HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-09-13 workshopMeridian City Council Workshop September 13, 2016
A workshop meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 3:00
p.m., Tuesday, September 13, 2016, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Joe Borton, Keith Bird, Genesis
Milam, Ty Palmer, Luke Cavener and Anne Little Roberts.
Others Present: Bill Nary, Jaycee Holman, Caleb Hood, Tom Berry, Mike Peppin,
Warren Stewart, Scott Colaianni, Tracy Basterrechea, Perry Palmer and Crystal
Ritchie.
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: Okay. I will go ahead and open our workshop. For the record it is
Tuesday, September 13th. It's 3:00 o'clock. We will start with roll call
attendance, Mrs. Holman.
Item 2: Pledge of Allegiance
De Weerd: Item No. 2 is the Pledge of Allegiance. If you will all rise and join us
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: On the agenda we have 7-A, the ordinance number is 16-1706 -- or 05. I'm
sorry. And 7-B is 16-1706. We have an Item 8 now, an Executive Session as
per Idaho State Code 74-206(a). With that I move we approve the amended
agenda.
Borton: Second.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 2 of 62
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as amended. All
those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 4: Consent Agenda
A. Offsite Sanitary Sewer and Water Easement between the
City of Meridian and Thirteen Hectare, LLC within
Whiteacre Subdivision No. 1
B. Sanitary Sewer Easement between the City of Meridian
and Whiteacre Development Corporation within
Whiteacre Subdivision No. 1
C. Addendum D to the September 24, 2013 Professional
Service Agreement for Animal Control Services and Dog
Licensing Between the City of Meridian and the Idaho
Humane Society for an amount not to exceed $370,132
D. Development Agreement for Bright Angel Holdings,
LLC, (Ashley Manor-H- 2016-0043) located at 4379 N.
Locust Grove Road, in the NE 1/4 of Section 31,
Township 4 North, Range 1 East, (Parcel No.:
R1608650271)
E. Sanitary Sewer Easement between the City of Meridian
and #293 Pioneer Exchange Accommodation
Titleholder, LLC within Verraso Village 2
F. Sanitary Sewer and Water Main Easement between the
City of Meridian and BCS Properties LLC within Shallow
Creek Subdivision
G. Development Agreement for Gibson Amity Property (H-
2016-0036) with CLG, Inc. located near the southeast
corner of E. Amity and S. Meridian Roads, in the NW 1/4
of Section 31, Township 3N., Range 1
H. Amended Development Agreement for Bancroft Square
MDA-H-2016-0055) with Reginald Jones and Jack Stolfo
and Berkeley Building Company located at 27501 S.
Eagle road at the southeast corner of S. Eagle Road and
E. Easy Jet Drive, in the southwest 1/4 of Section 21,
Township 3 North, Range 1 East
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 3 of 62
I. Approval of Award of Bid and Agreement to
CHALLENGER COMPANIES, INC for the SOUTH BLACK
CAT LIFT STATION UPGRADES project for a Not-To-
Exceed amount of $380,067.00
J. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Decision and
Order for Denial for Creason Creek No. 1 (H-2016-0087
Development Agreement Modification) by ULC
Management Located Southeast corner of N. Linder
Road and W. Ustick Road
K. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Approval for
Creason Creek No. 1 (H-2016-0087 Final Plat
Modification) by ULC Management, LLC Located Near
the Southeast Corner of N. Linder Road and W. Ustick
Road
L. Police Department: Idaho State University School
Resource Officer Agreement (Superseding July 5, 2016
Idaho State University/West Ada School District School
Resource Officer Agreement)
De Weerd: Item 4 is the Consent Agenda.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we approve the Consent Agenda as published and for the Mayor to
sign and the -- Mrs. Holman to attest.
Borton: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda? Any
discussion? Mrs. Holman, will you, please, call roll.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 5: Items Moved From the Consent Agenda
De Weerd: There were no items moved from the Consent Agenda.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 4 of 62
Item 6: Department Reports
A. Human Resources Department Strategic Update
De Weerd: So, Item 6-A is under our HR Department. I will turn this over to
Crystal.
