correctly. We have a great system, but it is somewhat overloaded at this point. We are tracking 29 million dollars in outstanding sureties at any point within the process from the beginning to end and currently sureties are handled by nonspecialists within our Community Development Department. Basically folks that have another full-time job, kind of drop at the track surety and they, of course, have to work with the experts within Public Works and within Finance. Developers are complaining about the length of time to release sureties. So, looking forward to the budget -- I love this timing of this discussion. You will be seeing a proposal from Community Development to help alleviate that bottleneck. We are -- and, again, we are getting complaints. We think we have a solution and we will be talking to you about that at the right time in budget. Another threat. Our CDBG program is small, but really important and vital to us and Sean is a part-time staff member, but we are getting additional regulatory and reporting burdens from HUD. It always gets more complicated to deal with HUD. Even though we didn't have any audit findings from HUD last year, we came close. We had a couple of sort of verbal warnings. We are finding that we need more than just the 19 hours a week to properly administer this program. The good news -- and so we may need to enhance the position and not bring it to fully 40 hours a week, but somewhere in between the 19 and 40 hours. Just the right amount to get the -- get the work done that the job demands -- the position demands. The good thing is that this will be revenue neutral. It's part of the administration that we get as part of the CDBG program. So, again, a little -- a little flavor of what we will be talking to you about at budget time. Love to hear your thoughts, concerns. Any questions? De Weerd: Thank you, Bruce. Any questions from Council? Bird: I have none. Nice report. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Bruce, you brought up a point that's been a point for a number of years and that's the -- the lack of and the cost of industrial sites in the City of Meridian. I don't have any solutions, other than maybe getting more available in terms of our supply, which would require us rezoning certain lands. Is that feasible? Is that a feasible approach and Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 13 of 30 would that put some pressure on what I view as a limited number of ownerships in industrial property in Meridian to maybe get some realistic prices. Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Councilman Rountree, it is -- it's going to be a difficult problem to solve. Part of it is, of course, just the -- it's not just availability, but as you pointed out it's the price point for the Meridian market. Our central location and our accessibility to transportation network really comes at a cost. There are two main issues. First issue -- and this is not going to be a lot of fun for those of us in the Planning Division or in many cases for you all on City Council and P&Z, is that we continue to erode our existing industrial land by allowing uses such as gymnasiums and churches to locate there. It's really hard to turn down a small business. It's really hard to turn down a church that wants to move into an industrial area. We are going to have to I think show more discipline as a -- as a city on that issue. The second is the overall supply of industrial land. We have been talking a lot with the planning division about where we might be able to bring more industrial land to bear. One of the things we want to do is look at the -- take our fiscal impact model, which, basically, takes our land use plan and treats it as a -- almost like an investment portfolio and using the model we can see into the future the revenues at build out that we would expect to get from each land use and the cost to serve as well. I think we need to look at that and see if we are in balance and from that we can also, then, decide if we need additional industrial and where it goes. There are communities that have taken this hill in the past and some of the places that I have worked have said, okay, we need more industrial, for instance, there may be other ways in which we are a little bit out of balance besides industrial and over the next five years we are going to gradually bring those -- more of those -- amend our land use plan to -- to bring more industrial to bear. It's not an easy thing to do to get new industrial land. It can be very controversial. It depends on where it is. We think we have some opportunities. This is not going to be difficult, but I think we can improve the situation. Rountree: Thank you. De Weerd: Any other questions for Bruce? Cavener: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Bruce, great presentation. What -- what's the direction coming out of your department related to customer service? I know it's something that's very important to you and I didn't hear all -- I heard some -- some of the things that you wanted to do related to customer service. I was hoping you could maybe speak directly about some of the things that you're doing and your plans for the next year to really respond to the needs of our development community. Chatterton: Madam Mayor and Council Member Cavener, a great point. We are in the process of pulling together a focus group of developers to talk about their experience. We are told -- have been told repeatedly that we are still -- we are the best to deal with in the Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 14 of 30 valley, maybe in Idaho, but often that same customer has a concern about the length of time it takes, for instance, to get a surety released -- it takes to go through the process in general. We may be leaving something on the table as good as we feel we are and some of our customers feel we are. So, we are going to be pulling together a development services advisory committee to help us work those problems productively. The way in which a focus group that like operates is the customer describes to us what their concerns are and, most importantly, what their preferred outcome is. The way they would like to see things. They don't give us the solution. Staff, then, designs a solution to meet those preferred