HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-02-09Meridian City Council February 9, 2016
A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 3:02 p.m., Tuesday,
February 9, 2016, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Joe Borton, Genesis Milam, Luke
Cavener, Ty Palmer and Anne Little-Roberts.
Others Present: Bill Nary, Jaycee Holman, Caleb Hood, Warren Stewart, Mike de St.
Germain, Mark Niemeyer Mike Barton and Dean Willis.
Item 1: Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X Anne Little Roberts X_ Joe Borton
X__ Ty Palmer X_ Keith Bird
__X__ Genesis Milam __X__ Lucas Cavener
__X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
De Weerd: I will go ahead and start today's meeting. Thank you for being here.
Welcome back, Ralph. Always good to see you. For the record it is Tuesday, February
9th. It's two minutes after 3:00. We will start with roll call attendance.
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 adoption of the agenda.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move that we approve the agenda as published.
Cavener: Second.
Milam: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda as published. All those
in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 2 of 51
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Item 4: Consent Agenda
A. Acceptance Agreements for Display of Artwork in Initial Point
Gallery, Meridian City Hall
Idaho Watercolor Society, September 30 to October 28, 2016
Kathleen Englund, October 28 to December 2, 2016
B. Approval of Task Order 10622.a to CH2M HILL ENGINEERS, INC.
for the “Wastewater Resource Recovery Facility CONTROL
ROOM PLC2 AND DIGESTER PLC3 UPGRADES - DESIGN”
project for a Not-To-Exceed amount of $200,880.00.
C. Reimbursement Agreement for Infrastructure Enhancement
between the City of Meridian and New Oaks LLC and Summary
of Agreement
D. Memorandum of Understanding Between the City of Meridian
and the Meridian Speedway Regarding Joint Presentation of July
4, 2016 Event
E. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Paramount North Forty
(H-2015-0034) by Brighton Investments, LLC Located 6280 N. Fox
Run Way; Request: Preliminary Plat Consisting of Three (3)
Building Lots, Three (3) Common Lots and Two (2) Other Lots for
Future Right-of-Way Dedication
F. Continued from February 2, 2016: Final Plat for Paramount
Veranda (H-2015-0033) by Brighton Investments, LLC Located
6280 N. Fox Run Way: Request: Final Plat Approval Consisting
of One (1) Building Lot, Two (2) Common Area Lots and One (1)
Other Lot for Future Right-of-Way Dedication
G. Approval of Street Light Maintenance Agreement for Hacienda
Subdivision No. 5
De Weerd: Item 4 is our Consent Agenda.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move that we approve the Consent Agenda as published and for the Mayor to sign
and the Clerk to attest.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 3 of 51
Cavener: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda. Madam Clerk,
will you call roll.
Motion Carried: Bird, yea; Borton, absent; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts; yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Item 5: Community Items/Presentations
De Weerd: Under Item 5, Community Items/Presentations. Item 5-A is with our Meridian
Arts Commission with their annual update and I see the chair in the back. Mary, welcome.
Thank you for joining us.
Jensen: Thank you. I have not seen Hillary and she has a PowerPoint. Is it here by any
chance?
Bird: I just had lunch with Hillary.
Jensen: Oh. Did she hand you a PowerPoint?
De Weerd: Well, why don't --
Jensen: I can continue without it if you like or we can wait for her. I can go track her
down.
De Weerd: You know, we could maybe switch and have Rick with the New Ventures Lab
go first and, then, have you come up second.
Jensen: Thank you.
B. Update from New Ventures Lab
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. So, Rick, we will go ahead and get the update from the
New Ventures Lab and, see, yours popped right up there. Thank you for joining us.
Ritter: Thank you for the chance to come.
De Weerd: We are excited about all the energy that's going on over there. I was excited
to hear it in the State of the City and we are thrilled to have you here.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 4 of 51
Ritter: So, which one is live? This one? So, each of you should have the State of the
Lab and although this is -- this is for the year, I will remind everybody this is for the first
eight months of operation, since we opened in May and I do want to give you -- I'm not
going to spend the time to go through that. You can certainly review that. If you got
questions I will take questions. I want to give you a number of updates that we didn't have
when we made this, so I want to do that. So, on there you will notice that it says that we
are working on -- somewhere on here. Two additional startup weekends. We have now
confirmed those. We have one scheduled in Nampa April 29th and 30th and May 1st at
the tech center. We are doing that with the Nampa Entrepreneur's organization. Then we
will come back to Meridian November 11th, 12th and the 13th at the New Ventures Lab
and that will actually be of -- so Sharp Week is an international organization run by Tech
Stars and during the third full week in November they have what's called the Global
Startup Battle. So, we will be part of -- that weekend is the first weekend and, then, the
following weekend just before Thanksgiving is the -- that whole week is the week of Global
Startup Battle, so the companies that will be coming out of our work here will be eligible to
participate in that Global Startup Battle and so we are hoping it will have somebody come
up out of that and end up at least a regional level, if not a national level before we are
done with that.
De Weerd: Very nice.
Ritter: I think the important thing is -- one of the things I wanted to go over is what have
we learned from the grand experiment and I consider the New Ventures Lab -- as you all
know, we took the lab theme, because we said we were an experiment and I thought it
was -- would be good for you to learn what we have learned from the first eight months of
our experience over there. So, I'm going to break this into two pieces. One, what did we
learn about the open space, which is the functionality of the -- of the open membership
and, then, the second part will be about our -- what we call our residents and that's our
startup businesses that we have -- have gone to the open space and now we can
consider to have some opportunity. So, what do we learn about the open space? So, our
original intent was that would be just for people that have startup ideas. What we have
grown into is a couple of other -- three other classifications of people that we didn't
anticipate, which is good news for us. One is employees from companies that are not in
Meridian or in the four cases we have got now that are not even in the state of Idaho, so
these are the employees of companies in Bend, Seattle and Salt Lake who work in the
Treasure Valley and what we hope will come out of that is an expansion of those
companies at the appropriate time and these people are sort of the -- the first people in
the trenches to be working here. So, they have taken up -- we have got three of those
that are there regularly and, then, a fourth one that's there every other week that works --
and works here in the Treasure Valley. The other thing that we have discovered -- and we
have had two of these in and I can't share those because I'm under an NDA, but we had
location teams that were in here, so these were teams of people that came from other
places that were looking at the Treasure Valley as a location and they wanted a team of
three or four people and a place to swap for a week while they were figuring out whether
they wanted to be here or not. And, then, the last one, which we think is an interesting
one, is we have now had four firms that have brought teams of people from their firms as
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 5 of 51
a place to come away from their company where they can -- and these are primarily
product development teams and are spending a day working through some kind of a new
product or a new piece of software that they are working on that they felt like they were
better done away from the main business and so that's become a fairly good line of
business for us in the open space. On the resident side, we are holding about where I
thought we would. We have interviewed and had discussions with 66 individuals or
companies to get to the seven companies we currently have in the building. So, that's not
quite one in ten, but that's very close. Our experience at the tech center, the water cooler,
the Idaho Innovation Center in Idaho Falls before I came back here, it was a little higher
than that, it was typically, you know, one in seven or one in eight, and here for whatever
reason we are at one in ten. The other thing that we found that's interesting is -- and it
probably shouldn't surprise me, because we had a lot of this kind of experience with the
water cooler, is that the companies that we have got in the -- that walk in the New
Ventures Lab at this point have 33 employees, but only about half of those employees are
actually physically in the building. The others are literally not only all over the country, but
they are all over the globe. We have one company that the four founders are in Belgium,
the Philippines, Germany and France and one of the primary founders is here in the New
Ventures Lab. That is an experience I think that we will see more of and, quite frankly, the
discussion we have had with those is when they get ready to run operations they will
locate their operations in Idaho because of the cost of doing business here. So, we think
that's good news. So, what are the issues? You know, there is good things and there are
bad things and the issues -- I think the only issues that we are working on now is we have
had for the last couple of months -- and I might ask this question of the Council and the
Mayor -- so, when you hear the term open space, what does that mean to you? One of
the things that we are looking at is --
De Weerd: Parks.
Ritter: -- we think part of the reason we are not having as much in the open space as we
would like to have is because, quite frankly, we have run into a whole lot of people that
don't understand what open space is and so we are going to -- over the next month or so
Sarah and I will be working on either giving that a new title or giving it some sort of
definition around it, because clearly there are a lot of people -- once we sit down and have
conversation they go, oh, that's what it is. So, it's clear to us that using the term open
space, which is pretty common out around the rest of the country, doesn't work here in
Meridian. So, I would certainly welcome comments from Council in terms of what open
space means when you hear that term.
De Weerd: Parks.
Ritter: Uh?
De Weerd: Parks.
Ritter: I should have guessed parks. So, clearly we have got -- if you think parks, clearly
we have got a problem with our definition that we have to fix. So, we will be working on
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 6 of 51
that and hopefully have a new definition. The only other two things that I would like to
mention -- three things I guess that I would like to mention that were not on here --
De Weerd: Rick?
Ritter: Yes, ma'am.
De Weerd: In seriousness I -- I was going to talk about the five members you had in the
co-work space --
Ritter: Uh-huh.
De Weerd: -- and I was convinced by someone it's too confusing. People don't
understand what that means. So, you really hit the nail on the head with that comment
that helping to further define it so we can all use the right descriptive for that is -- is very
important. So, I appreciate you mentioning that, because that is one thing I omitted when
I talked about the New Ventures Lab was that co-work space.
Ritter: Right. So, let me ask a question. So, would something like flexible workspace --
De Weerd: To me flexible workspace is -- is good and I love your -- your comments
before you said we have to define this, because you talked about all the different flexing of
that space that you can do. You can have teams -- and I toured a flex space in the
Netherlands and they -- they had companies that rented space, rotated even the desks
among their employees based on where their employees lived and what kind of product
teams they had that needed to use that space. So, it is -- it's flexible.
Ritter: Well, I think what we have to do is we -- there has to be a further definition,
because when I hear flex space, because I come from an industrial background, I think of
an open warehouse that literally allows me to do anything inside that space and I don't
want people to get confused with, oh, we could go in there and do light assembly work.
So, maybe it's -- maybe it's business flexible space. I'm not sure. Anyway, we are going
to have to mess with that -- that combination of words, so that, you know, it's -- and I
already sort of set the boundaries around it, which it's got to be less than six words and
convey the meaning that we need to have out of that. So, we will -- we will get that
cleared up and we will -- you will hear more about that as we go on. The final three items
that we didn't put on this -- this handout that we give you -- and, by the way, we will be
doing this -- this was actually two months late. We intended to do this at six months, but
there will be another one of these at the end of the year, so you can look forward to one of
these again in May, which will be our -- sort of our first anniversary and I think the
numbers will be a little bit different, but the thing that didn't get on here were the fact that
we have -- we have done extensive work with the Youth Entrepreneurship Academy as a
part of the Meridian Chamber and the Meridian School District and we are kind of on the
downhill side of that piece after every week since -- every Tuesday since October with -- I
think we are going to end up with eight students -- eight businesses that will come out of
that and I think a very interesting set of students and business ideas. So, I'm kind of
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 7 of 51
excited about that and I'm looking forward to doing that again next year. The other piece
of the work we have done with the Meridian Technical Charter School in both their
business planning and their Skills USA training and, then, the final piece is the work that
we are currently doing with what is known as the Idaho Challenge Cup, which is a huge
university based -- I won't call it a business -- it's a business model competition that's
hosted by BSU and funded by Zion's Bank and we are a part of that review team and the
judge team for all of those proposals that we come across from the 22 universities and
colleges in the state of Idaho. So, we are -- 90 percent of our work is in -- in Meridian in
the locality, but we are also reaching out, because we understand that there is some
potential to bring some of other kinds of things back here to Meridian. And I stand for
questions or comments.
De Weerd: Thank you, Rick. Council, any questions or comments?
Bird: I have none, Mayor. Very nice.
De Weerd: You know, I think the more you can share stories with Brenda that she can put
out on our economic development site and maybe Brenda share with our office, just that
story I shared about the young lady that you worked with Spreadright, the Idaho Dairy
Council was there at the State of the City and they came up to me afterwards and said
can you connect us with that young lady. So, she was thrilled to have that connection and
so they will be following up with her. It's those kind of connections that we hope we can
help facilitate and -- and, you know, maybe multiply that effort that you're making however
we can be a partner to that.
Ritter: Okay. We will do that. An update to that since we -- you had that conversation is
we are going to be connecting her in the next week as soon as Amir gets back with
directing PKG in terms of the actual manufacturing of that product. So, again, it's a
Meridian connection to a Meridian connection that we hope will ultimately get her in places
like Bed Bath and Beyond. So, we are excited to see that happen.
De Weerd: That's fun. I really worried about saying the butter stick spreader -- is that --
Ritter: Spreadright.
De Weerd: I just thought, oh, my gosh, try saying that really fast like three times. On the
record.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: She is, I'm proud to say, our winner from the Young Entrepreneurs from
last year is Rita and Fred Wright and I would like to also thank Rick for all that he has
done. He was our first instructor for the YEA class this year and he's been so
instrumental in the success of that program. So, thank you, Rick.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 8 of 51
Ritter: My pleasure. Other comments, questions? The other thing I would like to do is to
issue an invite to each and every one of you to come visit us if you haven't. Any other
thing?
De Weerd: No.
Ritter: Thank you.
A. Meridian Arts Commission Annual Update
De Weerd: Thank you so much. Okay. Now we will get MAC up here.
Jensen: Thank you --
De Weerd: Thank you.
Jensen: -- for having us.
De Weerd: We are very flexible.