Ritchie: Madam Mayor, Members of Council, I apologize for the delay. We had
a little bit of system issue upstairs and I raced down the stairs, so I'm a little out
of breath. It will catch up with me. So, first of all, thank you so much for having
me this afternoon. What I would like to do is take some time to really -- really
walk you through our FY-16 annual report. Once I have had an opportunity to
cover all of the information, then, obviously, I will stand for your questions. So,
today I would like to walk you through a little bit about Human Resources, who
we are and what we do. Talk to you a little bit about some of the functions that
we actually perform in Human Resources. Employment. Compensation
administration. Training and development. Employee engagement. Policy
administration and compliance. Talk a little bit about some of the new initiatives
that we have identified for FY-17 and, then, stand for your questions. So, this is -
should look familiar to you. I shared this with you during the budget hearings,
but wanted to incorporate it again this year -- or, excuse me, for this presentation.
But this is your Human Resources Department. We are a staff of five. Myself,
your HR manager. Laura Lee Berg, your senior generalist. Christena Barney,
your HR generalist. Jessica More, your Human Resources coordinator. And,
then, recently joining the HR team is Brittany Duff, our new administrative
assistant. We say we are small in team size, but we are mighty in what we do.
So, here is a little bit of a snapshot of some of the things -- excuse me -- some of
the things that we do. Sometimes even on a daily basis. So, you will see just
working yourself around the -- the graphic, we handle efforts around recruitment,
benefits administration, staffing, compliance administration, employee
engagement, training and development, employee relations, compliance, workers
compensation, policy administration and new employee orientation. So, that's a
big picture of some of the things that we do. But we often get asked how do we
do what we do every day and so we do that by having very strong teamwork in
our department. Like I said, we are a staff of five and it takes all of us to
accomplish the things that we do on a daily basis. So, when I was preparing this
presentation I really wanted to take a look at what does that mean for us and
what does teamwork look like and so I went ahead and captured that for you.
So, these are the words that came to mind. Collaboration. Joint effort. Pulling
together. Participation. Partnership. Helpfulness. Cooperation. These are all
the things that every member of our staff demonstrate on a daily basis that allows
us to do what we do. Excuse me. We care about our employees. We care about
each other. And we embrace the city's CARE values. So, here is a little bit of a
slide that you have seen previously. During the last year we did have some
structure and staffing changes in Human Resources. Laura Lee was promoted
to our senior generalist. Jessica More was promoted to our Human Resources
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 5 of 62
coordinator. And that's a new position for us as we moved more than halfway
throughout the year. We really looked to streamline some of our recruitment
services to the departments and really took a lot of the logistics and tactical
aspects and administrative aspects around recruitment and created the
coordinator position that Jessica focuses on, which allows us to provide quicker
turnaround service to our departments in the efforts of interviewing, coordinating
interviews, responding to applicants regarding their status, et cetera. And, then,
as I mentioned before, recently Brittany did join our department in June. I think
my team is here. They are. She came in June? In June to round out our
department. Not only is she fairly new to the department, but she very quickly
stepped into her role, stepped into all of the projects and initiatives that we had
going on at that time and it was a very busy time for us. Laura Lee manages
Brittany and in addition to bringing Brittany on board and training her in her new
role, we also were facilitating and hosting the Youth Work Life Skills program, so
it was an extremely busy time for us and Brittan stepped right in to help us out.
So, I want to thank each and every member of the HR team for everything that
they do. Below you have a list of some of the accomplishments that we
performed over the course of FY-16. We hired 119 employees to date. We are
still not quite done, but it looks like that's the number we will end up with for FY-
16 and that is comprised of 41 full-time employees and 78 seasonals, part-time,
and/or interns. That's significant process for us and I'm going to walk you
through that here in just a moment. In addition to that, we implemented the
employee hotline to our employees. You will know it as the Compliance Line.
We successfully completed the ICRMP risk management discount program last
year. We maintained our ACA reporting requirements. We conducted a market
analysis for the Public Works Department on selected positions and, then, of
course, throughout the year we always evaluate and review our benefit offerings
in preparation for each and every year for open enrollment. That's just a list of a
few things that we have done, but we did manage to do that when we were not
fully staffed. So, again, everyone in our department stepped up into different
roles and helped each other out to make sure that we could continue to provide
the services that we do on a daily basis. So, we accomplished a lot. We still
have things that are in progress. So, here is a snapshot of what those look like.
We are in the process of reviewing recruiting modules that we would like to come
back to you at a future date and ask for the funding to purchase that will help
streamline our recruitment process from somewhat of a manual process to more
automation. It will allow us to interact and communicate information back and
forth with the hiring managers and departments systemically, rather than printing
everything and having manual paper that's getting routed, et cetera. We are
working with our IT Department -- and I want to say thank you so much to them
as well for helping us develop our HR training database that we are looking to roll
out next year. That database will encompass all city employees training
information that is offered to them through Human Resources. They will have the
ability to register for training through that application. They will have the
opportunity to go on a wait list. They will be able to pull their own transcripts.