outcomes and we run that by the customer before implementing it. Often this will result in a pilot project or two. And, then, we find out if we really have solved the problem. So, that's an excellent point. I'm glad you brought that up. Cavener: Thanks. De Weerd: Thank you, Councilman Cavener. Anything further? Thank you so much and thank you to your team. We greatly appreciate your work. I get positive feedback often and really appreciate that. I believe that your customers do believe that you have some areas that can be looked at, but your team is solution oriented and the first thing out of their mouth is how can we help you, not no. So, thank you. Chatterton: Thank you. B. Meridian Development Corporation Annual Report Presentation De Weerd: Item 7-13 is under our MDC and we will hear about what they have done over the last year. Isn't this fun. Dan, nice to have you here. Basalone: Thank you, Mayor. First of all, Mayor Tammy, Council President Rountree, Members of the board -- of the Council -- City Council of Meridian. I get my mind straight here we will be ready to begin. First of all, thank you for inviting us back again this year to give our 2014 annual report for the Meridian Development Corporation. First of all, I'd like to start by reintroducing our board of commissioners, especially for anyone in the audience who doesn't know who they are. Jim Escobar is our chairman again this year. I'm serving as vice -chair. Dave Winder is our secretary -treasurer and our board members are Mayor Tammy, Councilman Bird, Eric Jensen, Callie Zamzow, Kit Fitzgerald and Calvin Barrett, who is -- who replaced Pipal, who served on the board for a number of years. With distinction, I might add. Julie was chair person when I arrived on the board and I can tell you I learned a lot under her leadership as our chair person. We certainly thank her for her leadership role on the board. This past -- for 2014 we initiated many exciting projects, many of which you're seeing coming into fruition now as you go around our downtown area and I'm glad to be able to follow Bruce up here, because many of the activities that he mentioned are also activities that we have been involved with in some way. And I'd like to start with downtown parking and you all have a copy of the annual report I think in your possession. So, I will kind of refer to that as we go through it. I could make this a two hour presentation, but I don't think you really want that. So, I will kind of -- Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 15 of 30 De Weerd: No. Basalone: -- skim the highlights here. In terms of -- first thing, there is always a concern in the downtown about parking and one of the things we did -- or a few of the things we did in 2014 to help alleviate that concern was we created the new parking on South Broadway between 2nd -- East 2nd and East 3rd Streets and that's full-time parking. It's parking where a business owner or an employee can park all day. There is no two hour limit. We also restriped the parking north of Pine between Carlton, Meridian, and East 3rd Street, so that consumers of that parking will better know where they can park and make the spaces more available and recognizable and, finally, we established a formal agreement with the Masons to be able to use their parking lot on a daily basis and that has really helped alleviate parking. It's within one block of Main Street, which makes it very convenient. In terms of streetscape -- and this is a big concern, because the esthetics in downtown is one of the things that attracts people to let them know they are in a good place and this a good place to be and for a streetscape, our Main project, was the design of the first phase of the Main Street island project, which, as I mentioned before, you're now seeing some fruition of that planning, which is taking place right outside a block away from here. And I might add that the -- it is a project that took quite a bit of time and planning, because we involved a lot of the downtown people in that planning process, because we knew it would be impactful for a month or two while construction was going on and we definitely wanted it to be something that property owners and business owners found was an asset in their -- in their area, in their community and that is scheduled to be completed before the Dairy Days parade, which I know everybody will be happy about. We also, in terms of streetscape, have our ongoing partnership with the Department of Parks and Recreation here in the city to plant at least ten new trees in the downtown area or replace ten trees that are failing, dying, or -- in other words, not being as attractive or as useful as they could be and replace them with grated areas so that our sidewalks and streets don't get ruined by tree roots. We also initiated the way finding and signage program in the city and, once again, you will see the fruition of that this year when new signs are installed on the major thoroughfares directing autos and pedestrians to our downtown area and indicating what services are available in our downtown area. Along that same line we also started a branding effort and the branding effort involved what those signs were going to look like, what is going to be the logo for downtown, for instance, and I think all of you were involved in part of that discussion as to what that logo should look like from the choices we had from our consultant. We are also starting this year as an outgrowth of that, the establishment of a marketing consultant relationship, so that somebody could be on call to help us with marketing efforts and especially how to more engage our downtown businesses in utilizing the many opportunities in the downtown area for their own personal growth. Things like the activities that take place downtown and so forth. I want to really emphasize one of the real success stories I feel in our downtown area and that's the Treasure Valley Children's Theater. MDC has owned the old Cascade Bank building on the northwest of Broadway and Main Street for a number of years and through an RFP process we tried to get a private developer to come in and use the building, see what could be done with it. The outcome of that RFP process was that the Treasure Valley Children's Theater opted to