Jensen: You guys are awesome. Thank you. Madam Mayor and City Council, thank you
for having the Meridian Arts Commission present today. My name is Mary Jensen and I
am the chair of the commission. It has been another great year for the Meridian Arts
Commission. We are comprised of nine volunteers this year, including Stephanie Barnes,
Michelle Glaze, myself Mary Jensen, Leslie Mauldin, Brian Schreiner, Gretchen Caserotti,
Ellen DeAngelis, Claudia Weathermon-Tester, and our MYAC representative Cheyenne
Quilter, as well as our ex-officio City Council Member Genesis Milam. And clearly our
mission is continuing as we strive to develop and advance and nurture all facets of the
arts to enhance the quality of life for Meridian and its citizens. So, I'm excited to be able to
share our victories I think we will call them for the past year, but we don't typically dwell on
the past, we do things and move on, so if things slip out about 2016 you will have to
excuse me, but we are just as excited about the upcoming year as we are about last year.
We had another great year in our Initial Point Gallery on the third floor of City Hall.
However, two of our long time contributors and volunteers Dwight Williams and Kathy
have -- we like to call it retired. Have moved on and that's been certainly a good thing I
think for Dwight. However, he is missed on our commission greatly and I will talk more
about his legacy in a little bit. We also have new volunteers, though, in light of those two
volunteers leaving and we are still able to staff and continue to rotate our exhibits monthly,
as well as having Leslie Mauldin, one of our commissioners, providing live music at each
one of our -- not each one, but at most of our gallery openings and I'm sure you're aware
of tonight is another opening for our February gallery exhibit. We are really excited about
this one. It is a large group of youth from the Meridian School District -- from the West
Ada School District and these are all Reflections winners from the National Reflections
Program through the PTA. These are local winners that will be displaying their art and
hopefully we will see most of them tonight. So, we are really excited about tonight's
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 9 of 51
opening. We do have a new arts and cultural -- culture specialist. We call her the oil that
keeps the machine running. It is Hillary Bodnar and we could not be more thrilled with the
progress that has been made at the arts commission due to her excellent work and I get
the official title of chairwoman, but she definitely leads us to great things. So, we are
thrilled to have her and to be able to use her skills to further MAC's mission. She is
amazing at follow through and the care that she takes while working with all of our man
volunteers, our vendors, our artists -- basically everyone that she comes in contact with as
a representative of the Meridian Arts Commission she does so well with and we are
thrilled to have her. We continue to support the Treasure Valley Youth Theater and their
productions. Last year they produced two productions with MAC as their title sponsor.
They produced Annie Junior, which was composed of 60 of our area's young people. Two
hundred children auditioned for the production and 60 were able to be in the production.
So, there is definitely a need and it continues. We saw that again in the summer with the
production of Aristocats Junior. Forty-five children were cast in that production. One over
a hundred auditioned. We also actually got a bonus community sponsor or supporter for
that production when we realized it was scheduled to be held in Kleiner Park at the end of
June and if you can remember last June it hit 108 degrees on that week and so we could
not actually place those kinds on that stage in that heat and luckily Cole Valley Christian
School stepped up, offered up their stage and their auditorium at no cost to us and
became a great supporter and sponsor for this community effort. So, we were thrilled to
be able to work with them. The heat did not stop Concerts on Broadway, however,
because luckily we have a big shaded building to keep us cool on those hot summer
nights. We were able to offer four free outdoor concerts in our series this year. Kings of
Swing, Erin and her Cello, Highstreet, and Kevin Kirk and Onomatopoeia and were also
able to offer four opening acts this year and those were all student led acts that opened
the show to get the crowd warmed up for the main act and they have been very well
received for the past two years that we have been able to do this, so we are really excited
to hopefully continue that same tradition and, like I said, I can't just talk about the past.
Our bands are getting booked for next year already. We are really excited to be able to
offer brand new bands that we have not had before and, then, some of the old favorites as
well. So, I think there is going to be a nice mix of new and old and --
De Weerd: I think sometimes your youth opening act was just as good as, if not better --
Jensen: Right.
De Weerd: -- as the main event.
Jensen: Yes. We are really thrilled to be able to offer that, not only to give them kind of
some exposure and some excellent experience working with a professional stage
manager and having another professional artist after them, but also because we are
thrilled and enjoy it so much to get to hear these amazing youth, I agree with you, Mayor
de Weerd, that sometimes they were almost better than the actual acts or at least as
exciting, in our opinion. We have been -- that Concerts on Broadway series has been
headed by one of our commissioners Leslie Mauldin, who spends countless hours
volunteering to make sure that this production happens and happens at a level that we
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 10 of 51
can really be proud of on the arts commission and here at the city. She holds us to a very
high standard and we are thrilled to be able to support her in doing that. She also has a
trusty volunteer who volunteers many hours in Cara Stone and the two of them make a
very dynamic team in putting on a really good Broadway -- Concerts on Broadway series.
So, we are thrilled about that and we are really excited to see what will happen this year
for our summer concert series. Our young musicians and young artists awards continued
in 2015. We get to support young musicians through a program that has been developed
by the Meridian Symphony and they actually host a concert every year where the winners
of the young musician competition get to perform as a main stage -- or as a main act in
the -- in the Meridian symphony concert and they are simply marvelous and sometimes
jaw dropping when we get to see these young people and their amazing talent. So, we
are thrilled to continue to be able to support that this year and oftentimes if you -- if you
have recognized it, we use those award winners as our opening acts to the Concerts on
Broadway series. So, that's where some of our -- our youth acts come from. We also
donated dollars towards youth artists who participate in the -- in the West Ada annual arts
show and hopefully we will continue to do that. And we have made a connection with
those youth artists in something that I will be talking about in the next few slides as far as
our traffic boxes. Many of our traffic box participants have come from that youth show, so
we have been able to use some of those traffic box -- or some of these artists as our
traffic box artists as well, which is exciting for us. We were able, as you know, to pass the
Maps ordinance in 2015. The commissioner that really headed that ordinance was
Stephanie Barnes and, obviously, Emily Kane and Robert Simison and we are thrilled to
have this extra pool of dollars to be able to really work towards more public art and
making it even more visible than what we already have. The ordinance that we ended up
with is not actually highly typical for the Idaho area. However, the yearly appropriation of
50 cents per resident, not to exceed 50,000 dollars per year, has already strengthened
many of our relationships. We are working currently with the Parks and Rec Department
in looking for places and types of art to put within the parks, as well as working with the
West Ada Recreation District and hoping to add more art or art type things into some of
their areas as well. So, we have got a lot of relationships going and I would think within
this next year you will see quite a bit more and hear more about how that Maps ordinance
is being used. We did get to also select another piece of public art to be placed at the
Main and Fairview parcel. It was sponsored through MDC and they asked us to kind of
lead a public arts process to find something lovely to put there and we were able to be
select Danielle Fouche's piece and we have been working with her throughout this current
year and we are hoping to have an installation done by July of 2016. She presented
these trees that we are really excited to be able to get into place and be able to view.
Back to our traffic box art. We were able to release a call to artists in March and develop
what we are calling a repository for art that could be possibly placed on traffic boxes and
from there we had over 40 local artists -- and these are not just professional artists, we
have professionals, we have hobbyist, we had youth, we had young children all submit
ideas for traffic boxes. We -- as the commission we were able to jury those and, then, put
as many pieces as we wanted into our repository and now we have kind of like this great
little pot of art that we can use to place on our traffic boxes. We are planning on doing this
call yearly and updating our repository as needed. But as you can see we have had eight
traffic boxes wrapped in FY-15 and we actually already have the funds secured for ten
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 11 of 51
more for 2016. So, this has been a great, very visible project. We are excited. We have
had really good feedback about these traffic boxes and hopefully where everyone is
enjoying the beauty that these can bring.
De Weerd: Mary?
Jensen: Yes.
De Weerd: What are we doing in terms of these can be sponsored by area businesses
and citizens?
Jensen: Yes.
De Weerd: How are we getting that information out?
Jensen: We have done a little bit of advertising, as well as using some of our social
media outlets. We actually have three businesses already for 2016 that have offered up
funds. They are part of the ten that we will be placing. So, it's not a very hard sell,
actually. We are finding a lot of interest and we will continue as the commission to kind of
knock on doors and let people know what they can do to support the arts commission and
how they can support a traffic box as well.
De Weerd: That's awesome. Thank you.
Jensen: Yeah. We did welcome three new commissioners in FY-15. Claudia
Weathermon-Tester, Gretchen Casserotti and Ellen DeAngelis and as a working
commission whenever we get more hands it seems to be very fruitful. So, I think our new
commissioners are doing a great job. And, last, but certainly not least, our legacy of
Dwight Williams -- he was actually a founding commissioner of the Meridian Arts
Commission and he actually had the vision, the foresight to lead everything that went on
in the Initial Point Gallery and if you know Dwight at all and you know his background, he
is a tireless representative for the arts, not only in Meridian, but the entire Treasure Valley.
He is a wonderful artist himself and story teller and a dear friend and he definitely has
been missed by the arts commission, but we are so grateful for his legacy and everything
that he did to serve the commission and serve the citizens of Meridian by offering us many
beautiful art pieces and of his knowledge. So, we are going to continue working to keep
his legacy alive to continue to put art where it needs to be, especially in the gallery that he
was so passionate about. You know, the one bonus I guess of Dwight leaving is that
really spurred on -- the need came really to the forefront of all of our minds that we really
needed an arts and cultural specialist to really help us along and so with Dwight leaving
we were able to have Hillary join us and she's also been able to keep that vision and that
legacy alive as well. So, we are thrilled about that. Dwight didn't die. He still comes to
visit. It sounds like something bad when we talk about it like that, but he -- he is,
obviously, still a great MAC supporter and you will actually see his art in the Gallery for
2016. So, we are happy about that. I think that's the end of my presentation. Like I said,
looking forward to 2016 we have just as much, if not more on our plate and we couldn't be
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 12 of 51
happier about it. Right now one of the big things we are working on is the Treasure Valley
Theater production of Aladdin, which will take place in March. There are 60 children that
are currently rehearsing for that production. It will be performed at Mountain View High
School in their auditorium. So, we are thrilled to be their title sponsor for that production
as well. Are there any questions at this time?
De Weerd: Thank you, Mary. Council, any questions?
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Milam: Well, Mary, that was a fabulous presentation. Every time I tried to write down a
question then you answered pretty soon afterwards, so I don't really have a lot of
questions. One is did you -- did you ever find out how many are in a grove?
Jensen: I think we are up to three.
Milam: Okay. We are talking about a minimum number.
Jensen: Three grove of trees that we are talking about for our public art piece.
Milam: The other question is what is the date of Aladdin in March?
Jensen: March 17th and 18th. Friday and Saturday.
Milam: Thank you very much.
Jensen: You're welcome.
De Weerd: Any other questions?
Cavener: Not a question, Madam Mayor, but just a comment.
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Mary, to you and the commissioners, I think that Meridian has really developed
an art and culture reputation commensurate with our community and I know that it's not
easy and I know that it's not something that has happened overnight, but I think that you
have a great set of commissioners who are really dedicated to serving our community and
I know probably on behalf of all of us we just want to say thank you. It's great to see. I
love it when I see a new traffic box. I love it when I get an update about the Treasure
Valley Youth Theater and the new art piece that's going to go up on Meridian Road, it's
really coming together and making our community great, so I'm just very very thankful and
proud. Thanks.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 13 of 51
Jensen: I agree. Thank you, Councilman Cavener.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Mary, thank you guys a lot and I can tell you you're not wrong. Hillary represents
not only you guys, the city very very well, she is a great ambassador. Glad to have her on
board.
Jensen: I absolutely agree. Thank you, Councilman Bird.
De Weerd: And with Hillary we get her mom, so -- I saw her on Friday with the change
over in the Gallery, so that was pretty cool. This year will we see food trucks again as part
of Concerts on Broadway?
Jensen: We are planning on offering vendors -- food trucks, yes, at hopefully all the
concerts, instead of just a few, so --
De Weerd: Awesome. That's exciting. Well, again, to reiterate and maybe build on what
Mr. Cavener said, that the Meridian Arts Commission continues every year to -- to make a
larger difference in promoting all forms of art and it's exciting from all ages. We are
thrilled to see the exhibit up on the third floor as well and encouraging the expressions
that you see up there and the several different mediums. So, it's exciting to see that the
legacy that MAC has established in our community and every year gets even larger. So,
thank you for your leadership. We greatly appreciate it. I know how much time and
passion you put into being a volunteer on our arts commission and just want to personally
thank you for that as well.
Jensen: Thank you, Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Okay. Well, thank you again for being here.
Jensen: Thank you.
De Weerd: And for the record let it be noted that Councilman Borton has joined us.
Item 6: Items Moved From the Consent Agenda
De Weerd: Okay. There were no items moved from the Consent Agenda.
Item 7: Department Reports
A. Legal Department: Annual Update
De Weerd: So, we will move into the Department Reports and we will begin Department
Reports with our annual update from the Legal Department. I wasn't sure if they were
going to be super heroes this year or --
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 14 of 51
Nary: Well, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, thank you for making time for our
annual update. It's a tough act to follow with both the New Venture Lab and arts
commission in front, but the riveting role of municipal law I know is something you all look
forward to, that's why we do it so early in the year, so you don't have to weight forever to
hear it. I thought for the benefit of our in new Council members, as well as the public, talk
a little bit about what we do, because I think it's probably a mystery to some. You have
the most stable team and department in the city. Three of us have been here for 11
years. Our newest member has been here for almost eight. We have had zero turnover
in more than 11 years and we have more than a hundred years of legal experience among
the five of us. So, you get a lot of value for a very small department and I appreciate the
support that we have always received from the Mayor and the Council in all the things that
we try to do to make this all work together as well as we can. My team is all here. You
can seen there. Emily Kane, Andrea Pogue, Ted Baird are our deputy attorneys and
Michelle Albertson is our legal support services manager. So, we, again, are very
appreciative of all that you do for us to make us look good, too. The mission of the city
attorney's office again is to support -- support a safe and legally compliant workplace. So,
we -- we actually look at lots of things and a number of years ago Mayor -- when Mayor
Tammy first came into office it was her vision to have an in-house legal department.