They can sign up for classes with notifications to their Outlook e-mail, Outlook
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 6 of 62
notifications to their supervisor, et cetera. So, we are very excited to be bringing
that to you in '17, as well as to the city employees. Looking ahead we have
many other projects that we have identified that either we have identified
ourselves or the departments that we service have asked us to look into or put on
our priority list and I'm going to cover those at the end of our presentation today.
So, now I'd like to take a moment and talk a little bit about our employment efforts
and first and foremost is our staffing, our current employees. So, HR does have
a primary responsibility for managing and assisting and dealing with all of the
employee matters and issues that our employees have on a daily basis,
anywhere from a question to a concern to sometimes even a problem. So, here
is a little bit of data of the city's active employees that we have to date. So, our
total number of employees currently as of this presentation was 385 individuals
and you will see there they are broken down to you by departments. In the upper
right-hand corner of your screen you will see our average retention rate.
Currently this year, year to date is 97.1 percent. So, we have had higher
retention over last year at 91.4. The city's average years of service are listed
there in the different categories. So, we have 15 employees in the city today that
have 20-plus years of service. That's fantastic. In addition to that, we have 36
employees who have years of service or tenure with us between year 15 and 19
and so forth and so on. Below that you will see the average years of service by
department and, then, over to the right of that graph you will see the average
years of service at the highest years of service for that department as well. So,
along with employment comes recruitment and so the HR Department is charged
with assisting all applicants and employees with all of the phases of the human --
excuse me -- of the employment process. We do oversee and manage
recruitment, interviewing, job offers, background checks, drug and alcohol testing
when applicable, et cetera. With the exception for law enforcement and they do
handle their own background checks. So, in FY-16 our department received and
processed over 2,700 applications for employment with the city. That does
exclude the most recent recruitment effort for our firefighters as we went through
a joint effort and a third-party vendor to -- to funnel those applications. Our
advertisement costs to date are a little over 9,000 dollars. We posted 60
positions in FY-16. Of those 60 positions, 46 have been filled and we have 14
remaining. Those 14 will likely roll into FY-17. The average cost of recruitment
for an employment search was $152.96. Now, that's based on those total 60
positions. I will tell you that some of our larger departments tend to utilize our
advertising dollars more than others as the positions that they are recruiting for
do require us to advertise sometimes at locations, professional organizations,
other cities, other websites, things of that nature. And in addition what we rolled
out this year and are continuing next year is the establishment of our city new
hire dates. We offer new hire orientation and start dates to the departments
generally every two weeks, with the exception of two or three months within a
year that either that the payroll date falls on an 18th -- excuse me. The hire date
would be on the 18th, 19th or 20th and we have an agreement with our payroll
department not to hire on those dates, as they are going to be wrapping up the
payroll and processing payroll for the following month. So, one of the things that
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 7 of 62
I wanted to share with you as we talk about those 2,700 applications, we talk
about those 60 positions, we talk about how many we filled, but, really, what
does that look like for the Human Resources Department and the departments
that we support and service? So, this is an overview of our recruiting cycle here
at the city. You will see there -- I'm going to walk you through it at a very high
level going from the top left all the way across. We always want to hire top
talent, the best of the best, and so we are looking for that shining star and that
starts with a staffing requisition form that we receive from the department. Once
we receive that form we evaluate that form, we process that form to make sure
that we have all of the necessary information to post the position and, then, we
actually post the positions internally, externally on a city website, and any
additional locations that are requested by the department. Following that we,
then, open up our website to accept applications for employment. That's where
those 2,700 people contact us. Once we receive those applications we process
those applications in HR and we forward them to the hiring department for an
evaluation and review of their qualifications, skills, and abilities. Once they have
had an opportunity to do that they screen those applications and they send them
back to Human Resources. This is part of that manual process that is time
intensive and that we will be looking to make more efficient with a recruitment or
recruiting module in the future. Once we receive the screened application back
from the department -- one of the things that the city does, which we get
commented from the public many times throughout any recruitment search, is we
notify applicants of the status of their application, whether they are moving
forward to an interview process, whether they are considered a tier two, which
means they met the qualifications, but we have had other greater skilled
individuals and we are going to hold them. Whether it's a -- we really appreciate
your interest with the city, but, unfortunately, you don't meet the qualifications for
this position. We notify them via e-mail and everyone gets an update. We also
screen many phone calls from candidates as well. Once we have gotten the
information on who the departments would like to interview reschedule those
interviews and prepare the interview packets. The interview packets are, then,
forwarded to the department in lieu -- in preparation for the upcoming interview.