use that building and we support their use in it, because even though it is a private venture, a private nonprofit venture, it Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 16 of 30 definitely has a public outgrowth and one of the -- let me just point out three things to you about their involvement in this past year in that building. Seven hundred and eighteen students have participated in classes in that building and that means their parents have had to drive them downtown every afternoon to go to those classes. Two thousand audience members have seen performances, either in that building or in Generations Plaza through the summer months and, in addition, there have been 3,000 audience members for adult performances. So, if you add all those number up, that's a lot of people coming to our downtown for a very creative reason. Another great project that came into fruition this year and it was one that I was glad to see -- Mayor Tammy, see your honor before this meeting -- at the beginning of this meeting, the historical society, and especially recognizing people such as Jacy Jones, who helped put this in place, is our historic walking tour and in 2014 the Meridian Development Corporation put aside and set in our budget 10,000 dollars to support field trips, so that every third grader who is learning about their community, who goes to a public school in the City of Meridian, could take the field trip and learn about the history of their city and I was glad, Mayor Tammy, to hear you reference the fact that you have seen the children walking around. They have been in City Hall and next year when one of us comes before this board to report on MDC activities, we can talk more about that, because that is really a 2015 budget year activity. But in terms of that, is it not only helping the students, but also their parents and their teachers learn more about what is the history of Meridian. And one of the outgrowths of that has been that a group of history society members led by Rich Nesbitt has convened a group to establish an NNU course on teaching the history of Meridian to -- first of all, the third grade teachers, make sure they know the history that they are teaching their students, but also to any other teacher or any community member who wants to enroll in the class and learn more about the City of Meridian and also how to be a volunteer leader in terms of guiding that tour if they are so inclined. We -- one of the mayor goals that we have had at MDC is to make this downtown a family friendly environment and when we bring students down for the history walk, when we have students in the Treasure Valley Children Theater, as I'm going to mention next about the art wraps on the utility boxes that have student art on them, we are really fulfilling that mission of getting children downtown and the -- in talking about the art wraps, that's our work with the Meridian Arts Commission, which is also -- which also allows us to support Concerts On Broadway and we were really glad to see this year that that contribution helped to fund four programs, rather than three -- more is always better than less, especially when it's a program like this and to also see the involvement of student performers prior to the professional entertainers at each of these concerts. Just another way that students and children are involved in downtown in dramatic ways and I want to say that I really enjoy being with Council Woman Milam at the student art exhibit at West Ada County School District offices where we selected five more wraps for new installation for this coming year. So, it's really exciting to see that involvement. We are also involved with -- as Bruce mentioned, the downtown multi-purpose center, the conference center and so forth. We have participants on the steering committee. Certainly I think we -- we are very involved with the public relation committee that's helping with that -- that project and we contributed money towards the feasibility. Also, as Bruce mentioned when he was talking about downtown and housing millennials and so forth, we did participate in the downtown housing study as well, which we think is critically important. We have many, you know, Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 17 of 30 fine neighborhoods downtown that need our support, as well as the business properties as we have been doing in the past. I also wanted to say that we were really excited to see this year the start up of the Meridian Downtown Business Association and while it is not an MDC project, it is certainly supported by MDC and by numerous individual members, including our Callie Zamzow, who serves on the board, because she is a downtown business owner as well. And so we -- we certainly support that activity and I saw that Frank Thomason was in the audience and Frank is also an MDBA board member. I'm going to take just a few moments, if you will allow me, to stress something about key partnerships and about individuals who have helped us through the years and, you know, I believe in naming people by names, just like Bruce did earlier. I think that people deserve the recognition that -- that they should get for the work that they have done and we have had a number of key partnerships, because I think we all know that none of work -- no public work could be done in isolation. You're always impacting somebody else or somebody else is impacting you. So, the best thing to do is to work together and solve problems in concert. And so our key partnerships this year have been, first of all, with the City of Meridian and I'm going to just speak personally and all my interactions with any city staff member has always been positive. I think it's -- I think it's kind of intrinsic in the DNA of the city that it's a service-oriented city and it's a friendly place to work. I think -- you know, I have worked with a lot of people through the years and I think you get a lot more done with smiles than you do with frowns and I think there is a lot of smiles in this city. The City of Meridian Community Development office, Public Works office, Parks and Recreation Department, the Meridian Arts Commission, the Historical Preservation Commission, the general counsel's office have particularly been of great help to us through this past