HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004 02-24 PreCITY OF MERIDIAN
PRE -COUNCIL MEETING
AGENDA
Tuesday, February 24, 2004 at 5:00 p.m.
Meridian Police Department
1401 E. Watertower
Meridian, ID
Roll -call Attendance:
Shaun Wardle Bill Nary
Charlie Rountree Keith Bird
Mayor Tammy de Weerd
2. Adoption of the Agenda:
3. Discussion with ZGA on Space Study Update:
(*90 minutes)
*Approximate allowable time set for agenda item may change depending on
discussion. Please use the designated minutes as a guideline only.
Meridian City Council Agenda— February 24, 2004 Page 1 of 1
All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian.
Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearings
please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting.
Revised April 10, 2004
tri-plex and 2 four-plexes with reduced street frontage, setbacks and
minimum lot width requirements in an R-15 zone for Troy Place Subdivision
by PPN, LLC — 1236 East 2 Y2 Street: Re -Notice for new Public Hearing
20. Resolution No. 04-428 : Approval to proceed with work for
tree replacement at 1409 North Main Street by cashing the $500.00
deposit: Table to April 20, 2004
21. Area of Impact — Service Area — Brad Watson
Meridian City Council Agenda —April 13, 2004 Page 5 of 5
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 Pre -Council Meetina February 24, 2004
The Pre -Council meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 5:08
P.M. on Tuesday, February 24, 2004 by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Members Present: Bill Nary, Keith Bird, Shaun Wardle, Mayor Tammy de
Weerd.
Staff Present: Brad Watkins, Anna Powell, Bill Musser, Gary Smith, Pauline
Skeggs, Kenny Bowers, Doug Strong, Bill Nichols and Will Berg.
Absent: Charlie Rountree
Others Present: David Logan, Mike Roberts, Mike Simmonds.
1. Roll -call Attendance:
X Shaun Wardle X Bill Nary
0 Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird
X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
2. Adoption of the Agenda:
Bird: Mr. President.
Nary: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move that we adopt the agenda as published.
Wardle: Second.
Nary: Moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as published. All those in favor
say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED. ALL AYES.
3. Discussion with ZGA on Space Study Update:
Nary: Just a couple of things before we get started. There will be some food, in
fact, it looks like it may have arrived if you want to get up while we are discussing
Item 3, feel free to do that so we don't have to stop and for the folks from ZGA,
members from the County are here; Mr. Logan and Mr. Robertson, so when we
get to a point they would like to make their pitches (inaudible) some of the needs
the County foresees, but you can decide where that is the appropriate point and I
will let you kind of take the lead.
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
Page 2 of 28
(Inaudible speaker):
Nary: Oh, well they can go first. Whatever works, I don't know what the order of
the presentation will be.
Logan: I am Dave Logan. I am the director of operations for Ada County. I have
been with the County for 21 years and (inaudible). I have been either a Boise
resident or Meridian resident. I went to 4grade here in Meridian. Anyway, I
served as Ada County's Owner Representative for Public Work's projects for
buildings, parks and different things that we build. We do roads, we do buildings
and I do RFQ's, the RFPs, the architectural agreements, and the construction
agreements. I walk the project from start to finish until upon completion. I did the
Ada County Jail, the Ada County Courthouse, the EMS Station and (inaudible)
buildings and it seems like we are always building something. Anyways, we
have been working for — the Commissioners did ask us to start considering a
Meridian Campus because we have different agencies that would like to come to
Meridian and find permanent homes. We do have an administrative office —
juvenile detention and we have done a little bit of programming with them. Right
now they are over on Franklin Street in a very small building (inaudible). We tore
— we started with a little rundown house, we kind of fixed it up. Eventually we
bought the Farm Bureau building, tore that house down and ended up buying the
ACHD building next to it. We tore that down and this year we will be building a
parking lot, a landscaping and parking lot (inaudible) right next to the Farm
Bureau building. Anyway, that building is too small for our use. I have
(inaudible) and initial programming for juvenile and — this is just probation
officers, people trying to talk to the kids and their parents. They bring them in
and they talk to them and they have different programs that they initiate out of
that building. There are no kids detained there, it's just a kind of a community
center where probation officers, officers and different programs are run out of
that building. Juvenile is looking for approximately 3,000 square feet and to
expand. They also at one time have talked about a juvenile courtroom at that
site, but that's kind of wishful thinking, you know, down the line. There may be a
possibility of that if a multi-purpose courtroom if we at one time look at an adult
court facility at that site as well. The Motor Vehicles currently have a renting
property here in Meridian and they have a nice — pretty good-sized office here
and with that (inaudible) in Meridian and this (inaudible) Ada County and they are
requesting about 5,000 square feet. EMS — I have asked Mike Roberts to come
to this meeting in the public and talk about it. He has a couple of different needs
that he would like to explore with you guys and one is that we are looking for a
permanent station site for an ambulance and crew quarters and Mike does have
a partial kind of selected — haven't made an offer on it, but we are looking at it.
Then he is also looking at permanent home for his administrative office and he
needs about 3,000 square feet for that. That's where people can actually come
and pay their bills by walk-in. He has quite a bit of traffic and may actually do the
billing for all of the EMS. Of course the Sheriff has quite a presence and kind of
a (inaudible) of the City of Meridian and frequently on the way to Kuna and to
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
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North Ada County, back and forth and they have asked for 1,427 square feet for
a small office, substation in Meridian. It would save time and money if you don't
have to drive through Barrister — no holding facility, just more of an office type
setting. What we are looking at is what we are hoping to find at a Meridian site is
that we'd like to have high speed data and phone capability to the site and hook
and expand our voice or i.e., telephone system to Meridian and get them on our
County network and we are hoping that — originally, we talked about having my
department, the Operation's Department support these functions at a certain site
and one particular site and then have our IT departments also supported at a
certain site. Hopefully, we can make some good long-term decisions on cabling
and data networks if they are in kind of one area — state (inaudible) in that one
particular area. It's pretty difficult supporting our employees and our departments
if they are all scattered out in old buildings, rented areas and we pretty much
want to find a permanent home for these departments. Okay, now I know I forgot
something — but, we are looking for — you know we would like lots of parking for
our folks and we are also very interested in building a high performance building
and we would like our building to be as nearly — I guess the definition of this is
sub -stainable green building if possible. We know that nowadays we feel that
investing in our building is wise decision — that people come to the building for its
longevity. We feel that if we can also save in utility costs and also increase
productivity and spend the extra time with day lighting and spend the extra time
with controls for our ACHD and spend the extra time building a building that
would make our employees productive. I would like very much — I am very
interested and the matter is that we get to come here now and work with you
guys in sub -stainable design and you know who knows maybe we would want to
look at (inaudible) indication, but at least there is lots — if we pay attention to it —
there is lots of good things that we can do to make our employees say, you
know, boy this is a nice place and I am sure glad (inaudible). Okay, Mike, do you
have anything?
Roberts: Thank you. Mayor and Council I have two needs and the first as Mr.