At the completion of the interviews, then, we do make a job offer to the
candidates and, hopefully, our candidate of choice does accept that job offer and
that moves them into the pre-employment process of the hiring process that you
see in front of you today. That pre-employment process includes a thorough
application review, background check through Idaho State Police. We process
their references. We send them for drug and alcohol testing when applicable by
the position, et cetera. Once everything comes back and we determine in HR
that that individual is eligible for employment at the City of Meridian, then, we go
ahead and approve that hire and we enter that individual into our personnel
management system. We notify the department and we schedule them for a
start date and at that point the department is very happy. So, it's a lot of steps to
walk through, but it's a significant effort by our entire team in HR to make it
happen for all of those 60 positions we talked about previously. So, now I'd like
to move into compensation administration. So, one of the things that our stuff
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 8 of 62
does is we attend seminars, we attend webinars throughout the year to make
sure that we are staying informed and we are current and abreast of all of the
current information as it relates to benefits. As you all know that's ongoing and
ever changing. In addition to that we want to make sure that we are up to date
and current with our knowledge regarding compliance and policy issues. We do
receive a steady stream of phone calls, e-mails, walk-ins from all of our city
employees on any given day and that can relate to benefit questions, policy
questions, employee-related issues -- you name it they ask. We are there to help
them. So, I'd like to walk you through some of those activities. So, for
compensation administration under our salary administration, last year the City of
Meridian employees, as well as our management, did participate in our annual
performance appraisal process. That process occurs every fall in October.
General employees were the recipient last year of a three percent merit pool for
individuals who received a performance rating of fully competent or higher and
we appreciate you approving that funding for the last -- the previous year.
Throughout the year we also processed 18 promotions and/or transfers that were
approved. We completed a market analysis for selected positions in our Public
Works Department. Our police STEP plan was analyzed in partnership with
some external HR consultants and approximately 346 performance appraisals
were received and processed in HR alone. So, that process is also a little time
consuming, because attention to detail is required from everyone involved and
that does extend past the Human Resources Department. So, in order for us to
effectively and efficiently process a performance evaluation, we receive the form
from the department, HR reads every single individual performance evaluation.
We, then, calculate and administer and do an audit of the merits calculation that
the employee is receiving based on their performance. We forward that
information to payroll. Payroll, in turn, audits and reviews everything that we do
in HR. We touch it three times in Human Resources before it goes to payroll to
make sure it's correct. The departments and hiring manager, once everything
has been verified, receives notification from the Human Resources Department
of the increase and communicates that to the employee and, then, once that's
done Brittany in our office generally is the one who is responsible for filing all of
those performance evaluations. So, we do that in 19 working days to ensure that
everything is processed, entered, and paychecks are correct with merit increases
for the November paycheck, which is the final paycheck before the Christmas
holiday. And, you know, we said -- talked about Barb and we want to take a
moment to thank her as well, because we are a staff of five who touch the
performance evaluations, she is one individual who assists us with that and does
that spot check and double-check audit, so we want to take a moment to say
thank you to her as well. So, that takes us into the benefits administration. We
have several activities that we work through throughout the year in Human
Resources to ensure that we maximize the best possible support that is provided
to city employees regarding their benefits. So, our benefits committee meets
regularly to carefully evaluate their benefit program. Last year we facilitated ten
open enrollment meetings -- and when I say we I actually mean Christena
Barney. She is the one who travels to city early mornings, mid days, and even a
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 9 of 62
late night at the Police Department to facilitate that open enrollment opportunity.
We also hosted our third annual benefits fair and in FY -- for FY-16 we had 20
vendors participate in our benefits fair this year. So, that was fantastic. We
processed 42 workers compensation claims. We processed 38 Family Medical
Leave Act applications. We coordinated many wellness activities and, then, of
course, we also provide additional information and support to our Employee
Assistance Program. So, here is some information for you. I will walk you
through. The first thing that you see on the left-hand side of your slide is some
worker compensation information. So, the HR Department has managed the
workers compensation program here at the city for all of the department
employees. Our insurance provider is the State Insurance Fund housed in
Boise. You will see there that our total claims for 2016 are 42 year to date. The
total compensation is $5,213.49 and that might strike you as a little low at the
moment. However, we did look at those numbers to ensure that they were
correct. We have several claims that are still in a pending status and those
account for the individuals who are not back to work on a light-duty or a
restricted-duty activity. Those account for the ones who are at home. Let's see.