year. I'd also like to say that our key partnerships are with the Meridian Downtown Business Association now that it's in force. The Ada County Highway District, who come to all of our meetings where they are involved. The West Ada County School District, as I mentioned before, we have had a lot of interaction with them, especially through things like the art program and the history tour. The Valley Regional Transit Center, especial Kelly Fairless, has been great in terms of working with us. They also allow -- Valley Regional Transit allows the MDBA to meet in their offices, which is great. And, of course, the Meridian Chamber of Commerce. And now this is where you have to bear with me. I'm going to name some names. And if I leave somebody out I greatly apologize. Okay. But the following people have participated in MDC committee meetings and provided some direction to us: Mayor Tammy. Councilman Zaremba. Councilman Bird. Councilman Cavener. Bruce Chatterton. Brenda Sherwood. C.J. Coles. Brian McClure. Caleb Hood. Jacy Jones. Emily Kane. Elroy Huff. Mike Barton. Austin Peterson. Garrick Nelson. Holly Brinkley. Lieutenant John Overton. Lori den Hartog. Mary Jensen. Joe Kozlowski. Eric Davis. David Ballard. Tonya Westencal. Josh Evers. Kelly Fairless. James Hohenleitner. JoAnn Richter. Clay Slocum. Justin Lucas. Ryan Head. Kelly Ryan. Lori Jones. Gretchen Caserotti. Autumn Kersey. Ann Roberts. And a special thanks to our general counsel Todd Lakey and our administrator Ashley Squyres. Without them none of this could have been done. And for that we thank them. We thank you and thank you for inviting us again this year. If you have any questions I will be happy to take them. Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 18 of 30 De Weerd: Thank you, Dan. Appreciate your kind words and I would open this to any questions from City Council. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Just a statement. A very good report. I think -- and Dan wouldn't say this, but on the downtown business association, the two leaders of it, while they weren't representing MDC, but were members of MDC, Ashley and Dan are the ones that actually got the downtown -- got -- went out, seen all the people and got them convinced to come and now we got a very viable downtown business association and I thank you for that. It's something that's been needed. As before we tried to throw some money at it. It didn't work. This time you got -- went out and got the ground -- ground floor and worked up. Thank you, guys, very much. The two of you deserve the credit. Basalone: Thank you so much, Keith. It's nice to know that that group now has money in the bank, so they are an official group; right? De Weerd: Any other questions? Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Madam Mayor. A couple questions for Dan. Thanks for the report. Main Street islands. I heard Dairy Days. Is there a closer or is there a more accurate date than before Dairy Days? Basalone: You know, I think the only delay that I'm aware of is the -- the historic streetlights. There was a delay in ordering them, because the manufacturer didn't have them on hand. But that should impact Dairy Days, because they are on the sidewalk. Right? So, as far as I know there is not a problem and I believe Dairy Days is June 19th -- 18th or 19th. Bird: 19th. Basalone: And as you can see right now they are starting to put the -- the landscaping in. So, yeah, should have it done. All they need to do is put the pole that goes in the middle and I think they are pretty much done. Cavener: Great. De Weerd: I think the bigger question, before you move on, is when can people park on main street. Squyres: Good afternoon, Mayor, Members of the Council. I will first address the first question that you had regarding the islands. The island will be complete, they are on schedule, by June 1st. The historic lighting is slated to be fully installed by June 19th. It Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 19 of 30 should not impact Dairy Days at all, parking will be available to the businesses on Friday, is my understanding. This Friday. De Weerd: Good. Thank you. Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Related to that project, I love hearing that our downtown businesses are involved in that. Do you mind sharing who those businesses were, so I can thank them for their -- their contribution? Basalone: You know, I think that is most of the businesses downtown. I don't have them right on the top of my head, Luke, but I will be happy to get it for you. Cavener: That's okay. In the spirit of thanking everybody you got me excited, I wanted to thank -- Basalone: Yeah. No, I -- De Weerd: The downtown business association? Cavener: The businesses that were -- that the feedback was sought for the Main Street island project. De Weerd: Yeah. I don't have -- Cavener: One other question if I might. Dan, talk to me a little bit about the economic impact the Treasure Valley Children's Theater has made to downtown. I mean what -- Basalone: In terms of dollars? Cavener: Sure. Yeah. Are we seeing families going to eat at Flatbread -- and I doubt that anyone is going to the Busted Shovel afterwards, but -- Basalone: I don't know. I wouldn't discount that. Cavener: What's the impact? I mean I look at this as an investment and -- Basalone: I think that this is one of the reasons why we wanted to hire a marketing consultant, because I think what we are -- we are learning is that we are having to either educate or re-educate businesses as to the potential for having people downtown. Just like when we had the food truck rally here, for instance. How -- you know, there were some businesses who took advantage of that. There was a flyer prepared and they said now that you're downtown you may want to go to Restaurant X, Y or Z. You know, something like this. So, that's really the -- kind of the education -- re-education of businesses and how to use something like the -- the Treasure Valley Children's Theater is critically important. One of the -- and, Mayor Tammy, we have talked about this before. One of the things that we need downtown is something like an ice cream parlor or a -- you Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 20 of 30 know, a candy store, or something where children can