Logan has said is office space for my business office and, obviously, if I can do it
I'd like to put my business office in with an ambulance station, but that may or
may not be possible. What I need to do is to maintain some flexibility, obviously,
my concern is like with an ambulance quarters I need to worry about accessing
the street and I need to worry about safety and (inaudible) and all of those
issues. So, I need something that will work for my medic response to calls. I
found — there are four parcels of ground in Meridian that I have been looking at —
one that I found very recently that is absolutely ideal for it — we have not yet
made an offer on it, but I wanted to give you all — that EMS has been trying to get
into the City of Meridian for a number of years. What we need is quarters and
certainly want to serve the citizens of the City of Meridian and there also are the
citizens of Ada County that we feel we are responsible for as well. I am not sure
of the processes, Mr. Logan is, but I am not. I don't buy buildings, so we are
going to have to rely on him and you all for your support, but that's really all I
have to say.
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
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Nary: Any questions?
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Nary: Madame Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess I missed how many square feet you are looking for the
juvenile detention?
Logan: About 3,000 square feet.
De Weerd: So, you have 3,000 for that; 5,000 for DMV; and 1,400 for the
Sherifrs and whether the EMS administrative offices that's flexible and your
needs are 3,000 square feet for the administrative offices?
Logan: Now, we did not talk about an adult court facility and I you know, I can
get those numbers very easily. We are very familiar with grabbing for those
(inaudible) and what the court needs and I can get those numbers for you and
then it may be a really good marriage between the juvenile court and adult court.
I will get those numbers to you guys in the very near future. Now, the court
(inaudible) recorder is interested in a polling station —
De Weerd: Oh yeah —
Logan: -- but that could be this room. They come in they set up, you know we
are looking for accessibility, ADA accessibility and access for the people and we
thought that — there really is (inaudible) — I didn't really put any numbers down for
the polling stations for elections because we could use a room, you know, a large
conference room, a voyeur, someplace in there and it would work out just fine.
Bird: Mr. President.
Nary: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Dave, I assure you that your welcome to go through this building as the
type — this is a standard building the City puts up so everything will be try to be
first class as much as you can. We'd like the courthouse (inaudible) down there.
On a courtroom are we talking about one about like they have down at the new
Ada County Courthouse?
Logan: Yes.
Bird: What do you suppose those are? I didn't work at that timeframe. They are
probably what 7,000-8,000 square feet?
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
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Logan: Well, I have different sizes (inaudible) and small jury, large jury, non -jury
courtrooms and the one I just — probably you are looking at a small jury
courtroom and with maybe two small conference rooms where attorneys can
meet for pre-trial and then we are probably looking at some court clerk space,
judge's chamber, you know, probably about 5,000 to 6,000 square feet.
Bird: I know truants are expensive, but what — how you did it was the way all
courtrooms should be done as far as I am concerned. From what I have
understood from the attorneys and judges.
Logan: They were a challenge.
Bird: They were a big challenge, so anyway they turned out nice and I am sure
that we would want to put something in to that kind of standard.
Logan: What I think you guys used (inaudible) contractors — used on this
building and we used them on the courthouse and they did a real nice job and it
pays off.
Bird: Yes, it does. What I am getting here is if we have the EMS, we are looking
about — you guys could use about 15,000 square feet. Without them we are
down to about 10,000. If we get a courtroom then we are looking at another
5,000 or 6,000 and I for one would love to see a courtroom over here — to make it
worth while, I don't know how many days we would have to do it — I don't know —
Mr. Nary could probably tell us how much the courtroom would be used over
here if it would be a five day deal or three or four or two day or what.
Nary: Well, I spoke so that everybody kind of knows a little bit about what we are
talking about. I spoke with Judge Williamson who is administrative trial judge for
the Fourth District and what she would like is if we are going to do this long term
when we look at and obviously there would be some interim steps to get there,
but long term what she would envision is having a full-time magistrate hear
because transporting magistrate back and forth from here to the downtown
courthouse really is a real loss of productivity. Currently, just looking at the
numbers that the Meridian Police Department generates would only be about 35
percent is what she told me — 35 percent of what a judges normal calendar would
be. Now, if we combine that with juvenile facility again that would take some
change in the way that the current structure of the court system is, but it doesn't
mean it couldn't be done. Yet, we were combining one judge into doing juvenile
and adult crimes — it can be done that way. It isn't currently being done that way,
so I guess there is some discussion that could be had to do that. If we were
going to have an adult judge just doing adult criminal calendar out here, a
magistrate, what I told the judge is that we don't currently collect data based on
where the defendants live, we collect data from where the officers that site the
defendants, which agency they belong to. So that 35 percent number really is
just Meridian PD's numbers. That doesn't include Ada County Sheriffs or Kuna
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
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and Star. It doesn't include residents who live in western Ada County, but were
cited by ISP or Boise Police. So, they don't currently do that, so we have to
figure out a way to pilot that, but all we are looking at right now is what would be
the space needs if we were to have (inaudible) what Mr. Logan is talking about.
Just so everybody knows, I just (inaudible) this audit five minutes before we
started, so it wasn't that -- he didn't really have any time to get these numbers,
but I think what we are looking at from a facility stand point is exactly what you
talked about. How much space is the courtroom going to be needed. If it's a jury
size courtroom it's going to be larger, you need to have chambers for a judge,
chambers for a clerk and they need to have some space for a clerk to take
payments and like a cashier's window type for payments for people to pay
citations and to take care of citations and that kind of stuff. Some of those base
things is what we are looking at and I told the judge, you know, if we got further
into this discussion we would look at how we would make this happen because
we need a lot of input from the judges, the court administration, the clerk's office,
a bunch of different players to make it happen, but (inaudible) players — you
know, the more we think in here and brainstorm a little bit, like the prosecution
attorneys and public defender would probably need space —
Logan: You know a place for the marshals, security, you know, but it's doable
and we could sit down (inaudible).
Nary: Yeah, but what's encouraging is that the judge is very receptive to the idea
of trying to figure out a way to do this and again there is a number of players to
put into place to participate and make to make it happen, but I think, like you
said, all we're looking at is preliminarily. I guess, Mr. Logan, one of the things I
was curious is when you had identified that the Commissioners were interested
in looking at western Ada County that you used the term Meridian Campus. So,
is it the vision that we are talking about land facility and the County building their
own building or are we talking about basically a fairly large municipal building that
the County would either lease or (inaudible) space all at the same building?
Logan: At one time, we were going to purchase property and go through the site
selection process and the vision and a long-term space needs for juvenile,
maybe possibly even abandoning our juvenile detention site on Denton and
move the entire program to (inaudible). We were looking at purchasing enough
property to make that happen. We are also looking at possibly relocating weed
control, which is (inaudible) and then consolidating it on one side to where we
could actually start (inaudible) working the way we wanted and kind of
addressing it as a campus and do our primary metering — although it wouldn't be
in one building, maybe two or three buildings on one side. I didn't know — you
know I just didn't even bring up weed control and I didn't bring up our long-term
needs for juvenile because they were very far out there and I didn't know if those
were compatible with what you were doing downtown or not. But, I do have num
for juvenile because they were very far out there and I didn't know if those were
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
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compatible with what you were doing downtown or not. But, I do have numbers
and programming for that as well.
Nary: These preliminary space needs — the numbers that you are giving us, I
mean, are those with projected growth?