Moving to the right we have our Employee Assistance Program. We have
established an EAP program through BPA, professional -- Christena, help me
out. Psychology and Associates? Just BPA now. Excuse me. Thank you.
They do provide confidential professional services to our employees and their
family members when they are in need. EAP does offer solutions to issues or
problems associated with family, jobs, legal issues and financial issues and one
of the things that's really great about the program that you find year to year for
our employees and their families is that they do receive five free visits of these
services at no cost to them. The city does pick that up for them and as you can
see from our utilization rate in the chart below we have a 14.6 utilization rate of
our EAP services. We had 29 cases in 2016. Of those 29 cases 62 percent
were from the actual city employee. Thirty-eight percent were from a dependent
or family member. We had 93 session hours and the average session per case
was about three and a half sessions. So, we want to take the time to thank you
for funding that valuable program that our employees do benefit from when
needed. We also offer a wellness works program. The wellness committee has
coordinated many wellness events over the last year and here is just a snapshot
of what some of those activities were. We had the heart and stroke walk. Wear
red day. Poker walk. Salsa contest. Annual biometrics. And those are just to
name a few. We have had an increase in our participation for our annual
biometrics from 2015, so we are up to 62.23 percent and you will see some
photos on the side from team members who are participating in the activities and,
then, of course, you can't recognize everyone in the wear red day and the hearts,
but that was a significant photo opportunity that was taken throughout the year.
So, that takes us into training and development. We do coordinate and/or offer a
variety of training opportunities throughout the year to our employees. We did
have 90 employees attend new hire orientation. There is a difference between
that 90 that attended and 119 that we have hired to date. We do have some
camp -- summer camp personnel for the Parks and Rec Department who do not
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 10 of 62
attend a full-blown new hire orientation, they get an abbreviated version. Those
90 attended the full program. We had 256 employees participate in the best
trainings that we have offered this year and 94 percent of our employees
completed the ICRMP risk management discount training offerings last year and
we will be offering the training opportunity again next year and we invite each of
you to participate with us through that program, so you will be seeing some e-
mails from myself coming to you soon. Down at the bottom you will see just an
overview of what's covered in each of those programs. So, a new hire
orientation, one of the things that we really enjoy and we receive significant
feedback from our participants of new hire orientation is that Mayor de Weerd
does come in and she comes in and says hello, she gives her Mayor's welcome.
It's very personalized and appreciated and as commented on by many of our
employees. So, Mayor, thank you very much for taking the time to come in and
do that with us. The best program, those are the courses that we have offered
this year and, then, last year -- or, excuse me, last year and, then, over the last
year the ICRMP program covered and had a focus on harassment and driver
safety. So, another benefit that our employees receive that the Council funds on
an annual basis for us, which is greatly appreciated, is our education
reimbursement program. So, we do want to have a program that offers a
reimbursement to employees for attending coursework that is related to their
current position or considered of value to the future growth of their position
and/or their employment with the city. So, you will see there we had some year-
over-year information. In FY-16 alone we had ten individuals participate in the
program. Of those ten, 14 reimbursements were processed and the total funds
that were paid out and reimbursed to our employees was a little over 11,000
dollars. So, you can see that in previous years it hasn't been utilized as much.
Last year it was utilized significantly. I would like to thank you, the Council, for
doubling that benefit, so that we could offer additional dollars to our employees
as they expand their knowledge and potential here at the city. So, the next
section I have for you is employee engagement and here is just a little bit of a
review of the things that we have done over the course of the last year. We are
passionate in HR about promoting a culture for employees where engagement of
their work is meaningful, the employees are valued, teamwork is also celebrated.
We do that in a number of different ways. So, looking at the picture of going from
left to right, in the upper left-hand corner you have a snapshot of her annual city
employee appreciation picnic. This is what's held at Kleiner Park and it was an
opportunity for our employees to come together, along with their immediate
family, to come and really celebrate with everyone all of their efforts over the last
year. Those employees who have had an opportunity to attend -- and I know
most of you, if not all of you, had an opportunity to attend as well, we also have
our employee recognition for our director of the year, supervisor of the year,
employee of the year, volunteer, et cetera. So, it's a fun time that's had by all
and I want to take a moment and thank the picnic committee, but specifically I'd
like to thank Laura Lee who did a fantastic job again coordinating a very large
effort in a very short period of time. The summer seems to be very busy for us.