go after they leave the -- their activity, they can go somewhere and have an ice cream or buy a candy bar or do something like that. So, we do need to attract those businesses. But the business that's already here needs to better learn how to use the potential that's already here and that's what we want to do. As far as its current impact, I really don't know. I would be hazarding a guess as to how many people went to Flatbread or Rick's or Epi's or -- you know, Kahootz. By the way, those are some of the people who have supported, if you want to visit them. Cavener: Great. Basalone: Okay? Thanks, Dan. De Weerd: We do have a candy store. But it is -- it is one of those things of -- Basalone: Oh, the chocolate shop. I apologize. De Weerd: I just wanted to make sure we knew we had Preece Chocolate. Basalone: No. I realize that. But the problem is, Tammy, is that the businesses have to know to be open when the customers are here. If you close at 5:00 o'clock and the classes are from 5:00 to 7:00, well, you know -- unless you want to hand out flyers or something at the classes. De Weerd: Right. Any additional questions? Thank you for being here. Basalone: Thanks for your courtesy. I appreciate it. C. Petition for Exclusion of Land from Nampa Meridian Irrigation District and Annexation to New York Irrigation District Title 43 Chapter 10 & 11 Idaho Code De Weerd: Thank you, Dan. Okay. Item 7-C is -- I don't know who it is. Warren. Stewart: Madam Mayor, Members of the City Council, as you guys will recall, we annexed the Meridian Heights and Kentucky Ridge Subdivisions a little over a year ago I think and when we did so we acquired a new well or a well property in the Kentucky Ridge Subdivision. That well is located on a common lot, which kind of serves as a park area for the Kentucky Ridge development. Currently that common area and our well site receives irrigation water through Nampa -Meridian Irrigation District in a system that's already developed. A pressurized irrigation system that's already developed. The Kentucky Ridge Homeowners Association, though, as a whole, all the residents in there, do not have a pressurized irrigation system that has access to surface water irrigation and their subdivision is split by two separate irrigation districts, the Nampa -Meridian Irrigation District and the New York Irrigation District. So, they are trying to initiate a process whereby they can create an LID and fund a project to install a pressurized irrigation Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 21 of 30 system to utilize surface water for all the residents -- the residential homes within that subdivision. As a part of doing that they, as a subdivision as a whole, are going to, essentially, relinquish their access to Nampa -Meridian's Irrigation District water, become -- make everybody a part of the New York Canal District and receive water from them. So, in order for that to happen they all have basic -- everybody who is a part of the Nampa - Meridian Irrigation District currently has to basically get out. The city is a part of that, because our lot is in the Nampa -Meridian Irrigation District. So, if we want to continue to receive surface water from that system that's already in place, we have to get out of the Nampa -Meridian system and into the New York system. So, what you have before you tonight is, essentially, the documentation that allows that to occur, that we will basically get out of the Nampa -Meridian one, into the New York. Now, one of the other elements of that whole process, essentially, was that they wanted to know if we wanted to become a part of the LID. We really don't want to become part of the LID and in conversations with them they -- they agreed that it didn't make sense for us -- that's the -- we already had access. The whole point behind the LID was to fund the infrastructure to serve the homes. There wasn't any new infrastructure that needed to be in place in order for the city's property to receive irrigation water. So, the paperwork that is before you, essentially, like I said, gets us out of the Nampa -Meridian into the New York so we can continue to receive surface water, but, basically, keeps us out of the LID. We will simply pay our assessments and homeowners association dues and everything else that will give us access to the water. We will pay for that irrigation service like we currently do. So, that's the paperwork that's here before you tonight. That's what we are trying to do is to allow -- or make it possible so that we can continue to use surface water irrigation to irrigate the well lot, but stay out of the LID. And with that I would entertain any questions. De Weerd: Thank you, Warren. Council, any questions? Bird: I have none. De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Madam Mayor. I move we approve the submission of the petition to switch from Nampa -Meridian Irrigation District to the New York Irrigation District. Milam: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 7-C. Any questions or comments from Council? Madam Clerk, will you call roll. Roll Call: Rountree, yea; Bird, yea; Zaremba, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 22 of 30 D. Parks and Recreation Department: 2015 Meridian Pathways Network Map Update De Weerd: Okay. Item 7-D is under our Parks and Recreation Department. I will turn this over to Jay. Gibbons: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. I'm here today to present an update to the Meridian Pathways Network Map that's included in your packet. There is -- there are 18 changes. We try to update this -- it starts out we shoot for an annual basis, depending on how many really substantial changes there are to the map from one year to the next. Sometimes that gets put off. In this case the last time we updated and adopted the pathways network map was in 2012 and what you see -- this is -- what's on your monitor at the moment -- this is from 2012. You can see for the most part this -- in 2012 it illustrated a lot of realignments of proposed pathways according to what was being entitled at the time. They followed the entitlement and what was approved. So, with the -- the pathways network map that is before you for discussion purposes today is there are 18 changes. They reflect, for the most part, 