Logan: Yes.
Nary: Okay, great.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Nary: Madame Mayor
De Weerd: I appreciate you bringing these numbers. I think what you're end
result is the same as ours. We want to provide the best service to our citizens
and you know, our constituents are your constituents and how they can best
bring our services and a one-stop shop type of efficiency that would serve, I
think, both of our needs. So, looking at partnerships and how we can leverage
and maximize the tax dollars that would be put in and invested into this facility is
what we discussed with the County Commissioners and at the end result and I
think we are all on the same page with that.
Logan: I think the Commissioners are very excited about doing something jointly
and they, you know, of course they are interested and they said, well you know
how do we do it so we can create a long-term solution that would work for all of
us and you know we are kind of flexible. Is it kind of a tenant relationship or
exactly what are — I think with those things would work out and we just need to
be fair about it and just kind of work those details. I will tell you one thing that I
am a little nervous about — you know you learn a few things and I'll be the first to
admit I made a couple of mistakes on the courthouse downtown and that thing
from one end inside the building to the other is a football field and the handicap
people and the people that, you know, the elderly people that by the time that
they walked to the nearest, closest available parking, by code is there — by the
time that they walked to the front door and through security they are pooped out.
If I had to do it over again I would not make it so gigantic that you know some of
our elderly people and our disabled people have trouble getting into the building.
It's something that maybe — if — when we do build this we don't go quite so big
that everybody has to struggle to get in.
Bird: Do you recommend going up one story instead of going out?
Logan: Absolutely.
Bird: I agree with you 100 percent, I walked that thing the day it started and it's a
long walk.
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
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Nary: Before we finish, could you share anything else, Mr. Logan, Mr. Roberts?
Roberts: Mr. President, I don't know but maybe did you mention anything about
other services like the clerk's office that have recordings and an election office,
polling place, collection office, a treasurer as receiving bills and payments
(inaudible) as well as the assessor's office, tax collections — many of those
services for administrative functions wanting to come over to the west side —
(speaker unknown): When we did our assessment, you know looking at
(inaudible) it's almost a year ago, not quite a year. At that time the clerk
(inaudible) only put down and we asked that very question was how would you
want to participate and at that time it was just the election's central area and then
(inaudible) and Motor Vehicle is a department of our employee's office and at
that time that was all he was interested in. Now that may have changed. We
can —
Logan: I know of just another service too. Citizens of the —
(Speaker unknown) — tracking down just to record what document, you know,
seems to be very extensive and not very timely for them, but if we had someone
here to do that that would be nice because (inaudible --------) trash bill for the
County or (inaudible -----------) look up information.
Roberts: The technology we plan to bring to this is so that it would enable us to
have a virtual courthouse at this (inaudible) it would have the same capabilities
as if we were in the office next door. So, it should work out pretty good. We will
revisit that, you know, if we get kind of rolling with this and kind of bring that up.
Nary: Did you have anything else that you wanted — before we left the subject,
too, I didn't know if Chief Bowers if you had anything on the fire side in regards to
EMS or the space needs or anything like that? I didn't know if you had anything
else that you wanted to?
Bowers: We had talked to Mike Roberts several years ago about possibly
coordinating one of our fire stations, but Mike's real concern was the construction
out here that he wanted to wait for a while at that time and we haven't gotten
back together for any other concerns or any other discussions on that lately
because it's probably going to be about another year on the construction out here
on Franklin.
Logan: Have you guys gone — apparently, you still do your programming and site
selection by (inaudible)?
Nary: Yes.
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
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Logan: And then probably go out for an RQ for architectural services for the
building or were you thinking of a design (inaudible) project or maybe a design
build project like where one company comes in and designs it and builds it for
you or maybe picking the architect and doing the traditional design, bid and build.
Have you given that any thought about which delivery method you would like to
do?
Nary: I think we have thought about all. I don't know that we thought about any
one in particular yet. I don't think that we are at that stage of the discussion, I
think that's a (inaudible) for the rest of our presentation for what we are looking at
and then we will have to figure out how we get there.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Nary: Madame Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess we are trying to identify first our space needs and then it
would be looking at sites selections and working on what the financing options
would be and how best to pursue that. Certainly, your experience from over
building the main campus for Ada County would lend to that a great deal, so
Councilman Bird is going to kind of take a lead role in this and that might be
advantageous to sit down and then brainstorm the next steps and how best we
want to move forward on this.
Logan: Well, you know, I think your budget cycle is the same as ours and now
would be an excellent time to start putting some things together so that we can —
I think our (inaudible) wants to move forward and ---
Bird: The Mayor and Council, I believe, really want to move forward especially
this one. Yes, like the Mayor said we are going to examine all avenues, but if I
have my way it will be built like this: we will have an architect team with a
construction manager, just like you built the courthouse. I mean, you know, the
city (inaudible) hired MK construction manager.
Logan: Actually, MK was part of the design field (inaudible).
Bird: Yes, they were.
Logan: We used CH2M Hill as our—
Bird: -- (inaudible) was your main architect.
Logan: Yes, with MK.
Bird: So, we got to explore and I believe that's the best and most efficient way
that saves dollars. It certainly saved us a lot of dollars on this building right here.
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
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Logan: Oh, yeah, this is a great building. I have been here a couple of times
and —
Bird: What's your number Dave, that I can get a hold of you?
Logan: 287-7101 and Commissioners think this is a priority, so you know call me
anytime.
Bird: I am just going to throw out that I think that both the Ada Counties can use
about 20,000 square feet of our building.
Logan: Now there may be some economy when we sit down and start doing
programming, (inaudible) rest rooms, conference rooms and that type of thing I
am sure those opportunities will pop up. We weren't able to get that far in our
planning.
Nary: Well, with that I think we can move on to the next part of our presentation
with ZGA. I know our time is getting a little short. We didn't know that we would
get it all done in one meeting anyway, but I will turn it over to you folks.
De Weerd: Thank you Dave and Mike.
Nary: Yes, thank you very much for coming.
De Weerd: Feel free to grab something to eat. Thank you.
Simmonds: Councilman Nary, Madame Mayor and members of the Council, we
appreciate the opportunity to walk through some of the outstanding issues that
we discussed and wanted to bring closure to the program and the programming
base. This is essentially an update of program document that was done several
years ago and a lot of changes in the City's administration and the City's growth
and all those other areas in the last few years so there is a little bit different
landscape now in terms of the City's needs and there (inaudible) and that. So,
as we move through the viewing with as many of the departments as we can,
there's questions that come up related to growth targets, future space needs,
where some of those administration functions are going to be. Whether some of
these things need to be satellite, whether or not we can locate within the city hall.