So, thank you very much. Moving to the right. We do support employee
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 11 of 62
recognition in a number of different ways. One of the things that we do is HR
choice and the Mayor travels the city, we go to each of the different locations, we
do attend the different staff meetings and we surprise when possible and
recognize employees for their years of service. They receive that years of
service award from -- primarily from the Mayor in conjunction with Human
Resources with a certificate for years of service, as well as a small token of
appreciation and, then, they do get a photo with the Mayor that we do publish.
Following that on the lower left-hand side of your screen and we do have our
employee engagement survey. We launched that survey last year in September,
so we are approaching the one year mark. I believe it was on the 11th, so we
have just met our one year mark and so the departments are really working on
focusing on their goals and objectives around moving the dial or moving the
needle as it relates to employee engagement to make this a place that everyone
wants to work, the employer of choice, and a great employer to work with. We
will be wrapping that survey up here in the next few months and, then, we do
have the next survey scheduled to come out in the spring of next year. And,
then, in the lower right-hand corner you will just see a snapshot of our Human
Resources newsletter. This is our HR2U newsletter. That newsletter goes out
every other month, so we published six editions per year and it contains a wealth
of information, anywhere from HR's perspective to the Mayor's message. It also
captures any new hires to the city, promotion opportunities, policy highlights, fun
facts, just a lot of different things. We receive a lot of feedback about how people
appreciate the newsletter when it does come out and so we are looking to
continue that and, of course, make it even better. We do want to take a moment.
We have had a significant accomplishment here in the city, so we want to take a
moment. I don't -- I know he's not here with us. Hopefully he is watching or he
will hear, but we want to say congratulations to Chip Hudson. He has celebrated
35 years with the city. So, we think that's a wonderful accomplishment. It's
amazing. We had the opportunity to go with the Mayor and celebrate that with
Chip and his team. So, we wanted to include you in that celebration as well.
And counting. That's correct. So, the next topic I would like to cover is policy
administration and compliance. And so here is just a snapshot of some of the
things that we have worked on over the last year. So, as I mentioned to you
earlier, back in January we did implement a compliance line or a compliance
hotline, if you will, or help line to get implemented in January of 2016. It is
available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to our city employees via the
telephone or computer access and we have had two reports to date of -- those
have been around ethics concerns and/or any policy violation concerns. HR
administers the compliance line efforts, so that information comes into us, we
take your concern seriously, and we vet through those issues as we receive
them. Moving to the right. The policy manual review. So, we knew that we were
going to be preparing for FY-17 where we were going to actually do a rewrite
of our policy manual and in order to do that we have to review what we currently
have in place. So, we have spent significant time reviewing the current policies
that we have, documenting, making notes, things of that nature, so that we can
come forward to you at the end of next year with a new policy manual. So, we
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 12 of 62
have been working on that through FY-16 to prepare for that effort. In addition to
that, on the regulatory side we completed an I-9 audit. It's always good for us to
make sure that we have everything in order and we meet regulatory guidelines
and requirements if in the event we were ever audited. And, then, following that
we did have an Affordable Care Act compliance requirement this year regarding
our 1094 and 1095-C information and so Christena did a great job at really
pulling that information together, working with our vendors to ensure that all the
appropriate information and forms were actually processed and sent out from the
IRS -- excuse me -- to the IRS and to our city employees. So, that's a little bit of
what we have done over the last year. So, now I just want to take a few minutes
to talk about what we are looking at for FY-17. So, in addition to the strategic
goals that have been outlined for HR for FY-17, here is a look at some of the
things that we also are looking to do. So, under compensation benefits and
administration, we do have our internal alignment. So, as you know from the
previous budget hearings we have had an opportunity to evaluate the police
STEP plan and we have had an opportunity to outline a schedule for
compensation reviews. It is now that time for FY-17 for us to look at the general
employee population. There are over a 170 positions that we would need to look
at and so one of the things that we have committed to do is an internal alignment
initiative where we take a third of our employee population and we review it this
year, the third in FY-19, and -- excuse me -- '18 and, then, a third in '19. And that
ensures that every individual's position here at the city gets a compensation
review or a market review at least every three years, outside of the standard
budget process. In addition to that, we are looking to provide additional details to
our salary administration guidelines. Those salary administration guidelines
support our overall compensation plan and in addition to that we will be doing a
compensation program review. Under training and development, we have
purchased a tool this year that has allowed us the opportunity to start developing
web-based training, rather than having everything instructor led. We do
understand that while some courses need to be instructor led, we have different
kinds of content that don't always require for everyone to come together in a
classroom. We also understand that every individual has a different learning
style that they would prefer. So, next year we will be rolling out additional
training offerings web-based. We are also going to be developing a supervisor
toolkit that will be available to supervisors and managers within the city. It will be
accessible to them up on the city's intranet on the HR page and it will provide
resources and tools that they will need when managing staff members
throughout the year. We are also looking to develop a web page that provides
and communicates to city employees, as well as city managers, external training
offerings that are being made available in the Treasure Valley for professional
development. So, we will communicate those and the employees will have an
opportunity to talk with their supervisors as to whether or not they should or will
be able to attend. I mentioned to our HR training database that IT has developed
or has been developing with us on and it is in its final testing stages, so I want to
give a big shout out and thank you to Nick Ferris and his -- and the IT team for
working on that with us. It's been a project that's been a long time coming and so
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 13 of 62
we are very excited to roll that out in the first quarter of FY-17. And, then, in
addition to that, because we will be making some enhancements and tweaks to
our employee development training program, we are also going to update and
refresh our employee development training web page. As it relates to staffing
and recruiting, first and foremost the departments do have FY-17 positions that
you all have approved through the budget process and we are going to be
working diligently with the departments to fill those positions as they are needed.