There is 200 cities in the state. Every city is required to have a city attorney. Most of
them are contracted attorneys and the City of Meridian had a contracted attorney for a
number of years and it was the Mayor's vision that we had an in-house group, because
she felt it was more important as we grew and as the complexities of the world are out
there and as the city has grown, both internally and externally, that there is a lot of things
that come along that would be helpful to have the legal -- the legal view of it on the front
end. It's always better to ask permission than forgiveness, it's generally cheaper to ask
permission than forgiveness and so by having an in-house service we are able to be
involved and engaged on the front end of any questions, any issues, any problems and
we think that's a much better value for our citizens and for the city as a whole.
De Weerd: Well -- and you might mention it was less expensive, too.
Nary: It was also less expensive.
De Weerd: I just thought I would throw that one in.
Nary: I appreciate that. So, there is various areas of municipal law that we are engaged
with and I think I will talk about each of them individually, but, again, for the people
watching this online, community care values, our clients, our customers, compliance in
general, contracts, cases and creativity are various things that we are involved in to a little
or a lot to help make the city function as well as we do. Trust me. So, community.
What's different from the public sector to the private sector in the legal world is in the
private sector attorney their primary concern is their client and being able to represent
their client to the best of their ability. Public attorneys have the community as a whole as
a client, in addition to the people who manage the city. So, it is a responsibility for the
public attorney to be looking out for the best needs of the public, because, again, our
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 15 of 51
focus is the community as a whole. Most city attorneys will tell you that it is inherent in
doing this job that you keep that in mind and there are occasions that you may be in
conflict sometimes with the mayor or the council or a department because you're trying to
make sure that the community as a whole is also benefitting from the work or whatever we
are doing. So, it is our -- it is our responsibility to look out for the community's health and
welfare as well and we are proud of the city, because I think as a city all of you would
agree you all, our staff, our departments, our directors, our employees all take that same
responsibility towards our community. But I wanted you to know that from the legal side
that is something that is foremost in our responsibility as the city's attorney. Care values.
We talk about care values a lot. I think it has become part of our culture and part of the
fabric of our how our city operates, how we interact with our public, how we interact with
our citizens, how we interact with other cities, other agencies. We do care about
customer service. I put on here balance timely response and doing it right. We all -- we
can all make mistakes, but we really spend a great deal of time as your legal department
to make sure we can give you the best advice and make sure we do it correctly. It's a lot
less expensive to not have to do it over. Accountability. Again, doing the right thing isn't
always easy or fast, sometimes it does take a little bit longer. Sometime people don't
always understand that. Even members of the public. We don't make lawn chairs, so I
can't just push a button and make another lawn chair very quickly. Sometimes it does
take some time to do, but I think what our city has that sets us apart is we have a very
experienced staff. We have done a lot of these things before. Especially in the last 11
years we have done a lot of things over the last 11 years that we can reach back -- the
same person -- Emily, Ted, Andrea, Michelle, may have actually wrote the last time we did
that and maybe it was five years ago. We have that -- that depth of our team to be able to
do those things a little quicker than most places would. Again, respect. Our day-to-day
interactions. It is highly important to me and very important to our team that our
departments -- our employees know we are available and approachable and we are there
to help them. Our job is to make sure that they can do their jobs and the only way they
can know that is we have to be engaged, we have to be a part of what they do and they
have to be unafraid to come and ask us before we do something -- what do we need?
How can we do this the best way? What's the most efficient way to get it done. Again, we
always say focus on the big picture, but we want to make sure we are available, we are
proactive, and engaged. Clients and customers have various needs and we seem to
amplify that for most people. Sometimes things in the legal world can be very scary and
can be very difficult and can be very stressful for people and our job is to try to take that
away. I mean that's what the lawyer does. You go to a lawyer to take the stress off of you
and give it to them and that's what -- they are supposed to take care of it for you and we
feel that's incredibly important for us as a legal department to make sure we do that for all
of you and for all of our employees. There we go. So, clients. So, the thing that's really
clear is in addition to the community and our concerns for that, the clients are you. The
Mayor and the Council, as representatives of our city, are our client by any definition that
you would use in the legal world. We advise you on all things that we can and the bullet I
put in here that I have said to you many times that I think it's critical for the -- especially
the public attorney, can we do it, should we do it, is really important, and we want to be
that counsel for you, because everything you do has such an impact on the community,
on each of you, on other people in the community, your constituents -- we want to be able
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 16 of 51
to give you advice to help you make the decision, because ultimately it's your decision, but
many times you need to know legally is it okay and can -- should we do that. How is the
impact going to be? What's that going to do to the public. How are they going to respond
to that. Those are things that as your legal team we hope we can provide you on every
occasion and, again, I think the depth of our team allows us to be able to be of value to
you in trying to make the decisions that you have to make. Meridian City Code. When I
got here there wasn't a lot of language in our code as to city attorneys, because the city
attorney was a contract position. So, one of the first things we did was create an
ordinance to establish the city attorney and one of the things that I felt was incredibly
important, which was why it's high up in the ordinance, is it is the responsibility of the city
attorney to have the highest standard of legal ethics, accountability and responsibility in
representing the client. We take that very seriously. We don't -- we might -- we might
make some slides that are fun, but the reality is we want to make sure you are getting the
best representation as the Mayor and Council as you need. Got to have some fun. So,
customers. We have many, many, many customers. I have listed a few there.
Employees, volunteers, the commissions, committees, task forces, contractors, vendors,
service users, developers -- we interact with every level of this organization and with every
level of people that our organization deals with externally. Again, our role is to help. Our
role is to assist. Our role is to provide advice to the departments. We are engaged at
various levels. We deal with citizens who don't understand why somebody does this or
why nobody does that. We try to make sure to explain what the law requires or why we
do certain things. It might surprise you, but many people think we randomly just every day
mess up their lives and the reality is we don't. W e have reasons for everything we do and
we have a reason and a practice and many times as an organization over the last 11
years we have had to revisit those practices and procedures and processes and change
them and that's okay. The law changes, the reasons we do things sometimes get
outdated, the reasons we do things differently is because of learned lessons from past
practice. So, we try to be a partner with that. W e try to make sure to help the
departments understand that -- or the public as to why things maybe have to change.
Again, the laws have gotten very complex in a lot of areas of government that we have to
deal with and we are there to assist to make sure that that gets done in the most efficient
way we can, so -- and, again, sometimes following the rules for some folks can be
challenging. I'm sure all of you know that. Compliance. Many people don't like the word
compliance. It sounds so onerous. And the realty is compliance has a -- has a rationale
and a reason for everything we do at the city and our role and responsibility as the legal
department is to assist with that compliance, because, again, one, it's necessary for your
organization's survival. If you aren't compliant with whatever the law requires, usually at
the end of the day it costs you something. It either costs you credibility or it costs you
money or it costs you something else. So, legal compliance is incredibly important we
think as an organization and, again, our customers want consistency. All of you hear this
week in and week out. Well, why can't you do this for me? Well, because we didn't do it
before. Well, why not? Well, because, again, we can't change it every single time. Most
of the people that come in front of you -- that's really their expectation. They want to be
heard and they want it to be fair and fair for most people is consistency and that's
something that we stress very much with the departments as well and the departments in
our city I think are also on the same page with that. They recognize that, you know, it
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 17 of 51
might sound really easy -- I have had so many conversations over the years where people
say it's just me. It's only me. It's one guy. One house. One business. One situation.
Can you just do it the way I want to? And I have to remind them if I do that, then, we have
to do it that way for everybody. There are certain circumstances that might be very
individual and we have been in front of you many times saying, yes, we think we can
support doing it this way for this situation based on this certain circumstance, but most of
the time we tell you the same thing you have heard is there is a reason this exists, it's in
the code, it's to provide that consistency, so the public that comes in front of you knows
what to expect. Again, there is so many things -- the transparency and Ethics In
Government Act is basically a re-creation by the state last year in moving some of the
sections of the code into one section and that's where open meetings and public records
are found. That, again, has become an incredibly complex area. It is always evolving. It
is always very challenging and you have seen it challenged. We have gone to court more
than once over public records issues. So, there are things that can get very, very time
consuming and, again, consistency is really the critical factor there. Some of the other
things in compliance -- HIPAA, purchasing, Land Use Act, all of the things that are in here
-- again, you folks know it as well as anybody. It's very, very complex. It is not very
simple. It's not very intuitive. We try to make a lot of those -- those calls up front, so the
ones that you get are the ones that are really your responsibility as the elected officials to
do and we on the staff side can take care of a lot of those other things to, again, make
sure that what you end up with is something that really is what your responsibility is and
not having to make everything a Council decision. Again, we provide support to our
customers. You all know this as well. Compliance with laws and ordinances, fire code,
police codes, code enforcement, building inspections, all of the alphabets of different
agencies that we all have to deal with and every day there is something related to those
things that we have a discussion with, whether it's me or anybody else on my team, we
are having those conversations with departments or other agencies, outside people, the
public and, again, helping educate is really, again, part of our responsibility. People need
to understand there is reasons for these things. There are rules, there are laws, and we
are just trying to comply with them. Contracts. I have said this to you many times. So,
the long ones, short ones, almost all contacts that you write them -- we have reviewed
every single one of them. There are occasions that we don't have the luxury to craft the
contract ourselves. Microsoft doesn't really want the contract that I am going to write.
They really like the one they wrote. You know, AT&T, they prefer the ones they write. So,
we have to review those and make sure that they fit both our laws, because they are
generic, and they fit our code, but most of the other ones that you see you should have
the comfort and assurance when you see those on your -- on your agenda each week
they have been reviewed and, again, most often they have been written by us. Again,
some of them are really complicated. The south Meridian annexation that we did a few
weeks ago that we finalized, we had 23 different development agreements that we wrote
for all those different properties. Some were similar. Some were different. We negotiated
each of those with the help of planning and with the Mayor's office and Public Works to
make sure it fit the individual needs of those property owners. We have a collective
bargaining agreement with our fire union. We have had six agreements since 2005. This
is a new year that we will begin that. Those are, again, very complicated agreements,
very time consuming to get through. There was one that was on your agenda tonight.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 18 of 51
That was the first reimbursement agreement. We talked about that last week. That was a
very long contract. So, some take minutes, some take months, and that's kind of why we
are here is to be able to do that as seamlessly as possible. There are occasions in some
cities that that is a lot more cumbersome, because you deal with a law firm that isn't sitting
down the hall, they are sitting down the street somewhere and that can be a little bit more
challenging for some cities. For us it's a lot more seamless and, again, I think it's more
efficient to do it that way. Staying out of court is a good thing, because it always costs
money. It rarely is free. Risk management in cases. So, in addition, we occasionally --
and not very often -- we have to hire outside counsel on certain issues. We have been
fortunate, one, to not have to do that much. Secondarily, we have the ability at least help
manage those cases. So, when we have hired outside counsel we are very actively
engaged with that as well. That helps keep the cost down. There is things that we can
handle on our end that an outside counsel would charge us for we can do for them so that
it keeps the cost and keeps the case a little bit more manageable for us, whether it's in a
district court or federal court. We have had bankruptcy court cases, you know, of one
example -- we don't do a lot of bankruptcy. In fact, I spoke recently at our Municipal
Attorneys Association and one of the cases was a bankruptcy case that we were involved
in. Andrea Pogue from our team handled. And I asked a lot of the cities did they deal
with bankruptcy much and most of them don't. One, it's a very specialized area of law and
many times in smaller cities the bankruptcy things are involved with utilities and those
types of things and the amounts are fairly small. So, for them to hire outside counsel in a
very specialized area of the law isn't really worth it. It's just too expensive. Well, we had a
case a few years ago that we needed to hire a bankruptcy lawyer for, because it was
worth the money and it did have some financial impact to the city and we hired outside
counsel. Well, what happened is Andrea worked that case with that counsel, she learned
a little bit more about how to handle those types of cases and we had one in the last year
that was not quite so large, but yet had some financial impact to the city. We could handle
it in house. We used that same attorney, but we used him merely as a consultant to make
sure we were doing the right procedure and process, but we didn't have to hire him to
handle the case. It was a lot cheaper. We were able to get the case settled for a small
amount and I think that was a good use of our resources for that. Other things -- claims
management -- all the claims for the city come through us, so we help with the
departments on both managing the claims, so that things that are -- that things we are
responsible for get taken care of or things that we need to learn some lessons from or
have some training or do some changes, we work closely with ICRMP, our insurer, and
with the departments to help alleviate those risks and those challenges we have had.
Creativity. This is probably not something you always hear much of lawyers, they don't --
most people don't think we are really creative people. I have the most limited imagination
about anything most of the time, but when it comes to legal issues sometimes it does take
a different perspective and a lot of lawyers are very linear in how they do things and most
of you know me well enough to know that's really not me. There are times that we have to
find a way to deal with very difficult issues and very complex issues in a way that's
different than what we may have done before and I used a couple of examples, like
Meridian Heights that we did a couple years ago and the south Meridian annexation. It
was a little bit different than the norm and so I think the value you get from a team like
ours is we are willing to do that. You know, we are always going to stay within the law, we
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 19 of 51
are going to make sure we don't violate anything, but there is nothing wrong with trying to
think of a different way to do it and we as a team have been well supported by all of you,
have tried to come up with creative solutions and more often than not, you know, we are
the person, then, getting called or our office getting called by other cities saying, well, how
did you do that and what did you do and I think that that sets us apart, I think it makes us
a leader in the municipal field. I think people do recognize we do things differently, but we
get it done and it gets done pretty well and most of the time the wheels don't fall off, so I
think people find that to be a good way to do things. We always have coffee and do not
confuse your Google search with my law degree. So, I wanted to I guess finish with
saying, you know, we really do appreciate being here. We appreciate the ability that we
have to come to you with issues and concerns, for you to listen to give us the freedom to
help the departments in being able to assist them, because, again, at the end of the day --
I have said it before to you many times -- I don't have an agenda. My agenda is your
agenda. What you folks want to do, our job is to help you do it. Make sure you're within
the law and the bounds of what we have done and what are processes are and all those
things. But our job is to help you do what you need to do, because that's what you got
elected for, and our job is to help that happen and we really do value our relationship both
with the Mayor and the Council and with all of our departments. We really think it's
critically important that our departments know we are there for them as well. Whatever
they need we are going to try to make it happen. I say that to every director when I meet
with them. I don't run your department. We are here to help you. I'm not trying to tell you
how to do stuff, I'm just trying to help you do what you got to do and stay within the law.