So, I would like to go through a couple of these things just to get into the meat of
it. A space tower that (inaudible) that (inaudible --------------------) that is supposed
to be set up so everybody can do it. So, I (inaudible) handouts. Essentially, the
tally (inaudible) for each department and signs through the years 2025 growth for
staff and administration and support personnel and moving through this process
we have gone through the rest of (inaudible) and back to a number of about
40,000 square feet, which would be a base number for city services within the
city hall. However, that number assumes several things. It assumes the location
and the departments in or out of City Hall. We quickly wanted to go through a
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
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couple of those and so we could talk a little bit more about them. One of the —
well several departments have been — there's a discussion about water, waste
and Fire Department administrative spaces and there has been some discussion
about (inaudible) administration, (inaudible-----------) and possibly being in City
Hall and some of them (inaudible) to not to (inaudible) and that's one of the
issues that wanted to do tonight if we can. Kind of see what your thoughts are
there. There is going to be discussion related to Parks & Recreation that
perhaps (inaudible-----------) City Hall, but the day to day functional events,
activities would be in the (inaudible) as it is now. It would be the same thing with
the Water Department. There also has been some thought that, I think, both pro
and con that if the administrative functions are away from those different services
is that necessarily optimum for the staff and coordination of those three
departments. So, we want to talk a little bit about that. The Historical Society is
another department that we have some questions about. It's not really a city
department. It is an entity that has amassed a fair amount of archival information
and there have been some discussion about possibly finding a home for them in
the City Hall space. The technology departments are one that appears to be
growing. As all technology departments do it will probably grow a lot in the next
ten years and I think the target for that is going to be laid correctly to how much
of those services are retained within the City and relied upon the City staff and
how much of those services might be contracted out to other providers or to
consultants. We want to talk a little bit about that. Then the last two: one of
course is space for the City Attorney. Right now the City Attorney functions, we
understand, by our contracted out so that their space is not currently in City Hall.
There has been some discussion, perhaps, that would continue over a period of
time. It seems to be a (inaudible) arrangement right now, as we understand it,
but the other part of that is as the City grows is there possibility that the City
Attorney's offices might want to be at City Hall in ten years or five years or fifteen
years? Would the attorney's offices that are here in the Police Station or move to
City Hall for any reason or are those spaces better left here in the Police
building? Not necessarily the easiest decisions. They have to be made in part in
past, but in order to put some acreage around that 40,000 square foot number
it's going to be important for us to kind of focus in on a few of those things. So,
first we'd like to have some dialogue with everybody about those and then you
start to look at which departments are here tonight or whom you want to start
with, Councilman Nary? I am not sure of the order in which you want to go
through here, but we got (inaudible) and Gary's here and it looks like we have got
some other people from the other departments too as well.
Nary: Council, do you have a preference as to how --?
Bird: (inaudible).
Nary: Certainly, I guess to talk about some of the existing parts that are here, but
I think we are obviously — okay, our time is getting tight so I know we only have
so much time and we probably are going to have another discussion on this fairly
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
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soon, but since some of the folks are here we probably need or want to hear
about that.
Simmonds: Okay. Maybe we need to start with Chief Bowers. Just kind of to
get your thoughts on which side of the fence we need to land under.
Bowers: Mr. President, City Council members I think our vision has been two
different ways. One vision is, of course, to stay where we are at and possibly try
to add on or grow there. Our other vision was of course moving to City Hall. I
would see that our training division, which would get bigger as we get bigger,
could use our facilities where we are at for years and years into the future with
the office spaces and stuff. If perhaps myself and Greta could move over to City
Hall that would relieve for the training — have some more room for the training.
Now, our big decision is where we are going to put the inspectors. Are we going
to put the inspectors in the building department or are they going to stay with the
Fire Department? Are we going to maybe have inspectors for the buildings that
we have now and the new inspector will go to the Building Department to take
care of the new structures that are coming in? There are quite a few different
ways that Tammy and myself and Bob Corrie and Keith has discussed on which
way we want to go. Nampa has just took all of their administrative and put them
in a new building — Nampa Fire, excuse me has put them all in a new building
over there in Nampa and talking with Chief Anderson, he loves it tremendously to
get away from the day to day chatting with the Fire Fighters because they just
come in every two minutes and want to discuss things and it's harder to do stuff.
So, if you are away from that we'd probably get a little bit more work done
through the day. Now when ZGA did come around and discuss this, we talked
about that we could share, very possibly with secretaries if we had to with City
Hall with other departments or we could share restroom facilities or we could
share meeting rooms. I mean, we didn't have to have a space for meeting rooms
just for us, but we could share it with other departments, so that's kind of what we
are thinking, one way or the other. It's probably going to be up to City Council
which way we do go. I would prefer going to City Hall. After being in City Hall for
a year last time I think I was able to do a lot more work and be able to get stuff
accomplished while being over there at City Hall than I was at the Fire Station.
Thank you, Mr. President and Council.
Nary: Council, any questions?
Bird: Mr. President.
Nary: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Okay, Kenny, you are talking about fire administration of just yourself and a
secretary?
Bowers: Yes, yes.
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
Page 13 of 28
Bird: None of your assistant chiefs, or --?
Bowers: Depends on where we go with them, Keith. If Joe stays with us and
does the existing buildings that we do now and take care of all of the little TI's
and stuff like that and stay with us then we would have him move with us also. If
you bring in a different inspector to do all brand new buildings and structures and
put them in the Building Department that was one of the things we discussed too.
Bird: When Ron and I had purchased that 2 '/2 acres or whatever we got the
back (inaudible) thinking about training and that (inaudible) needed to do that.
Okay, we know that in the near future we are going to have to have battalion
chiefs. Where are you going to house them?
Bowers: They would be housed there also.
Bird: So, in other words we probably need to take some fire administration to
City Hall?
Bowers: Yes. Yes. Thank you, Keith.
Simmonds: Councilman Bird, members of the Council. If we assumed right now
the number of spaces within that City Hall tallied, which include prior to two
Deputy Chiefs, which could be battalion chiefs, possibly; administrative assistant
— two administrative assistants actually and then two inspector spaces. So,
again these are best guesses that everybody knows at this point. But that
amounts to some — (inaudible) up to 788 square feet. In 2025, 1 believe, we are
looking at a number of 1,040 square feet, so it roughly doubles, depending on the
amount of staff and the amount of space that might be needed. So, the total
number — the 40,000 square foot number that we are looking at right now will
reflect the last (inaudible ----) with little doubt. So, there may very well be space
constructed today that isn't necessarily occupied by city personnel. So that
number would be somewhat between 20,000 to 40,000.
Nary: Questions?
Simmonds: The next one that we wanted to review was the water department.
(Inaudible discussion)
Smith: Mr. President, Madame Mayor, Council members we talked a little bit
about the superintendent's position in life and it appears, I think, as my memory
serves me anyway that the superintendent needs to stay with the (inaudible)
department. There just needs to be close coordination between the operation
and the superintendent.
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
Page 14 of 28
Simmonds: Would there be any need for (inaudible) administrative space in City
Hall at all? All we have included right now is just superintendent (inaudible),
superintendent administrative assistant was all we were projecting. But, it
sounds as though all of these functions would want to stay with the field
operations —
Smith: Yes, that's correct.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Nary: Madame Mayor
De Weerd: Gary, how much interaction does the superintendent have with
Public Works? Is there a necessity there to have that connection, whereas, the
assistant superintendent would be more over the field type of work and the
superintendent position itself would have more of an interactive dialogue with the
Public Works (inaudible)? And I don't know enough about it, that's why I asked.