15 new pieces of pathway. The city has built two in the last three years. The development community has built the other 13. And there are three segments that were originally shown on the map that we feel it's appropriate to remove at this point -- for instance, Item No. E is -- there was originally a pathway shown along Black Cat Road connecting to the Five Mile Pathway in the future. Really, you have the -- the Meridian loop that's a quarter mile to the west. It's off route and it's undeveloped land at the moment. It doesn't really need to be on the narrowest piece of two lane black top that -- as it's shown. So, we are trying to make a little sense of this and remove some of the pathways that were referenced as we want this pathway or this one or this one, for instance, on Fairview at Lakes Place, there is a pathway shown along Fairview. There is one shown through an apartment complex. There is one shown to the south of the existing vacant auto dealership. Those three are or's. We have commitment from the development community that they have built that stub across the south end of their development that will connect on the south of Two Lakes Place, south side of the auto dealership. So, ACHD is going to build the normal sidewalk along Fairview at the end of this year, so, you know, we don't necessarily have to hold a future developer responsible for that. We have our off -- off road multi -use pathway taken care of. So, with that why I'm here today is to bring this to you, give you a brief overview, and if you have suggestions, discussion, clarifications, you want to make additional changes or put things back in, that's more than appropriate and I will work with the Legal Department and bring the adopting resolution back to you next Tuesday to adopt this, which will, then, assist our Community Development Department with helping me implement these -- some of these pathways through the development processes and they are kind of anxious for that to happen, too, as some of these pathways that we are making changes to are directly impacting some very soon to come developments as well. So, we'd like to get them in the right place at the right time. And with that I will stand for questions. De Weerd: Thank you, Jay. Council, any questions? Bird: I have none, Mayor. Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 23 of 30 De Weerd: Mr. Cavener, are you ready to change seats with someone? Cavener: What's that? De Weerd: Mr. Nary I think has a cold. Cavener: No. He's fine. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: If I don't hear any questions or anything, I would recommend that the Parks and Recreation Department gets a resolution going. I think what I have seen here it looks really good and it does give us a decent plan for developers and ourselves and everybody to work on. So, Jay, I would say let's get a resolution and get it going, get something in the works. Milam: Second. Cavener: Third. Milam: Third. Fourth. De Weerd: Did I miss a motion? Bird: It wasn't a motion. A recommendation. Gibbons: You will notice that on the north end from basically Ten Mile to Locust Grove there is a connected pathway from Ten Mile now all the way to Locust Grove and in the not too distant future that will connect clear down to Ustick as soon as we get another piece of sidewalk there on Locust Grove and one piece of pathway across an ACHD drainage way that we have an easement for, so -- Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: Sorry. What's the difference on the map in the packet of the green line showing the proposed future route and, then, a green dashed line of proposed long term route? Gibbons: For instance, I believe the long term route -- I believe it's Nine Mile here north of Pine or Cherry that -- yeah, it's north of Cherry. It shows a route along the Nine Mile Creek that that area has already been developed. It may or may not be feasible without a whole bunch of easements and assistance from property owners. So, an on route Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 24 of 30 connection is shown, but one day if we have the opportunity we would like for that to happen and, really, that's -- it's just showing options. Similar to an alternative route that we indicate along the Rail With Trail, depending on how things happen in the future we can go either way that way through the development process. But in this instance with the long-term I think that warrants further discussion. It predates my time and when it was -- when the map was created we got to figure out how -- how best to deal with some of the situations. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Borton: It makes sense. The idea if a -- the proposed pathway at any particular location is installed does the long term route come off? Gibbons: Then it would. If it didn't follow the long term route; correct. Borton: Okay. Gibbons: I do -- and, for instance, in the plan itself it speaks to the long term on Five Mile Creek that runs basically from Lakes Place over to Meridian Road that goes behind the businesses and it follows the center line of the creek, basically, behind Burger King and Albertson's, corrects to Meridian Road that way. That's kind of the long term route. The short term was to go up through Lakes Place and East James Court, over to the Bud Porter Pathway. Well, that's all connected now and there is not one segment of the Five Mile that's along the creek, which would be difficult to implement because of the businesses and -- and every residential lot to the north of the creek goes to the middle of the creek. That may be a long term solution that needs to really not be shown anymore, because it probably won't happen. We have, really, what -- the connection that we want really works well and it's on the ground and being used, so -- Borton: All right. Okay. Gibbons: We will look at that in the future. Borton: Okay. Thanks, Jay. De Weerd: Really it's going to be in terms of -- of making sure that the public knows how these pathway segments connect and we can take a lesson out of a lighter, quicker, cheaper book in terms of how to really help guide people and I appreciated being on the bike tour with the Parks Commission and having that opportunity to take the bike path and how it connects almost four or