That's all I have. This is my practice. I'm the speaker at my granddaughter's career night
and I figure kids love legal -- legal stuff, so we will talk about this more at the elementary
school on Thursday. Other questions?
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Bird: No. Just a nice report, Bill. You guys do a great job. I appreciate you.
Nary: Thank you.
De Weerd: I will say Emily does keep us out of trouble.
Nary: We always say Emily is charge of no fun. If you're doing something that's too much
fun, Emily might find a way to tamper that down. All right. Thank you.
De Weerd: But she always has a nice smile, too. We appreciate you and your team, Bill,
and want to thank you guys for all being here and for your longevity. You know, Bill
talking about how you have zero turnover and the years of experience and the dedication
to our city is just phenomenal, so we appreciate it.
Bird: I got to say one thing. And I have said this to a lot of people -- not to Bill, but, you
know what, he's a good attorney, but he was one heck of a good Councilman.
Nary: Thank you.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 20 of 51
Bird: I -- he -- he brought -- he brought --
De Weerd: Real. He was very real.
Bird: He said some things that I would probably be in the Ada County jail for, but he got
away with, so -- but he was a great councilman, people.
Nary: Thank you.
Bird: He was.
Nary: I didn't want people leaving the room wondering what I was thinking.
De Weerd: I don't think he needed to worry about that. You did a good job then, too.
Bird: He did.
B. Community Development: Transportation Projects Update -
Discuss Transportation Related Studies, Plans and Projects
Including: The Ada County Highway District 2017-2021
Integrated Five Year Work Plan (IFYWP), Chinden Boulevard and
Other Transportation Projects.
De Weerd: So thank you. Item 7-B is under Community Development and I will turn this
over to Caleb for our all things transportation update.
Hood: That right. Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. Just a little
disclaimer off the bat. This presentation was not written, reviewed, or approved by legal,
so hopefully I don't get myself in trouble, but -- no. Seriously, I do appreciate those guys
and they are very helpful to -- to our department and I'm sure others as well. I will keep
this short and sweet. I got the message. I know you guys have a full day and another
meeting here coming up shortly, but I do have a lot of things to cover just briefly in the all
things transportation update. For you newer Council members, typically I don't touch
everything in the memo, so hopefully you have the memo, you have read the memo,
reviewed it. If I don't hit on one of the projects and you had a question or a comment on it,
please, interrupt or ask me about, but I'm not going to go through and read my memo to
you, but I do want to highlight a couple of things in the memo. So, the first one actually is
on page one of the memo and that is just a heads up that we are -- just kicked off last
week with our transportation commission putting together roadways, intersection and
community program priorities that will be back before you all in about a month or so. So,
they are going to work on that. Their next meeting in March as well and hopefully have
their draft list of priority projects, again, that gets routed through you and, then, we send
that on to ACHD here by April 1. So, that's just a heads up as it's that time of year again.
Page two I mentioned the Linder Road, Franklin to Pine project that did -- the project
kickoff meeting was yesterday. The two public involvement meetings scheduled for that
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 21 of 51
project, just initially looking at that -- and this probably doesn't surprise too many folks, but
there will be some impacts to some of the homes on the east side of that project, south of
the railroad tracks on that section of Linder Road. So, the public involvement process and
design -- they are going to have to get a little creative with that to minimize the impacts
there to existing structures and property owners. I think the next one I wanted to highlight
was just -- if you have been hiding under a rock, the Meridian Road interchange is
substantially complete and so if you didn't know that, now you know. U.S. 20-26 is the
next one. We have had five meetings up to this -- or, sorry, four meetings up to this point
for the U.S. 20-26 task force and we are starting to really make some progress this last
meeting. We broke into three different subcommittees, assigned tasks. The community
engagement subcommittee is actually going to meet on their own independent of the
larger group and are looking to establish some social media outlets and do some things
with some homeowner associations in north Meridian to kind of get the troops rallied and
support for U.S. 20-26. Which brings me to the second paragraph in that section. I talked
to Amanda Lamott this last week. She works at ITD District Three and District Three is
putting together an application for the strategic initiatives -- it's a grant, essentially,
statewide that all of the Idaho Transportation Department districts apply for. There is 20
million dollars in the pot. No one project can be more than ten million dollars, but each
district can apply for multiple projects. I believe this is going to be their -- their -- District
Three's number one strategic initiatives application and they said whatever you can do to
support this is appreciated. So, the first thing I thought we could do is write a letter and
what you see -- you will see now. I'm going to hand it out. I will give it to the clerk -- is a
draft letter and while it's going around what -- right now the preliminary cost estimate that
ITD District Three has for that first mile from Locust Grove to Eagle along Chinden is
about a nine million dollar project. So, they are pushing the cap of that ten million dollar
per project limit, but they are -- they are encouraged by this application. So, this letter is
pretty high level. I don't want to say it's generic, but it is just -- it's basically supportive.
Hopefully gets the point across. What I'm hoping is that the City Council signs this letter,
but I also work with the Chamber, the 20-26 task force, COMPASS, the Meridian
Transportation Commission and have various letters go out in support of this project. So,
I don't want it to be the same form letter signed by five different agencies with the same
message. So, yours is a little more generic and leaves out some more of the economic
development stuff that I'm hoping that the Chamber touches on or the safety stuff that I'm
hoping that the transportation commission touches on. If you want to include that we can.
So, what I'm planning to do, if you all like this letter or some version of this letter, is send it
on and I should mention ACHD is -- Justin and I were just talking to each other a little bit.
I left him a message earlier saying, hey, is ACHD going to write a letter of support. So, he
is going to try to work that angle as well and maybe have the highway district also write a
support letter. But I will send this letter out. It's kind of a baseline template and, then,
maybe some talking points for those various different groups that I just mentioned, too, so
-- at least that's my thought process. If you want to put all the details in this letter, that's
certainly up to you or I can do that and bring it back to you. We do need to have a letter to
them by March 1st. So, we have a little bit of time. I think it's a pretty good letter here. I
did notice one typo in the last -- I need a space there in the last sentence. But other than
that I think it's a pretty solid letter. The Mayor's chief of staff has looked at it, as did my
boss Bruce looked at it, but I wanted you all to look at it. You don't have to necessarily
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 22 of 51
approve it now, but I would like some direction and if the Mayor and Council, again, likes
this letter or some version of it, I will get it routed around with your signature block. So, it's
kind of funny, I was talking with Robert a little bit and he said that you guys haven't even
signed the letter yet, so there doesn't -- a signature block for you all doesn't even exist yet,
so we are working on getting that, but we will get that incorporated into the letter here.
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: You anticipate my wanting to chime in. I think the only question -- so, I was
talking to a member of the house leadership -- not my father -- and he mentioned that they
were trying to work with ITD to, instead, finish 16 to take some of the pressure off of
Chinden before, then, doing Chinden, so that when that happens it's not as big of a
disaster as I guess it can be to just do that. I don't know if there is any timeline, any word
on anything. He said there is money for it, but that was the end of our conversation at the
AIC lunch. So, I don't know if there is any movement to do that first, so that there is less
pressure on Chinden when we go tear it up or not.
Hood: It sounds like there is some movement. That's the first I have heard of that so I --
all I know is what I talked to ITD staff about and this being one of their priority projects. I
will just be honest, I think if that does happen I think there is still going to be a need to
improve some of Chinden Boulevard and I think this mile in particular -- we get enough
volume just from north Meridian wanting to go into Boise --
Palmer: Sure.
Hood: -- that you're going to still have higher volumes on Chinden Boulevard that at least
this mile that we are talking about here probably needs some -- some attention anyways,
even if you did do State Highway 16, so -- but, again, that's the first I have heard of that.
So, I don't know of any -- not that I'm in all of those circles, but --
Palmer: Yeah.
Hood: Yeah.
Palmer: Didn't know if it was going around if that was just --
Hood: If I knew something like that I would probably share it with you all, but I have not --
I haven't heard anything like that, so --
Palmer: Thank you.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 23 of 51
Bird: I -- hope we do Chinden -- improve it before -- because 16 is dumping enough onto
it now that we really need to with everything else that's dumping onto it. But as far as the
letter goes, Caleb, I don't see anything wrong with it and I -- let's don't wait up until the last
minute to send it. Let's get it back by the 16th so we can get it all signed and get it out
before March 1st.
De Weerd: I guess I would just add, Caleb, you have been involved with the discussions
at the transportation commission. This is -- this is the priority focus with the Idaho
Transportation Department. Highway 16 impacts Chinden very little when you look at the
other input -- impacts from Caldwell and from our own community and -- and how it starts
upstream and, then, starts building the closer and closer you get to Eagle Road. So, I
don't think that the relief that we would get from Highway 16 would be even noticeable.
Highway 16 has -- that bridge has very little use at this point and maybe it would increase
if it did connect to I-84 eventually, but that is hundreds of millions of dollars to get it from
Chinden to I-84. Chinden is long overdue for its -- its improvements if you look at the level
of service, the safety ratings and the activity that's going in and around it, it's -- there is a
lot of pressure, so --
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Palmer: I just -- being no traffic engineer or scientist, whatever the term would be for that,
I just know that if I lived at Chinden and Linder and I want to go downtown right now, I
would take Chinden, but if 16 was complete I would certainly take 16 to 84 to get
downtown, so --
De Weerd: I don't know. I think you would take Ten Mile if you lived on Linder. I wouldn't
go all the way to Highway 16 to go downtown.
Palmer: Take Chinden out to it, but --
De Weerd: So, I --
Palmer: We will race when it's all done --
De Weerd: And all discussion that has been not a listed priority, other than one legislator
that I know.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Two quick questions. One, Caleb, does the letter need to reference a dollar
amount?
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 24 of 51
Hood: I don't think it does. Again, there is the caps that ITD self imposes. I don't think we
need to do that.
Borton: Okay.
Hood: That was just more for your information than anything.
Borton: And is the city of Eagle cooperating and do you know if their council is providing
their one letter?
Hood: I will ask. I do not know.
Borton: They probably would share the -- share the interest.
Hood: Yeah. And so, again, if the Council is okay, what I will do is I will put this on the
Consent Agenda for next week with that date, the 16th, and, then, I will share this with the
various agencies we just talked about, including the city of Eagle.
De Weerd: I -- I would also say the city of Nampa is on board and I haven't talked to
Mayor Bell yet, but I imagine Star would be in agreement, too, so -- and I -- I could give
him a call.
Hood: Okay. Moving along, then. If there is no other changes to that letter, the Rail With
Trail, I wanted to just provide an update on the next item on page four in the memo. We
did have a good meeting last week with our regional partner -- potential regional partners,
anyways, on the Rail With Trail here along the Union Pacific corridor. All of the agencies
have had varying levels of success with UP over the years. I learned quite a bit about --
Nampa, actually, has a Rail To Trail conversion south of town. It starts around Amity and
comes darn near to their downtown. Even with that -- even with a conversion it's been
fairly difficult to work with UP on some of that, but they have had some level of success.
But, again, that's kind of apples and oranges, because that was an abandoned railway line
and it converted to a trail system, but long story short is -- is Nampa, Boise, COMPASS,
ACHD are all interested and supportive of this idea of a regional pathway connecting
Nampa to Meridian to Boise and COMPASS kind of took the lead in that. For those of you
that aren't all that familiar, COMPASS just this last year changed its organizational
structure and its bylaws and what they are going to do is, essentially, set up a charter and
make this a -- a formal COMPASS work group, so it's like some of their other work groups
that will have a charter and a begin and an end and a membership that's approved by the
COMPASS board. So, Matt Stall was at that meeting and he said, you know, what, we
probably just need to do this. So, I think that's the life it's going to take, the regional
nature and that's the right place to do it is through COMPASS. So, more to come on that.
You know, at the end of the day most everyone said that, you know, it's all about the
dollars. I mean that's -- when you negotiate with UP they are going to want to see that
you have been saving your pennies and can work with them, because they aren't -- you
probably aren't going to be able to rationalize with them into giving you something, you're
going to have to probably come to the table with something. But, anyways, we are -- we
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 25 of 51
are working on that and it was a very good meting, again, with those regional partners and
I think if we can all gather steam and push forward together regionally I think that will
certainly help some of our efforts that have kind of stalled over the last year or two
anyways. So, that's just a quick update on that. Idaho Avenue place making, I'm not
going to touch upon that, except to say that's coming up in your next meeting and we will
get into the details there and if you have anything you wanted to talk about before that we
can, but I was just planning on saving that for when MDC joins us. And, then, finally, I just
wanted to kind of -- it's not very often where it's a little uncomfortable for me to be at these
meetings, but there was actually a series of meetings over the recent past through -- I'm
one of the city's chief -- well, right now I'm the city's only ACHD capital improvement
citizen advisory committee member. Steven Yearsley was one, but he recently resigned.