Smith: We do have that interaction. We do that right now it's biweekly for our
staff meetings, but it's going to change a little bit from where we have a weekly
meeting with superintendents, either one or the other on a weekly basis and then
both of them biweekly. You are right the operations are pretty much handled by
the assistant superintendent, but we do have permanent requirements from the
Wastewater Department (inaudible). We also have federal requirements on the
Safe Treatment Water Act that we have to comply with (inaudible). Correct me if
I am wrong, but I think that's what we decided that the superintendents needed to
stay at the site because it's not only operations in the field that the assistant
superintendents take care of, but there are also personnel matters that need to
be (inaudible) by the superintendents. I think that removing them from the site
would put them at a disadvantage in that one particular area alone.
(Inaudible speaker): So that would be true then for local operandi?
Smith: Yes, correct.
Simmonds: I am not quite sure how the protocol is supposed to work in this
session, so —
Nary: Go ahead.
De Weerd: Just do it and we will tell you if it's wrong.
Simmonds: Is there anything that you have seen today in that (inaudible) in that
assessment that may need change? I know that we reviewed this a little while
ago, but there's been a little bit of time that has passed and you might not be
able to give us an answer tonight. I didn't necessarily expect that, but you know
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
Page 15 of 28
if there is anything else in there that goes to a question mark or if there is
anything else in the peripheral functions that need to be considered for City Hall
that we haven't considered so far, we want to be true to the (inaudible).
Smith: Okay. I would rather take a minute and a little time to review this to make
sure that we got everything.
Simmonds: Yes. (Inaudible). But, if you have any comments or any thoughts on
that just get back to us on (inaudible).
Smith: Thank you.
Simmonds: I think maybe we ought to - before we go any further is to (inaudible)
Planning & Zoning here and we have other departments here. Has everyone
had a chance to look at the space tally in any depth at all?
Powell: Yes, a small part, but it was easy for me. I looked at the space tally and
thought the tallies were (inaudible) concerns with some of the location
assessments that - just a discrepancy - I said I wanted to be right next to the
City Clerk, he didn't say he wanted to be by me. (Inaudible) and those kinds of
things and that was the only thing I noticed as I thumbed through briefly. I didn't
read all 261 pages. That was the only thing that I had concerns about -
De Weerd: Just the (inaudible)?
Powell: Yeah
De Weerd: I think some of that depending on the overall size of the building and
of the floors, I think that once we move past the programming and into the actual
somatic look at to see which departments want to reside on the first floor, second
floor (inaudible) - I think that diagram that we included is fairly generic.
Powell: Just so you are aware that if you go forward, I just think that some of
those relationships and I don't think the Building Department shows up as being
next to the Planning and from the user's perspective it's probably what it would
nice for them. (Inaudible).
Simmonds: In the detail sheets in that report there is a category for (inaudible)
for each one of those spaces and a lot of those are pretty (inaudible) because a
lot of them are like (inaudible), but in the individual departments we made some
assumptions initially about what spaces should be next to which and that might
be something we would want to look at real quickly and just go through there and
make sure (inaudible -----------------------------------------) and some how we identify
those because often times some of the spaces can go almost anywhere, but
others are pretty location sensitive so we want to make sure that we at least
assess that program. So - I don't know how the comments need to come back
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
Page 16 of 28
to us, but if anybody has any comments on any of those adjacencies or the
space tallies or the projections for the next few years shown on the chart here.
You are welcome to get with either Kathy or I, unless the Mayor and Council
want the information to go through them, which they may. I am not sure how that
needs to work, but just let us know or email us. If you get a chance to look at it
and you have got a few minutes to just type them up and send them to us, that
would be great.
Powell: The only other thing is that I would like to have Joe closer by (inaudible -
------------------) or whoever is doing the review of the development application.
Inaudible Discussion
Simmonds: I was thinking back in 1997, we had prioritized how (inaudible), but I
know that according to the floors last time the priority was of course the Council
Chambers, accessibility, records and City Council stuff but we had a back stair
entrance (inaudible) and other kinds of accessibilities (inaudible------------) but we
had to be connected somehow to get the information and records back and forth,
so that might be a way design -wise, but there is a priority that we need to have
for accessibilities with different departments and how we can communicate
physically sometimes instead of just email.
Smith: Well, I am glad you brought that up because there (inaudible-----------)
dynamic (inaudible) is the space analysis gets married to a site somewhere,
whether it's one story, two stories, three stories or four stories it's going to
change in dynamics of how the spaces are arranged. So, as long as we got the
critical adjacencies identified and try and loosen up the requirements for as many
spaces as we can so we (inaudible) what's going in that area it would be easier
and it also would make the (inaudible) things (inaudible) because like we are
saying, spaces might not be right next to one another, but they might be right
over the top of one another on three floors and they might be connected by
stairway, which would be closer. So, there are a lot (inaudible) that that can
happen.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Nary: Madame Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess that also in consideration should be joint reception areas and
counter type of responsibilities, how we could maximize the use of staff
personnel as well, in addition you start looking at this you see different file room
needs or filing needs. As we move towards a centralized filing system, as I am
sure you are all looking forward to doing, but we want to look at what can be
used as joint space and what needs to have a more immediate access to the
different departments. So, those also need to be evaluated as we move forward
so we can say Kenny needs 100 square feet, you know, how much of that needs
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
Page 17 of 28
or can be incorporated within the reception area or his office and how much can
go into more of a centralized filing location.
Berg: And the techno, whether it needs to be vaulted, fire proof or featured
access to (inaudible) to (inaudible) and I (inaudible) to go through some of that
(inaudible) maybe jointly, maybe joint storage and I would have to put a storage
thing for so (inaudible--------------------) somebody else on the floor or (inaudible)
designed to (inaudible ------------------- -).
Simmonds: Well, those are all things we want to at least identify (inaudible)
either add to that as many (inaudible) as we can. There are things that are kind
of hard to visualize and so when you start looking at (inaudible).
Bird: Mr. President.
Nary: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Talking about storage and the Mayor is 100 percent right. We need to take
a good hard look at putting in a storage system like we put (inaudible) system out
here. That type of storage can be used by every department. It will take quite a
bit of room. I don't know how big their room is out there, quite a piece of square
footage, but it's well worth it and it's something that - the files are very accessible
to you and that, I hope, we will spend the extra money to get that and that needs
to be put in either Will's square footage or somebody's square footage on the
records.
Powell: I think my storage space assumes that I'll be located next to the Clerk
and we will be sharing files.
Bird: I think most of you have seen the storage setup, we are the (inaudible)
thing that we have got out here and like the Mayor said we are going to go
centralized book keeping or record keeping, I should say, we need to put in a
system like that. (inaudible ----- ----------- ).
De Weerd: Well, I guess how much hard copy we need and how much we can
microfiche because I think that's the direction the City Clerk's,will go -
Bird: Some stuff you have to hard copy on. There are plans (inaudible ----------- ).
Berg: Well, there are just things by statute that you have to keep. Then there
are the practical things that you need to keep. We (inaudible ----------) thrown
away plans on (inaudible-----) about certain issues (inaudible-----------) but there
has got to be some ways to keep track (inaudible).
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
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Simmonds: What we might want to do is just put (inaudible ------------- ). Just as
kind of a summary listing (inaudible) issue, just to make sure we got everything
included and an understanding of what you are thinking.