five miles, but it's not intuitive yet. So, it is going to take that direction, whether it's paint on a sidewalk or mile marker or what have you, but it's nice to see things are starting to connect and it was just reiterated in the parks master plan, in the public participatory part of that in both the online, the survey itself and it was reiterated in our listening tour how extremely critical and desirable to our citizens a Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 25 of 30 connected pathway system is. So, hold onto your seat, I think your job gets a little bit more busy and complicated and exciting all at the same time. Gibbons: Madam Mayor, the results of that -- those surveys when I saw them was somewhat unnerving. Either I had a whole lot of work to do or I'm not doing a very good job. I don't know how to read that exactly, but we are getting -- De Weerd: Opportunity abounds. Bird: Yeah. Gibbons: Exactly. De Weerd: Yes. Gibbons: I look forward to it. De Weerd: Well, thank you, Jay, for your report and for being here. Gibbons: We will see you next week. E. City Council Liaison/Committee Updates De Weerd: Okay. Item 7-E is under City Council liaison and committee updates and so I will start with Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, today I want to point out what's going on in Public Works. They are very actively preparing for Public Works Week, which will mostly be June 1st through June 5th. On Monday, June 1st, they will have a public open house at the new facilities at the wastewater treatment plant and tours, all that sort of stuff. Wednesday they will have Public Works Day where they set up in the plaza and inside the building and in the parking lot and all sorts displays, activities, and a whole lot of other activities going on. So, Public Works Department is going to be very public during Public Works Week. De Weerd: Thank you. Borton: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Borton. Borton: Sure. I will go next. Chief Niemeyer and I have been talking in Fire -- primarily budget reviews sort of engulf the conversation. We have had some good, lively debates while there and just trying to get our head around some of the short-term issues they deal with and, then, also make sure we address through this budget cycle, probably like in prior years, but the awareness of some of the long-term needs and expenses down the road Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 26 of 30 that are sizable in light of the department and what they do. So, that's been a lot of the work. It's been -- we have done it for the budget. We have talked through enhancements. That's been very successful. So, moving forward there. Historic Preservation Commission, obviously, you have heard great things about what they have been doing. Their recent Orchid Award. So, they are a phenomenal group. It is no surprise. So, it's just been a pleasure to observe their hard efforts as well, so -- that's my update. De Weerd: Great. Thank you. Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Madam Mayor. You only need to keep track of the ValleyNews or the Meridian Press or Statesman or the television and radio stations to know what's going on in the Mayor's office in terms of south Meridian meetings and town hall meetings and Do It Right and all of those events that have been initiated in Meridian over the past few weeks. You all have been notified about upcoming Association of Idaho Cities meeting this spring and summer, so I hope you will get your information to Peggy, so you can be attending that if you wish. So, the Mayor doesn't have to put in that plug. I assume you're all working on your budgets and working with your respective departments to get your budgets put together and I hope that's going well. I had the easiest one to deal with. So, you all have the ones to struggle with. But beyond that I don't have enough time to recite all of the activities from the Mayor's office. She's been busy and -- between the youth council and drug council and emergency group and you name it. De Weerd: Thank you, Mr. Rountree. I will just add we are in the middle of going and announcing award winners at our five elementary schools that were doing the Mayor Tammy's Walking Club, which is just an offspring for the Mayor's Walking Challenge that Mayor Bieter in Boise started last fall and so we have continued walking in the five elementary schools that were participating. Last week we went to Peregrine and River Valley and announced their first, second, and third place winners. Now, second place gets a jump rope. Everyone in that classroom and I was thinking, wow, I want second place. First place is lunch with the Mayor. Not as interesting, but thank you to Whole Foods, because they are providing the lunches. This is all sponsored by Blue Cross of Idaho. And third place I found out what those little carabiner clips are really. Don't know why they call them that, but it's -- that's third place and -- and Peregrine, the winning class in four weeks walked 20 and a half miles per student an average and so they really took that -- that competition very serious and I was able to go to each of the students -- or schools and walk twice with the schools at each of them. I would say that Peggy is amazing that she can get me to all of those places and so is Danyele. But we -- we have some very active kids, so it's exciting. So, I have three more schools I need to go to. Mr. Bird: Bird: Parks. You heard the pathway report. The dog park is going along real well. We are changing -- thanks to the Council last week we are going to go ahead and make the change with the -- down at the restrooms there and bring the drive-thru to the west of the restrooms and planning the other, so we are -- our patrons aren't in -- having to walk across the drive-thru to get to the restrooms. Since our last -- the last month we dedicated the new tennis courts out there. Beautiful facility. Beautiful workmanship. And Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 27 of 30 anybody that goes -- drives through every one of our parks -- I mean every one of our parks they are maintained perfect, they all look beautiful thanks to the Parks Department and all their employees. Finance. They are just working hard on the budget and just keeping