Over the past couple of different meetings of that group and, then, I also serve on the CIP
impact fee group at ACHD and I don't want to get into all of it, but, basically, there were
two roadways where the land use agency didn't agree with the transportation agency. So,
the city of Eagle and the city of Boise, for different roadways, didn't necessarily agree with
the modeling that ACHD was doing and the 20 year horizons for -- and some of you may
have heard a little bit about in Eagle the Beacon Light corridor. So, the city of Eagle
wants to constrain that to three lanes and the traffic model says you need five. You want
to be able to -- or the impacts are going to be -- you know, people are going to find
alternative routes and now this road and this road need to be blown out, so you can't have
all three lane roadways and so there was a little bit of a back and forth with the land use --
lead land use agency and transportation and what should drive what, to be contact
sensitive based on land uses or should you really build your system to accommodate
motor vehicles and -- anyway, I just -- I could see both sides of that coin and without
touching base with you all I just want to let you know I didn't vote on anything. Emerald
was the other corridor in Boise, which probably affects Meridian more. The city of Boise
has been -- I can't think of another term, but lobbying, if you will, for Emerald to be
constrained to three lanes instead of five. Certainly that would impact Pine and all that
coming, you know, across Eagle Road if it were only three lanes and constrained that
way. There is impacts to Ustick and other roadways. Again, if you can't use Emerald,
Franklin is going to back up or Ustick. So, again, that was just more to let you all know
that that -- that was a little bit awkward and a split decision that really sort of -- it doesn't
happen very often, but it really was sort of a land use versus transportation and the
development community and the transportation side of that, because, again, on that group
you have developers or citizens that are on that group and could really see the
transportation need and that was just something I struggled with. So, I just wanted to,
again, kind of give you a little bit of that back and forth. At the end of the day the most
recent vote was four to three to go ahead and model it and keep it in and both of those
corridors as five lane roadways and over the next four years to have the city of Eagle and
ACHD work out their differences and agree once and for all is this a three lane or is this a
five lane. So, they kind of punted, but it's easier to preserve it for five now versus if you
went to three and, then, get a bunch of development, then, you want to do five, it's tough
to go back the other way. So, with that, Madam Mayor and Council, I think that's
everything that I wanted to cover, unless there was something I didn't touch on that you
had questions or comments about.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 26 of 51
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Caleb, can you just share who makes up the 20-26 task force, who those
members are comprised of?
Hood: Oh. Yeah. I mean it's a varied group. We have -- we have two members of our
transportation commission, Tracy Hopkins and David Ballard. The Mayor. I don't know if
she's an official member, but has been a regular attender. Myself. Robert and -- Robert
Simison and Austin Peterson are staff. Ken Corder was recently added for community
liaison communications. We have David Turnbull. Tommy Ahlquist. Brent -- Ken
Mortensen. Or Robert Mortensen. Kent -- can't think of his last name now. BCA is
represented. Miguel Legarreta, the realtor association's rep. There is -- we have about or
at each meeting, with about 20 in the -- 20 or 25 in the pool, if you will. Matt Stall is a
regular contributor. Senator Winder is a regular attender.
Little Roberts: Mark Freeman.
Hood: Mark Freeman is a regular attender. Thank you. Anne is a regular attender.
De Weerd: Doug Carnahan.
Hood: Doug Carnahan. Thank you.
Little Roberts: Rachel Snider.
De Weerd: Yes.
Hood: Republic Services is there. I apologize to anybody if I forgot you, but -- yeah. It's a
good group and, again, with the specialties, the legislative group kind of working that side
and ITD working the ITD side and the community working the community side, I think we
have got a wide cross-section of expertise on that group and I'm pretty excited about it,
so --
Cavener: Thank you.
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Milam: Caleb, I know that we have been through these dates and stuff before, but in light
of the recent drivability personally, the -- it seems that the Meridian corridor from Fairview
to Ustick is -- it seems like it should be more of a top priority than Linder as far as the
traffic and it's scheduled for a year later, so --
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 27 of 51
Hood: Yeah. Madam Mayor, Councilwoman Milam, that -- I mean that's something next
month that certainly you can have a dialogue about. I will make mention of that to the
transportation commission. I don't remember how the city -- if we have one or the other,
but, you're right, we kind of just pushed the bottleneck up a little bit. Both of those projects
are in design and they are in the out year. So, when you're talking about 2019 and 2020,
they are still a little ways out there and they could switch positions in this round of things.
So, that's kind of the -- the program and, you know, that five year plan, especially, again,
in the out years. When you get to '19, '20 and '21 they -- that may change over the years
as you get closer and depending on how right of way negotiation goes, you may --
something may slip a little bit further if it's more difficult or accelerate if there is a safety
need or something. So, I appreciate that and I will pass that onto the transportation
commission. But, again, you guys have the final call in at least sending our
recommendations to ACHD.
Milam: That just jumped out at me as I was reading. So, I wanted to share that so I don't
forget here.
De Weerd: And I think a lot of what that is is historic in terms of the -- the Linder corridor
and Meridian High has driven that with the safety aspect and in particular the stretch
between Franklin and Fairview and, then, you have from Fairview to Ustick, the
elementary school in that area. So, those have been to drivers for Linder Road, which I'm
sure would continue to keep those as priorities. Just to give a historical reason of
probably why the priority has been more Linder than Meridian. Yeah. Any further
questions for Caleb? Okay. Thank you, Caleb. And I guess just another thing. Right
now I know ACHD has -- has been working at the legislature with a proposed resolution
on the importance of the rail corridor from the Nampa depot to the Boise depot and I
believe that they are trying to also get a letter through the transportation committees for a
vote on the floor of both the senate and the house and I believe the language just came
out in the last day or maybe today, I don't know, but when we see that we will get that as
well -- to you as well for any feedback. Okay?
C. Community Development: Discuss Upcoming Joint Meeting With
Board of Ada County Commissioners
De Weerd: Okay. I will turn this now to the next one with Item 7-C and talk about an
upcoming meeting that we would like to have with the Ada County Commissioners to
discuss our land use agreement with them.
Hood: And, again, by the end of today you guys are going to be so sick of hearing from
me. But I have got another item and this is kind of timely, so I appreciate you listening
and discussing with me this potential meeting and I will just -- I just want to highlight that.
Right now there is just potential. Hopefully you all have seen the e-mail from Peggy
asking to set aside time on March 16th in the afternoon, but it's just penciled in right now.
I wanted to have this dialogue with you, but before dropping a letter on the board of
county commissioners we wanted to get that scheduled. Trying to schedule, you know,
ten people to meet at the same time can be difficult and by statute we send this letter
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 28 of 51
within 30 days they have to meet with us. So, we just want to kind of coordinate
calendars first to make sure we can find something to work and, then, we will date the
letter. So, I wanted to get a little bit into this. There is a memo also on this and I'm going
to speak to it. I have -- on this one I have got, actually, a few different handouts, so I
apologize to the clerk and everyone for -- the first -- the first handout is Ada County Code
Title 9, which addresses the city's area of impact and not just Meridian, there is different
subsections, within Title 9. 9-4 is Meridian's section, so, again, Boise, Kuna, Eagle, all
have their subsections in there. But I just wanted you all to have a copy of that. You don't
need to read it right now, but at least you have a copy of it and you can see the
references, then, to the code that I think deserve some exploration and about potential
amendment here in the near future. Second handout is the map. It's the map you see on
the screen, but I wanted to have something pretty for everybody to look at. So, the line,
just to refresh everybody -- I don't want to make too many assumptions, but the city's area
of city impact is this line that I'm kind of tracing here. I will trace it a little quicker, so that
we can get done. But that is our area of city impact, so it generally goes down Lake Hazel
to Columbia, up to the Boise River and the county line and, then, it marries in pretty well
with Boise on the -- on the east. So, what you see in color then is existing city limits, so
the area of city impact is made both of city annexed property, as well as county zoned
property until -- until the property annexes. According to state code the city can't annex a
property unless it's contiguous, meaning touching the city limits somewhere. So, you can't
have -- you can't leap frog out and annex property, even though it may be in the area of
impact. So, some of what I want to talk to you about to me has to do with orderly growth
of the city limits, so I will just kind of dive right in. Oh. Sorry. The third handout was just a
snapshot in 2015 of what I call key developments. This isn't everything that the county
transmitted to us, but it's a snapshot of those ones that kind of go to show some of the
points that I would like to talk with you about today. So, development applications, what
they were for, where they were generally located, what they were about, what they were
proposing within our area of impact. So, they are all within our area of impact. And, then,
the fourth is a draft letter, again, if you are so inclined to send to the board of county
commissioners asking for a sit down to talk with them about an amendment to Title 9. So,
that's just kind of an orientation. So, if you want to follow along you can, but today Ada
County Code 9-44-C1 requires applications for planned developments, subdivisions, and
rezones within the city's area of city impact to occur as a result of requests for annexation.
So, the thing I want to highlight there is it's -- I can't remember the last time we saw a
planned development in our area of impact, if ever. Subdivisions and rezones are the
only two applications types effectively that get transmitted to the city for any -- that require
contiguous property to request annexation to the City of Meridian. So, as you will see in
the spreadsheet -- and I have highlighted a couple of examples. I'm going to zoom in here
a little bit on the map. We had an application recently come in -- or we didn't, the county
did, on the property right here on Linder. South of the high school, totally surrounded by
city limits. It's not a -- as far as development goes it's nothing in and of -- it was for a cell
tower. It wasn't anything overly egregious. We probably would have approved it, too. But
the point is it went through the county's process -- and it will probably never annex in the
city of Meridian, yet it is totally surrounded by city limits. So, when -- proposal would be
when a property is contiguous, again, touching city limits somewhere, regardless of
application type, come see the city first. Development in that scenario should not be
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 29 of 51
processed through the county. So, anything white that touches a color somewhere you
should be working with Meridian and not the county. That's just my opinion, but that's --
that's one of the dialogues I'd like you to have with the county and I will just let you know,
at least at the staff level, they agree. They don't see any reason why it makes sense that
the county should be the lead land use agency there. It's your area of impact, if they are
eligible for annexation, yeah, probably should happen that way. So, that would be -- that
would the one point. The first point. The other issue arises occasionally where we have a
county subdivision proposed that isn't eligible for annexation, so I'm just going to randomly
go down to south Meridian. But we do get five acre subdivisions and Mr. Stewart just a
couple of years ago or roughly a couple of years ago, I can't remember now, had a project
and we simply requested that a future sewer main that was planned in the master plan to
come through a project along one of these drains and we asked them to, basically,
provide the easement for the sewer in the future, so we could provide that main and
wouldn't have to be buying somebody's backyard or whatever. So, one of the things we
would like to -- I would like to have you have a dialogue with the county about is an
implementation ordinance for county subdivisions that take some of our key development
aspects, whatever that is -- and that's where I think we need to have a little dialogue, what
is that. Well, I'm not saying make county subdivisions look like the city. That's not
appropriate. But there are certain things that are very, very difficult over time to retrofit in
subdivisions. Once you sub build the streets and set the lots, you can't undo that. So,
there is some things -- and I have listed just -- just a few of them and I will just reiterate, I
think sewer and water, dry lines -- so, dry line sewer and water or the easements. You
know, at least that provision for that service. Landscaping along arterials. For some
consistency along the major roadways. So, again, I don't want to make too many
assumptions. Arterials generally are the section line roadways. Every mile generally is an
arterial. Access to those arterials, having existing lot s get access and you put another
street, you know, 20 feet away, no, you need to have better access control over time.
Those are very tough to retrofit over time, so there is another that just staff has identified
and, then, pathways or at least easements for pathways. You don't get those again or it's
very difficult. And those are all outlined, by the way, in your letter. Again, this is staff's
first blush at this. Those are things that I think -- or I'm recommending to you that you ask
the county to implement on the city's behalf over time, so we don't have these sore thumb
subdivisions, if you will, standing out there as the city limits encroach. A couple of other
things that are called out there. Billboards. So, the county allows billboards. So, asking
them if they are in our area of impact just prohibit billboards, so we don't have these
nonconforming signs as properties annex. Fencing. Not to say that all barbed wire or
electric fencing is wrong. People are still -- there is still agriculture going on out here, but
for residential subdivisions, maybe explore prohibiting barbed wire or electric fencing.
Again, I'm not as -- to me that's not as critical, but just to point out a discrepancy between
the two. And, then, finally, what I have got is a private street and, then, what that really
leads to is it's very, very different, if not a lot of times impossible to get connectivity and
improved those private streets to public street standards with sidewalks and, again, you
have these landlocked subdivisions with really long dead ends that don't connect to any
property around them and probably never will. So, those are kind of the -- the ones that at
least I have identified for you all to noodle around. We did talk about this with the formal
Council -- a former Council a couple of years ago and those were pretty much the similar
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 30 of 51
things that they identified. I'm going to transition away from my list to talk about the
potential -- potential other item to talk about while you have them at the table is impact
fees. And that was also part of that same dialogue and at least at that time some of the
Council said, you know what, we probably need to talk to the county commissioners about
collecting impact fees on our behalf for parks and/or for fire and/or for police. So, not
really a land use thing, but -- but certainly it's intertwined and so I didn't know if that was
something to talk about. And, then, the last thing that I guess I wanted to just highlight --
and this, again, goes back to the spreadsheet. Contractor's yard is another example of
things -- we probably saw more contractor's yards and storage facilities over the past 18
months in the county than I can recall and it's not that either one of those are necessarily
bad things, but when they are next to a city subdivision and contractor's yard goes in and
there is a variance that they don't -- you know, they want to have that be closer to those
homes than the county ordinance, at some point you cross a line there and it's like, you
know, we probably should be allowing the city to chime in on this, but if that's a good use
or not. It's subjective. You know, not all contractors' yards are bad. But, again, the point
is if it's near or adjacent to the city limits it should probably be looked at with an eye to
more urban than rural. So, I think -- and, then, there is -- I know what else there may be
on that agenda, but, again, those are some of the things that I wanted to -- to highlight and
I will just again reiterate there is a deadline we have to send this letter. There is other
things going on and if you all don't want to have this dialogue with the board right now,
that's fine. But I at least want to get this in front of you and as planning staff we think
these are -- there has been enough -- it's enough of these things going on that -- you
know, commercial development in the county, it really should be coming in through the
city. They need -- for fire protection they need the city. Why is it being approved through
the county? It should be approved through the city. So, can we go another six months or
a year without having it, yeah, it would probably be all right. We have been doing it this
way -- I don't remember when the last time this ordinance was amended. But I just make
you all aware of the issue and it is an issue and to have the Swiss cheese -- we are going
to see more Swiss cheese. That is affectionately referred to as our city limits with all
these holes of county properties everywhere. So, with that I think that's all that I want to
hand out or to supplement my memo and will stand for any questions that you all have.
De Weerd: Thank you, Caleb. Any questions from Council?
Bird: I have none.