Wardle: Mr. President. We need to do the Park's Department while Doug is
here as well.
Simmonds: Absolutely.
De Weerd: That's you, Doug.
Strong: Mr. President, Mayor and members of Council just a real minor
correction on square footage. When the population is 40,000 it looks like I need
220 square feet. As it gets larger, I need less.
Nary: You are so efficient.
Strong: (inaudible --------- )—
De
—De Weerd: I keep wondering why all the directors need bigger offices than the
Mayor, but I wasn't going to go there.
(Inaudible discussion -----------).
Strong: (inaudible).
Nary: So, you are saying, Doug, in adding up the numbers they are a little low?
Strong: I think our (inaudible) is consistent with other director's office spaces.
It's about one column ---
Inaudible discussion --------------
Nary: The first column is the existing space
Strong: That's the existing space?
(Inaudible discussion---------------------)
Strong: There are a few issues with this and my experience in different
recreation departments over the years, I guess, it's pretty difficult to predict what
office space will be needed. If all staff is going to be at City Hall through our
population growth of 97,000. 1 think what's here is realistic if the focus is to
maintain administrative staff at City Hall, recognizing as the City grows and
recreation services grow, parks services grow there will be satellite locations
throughout the (inaudible --). So, I think this does represent kind of a minimal
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
Page 19 of 28
representation of the department from an administrative standpoint (inaudible).
The one question that I would have from kind of an immediate space need
verses long-term needs would be a shared conference room meeting space
certainly makes sense to share with other functions (inaudible). One of the
things we talked about was more of an immediate need for like a multi-purpose
classroom environment and recognizing when Ada County was here earlier that
maybe there is some opportunity to share space with other tenants in the building
would be useful for more of recreational class environments that we have to go
out and solicit space from others, like the school district. Until such time, the
communities position to commit to (inaudible) community center that would be a
recreational focus. We don't have any space that we control or have direct
access to. This would be more of a multi-purpose room with versatile space that
can be moved around (inaudible----). Like self-defense classes to arts and crafts
classes. (Inaudible---------------) everything else looked fine at this point.
Nary: Excuse me Doug, but just to clarify that when you are talking about
satellite space you are talking about as a recreation (inaudible) having like out of
park site and having some office space or some space there, maybe it's attached
to a shelter or it's attached to a (inaudible) concession or something like that, but
it's also used for office space. Is that what you are talking about?
Strong: Well, in that example I think we are looking at probably park
maintenance space that would be (inaudible). Satellite space, I am thinking more
of as we can get agreements in place with the school district to share use of
facility that school district's site will use gymnasiums and it's not uncommon to
have office space at the school site and be occupied by (inaudible). If we
sometime in the future come up with a community center that would house
recreation and staff and the activities that go on in that center would be
(inaudible) and staff. As an example, the City of Olympia, Washington has a
population of 42,000 residents which is very comparable to what we have right
now (inaudible-------------) some of which are maintenance and (inaudible). So, it
is a little difficult to predict what a City Hall could accommodate recognizing in
that community that they have a community center where much of the staff is
located (inaudible ---------------------- ). It depends on how the program grows. It's
probably the (inaudible----------) at least they will predict that growth (inaudible---).
Nary: Questions?
Wardle: Mr. President.
Nary: Mr. Wardle.
Wardle: I met with Doug to talk about space needs and a couple of things that
we talked about, obviously, park's departments would potentially prefer to be in
some sort of a community center, recreational type of center, obviously that's not
something we have in Meridian and so we work through how we can best meet
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
Page 20 of 28
the needs of the public. I am going to touch on just a couple of issues. One of
them is accessibility and where - because we have large amounts of people
signing up for recreational programs and large amounts of people from the public
who are accessing or would be accessing that office. It needs to be accessible
within the we talked about it if we're looking at three or four-story building on
the first or second floor. I just - potentially, and Doug maybe could help me
out—no higher than the third floor, is that kind of what we had?
Strong: I think for the ADA standards that's typical that you need to have public
access within the first three floors (inaudible-----------) at least that ADA standards
were originally at, but currently they (inaudible------). Primarily, for fire - in the
event of a fire you would have to have reasonable distance to get (inaudible) -
they would have to come down the stairwell. That was one concern.
Wardle: Other things we talked about - the City of Meridian's Park's Department
- the City of Meridian through the Park's Department has created a number of
partnerships with youth organizations in the City and so we had looked or
thought about if we have space and we are going to grow into it, but we needed
to plan for it now, could there be a partnership within City Hall for some of those
spaces. I know that PAL organization have a centralized office on Franklin and I
am not sure if they have done away with that office or taken it internally or how
that all works, but there are organizations such as PAL or Meridian Youth
Baseball that we have partnered with that might need flex -base. I think certainly
it would be - it would make sense if they had some sort of flex -base to have their
sign-ups in City Hall in the lobby area or just some how make it a little more
accessible for the public. So, we talked about how we could incorporate that and
I am not sure what their space needs are, but I think it would be worth talking to
those individuals or at least thinking about it in the future. I will just echo Doug's
comment on classroom space. Classroom space which could be utilized by
multi -tenants, could be utilized by multi -departments, but there is a need for
people to sit, much as we are sitting here, around a group of tables and have
some sort of (inaudible) or presentation. I think I didn't see that incorporated in
here (inaudible --------------------- ).
De Weerd: Training lab?
Wardle: Training lab would probably be the right terminology for it, but I don't
think that one would necessarily take care of the entire City Hall.
Simmonds: I think that's a really good point. More and more (inaudible) and a
lot different kinds of stories. There are flexible training (inaudible------------------)
that are used for a variety of things and especially as this facility will grow and
(inaudible -------------- ). So, how many and how big? Some of it's going to be
permanent use and some of it's going to be future projection, but we also have
had some discussion in the past about lack of assembly space and lack of large
areas that the (inaudible) public can use that are not necessarily formal City
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
Page 21 of 28
Council or Planning & Zoning things and you may want to talk a little bit more
about that in terms of what those spaces need to be and how flexible they need
to be. There are a variety of things that (inaudible ----------- ). Something along
that line too is concern as to who would be responsible for scheduling that space
and what would be the priority use of the space? If you have a shared space and
a lot of demand to use that space whether it's (inaudible) or a classroom then it
can get to the point where you almost have (inaudible) and have access to it.
Wardle: Just one more thing just from the Park's standpoint, real quickly, and
that is that the Park's maintenance staff I don't think is, well personally and the
department agreed that that shouldn't be the function of a yard for the equipment
and most of those things shouldn't be incorporated into a City Hall — have a
current site and could in the future potentially need additional spaces for that.
That is also the function of the Park's Department, which is in my opinion, outside
the scope of a City Hall atmosphere that we are trying to create.
Strong: Just make one final point on superintendent space for Parks. (Inaudible-
---------------- ) transition to be more administrative. Right now we don't have a
position in the department like an assistant director. I mentioned it (inaudible).
When you have offsite personnel, there needs to be somebody responsible for
their activities at the site as Shaun just mentioned. It's not the superintendent or
(inaudible) classification created for identifying (inaudible) so that there are
supers on the site.