the font small so we can't hardly read it. Milam: Working hard at it. Bird: Yeah. De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Milam: The police training center is on track and it's looking good. I was out there today and it's really coming along. The last week officers have saved two lives using CPR. And the clerk hired their open admin position and she will start the Tuesday after Memorial Day. In Arts there is a special meeting on Monday, if anybody wants to come, to discuss traffic box art. That's about it. De Weerd: Well -- and I would just -- just add that the art wrap that's out there was funded by the State of the City money and we have one more and I think that I -- we did look at the art that was selected by the committee, but I might just choose to see if the wrap can be the Mayor's award this year. The I Love My Dog done by a kindergartener at Meridian Elementary School. So, we will see if it will be a good wrap, but that is such an exciting project that the Arts Commission is really leading and it's going to certainly add personality, color and character to our downtown by really showcasing the talent that we have with our youth. So, thank you for going out with them and picking those -- you picked some great pieces that will look great -- will look really nice on the traffic boxes. Milam: There are hundreds I think to go through -- or over a hundred. That's why they are having a special meeting. There is a lot of other submissions as well, so -- Cavener: All right. De Weerd: Mr. Cavener Cavener: So, like all of us, both Community Development and Human Resources are in the midst of their budgetary planning. We heard from Bruce today and I just want to reiterate that -- something that stuck out to me he said that one percent in staff growth is to me just really phenomenal over the period that they have been around and I appreciate him providing his updates. I didn't get a chance to connect with either of my departments today, because they were in this large scale budget meeting, so I look forward to reconnecting with them next week. I had planned to go on the pathways tour, but my Cruiser had sprung a leak, so I am looking forward to attending our Parks Commission meeting tomorrow night and being updated on what they do. De Weerd: Thank you. And, Council, I would remind you that next week on the 20th is the ground breaking at 10:30 for the Boys and Girls Club gymnasium and I'd love to have Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 28 of 30 you out there. Your leadership has been very critical to moving this project forward and we are -- we are just really thankful we are at that point where we can start turning dirt. Item 8: Ordinances A. Ordinance No. 15-1644: An Ordinance (AZ 15-001 - Paramount Southeast) for the Rezone of a Parcel of Land Being a Portion of the SE 1/4 of Section 25, Township 4 North, Range 1 West, Ada County, Idaho Establishing and Determining the Land Use Zoning Classification of Said Lands from C -G to R-40 and from R-40 to C -G and Providing an Effective Date De Weerd: Item 8-A is Ordinance 15-1644 RZ 15-001. 1 will ask Madam Clerk to, please, read this by title only. Holman: Thank you, Madam Mayor. City of Meridian Ordinance No. 15-1644: An Ordinance RZ 15-001 - Paramount Southeast for the rezone of a parcel of land being a portion of the southeast one quarter of Section 25, Township 4 North, Range 1 West, Boise meridian, City of Meridian, Ada County, Idaho. Establishing and determining the land use zoning classification of R-40, high density residential zoning district, to C -G, general retail and service commercial zoning district and C -G, general retail and service commercial to R-40, high density residential in the Meridian City Code. Providing that copies of the 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 waiver of the reading rules and providing an effective date. De Weerd: Thank you. You have heard this read by title only and I don't see anyone that wants to hear it read in its entirety, so, Council, I would entertain a motion. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move that we approve Ordinance No. 15-1644 with suspension of rules. Rountree: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 8-A. Madam Clerk, will you call roll. Roll Call: Rountree, yea; Bird, yea; Zaremba, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 29 of 30 Item 9: Future Meeting Topics De Weerd: Are there any items for future agendas? Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Not a topic, but just to confirm that our meeting next week will be on Wednesday, instead Tuesday, because the election on Tuesday. Is that correct? De Weerd: Oh, really? Rountree: School board. Zaremba: Tuesday, the 19th, an election day. De Weerd: A Wednesday Council meeting. That is awesome. Okay. Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Zaremba. Item 10: Executive Session Per Idaho State Code 67-2345 (1)(f)(c)(d)(a): (f) to Consider and Advise Its Legal Representatives in Pending Litigation; (c) to conduct deliberations concerning labor negotiations or to acquire an interest in real property, which is not owned by a public agency; (d) to consider records that are exempt from disclosure as provided in chapter 3, title 9, Idaho Code; AND (a) To consider hiring a public officer, employee, staff member or individual agent, wherein the respective qualities of individuals are to be evaluated in order to fill a particular vacancy or need. This paragraph does not apply to filling a vacancy in an elective office or deliberations about staffing needs in general De Weerd: Okay. I would enter a motion to adjourn into Executive Session. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we go into Executive Session as per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(a),(1)(c), (1)(d) and (1)(f). Rountree: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adjourn into Executive Session. Madam Clerk, will you call role. Meridian City Council Workshop May 12, 2015 Page 30 of 30 Roll Call: Rountree, yea; Bird, yea; Zaremba, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. EXECUTIVE SESSION: (4:38 p.m. to 6:06 p.m.) MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 8:06 P.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) "T.APPROVED