De Weerd: I think you detailed an outline to the -- the more important topics and issues to
have the conversation. It's timely and -- unless Council doesn't agree, we will go ahead
and move forward on the letter.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 31 of 51
Borton: The third item with regard to the impact fees, I don't know if legal has reviewed
that. Can you collect impact fees -- I'm thinking of parks, for example, on county property
in the impact area?
Bird: Yeah, you can.
De Weerd: They do for Boise.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council --
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: -- we actually have crafted our ordinance to match what the -- what Boise does and
they have collected it for them and we have run into a roadblock with their legal
department and so there wasn't a lot of development, so we didn't push the issue, like
Caleb said. I think this has been a number of years since we have had the discussion, so
it's probably worthy of the discussion again and see if there is some movement on their
side. So, it's really -- it's really just been an impasse that it hasn't had great impact, so we
haven't really pushed it, so it might be worthy of the conversation.
De Weerd: And I guess I -- I do have a question with impact fees on fire we don't have an
agreement with Ada County to collect on building permits in Ada County; is that correct?
Niemeyer: Correct. Madam Mayor, I can address -- especially the impact fees. There
has been a discussion amongst fire districts in both Ada and Canyon county. The county
commissioners can elect to collect impact fees on behalf of fire districts. They are
collected through the treasurer and, then, disbursed through the -- or to the fire districts. I
did have a conversation with Commissioner Tibbs about six months ago on -- on his flavor
for the possibility of doing impact fees for fire districts. For our specifically, as I explained
to him, we are seeing a lot of commercial growth in our fire district today and going on that
series of growth will help pay for services currently that is not an option for fire districts.
So, for places like Eagle, Middleton, other fire districts, as that growth occurs there is no
way to help growth pay for itself. So, I would certainly echo everything Caleb said on both
the impact fees and I will echo now what he said on these plan reviews and allowing cities
to have some input. We are very lucky if we get a residential plan review to us to review
for access and water supply. Those critical issues for us, a lot of times they go right
through the county planning system and we have no knowledge of them whatsoever. We
saw that today with the structure fire we had. This was in a small pocket of county district
that is right off of Locust Grove, wholly surrounded by cities and city building and
hydrants, we had no water supply in there at all. We had to shuttle water in from two
water tenders to fight that fire. So, it certainly is a big issue for us. I would echo Caleb's
comments.
De Weerd: Okay. So, go ahead and move forward in getting the letter -- can you do that
and we can have everyone sign it?
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 32 of 51
Hood: Yeah. Madam Mayor, so I will go ahead and -- similar to the last letter go ahead
and put that on Consent Agenda probably for next week. I will be here if we need to pull it
off or if there is any changes over the next -- you know, I need to have it into the system
by close of business Thursday, but if you have anything in the couple of days in the letter
you want me to tweak anything on, let me know. I probably will post date that a little bit.
Again right now we have got it penciled in for the 16th, so we need to have it no earlier
than February 16th as the signature line. So, that will be perfect if we do the 16th, but we
may even want to just post date that a couple more days or a week or something, just to
make sure that that date works for everybody, so, yes, I will move forward with the letter
then.
De Weerd: Okay. And we can put it on the agenda next week.
Hood: Okay.
D. Fire Department Alternative Response Vehicle (ARV) Discussion
De Weerd: Okay. Item 7-D is a discussion with our chief.
Niemeyer: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, good afternoon. Before I begin I just
want to on the record -- and you saw the e-mail today -- thank you Deputy Chief Amann.
Today is his last day. He's leaving with his family to St. Louis. Shrewsbury, to be exact.
Back in Missouri. That's where his family is from. He's accepted the fire chief job back
there, so we certainly want to thank Chris for his service and wish him all the best in that
new endeavor back in Missouri. So, with that I am here to present our research and
analysis and findings and conclusions with regards to ARV, which is alternative response
vehicle. The focus of this as the right resource with the right personnel, to the right call at
the right time. So, I'd like to just start with a little bit of history with regards to ARVs and
Meridian specifically. As far back as 2011 the Mayor and I were discussing the concept of
ARV. At the time in the City Manager trade publications and also in the municipal
publications you say a lot of the ARVs are starting to be implemented in the fire
departments across the county. I believe you heard about it as well, Mayor, at the U.S.
Conference of Mayors -- hopefully I got that right. That concept --
De Weerd: No, but that's all right.
Niemeyer: So, back in 2011 we were discussing it. I did put it in the CIP for 2020 as a
place holder, knowing that we still had a lot of fire engines to replace, station six to look at,
so it was a place holder in 2020. However, in the 2016 budget hearings Council did ask
that we do some research, do some analysis and come prepared to at least give a
proposal for the FY-17 budget to be considered and so that is what we did. The Council
focus at that time during that discussion at the 2016 budget hearings was how do we
reduce wear and tear on the engines. As we know, they are not an inexpensive tool, they
are fairly expensive, so how do we reduce the wear and tear, the mileage and can we
extend the life of those fire engines if we implemented an ARV. Along with that our focus
in the fire department was to evaluate a more effective economical response plan than
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 33 of 51
what we have today and also redefine potentially our ALS or paramedic program since it
was implemented in 2005. So, those were the focus areas that we went into this with.
We did spend about over 400 hours of staff time, including a retreat to review the data, dig
into the data, conduct an analysis and, then, come up with a recommendation that we felt
was best for Meridian specifically. A side note. Prior to 1999 we did have an ARV
concept here in Meridian. It was known as Rescue One. It actually began back in the
1970s. It was staffed by volunteers. As the volunteers declined we had one station right
across the street. They cross-staffed that QRU, if you will, to medical calls. In 1999 the
call volume for that one station exceeded a thousand calls. This history that we reviewed
shows that the decision was made to quit cross staffing that and respond to all calls in the
fire engine and the QRU back then in 1999 was, essentially, stopped. So, over the past
15 years the fire department has been responding to both critical and noncritical calls
using a single model. We respond in the engine with a ladder truck to every call we have.
We don't have any other way of responding. So, all calls get the same resource.
However, we know that not all calls require the same resource every time. As an example
-- and you will find -- I forgot to mention you did get this about three weeks ago. So, my
presentation will not be long and extensive, hopefully you have been able to read through
the document and we can have a discussion on that. However, if you look at the
examples that we gave -- for example, a cardiac arrest call requires ten people on scene
to manage that cardiac arrest call. Everybody has an assignment, everybody has a task,
and we are busy. Take that now to a simple fall patient that doesn't have any injuries, we
can do that with two people. So, not every call requires the same level of response. Fire
departments historically that use this single model do put some unnecessary mileage and
wear and tear on the apparatus that they send. The other issues -- many issues that are
surrounding our response today have changed. Building construction with regards to our
fire has changed. Thirty years ago we could take 12 minutes to get there, because we
had legacy type construction. We had big thick beams and big thick lumber. Today as
you look at houses go up it's all small two by four lumber. Once that fire breaches the
sheetrock or gets into the attic we are way behind the eight ball. So, the need for us to
get there quicker is relevant today. Our computer aided dispatch has changed things.
We have more capabilities in our dispatch center than we had ten to 15 years ago. We
can separate out these call types in dispatch. We have an EMS JPA that is running very
successfully, as opposed to building things by ourselves, we are working together to build
a future. There are no arguments, there are no heated debates, it truly is working in
collaboration with one another. And the medical science has changed over the years.
Medical science is like bell bottom jeans, they come around, it goes all over the place, and
some things come back around. We know that on cardiac arrests the most important skill
set to have, for example, is basically life support skills. CPR and AED. Ten years ago -- I
have been a medic for 20 years -- not the hundred years that Bill has been an attorney
that I heard, but I have been a medic over 20 years and I can tell you this has fluctuated.
At one time paramedics were absolutely the most important thing on a cardiac arrest. We
had the drugs, we had the defibrillators, we had all those things. Now the science is
showing on that particular call type immediate basic life support is the most important
thing to get somebody. So, the science has changed. However, our deployment plan has
stayed the same. Since 2005 our ALS program has remained the same as well.
However, other things have changed. As you know, Ada County Paramedics has more
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 34 of 51
stations in Meridian than they did in 2005. Having come from that agency I know exactly
how their business model works. They build a station when they have enough population
and call volume to cover the cost of putting in the station. They are primarily a fee for
service agency. They receive very little in tax dollars, so as soon as they have enough
call volume, much like they did -- they are an enterprise fund, much like our Public Works
Department, they can extend that service out in other areas. So, that has changed. The
science has changed and the regional planning efforts have changed even on the
paramedic response side of things. Cross-staffing front line apparatus, that is an issue.
We have a reliability goal. Reliability means the apparatus housed at that substation --
you hear the Mayor refer to substations -- so, we have five stations, they each have their
own geographical boundary for response. We want an 85 percent reliability out of each
station. Meaning 85 percent of the time that apparatus can handle a call within their
jurisdiction, within their boundary. Right now we are running anywhere from 83 to 87
percent, with the exception of Station One, which is at 72 percent. For us we feel that's an
issue. That is not meeting the reliability standards that we would like to see. A lot of that
is because we are trying to cross-staff two different apparatuses and go on specific call
types. The other issue is the future of the EMS. Every year one of our members attends
the International Fire Chief's Association conference. This is a big topic right now across
the country, not only in the fire service, but in the healthcare industry as well and that is
the idea of community medicine, community paramedics, trying to have a system that is
more preventative than it is reactive. So, when we get a call for a cardiac arrest or a heart
attack or anything else that's a reactive response. Something just happened, we go take
care of it. The focus with healthcare in the future is going to be to give more education out
there and to do more follow up on patients, so they are not going back to the hospital.
That is what's going on right now around us. I think this is going to be the focus on EMS
for the next ten to 15 years, quite honestly. A lot of people question what EMS is. We
aren't really in a triangle with three different things. We are public safety, obviously.
When somebody has an issue we respond. We are part of the public health system. So,
when an outbreak occurs EMS is integrally involved with the Central District Health
community and their direction for getting the information out of whatever the outbreak is.
So, as an example, when H1N1 came out -- you all remember H1N1 a number of years
ago, the fire department here was integral in their planning process for how they are going
to mitigate for the old H1N1. So, we are part of public health and we are part of
healthcare. We interaction on a regular basis with doctors, physicians, and hospitals. So,
we really are in that triangle of those three things. So, the research -- ARVs are not
uncommon. You don't hear about them here in the Treasure Valley. However, other
departments are looking into the concept. But as you look across the west, from Spokane
to Seattle to Portland to Tualatin Valley to Los Angeles County, those are the big areas.
You can certainly find those smaller departments that are utilizing an ARV model. We
looked at several departments, not only in the west, but down into Texas as well. We
looked at why they are doing it and what is the effect. Was it good or bad. Was the
outcome planned out and did your response meet the outcome. And we do feel that it's a
good deployment model. The data we evaluated was over a specific time frame. We
used four years worth of data. If you look at that analysis to use one year doesn't do you
much, so if you want to try and find trends in the data you look to three to four years. We
used a four year data model for our analysis. So, the solutions, as we reviewed this and
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 35 of 51
reviewed what others are doing and reviewed what Meridian needs, we do believe in this
program. We believe ARVs have a purpose and a place potentially in Meridian. We do
believe it's a more effective, efficient, and cost-effective response to noncritical calls.
Upon complete build out of Meridian -- I know Councilman Palmer asked me about this. I
have no idea when that will be. It could be 20, 40, 60, 80 years from now. I do not know.
But what we did do is took the city's current Comprehensive Plan, so we know the growth
of the city. We took the population projections that COMPASS gives us, it's the best data
we have to evaluate that, and we also got ACHD's planned roadways and secondary
arterials and some of the main arterials that they have proposed and tried to build that
model out from there. We believe that if we implement ARVs we can cut down the need
for future fire stations, because we would have those apparatus to respond to noncritical
calls, still maintaining our fire apparatus to respond to the fire apparatus calls, the big red
truck calls as we have outlined here, we believe we can cut three stations long term and,
again, that long term I can't put a timeline to. But we do believe in our analysis we could
do that. That equates in just capital costs along using today's dollars of about nine million
dollars. So, we are in a recommendation. We are recommending -- we evaluate and
implement two ARVs. Option B would be to implement one. They would be staffed as a
firefighter and a firefighter paramedic. The engines that are out there, if we implement the
ARV system as we have preferred in our proposal, would bring our engines back to BLS
response or BLS capabilities, basic life support. Sorry. Use acronyms in the fire service a
lot. They would only be responding to the most critical calls where that amount of
personnel are needed. The department would, then, work with the county communication
center, the dispatch center, regarding how to implement ARV into the CAD, computer
aided dispatch process. That doesn't exist today. We don't have squads in that process,
but working with Ada County dispatch we can put that in as a resource type, so they can
handle those calls. And, then, we would use quarterly analysis to see if the goals of the
program were being met. With that I would just direct a couple of things -- I know one of
the questions that Council did have and as I have been working with Councilman Borton,
really, the crux of why Council requested this in the first place is what's the cost difference.
So, overall we are looking at about a 36 percent reduction in the mileage on the engines if
we implement this program. That equates to about 35,000 dollars a year in savings. So,
the savings and the less wear and tear is not great, it's not significant, but it was a
question that was asked and so we wanted to make sure we answered that question. You
can see the difference in what it costs per mile to run our different apparatus. The ladder
truck is 4.25 and engine is 3.75 and a proposed ARV would be about 75 cents a mile to
operate. So, with that I would stand for questions, comments, and, hopefully, some
direction at the end on where you would like us to go with this proposal.
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Milam: Thank you, Mark. I think at this point the only question that I have is -- so, you
said there would be a 35,000 dollar a year savings in apparatus, basically, but it would
require additional personnel, so that personnel would actually increase by however much.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 36 of 51
Niemeyer: Correct. We would need -- depending on what Council's desire is, if you put
on two ARVs we would need 12 staff members to do that. If we put on one we would
need six.
Milam: Do you have that dollar amount with you?
Niemeyer: Yes. No. I can follow up with you on that.