Bowers: Madame Mayor, City Council when we talked with ZGA on possibly
using meeting rooms with other departments and stuff and I got to thinking about
that later. I know right now it's tough to get a meeting room in Meridian. The
Police is usually full, we're usually full, the Building Department is usually full. I
think we are going to have to really look for meeting rooms. Like Doug was
saying, we really need to put some meeting rooms that we could use. That we
don't have to be booked up. The other day we booked up way over, we had four
meetings going on and we kind of pushed P&Z out in our kitchen, so it can
happen. We might have to look at meeting rooms.
Nary: I think what you probably are going to look at for making sure you have
accurate space is you may have two different kinds. You know, like what we
have at the Police Department where you have some public space (inaudible)
and you may have some internal space behind the secured entrance or behind a
secured area that is departmental use primarily so that it isn't always going to be
booked up. Again, it may be some department sharing usage of it so there may
again be some overlap occasionally, but you are not in conflict with some public
spaces, you are going to provide some public access to. I think you are going to
have to have some prioritization of the scheduling stuff. I mean that's a little
further down the discussion, but I agree that we need the space, no doubt and
we are going to need it both internally for the City's needs as well as provide
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
Page 22 of 28
some access for the public to use the facilities and how we schedule that and
make that work both (inaudible). Bill you had your hand up.
Musser: Mr. President, Madame Mayor and members of the Council I am just
going to reiterate the point that Chief Bowers made is this week alone and last
week, we have had pretty well booked up spots in both Fire Department and
Police Department and you saw the sign when you came in this evening and this
is the third meeting of scheduling for this room today. It has been a very active
spot because people don't have access to a lot of meeting space right now and
based on what Director Strong is saying, I think that if we have the space
provided we are going to see more and more people coming to use it and it really
goes in hand with our philosophy of being open and encouraging the public use,
especially the downtown development concept of the place to come to do that
type of thing. Maybe we have to look at rooms that have the availability to
possibly be split similar to what they have down at the (inaudible) room, where all
of a sudden it becomes two and you can have two smaller sessions or you can
make it one large one. You know, look at some options like that, plus the areas
that we have for other things that are internal to the City Hall that are behind the
security facade and speaking of security, you know, that was the other issue that
I wanted to note too because looking at what we have here, looking at what our
neighbors to the east has done with officers down at the City Hall area now and
following that philosophy of making downtown Meridian the place to come to. I
am foreseeing that there is probably going to be a time when we have foot patrol,
bike patrol and that type of thing that is cored in the downtown area. One thing I
haven't had it on or were presented in this area and it was just an oversight until
a few moments ago was we may need to have a contact point within City Hall for
people that are down there actively doing stuff where they could meet with an
officer there, rather than having to come all the way out here or you know for an
officer to get caught up with them down there. A kiosk or a small little office area
just meet and to be able to take report with work. The other issue, I think, we
probably need to face reality (inaudible) in this post 9-11 era that we are in now is
that we probably also need to account for security, either it be through the Police
Department or some sort of private security within the building so you at least
have it on the ground floor and within the secured portions of the city office areas
as well. It's another thing we may well have to account for.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Nary: Madame Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess just a piggy -back off of that that the Chief may want to
consider too is some kind of — I don't know if through the high tech capabilities,
but being able to get your dog license there or pay a fine or do some of the
business could be all done in that one stop type of goal than to say well you can
do everything, but to get your dog license you have to go out there.
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
Page 23 of 28
Musser: Madame Mayor at this point we have made it so successful in this town
to be able to get a dog license every single one of our area of vets has our dog
license. So people going to see the veterinarian can renew that way plus they
can come down here and I would be more than happy to set up something so we
could do that as well and I perceive with our technology as it develops it would be
a real easy way to be able to track it, we know what's receipted out, somebody
gets their dog license or whatever the case may be, I think that's entirely doable
for us and be able to service the citizens much better.
Powell: I was just going to comment on the larger meeting spaces that can break
down. I think (inaudible) helped (inaudible). ACHD's ones were, as well as Ada
County, but I like Ada County's because it is a little more formal for the
Commissioners and (inaudible). But they are nice spaces because they work
any variety of ways without that fixed auditorium seating. It just makes it so
much more flexible.
Nary: The other thing, Council, too to consider as we work through this process I
was thinking the same thing that has been mentioned about having flexible space
for conference rooms, flexible space for some of our partners that we have had,
you know and those kinds of things. At some point we are going to have to have
building maintenance people to help manage that space for us. You know, we
are not always going to want our support staff setting up chairs. You are not
going to always want, you know, whomever that can remember that we have got
a meeting to set up and to put the walls together. You are going to have to have
people who are going to be doing that function. Right now we are able to get by
with Will and eventually, you know, Will might retire or if Will were to get hit by
the bus, we need someone else to be able to know where all the stuff is. So,
another thing to think of as we go through this process that we may be needing
staff to help maintain the facilities without hiring out staff (inaudible). Mayor?
De Weerd: Just as we are talking about flexible space, I would like to see and
this is more design element, but flexible workspace. I know as Will and I have
kind of taken a look at City Hall and you start adding staff or I am sure all of you
have seen it, you add staff and you can't move the walls and it's just — we need
to look in terms of (inaudible) and maybe removable walls or workstations or ---
yeah, that we are not fixing walls where we don't have to.
Bird: Boise has got the ideal setup down there at the building department.
(Inaudible).
(Inaudible discussion).
Berg: (Inaudible) designed last time which ones had to have privacy offices and
they never (inaudible) space as portable walls or partitions and maybe we should
do that again and say this office has to be a private office.
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
Page 24 of 28
(Inaudible -------------)
Berg: Because I know that you made sure that you laid out corner offices and
things you made permanent and then everything else was kind of flexible that
you could margin off as if you did have a person in there, but you had the space
to grow if you needed it.
Simmonds: Well, that's right and even at this point there are a lot of spaces that
may need to be hard wall offices, we think, but as we get into actually laying
things out and looking at the adjacencies and how things are going to function
and grow and maybe we group some of those core hard wall areas together, so
we have always got space to grow. In some cases, (inaudible -----------)
organization within those departments to allow that to happen, but you choose
that process before and it always ends up (inaudible) much more comfortable,
flexible space and be able to add offices without having to tear something out is —
everybody wants the ultimate flexible building. I think one of the things that we'll
have to think about —
Nary: -- could you get that done for us, thanks?
Simmonds: -- yeah.
(Inaudible discussion).
Nary: It's always easier ultimately to put up a wall in the future and to have the
flex space now than the other way around. It's very cumbersome to tear a wall
down and all that stuff. But, I guess the opposite side of the coin, I'd say, for a
person who uses the second floor of Boise City Hall it is a rat maze. So, you
really generally try and avoid as much rat -maze like exterior as you can and
that's what the one problem with too much flexible space, too much cubicle
space is that you have to find ways to break it up in a little better pattern. The
volume of people that you put in one space, (inaudible) with partitions it is a rat
maze and is not exactly real conducive to a good atmosphere for working.