We are also going to be looking at the recruiting software that I mentioned earlier
to help us streamline some of our manual processes. We will be looking at
having a job application form -- our application form needs to be updated. We
have taken an opportunity to review that form to make sure that it's in compliance
and we want to put some focus on that currently and through FY-17 to make sure
everything is current and up to date. And, then, in addition to that there is some -
part of the form is the personnel action request form, which, again, in HR we
deal with paper and so this is anytime that there is a change to an employee's
supervisor, pay, position, anything that affects them it goes in their personnel file.
This is a form that is utilized and processed manually. It's in triplicate form. We
keep a copy. The department gets a copy. Finance gets a copy. We are looking
to automate that process. In regards to performance management, what we
would like to do in FY-17 is explore the performance appraisal tool and the
evaluation process. We have got our current process that's been in place for a
few years now and we always want to make sure that we are on top of that to
ensure that we have the best process available to our managers and to our
employees as well. In regards to compliance, you may or may not have heard
that the Department of Labor has made some changes to the overtime rules and
I may have mentioned them to you briefly during the budget process. So, that is
a process and requirement that is now upon us. What the Department of Labor
has done over the summer is they have published new changes to the overtime
rule in the salary threshold. So, currently today the salary threshold that
determines whether or not you are an exempt employee, which means salaried,
or non-exempt employee, meaning hourly, went from 23,000 dollars to a little
over 47,000 dollars. So, what that means for us is that we have to evaluate the
employees that we have that are currently in an exemption status. We have to
look at the salary requirements that is going to be effective December 1st. We
have to work with the department managers to determine whether or not those
employees remain in an exemption status or do they transition to a non-exempt
status and have to complete that effort by December 1st of 2016. We have
already started that process and we are going to continue that process the first
quarter of '17 to ensure compliance. In regards to workers compensation, the
workers compensation what we would like to do -- enhance that for all our
managers throughout the city is too update and enhance the workers
compensation paid on the intranet. There is a lot of additional information that
we could put out there for employees and managers, so they have a better or
greater understanding of workers compensation, what they should be doing,
what the city will be doing, how the State Insurance Fund assists them and et
cetera and so we are going to be looking to do that. I mentioned earlier under
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 14 of 62
policy administration we are going to be doing a rewrite of our policy manual for
FY-17, so we will be back to you at the end of next year with a new policy manual
that we will bring forward to you throughout the year in sections if you will. And,
then, I mentioned earlier we will also have an employee engagement survey that
we will be wrapping up for the current one that we are in the process of working
today and we will be starting that process again in the spring of 2017 So, those
are just a few of the things that we have identified in Human Resources, in
addition to the strategic objectives that have been assigned to HR for 2017. But
in addition to that we are also going to be conducting our team FY-17 planning
day, if you will, where our team is going to come together and we are going to be
reviewing and evaluating all of the requests for service that the departments have
asked for in FY-17 as well, so that we can take a look at those and build those
into our priorities. And I have taken a lot of time this afternoon, so I appreciate
your attention to the information that we have shared with you and I stand before
you with any questions.
De Weerd: Thank you, Crystal. Are you all exhausted? Our people do all that.
So, any questions from Council? It was very thorough and I know you have --
Ritchie: I do. What I'd like to share with everyone -- I purposefully did not hand
out a copy of the presentation prior to my time with you this afternoon. So, what I
would like to pass out now and introduce to you is the HR department's first
annual report. So, in lieu of a copy of a presentation we are going to give you
our annual report. We are excited to get your feedback and we look forward to
publishing one each and every year for you. Anything else?