Milam: Okay. Thank you.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Chief, I think the -- some of the idea brings us now was to get us to give you
some general direction -- not necessarily vote to approve one way or the other, the big,
big picture, as I saw it going through this -- what you provided in the -- and what we have
discussed is -- is a sizable short-term increase in expenses by all measure to implement
ARVs. The 12 staff would more than swallow any savings in mileage and wear and tear
on big red trucks.
Niemeyer: Uh-huh.
Borton: The benefit to the city in expending a lot more resources in the short term is
through what we hope to be the long -- long, long term savings in full build out to the
district.
Niemeyer: Correct.
Borton: And if you have three fewer stations, for example, on full build out, all things
being equal, you would have fewer staff department wide on full build out than you would
maintaining the way we are proceeding now, so --
Niemeyer: Correct.
Borton: But to realize that long term gain, which may be sizable, there is a large short-
term cost.
Niemeyer: There is.
Borton: If we are looking just at the dollars. So, that was the short-term, long-term trade
off. The second consideration, which wasn't the reason why it was brought, but is really
great data, is -- is it also -- even though it costs more, does it provide a more effective
service delivery model for the citizens and does that justify the additional expense. So, I --
as I saw it, those are the two things -- the big picture things we were to discuss and give
you some general feedback as to whether or not we should continue down this road.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 37 of 51
Niemeyer: Correct.
De Weerd: Well -- and I think just to add to that on the long-term cost, you noted that it
would eliminate the need for some of the substations, but I don't think in the short-term it
will eliminate the need for the next substation.
Niemeyer: No. No. It is definitely a long-term outlook.
De Weerd: So, you're looking at that impact, plus the impact of the ARVs.
Niemeyer: Yes.
De Weerd: So --
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Chief, can you maybe explain to me why the -- the ARVs need to come with two
employees? I guess I have never seen -- where does the rationale for that piece come
from.
Niemeyer: Sure. And let me -- Councilman Cavener, Members of the Council, let me
direct you to -- need to find it here. Page 19 and 20. That goes through and -- as our
calls come into the dispatch center they are put into a priority order. We don't use one,
two, three, four and five, we use Echo, Delta, Charlie, Bravo, et cetera. And so even
those -- those Charlie Bravo level calls, there is enough work to be done -- and, again,
coming 20 years as a medic, enough work to be done in the evaluation of a patient that
requires two people. So, you have one person assessing blood pressures and pulse rates
and oxygen levels, you have another person actually interacting with the patient, finding
out what's going on, what's wrong, and that's typically the paramedic coming up with what
is going on with the patient, what's wrong with the patient and what do we need to do for
him or her and do they need to go to the hospital, can they stay home, what's that
situation. So, that's -- that's really the reason for the two people on that apparatus is to
provide that support. The one -- the one department we found that only utilizes a single
person response was Tualatin Valley, which is just outside of Portland. They are a fire
district in which 11 or 12 states -- departments merged. However, they have their own
transport agency and their ambulance system. So, they send one person out, have the
ambulance coming and, then, they work as a three person team, essentially.
Cavener: Madam Mayor, follow up? I appreciate that. I guess more of my question is
why can't we staff with just current employees?
Niemeyer: So, that would be the cross-staffing model or mentality and -- and our
experience shows us that cross-staffing on primary apparatus is ineffective, because it
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 38 of 51
severely reduces the reliability of that station to respond. For example, Station One you
saw where our reliability was 72 percent. That's significantly under where we want that to
be. Seventy-two percent of the time they can handle a call within their own jurisdiction,
which means the rest of the time somebody else has to come from another area and that
directly affects our response time standards and performance that we hold ourselves to
based on what the city desired. So, the cross-staffing is not something we feel is a good
model. As we looked at other ARV concepts around the country we found one cross-staff
model and that was in Nebraska. They kept it about two years and, then, stopped that
program, because the response times were going up and the reliability went down. The
other ARV concepts that we saw all around the country added staff and had dedicated
staff to those resources.
Cavener: Thank you.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Chief, is there ever a medical call where your department would respond that the
county would not?
Niemeyer: There would under this model, yes. There is today, but it's very select call
types. If we have a simple lift assist. So, that patient had fell that has absolutely no
injuries, dispatch can get that information from whoever calls 911 that there is no injuries,
they just need help up. We would go and the county would not, because that person
doesn't require a transport. There are also several call types that the ambulance goes to
today that we do not go to. A lot of the nursing facilities where they have nursing staff on
site, we don't go to.
Palmer: I guess the reason I ask, especially like now, if that's not really happening very
often right now, kind of piggy backing on what Councilman Cavener was saying that if -- if
it was a situation where the county is always responding and we were cross-staffing,
leaving a big truck with nobody there if it was needed to go to an incident -- a medical
incident and, then, if you guys happen to be there first, awesome, I guess that's the point,
and, then, when they arrive hopefully take over and get you guys back to the fire truck.
Niemeyer: Yeah. That -- again, that goes back to somewhat what we were doing in 1999
and -- and the challenge with that -- and I believe Councilman Zaremba alluded to it
before he left is if we -- if we cross-staff a unit and take that unit out to a medical and,
then, a second call comes in for a car accident, a fire, whatever those call types are and if
you turn to the very back Appendix A has a great list of what we would send an engine to
and what we would send an ARV to, we don't have that resource and so it's unavailable.
We send the fire engines to all car wrecks, all fire calls -- not just structure fires, but any
smoke in a structure, anything that would require the resource of that fire engine. So, if
you're out in another suburban type vehicle and that other call comes in you don't have
the tools you need to go do the job.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 39 of 51
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: You keep referring to '99. Just remember we had one crew on and --
Niemeyer: We did.
Bird: -- and one station. Right now we are -- my -- my concern -- I'd like to know -- I know
the percentages and I -- one thing I'd like to know is why One has went down to 72
percent. I think I can -- I think I can answer some of that, but I'd like to know how many of
our calls are being handled from the station and how many of the calls of the stations are
being responded to from within their district, not being out of their district, like Two being in
One's district and heading -- not on a call, but heading to -- to their district when they get a
call they are not in their station in their quarters. I -- the first thing I want to say as a
councilman I did never want to see a fire engine head to a job with less than three people
on it. Period. It's not safe. But I still think we can work out -- and I think you and your
staff is smart enough to some way to start we can cross -- do this. I -- I just think that it's
-- it's got to the point where -- and especially if we get another station on for it here for too
long, it's got to the point where we can -- we got enough stations that we can cross-cover
whatever you -- however you want to call it, Mark. We do that now. We shut stations
down to go cover for Star and somebody else or something, you know, when they are
training and that's no big -- and like you and I discussed privately that we got such good
communications with our border towns, you know, and -- you know, it's like you said,
what, seven minutes on our truck, which -- at the Mercy Medical -- the old Mercy Medical
on 16th Street. So, you know, we can cross-train there. I just think that -- not only the
savings on the wear and tear of the -- of the fire engines, the big units, but I think just for
renewability for our guys and stuff, getting a little three-quarter ton panel down a
subdivision is a lot easier than getting one of those big 50 or 60 thousand pound vehicles
down there. I don't know, they may weight more than that. I don't know.
De Weerd: Well, Chief, I would say I'm encouraged that the conversations are -- are
underway with the EMS JPA and the progress that has been had in that, to the
discussions with apparatus on scene, you know, what -- what are the responses and who
should be there and that dialogue, to the master planning that that's going on in
partnership with other fire departments, I -- and I know I kind of mentioned this to you on --
on this particular discussion is I -- I am not sure that we should be the -- we should be
acting independently than the county EMS if we are doing advance emergency response
vehicles at -- they -- for medical calls that they have 911 dollars for and they are the
medical emergency responders, why they are not part of the discussion about having
these vehicles out on the streets and more readily available, why that isn't an EMS
discussion that we are having jointly, not just as fire department, but bringing all
emergency responders to the table to have this discussion, because they do get our 911
dollars and they need to be part of the solution to serving their citizens with the service
and the response that they expect as well.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 40 of 51
Niemeyer: So, Madam Mayor, just to clarify, are your thoughts that they would put on
ARVs or just be in the discussion?
De Weerd: Well, I would love to say they should do the ARVs, but I -- I don't think that we
need to shirk our responsibility to our -- our citizens that quickly, but our two agencies
should have those discussions and probably should have some financial responsibility to
-- to be a part of the solution as well.
Niemeyer: Yes. We haven't necessarily talked the finances. This was reviewed by the
director of Ada County Paramedics. He fully supports the concept. From his standpoint
because it gives clarity to our paramedic program. That's the easy solution. It helps to
meet a nine minute response time goal for ALS calls as a system, not just our agency
versus theirs, but as a system based on where he has his ambulance located where we
would have our ARVs proposed. But on the finances we haven't had that discussion.
De Weerd: Well -- and I do think -- that's my suggestion is looking at it as a system --
Niemeyer: Uh-huh.
De Weerd: -- of response and -- and that partnership, but -- because I know when they
arrive we are on scene, they transport, they take that truck out of service as we follow to
the -- the hospital, because we have to go pick up our guy that went on the ambulance
with them and that takes our truck out of service.
Niemeyer: Uh-huh.
De Weerd: The ARV would help alleviate that, so you're not sending one of your
firefighters off of one of the trucks, you're sending them off of one of your ARVs.
Niemeyer: Yeah.
De Weerd: So, I don't know. I appreciate that this is the beginning of a discussion --
Niemeyer: Uh-huh.
De Weerd: -- and who knows what it will look like when it comes back.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: And I agree wholeheartedly and I think talking to some of our firemen and the Ada
County Paramedics, with their locations now, if they are not out of -- if they are not out of
-- if they are not out of quarters they are right behind us and stuff, so -- and they do -- I
have to tell you I have been on two accident scenes and our paramedics and our -- and
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 41 of 51
their ambulance crew works perfect together. No thing about that. Mark, if -- if we go to
this, the only paramedic we have at that time would be on this -- the QRU unit?
Niemeyer: On the ARVs, yes.
Bird: We wouldn't have any on engines -- on the engines anymore?
Niemeyer: Our proposal is that the three stations work ideally along -- we are considering
putting these -- you would have one paramedic on the ARV, one paramedic on the engine
and they would alternate back and forth.
Bird: Okay.
Niemeyer: The thought being if the paramedic on the ARV were sick that day or had a
day off, you have got the paramedic on the engine that moves over.
Bird: The ARV would always have a paramedic?
Niemeyer: Yes.
Bird: Okay.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: I completely agree as well. I guess the question -- the reason I ask the question
is are we ever going to anything that the county isn't responding to? Because that's their
thing. You guys are fire. But providing that gap -- that service, whether it was maybe a
gap of needing to get their quicker and I would hate to take away the county's opportunity
to provide a service that they love to do and I wouldn't want to put in their minds that we
may be willing to help them out with services that they are obligated to provide, courtroom
and such. Thank you.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I think -- I think that we need to continue on this, Mark, and -- and I appreciate all the
work you guys have done and I'm sure I will be talking to -- I just think we can make it
work for the betterment of the citizens. That's why we brought paramedics on.
Niemeyer: Uh-huh.
Bird: And we brought them on and that was my idea there was bought -- we only had one
ambulance at that time there and they weren't being there in a minute or half minute or
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 42 of 51
even being with us when they receive the com one and if you're a person having a heart
attack, you don't want some EMT coming out there that can pat you on the head and tell
you to hold on, you know, you want some guy to come there and stick a needle in you.
So, I -- I just -- I just want to make sure -- I want to see it done, because I think it's -- I
think it would be an advantage to our citizens and I think it would save in the overall. It
would safe the city money and the rural district money. So, I think we just need to keep
working on it and I'm sure we can figure out a way to make it work.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Madam Mayor and Councilman Bird, I just -- I totally agree, like -- I mean I -- I
love the idea, because I love the idea of us saving money. I just think it needs to save
money sooner than nine million over full build out, you know. If that means cross-staffing,
because we are not having a million fires, I -- I don't fully understand your industry. That's
why you're the expert, but I would definitely love to see it. Let's find a way of making it
work, but making it work saving money sooner than -- than however many years down the
road. I guess I'd like to have a tangible -- we know that it's going to save money at this
date.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Councilman Palmer, this city works on the idea of saving money and we have done
it regardless of what -- we might say that it -- that it's -- that we can and it's going to cost
more, but I will guarantee you in the 18 years I have been here I don't know of a
department yet that hasn't turned money back every year. Go look -- go look at our
financials.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Chief, is it safe to say that this proposal isn't necessarily a money saving
proposal, it's a better service to our citizens proposal?
Niemeyer: Correct.
Cavener: Am I accurate in that?
Niemeyer: That's accurate. There is not -- long term there is some savings, but long term
is whatever we say long term is; right? So, does it cost more? Yes. Is it a better
response, a more effective response, a more efficient response? Yes. So, it is accurate,
your statement.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 43 of 51
Cavener: And so, Madam Mayor, my point would be is that when we look at this with a
lens of providing a better service to our -- to our employees, we even got a long track
record of being fiscally responsible with taxpayer dollars and if -- if by flexing some
finances -- financials a little bit to be able to better serve our citizens in the long term -- to
Councilman Borton's point, a long term strategy to better provide for our citizens is
something that we should be looking at and maybe that is -- like the other communities
share, where we do, you know, a cross-access for a certain amount of time until we can
add more staffing and I don't think that one or the other has to be the answer, but maybe a
hybrid of the two to expand that as we grow.
Bird: We can make it work.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: To that point, I don't know if -- you don't have to answer it now, but -- but some
analysis on a single station incorporate an ARV with a cross-staffing, that might not be
ideal, but it can provide some data to us as we proceed, give you some direction maybe
as you try and build your budget as well, to see if that's even viable in the short term. We
can see where it works and doesn't work, provides us data on those type of calls where
there might be multiple calls, one medical, one fire, within the same zone, from the same
station where you have got overlap issues. We really don't have the data to know how
frequently that might occur. That might be a smaller way to bite into this.