Wardle: I just have one more question, if I could interrupt Mr. President. I just
want to address parking for a minute and I am showing that in 2025 we will need
99 parking spaces. Is that based on the volume of employees or is that based on
the volume of trips to City Hall that would be served by the public?
(Inaudible speaker): That is based on the ordinance.
Wardle: Okay. (Inaudible) per square foot?
Powell: Yeah, probably if we are going to have a lot of service related items it
may not address those sufficiently. It was probably calculated on general office
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
Page 25 of 28
space, which assumes a much less turnover than like DMV or something like
that.
Wardle: I just wanted to —as we get into kind of the County in some of those
service things and having additional tenants that parking is — I know when we are
talking downtown we are talking parking garages, I would assume and we need
to probably address some of those issues, not just employees but also potential
tenants or customers as well.
De Weerd: (Inaudible) parking on the roof.
(Inaudible speaker): That was one thing that we indicated on the report that
parking is an issue at a number of city owned parking lots in the downtown area
then the City decided to locate City Hall within that area those may become
accessible for the City Hall or (inaudible) number of scenarios, service parking
lot, parking garage. I believe there is a parking garage study, you know, a
parking garage study or a parking study for Meridian that would (inaudible------).
I think we were looking to see what those numbers might project as to whether or
not a parking facility is needed. We (inaudible) 100 stalls to build a parking
garage (inaudible) 100 cars if it's not economically, (inaudible------------) if it's
going to incorporate a much larger number (inaudible---------------------) 200 or
what, it would make sense to incorporate (inaudible). I think those were some
questions that (inaudible ----------------------- ).
Wardle: I guess I will just follow up on that. In my opinion, if you built the City
Hall without a parking garage downtown you are going to run into a large amount
of problems. We have limited parking right now in the downtown area to add
employees and services to that without adding parking, I think, would be
irresponsible of the City to try to accommodate all that in that space.
Bird: Mr. President.
Nary: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I don't think you are going to get a city hall and parking garage at the same
time. Parking garages are very, very expensive. With a City Hall you are not
going to have much more parking for the 8 or 10 hours a day that you have got
now. For our employees, we have got parking spaces within the City that is City
owned. Your walk-up traffic, I don't know how many that Parks has down there.
I have been to the park quite a bit and there are not usually very many people
that come in there during the day and maybe on sign up day or something like
that you might (inaudible). I think that we need to look at parking, but saying you
need a parking structure with the City Hall I don't think is doable.
Nary: I think we are going to have to wrap up here pretty quick, but Pauline had
something she wanted to add as well.
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
Page 26 of 28
Skeggs: I know that when I talked to Kathy about the space we were at a
different location when we did the space study and now we moved. So, from
where they did it before is actually kind of — we went to a smaller space than we
currently had and so now our space is more limited, but I think what she had put
down it would be enough space that it was appropriate for what would be needed
in the future because we had talked about a reception area and a conference
room and training area for orientation and different stuff, but we had talked about
having a central area where we can utilize and share it with other city
departments. The only additional area that we have was the file space storage
and that's our main problem, we just don't have enough space for our files. We
have outgrown it and when the City grows, we will need more file space and to
have it in a centralized location it wouldn't work for Human Resources because of
the confidentiality and the safety (inaudible) we need that. We can't have it in a
centralized location, go there and have to unlock the file cabinet, leave that, and
lock the file cabinet. We'd have people (inaudible) from the desk. So, the only
area would be the file concern, but if you looked at possibly at some point
microficheing some data that we might be able to eliminate some of the file
space and be able to work with what they put in. If we don't then we definitely
need — you know we have it down to the file room storage.
Nary: Gary, you have something else to add?
Smith: I am just curious of what the — if there are any thoughts as to the
disposition of the existing City Hall when all this happens? And if there would be
any possibility of using that building for part of the City operation assuming that
the new City Hall is located within close proximity of the existing City Hall. Where
one section of the city government could maintain its position in the existing City
Hall where it already has parking available and so forth?
(Inaudible speaker/discussion)
Bird: That's the problem; you don't have parking after Farmer's & Merchants
(inaudible).
Nary: I don't know that anything has really been decided here. Certainly, that's, I
think, part of the discussion as well. I think one of the things I guess I've heard,
at least from my perspective is one of the things we talked about is some things
that maybe don't have to be maintained in a City Hall, but may have some needs
being in close proximity. One of them might be storage. There may be some
ability to use the current facility for (inaudible) along with something else. I don't
think you want that all for a storage building, but I mean there may be some
necessity for something like that. If we are creating somewhat of a campus idea
with the County, then maybe that's a better possibility for that building in
remodeling and again having it in a close proximity, depending on where the site.
I don't think any of those things were decided. I think that's kind of where we are
discussing and I know we need to wrap here pretty soon, but I don't think any of
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
Page 27 of 28
that has been decided. I think it is all kind of on the table. Council, is there
anything else we want to — I think a couple of things we need to take away from
this meeting, I think the Mayor had already stated that in our preliminary or
previous discussions we have asked Mr. Bird to sort of take the lead from the
Council's perspective on this project. Obviously, on a lot of the things ZGA has
said, the department of records wants you to contact them directly with
amendments or some other thoughts or ideas, please feel free. I would ask that
you make a "cc" to Councilman Bird as well as the Mayor so they are both in the
loop as to what we are doing. Obviously, we have a lot more to talk about and
the timing on that I don't really know, I guess I would like to leave that to Mr. Bird
until the rest of us has set a fixed date to have some more talk. Is that what your
preference would be, Mike? Do we need to sort of let you, Councilman Bird and
— are you raising your hand to volunteer or?
De Weerd: No, I am raising my hand for comment.
Nary: Anyway, let's go ahead and leave that and let's have that discussion
(inaudible -------------- ).
De Weerd: I think just to move it forward if Council member Bird, myself, ZGA
and County can get together and talk about the next steps and solidify a
timeframe that we can bring things back to Council and start moving things
forward.
Bird: I agree with that, Mayor and I think that we need to because — from what I
am getting from the County and I sure hope we can partner with them. I think it
could be very good for all citizens in Western Ada, especially if (inaudible) can
get us a (inaudible) in here would be fantastic. So, if there is going to be a third,
we are going to have to go to 60,000. 1 think we need to discuss what kind of
sights amongst the — what kind of sights we need. I am like Dave Logan, I'd go
up and be smaller than being stretched out like they are there and it is tough for a
guy that didn't know when I was doing it, how fast my heart was walking by that
thing, it took the air out of me. I had to light a cigarette every time I got to the
next floor just to get some air going.
Nary: Mike, I don't want to cut you folks short and I know we kind of compressed
a lot of stuff tonight. Does that sound workable from your folks' end?
Simmonds: Oh yeah. I think that would be great.
De Weerd: I will ask Peggy to make phone calls tomorrow to coordinate your
schedules and ours and Mr. Logan to get something going within the next
weekend.
Simmonds: That would be terrific.
Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting
February 24, 2004
Page 28 of 28
Bird: That would be great.
Nary: Okay, if there is nothing else, I guess we could take a motion to adjourn.
Bird: I move we adjourn.
Wardle: Second.
Nary: Motioned and seconded to adjourn. All those in favor say aye.
ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6:38 P.M.
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
APPROVED:
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