Niemeyer: Yeah. Councilman Borton, to your point we do have the data. You know, we
are able to show right now what the cross-staffing has done at Station One. The other
thing that cross-staffing does do -- again, it's a Council comfortable level -- it will increase
your response times and I know that's a big deal, but when you have a unit out on another
call that can't, then, respond to the next and you're having a unit come from another
substation, that is going to increase response times and I know that's a priority for the city
as well. I have heard about that over the last six years. So, with that tradeoff, I can tell
you from my perspective just studying the cross-staffing model is not -- it's taking a step
back, not forward.
Borton: Okay.
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Milam: Chief, I -- I hear you, but as it's still hard to -- to comprehend, because it seems as
if -- if every station had an ARV and we cross-staffed, that it would actually improve
response times, being that those response times are based on all calls and most of our
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 44 of 51
calls are not fire calls. I mean I guess that would be like what Councilman Borton said,
that would be the data that I think would really be beneficial of how often would it actually
-- you know, historically to happen at -- where there is a fire call that the ARV is out. But if
every station had it and they were cross-staffed, it seems that somebody would be able to
respond and most calls would be much faster.
Niemeyer: Councilwomen Milam, just to your point, on page eight it articulates what the
difference is between those potential ARV calls and that volume and, then, the fire engine
response volume. So, in 2014, just within our own jurisdictional district calls, not looking
at the mutual aid that we respond to outside of our jurisdiction, you would have had 2,740
ARV calls for service and 2,124 calls for the engine -- that an engine would have needed
to respond and that's all based on the call types in Appendix A on what would go to what
call type. So, car accidents, smoke in a building, all of those require the engine. The
noncritical EMS calls primarily are the ones that an ARV can handle. So, we do have that
data as well to kind of show how would that look.
De Weerd: Thank you. I don't know if you have a sense of --
Niemeyer: Looking for direction, because we certainly have enough on the plate -- if there
is not a flavor for this right now we can put it on the shelf and just have it shovel ready if
you would like us to continue to research and continue the dialogue, we are happy to do
that as well.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Mark, I'd like to see it continue on the plate and let's do some discussion -- some
more and let's look at some cross-training, let's see how -- let's take a look at how many
calls -- where we have two stations out at the same time, where if Station One went on
one of the ARV calls, why Four or Three or Two couldn't handle that, particularly on the
north side we are pretty well -- you know, Three, Five and Two are pretty close to each
other's deal, so something like that -- and you told me you -- you would put it at One and
Five, is that --
Niemeyer: One and Five.
Bird: -- to start with?
Niemeyer: And, again, the goal of those is to cover a nine minute response time for those
call types that need a medic and so those two would cover the north and the central part
of our district. In the future we would need one to cover the south.
Bird: I think that -- I think we need to carry on with this, because I -- it's been successful
and I don't care whether we cross-train or whatever you want to call it, but it has been
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 45 of 51
successful to go back to this, however they have done it. You know, you said there was
one that cross-trained and it didn't work out.
Niemeyer: Uh-huh.
Bird: But this is something that we can definitely I think ought to continue on and see
what we can come up with. And I'm sold on the little three-quarter ton vans that I know
are pretty -- you know, you basically buy a shell, because you will be putting all the closets
and everything in it that you want. I don't know how much stuff you need.
De Weerd: Before we build the clock, I thought I would just also see if we could just look
at maybe something else that I don't recall reading, but it might have been in there, is
looking at these as a peak time type of thing, so it's not a 24-7 operation, it's more of a --
two times a day and, then, your personnel are on a -- maybe an eight hour work day. So,
just -- just kind of exploring all different options and, I'm sorry, chief, if that was in the
report I don't recall reading it, but it just -- but my memory doesn't always serve me when I
want it to.
Niemeyer: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, to your point, Madam Mayor, that --
that piece is in the report as well. We did evaluate time of day and number of calls per
time of day and broke those out into a potential ARV response based on hour of day and,
then, a fire engine response based on hour of day. I don't have the exact page with me
now, but it is in the report.
De Weerd: Good. So, I'm looking at that and further discussions with certainly that
county and -- and seeing if it could be a collaborative model, too.
Niemeyer: Okay.
De Weerd: Anything further? Any other --
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Borton.
Borton: Just briefly, chief. I appreciate all the work you and your staff did. In the focus
we talk a lot about money --
Niemeyer: Uh-huh.
Borton: -- the financial part, but you have kept a good focus on keeping us tethered to
response times and the proper service to the citizens, so we don't ever want to lose site of
that, so I appreciate that --
Niemeyer: Appreciate that.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 46 of 51
Borton: -- being woven throughout your report.
De Weerd: I like that word tethered. Thank you for keeping us tethered.
Niemeyer: You're very welcome.
De Weerd: Okay.
Niemeyer: So, we will continue the dialogue.
De Weerd: Yes.
Niemeyer: Okay.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Niemeyer: Thank you.
E. Parks & Recreation Department: FY2016 Budget Amendment for
$10,350.00 for Landscape Design For Pine Avenue Roadway
Improvement Project
De Weerd: Okay. 7-E is under our Parks and Recreation Department. I see Mike is
already.
Borton: Madam Mayor, Members of Council, we are bringing forward a budget
amendment for 10,350 dollars. This budget amendment will fund the design of the
improvements on Pine Avenue and all of the improvements that we will be designing are
inside the urban renewal area, so MDC has agreed to reimburse the entire cost of the
design. We just need the funds in our budget so we can pay the consultant and be
reimbursed. With that I will stand for questions.
De Weerd: Council, do you have any questions?
Bird: I have none.
De Weerd: Okay.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Little Roberts: If this is -- okay. I would like to move that we move the funds to Parks and
Rec to fund this and, then, get reimbursed from MDC.
Cavener: Second.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 47 of 51
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Madam Clerk, will you call
roll.
Motion Carried: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts; yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Borton: Thank you, Council.
De Weerd: No. Thank you.
Bird: Now we got to approve the --
F. Parks & Recreation Department Report: Memorandum Of
Agreement Between Meridian Development Corporation And City
Of Meridian For Landscape Design For Pine Avenue Project
Reimbursement
De Weerd: Now we approve the memorandum of agreement.
Borton: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Item F is the MOA between the city and
MDC that will -- that memorializes the reimbursement agreement and we are asking for
your approval.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Little Roberts: I would move that we approve the memorandum of agreement between
Meridian Development Corporation and the city for the landscape design for Pine project
reimbursement.
Bird: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Madam Clerk.
Motion Carried: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts; yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 48 of 51
G. City Council Liaison/Committee Updates
De Weerd: Thank you, Mike. Item 7-G is under City Council liaison committee updates. I
will start to my left with Mr. Bird.
Bird: Madam Mayor, I got the Public Works and the Mayor's Office. The Public Works,
they are working on the last study we had on the -- getting the -- the city wide
procurement contracting -- how we do contracts and stuff set up so that the City Council
can look it over and approve a policy for the whole city. I spent a couple of three hours
with Tom and he went over with it. They are continuing to get the sewer to the south,
working on that. They are up there working hard. The wastewater and the water
treatment plant are going. In fact, they just -- the water department's finally getting a new
HVAC system put in finally and, other than that, they are just working hard as usual and
trying to keep us out of trouble. The Mayor's Office I'll let her talk about some of that, but I
am going to say one thing, I want to thank her and particularly her staff for the great, great
State of the City production that they put on. That staff did a great job, Mayor, and I'm
very proud of them. I'm glad they are part of -- they made us look good.
De Weerd: Thank you. Okay. Mrs. Milam.
Milam: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, I was going to suggest that everybody go
upstairs and check out the opening for the PTA student art exhibit and Initial Point Gallery,
but I don't think we are going to have time. But check it out after the meeting, just go up
and -- you heard from the arts department, I don't need to give you an date on them and
just a reminder that the police -- the police award ceremony is next Thursday, the 18th, at
6:30 at the school district building. That's all the update I got for today.
De Weerd: Thank you. Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Madam Mayor, I will be brief. Community Development shared with me
something today that I think you should just be aware of and that is the influx of life safety
issues in some of our buildings, that they are working very collaboratively with -- with the
fire department and so I wanted to personally thank Community Development and the Fire
Department, especially in light of some of the things that we have heard about today,
preventing some of those issues from monopolizing our new story -- or the new cycle, so
thanks to Bruce, thank you, Mark, and both of your teams. In Human Resources I had a
short meeting with Chrystal today. I really want to applaud the whole HR team, they are
working without a director and you wouldn't know it from the terms of coordinating new
hires, we heard about employees that are transitioning on to greener pastures, and they
are doing a great job over there as well. So, a testament to our staff following the
Meridian Way.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Cavener: No problem.
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 49 of 51
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Thanks, Madam Mayor. You heard from Bill today and everything is jolly over
there apparently. I met with him this week and really I ended up monopolizing all the time
with a lot of my own personal questions, so -- but they seem to be doing well there. So,
when it comes to the Clerk's Office and IT, I'm going to refer to some notes, because there
is some lingo that even at my age I just don't know, some of the things that -- Accella.
Yeah. Right? I'm sorry, is it Accella?
Holman: Yes.
Palmer: Okay. Cool. So, they are working on putting the dog licensing in there and they
are getting busy and picking up with -- the spring licensing is picking up and the mobile
sales licenses with that coming season and the temporary use permits and as I have been
watching IT I have been astonished at the level of service that they are able to provide on
the -- with the staffing that they have and I think it's probably the Friday donuts that just
gets them through.
De Weerd: The maple bars.
Palmer: And, then, I ate the last maple bar during the meeting and found out that was not
what you do. That's not the thing to do, so -- but they all stayed another week, didn't lose
anybody, so -- that's my report.
De Weerd: Thank you. That's a very interesting report. Mr. Borton.
Borton: Madam Mayor. A lot of time with fire. You have heard the ARV presentation and
the data that backed it up. That -- the ALS, BLS analysis and, then, the union
negotiations have been the lion's share of what we have been talking about and you're all
up to speed now on that. The Air Quality Board, I got the pleasure to be on that, which
gives me the chance to see Mr. Zaremba, which was fantastic to visit with him again. The
two elected positions, the chair and vice-chair, we have got Meridian folks there. Kent
was elected as chairman and John Nesmith with Meridian Automotive down the street is
their vice-chair. No new activity going on with them. And, then, Finance is focused on
trying to complete their budgeting software, decision and recommendation, that's a big
task for them right now and, then, obviously, coordinating all of us and our calendars,
which is the biggest of all tasks to try and set the June and July budget meeting, which
sounds like it's set --
De Weerd: It is.
Borton: And, then, there is the capital improvement plan to be finalized and brought
before us soon for our review and perhaps adoption, which we will discuss a little later.
Oh. And, lastly, the youth council and I need to -- they didn't bring it up last time, but the
Meridian youth council is well underway with participatory budgeting. The pilot program,
one of the most innovative programs that if I was working for a media company I would
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 50 of 51
want to write an article about it it's so fascinating. The population -- the youth council has
had their initial brainstorming session to come up with ideas of what their community
believes should be funded --
De Weerd: Again last night, too.
Borton: And it's continuing through April, culminating in the May election. Basically they
are on schedule, on task, they are phenomenal, no surprise there at all. So, you will see
that and their recommendation and their entire process at the June 7th or 8th budget
meeting, one of the two. So, they are on task. They are doing great. They are engaged.
And we are -- Todd and Ken and I are -- and the Mayor are really I think doing a good job
staying out of the way and allowing them to own it, which is exciting, so -- it's a great
program. So far so good.
De Weerd: Okay.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor. Met with Steve with Parks last week and I left my notes,
so, Mike, correct me if I'm wrong, there is lots going on with parks gearing up for summer.
The bid -- or the design bid is out for the 77 acre park in the south and has been awarded.
Not awarded. Out. Thank you. Colin has taken his promotion and the job description is
out to replace his position and there is just absolutely lots going on and we discussed the
two motions that we just went through, so that's kind of the big overview of what's
happening as far as with Parks right now. The 30 second overview.
De Weerd: Okay. Well, we wrapped up with the senior level leadership team all of our
meetings regarding the employee surveys and each department is coming back with their
focus areas and strategies. We are starting -- oh, I concluded interviews for the Planning
and Zoning Commission and reappointed Steven Yearsley for another three year term.
We have started working with some of our partners on defining next steps for the Fields
District. You have heard an update on the 20-26 and the rail corridors to a certain degree.
We will be bringing back, since a lot of our Council has not been involved with the Rail To
Trail discussion, I would ask Steve and Jay to put it on the agenda in the next week or two
to bring you up to speed on what the Rail With Trail contemplates and we just -- Jay was
just at Ada County Highway District last week and had a real positive -- positive
presentation and enthusiastic support from Ada County Highway District. So, we are
excited about how that's playing out with Ada County Highway District and COMPASS
taking a great leadership role in this. I think that it's -- it's really moving forward and I
think, too, the meeting that was among all the staff with COMPASS there with Nampa and
Boise and Meridian, this excitement at the staff level is -- is really high and people are
ready to -- to get to work on that. So, I think that that is very exciting. The Mayor's Art --
or the Meridian Arts Commission has three seats that will expire at the end of the month
and so we will be putting that opening out, so -- to see if there is interest per our ordinance
and we will start conducting interviews for that commission as well. And, yes, I stretched
my staff nerves on -- I didn't finish writing my speech until Sunday and they are totally
awesome. Well, they had my outline, so they knew kind of what I was going to say, but,
Meridian City Council Workshop
February 9, 2016
Page 51 of 51
yeah, I had to be inspired. So, we appreciate all of you being there in attendance and I
think there is a lot of enthusiasm. So, we appreciate you. Okay.
Item 8: Future Meeting Topics
De Weerd: Anything for Item No. 8?
Bird: I have nothing.
De Weerd: If not I would entertain a motion to adjourn.
Bird: So moved.
Milam: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adjourn this City Council meeting. All those
in favor say aye. All ayes.
Motion Carried: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts; yea.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 5:37 P.M.
(AUDIO CORRL7ING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
DATE APPROVED
ATTEST:
TP
, r City at
JAYCEE 94OLMAN, CITY CLEI�-K ��''