Bird: Thank you. Very nice.
Ritchie: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you very much. And to your staff. You guys are amazing.
Ritchie: Thank you.
B. Parks & Recreation Department: Discussion of
Homecourt Agreement with the YMCA for Joint Use of
Facility
De Weerd: Okay. Item 6-B is under our Parks Department.
Siddoway: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. Decided to tell
you that we are getting closer and closer to the closing date that we have
scheduled for the Home Court and one of the items that we need to check off the
list to prepare for closing is the -- this agreement for joint use of sports facilities.
You should have a copy of that agreement in your packet. But I wanted to
provide a department report to you and hit the highlights of this for the record.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 15 of 62
First of all, just a little bit of history. The Council had already approved the
purchase and sale agreement back in May 10th of 2016 and that document sets
out all the conditions for closing and this agreement is -- is one of those
conditions. Also -- this will become relevant later, but the city did adopt in July --
July 19th the Home Court fee schedule and that is set and ready to go as well.
So, this joint use agreement is the next step needed to prepare for closing. It is
required by the purchase and sale agreement as a condition. We are scheduled
to close on September 30th and begin operations on October 1st. So, here is the
highlights of the agreement for you. The primary term is one year through
October 1 of 2017. It does have option periods built in for up to two years, but no
longer than October 1 of 2019. And, then, just the focus of this agreement is to
define the shared use relationship while -- between the city and the YMCA while
they are still in the facility during that time prior to moving to their new upcoming
facility, which is coming in south Meridian at the partnership known as The Hill.
The bulk of the agreement focuses on the schedule and I need to throw some
things out to Garrett who is here and in the back, but he has done a lot of the
heavy lifting -- oh, we jumped out for some reason. Do you mind going -- yeah.
But the schedule has been worked out so that the city parks and rec department
had -- can grow our own programs and leagues while they are there, as well as
after they are gone, but while they are there. And the YMCA can continue to
operate the programs they currently run between now and when they move out.
But one great example that I just got from Garrett today that I just wanted to
share with you in anticipation of this new facility, with our fall sports we didn't
have to cap our fall volleyball registrations and we were able to add an additional
fall basketball. So, last fall we had 92 teams. This fall we have 133 teams by
adding the fall basketball and growing our fall volleyball registrations. In addition,
we will begin an open gym program for citizens once we begin operations in
October. Other highlights include a provision for the AAU Youth Sports. This is
the one provision that does survive beyond the -- survives the terms of the rest of
the agreement. That is to allow for the AAU or -- and youth sports to continue
using up the three Saturdays per year for ten years with a renewal option. They
could have three of the four courts maximum and their time ends at 6:00 p.m.
and note that they we will pay the reservation fees for that time as adopted by
Council. There is a section in there talking about staffing. It quite simply says
that they cover their needs and we cover our own needs as well and, then, for
the payments the YMCA will pay their proportionate share of the operating costs
in monthly payments and that amount can be adjusted if needed if there are
unforeseen expenses. So, our recommendation to you today is for approval of
the agreement for joint use of sports facilities. I will note that the agreement has
been approved by the YMCA board and signed by David Duro last week and
request your direction to have us move forward with legal in all matters
necessary to prepare for closing on the 30th. With that I will stand for questions.
De Weerd: Thank you, Steve. Council, any questions?
Bird: I have none.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 16 of 62
De Weerd: Hearing none -- and thank you for you and your staff's hard work on
this. Garrett, I know you have put a lot of thought and effort into this. Steve, you
as well and -- and Mike Barton.
Siddoway: And Ted Baird. I'd like to mention --
De Weerd: Ted Baird.
Siddoway: -- Ted has been with us every step of the way.
De Weerd: Our thanks to Ted as well, Bill.
Siddoway: Yeah. Thank you.
De Weerd: But thank you for that. Okay. I would entertain a motion.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: I move that we approve -- I was going to use verbiage on the
screen -- the agreement for the joint use of the sports facilities and request the
process continue through legal.
Cavener: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Okay. Mrs.
Holman.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
C. Public Works: Tactical Plan Presentation
De Weerd: Item 6-C is under Public Works and I will turn this over the Tom.
Barry: Thank you, Madam Mayor. It's my pleasure to co-present this afternoon
on our Public Works Department's tactical plan. We have a lot of information to
share with you here quickly, so I will just get right to it. Here is the agenda that
we have for you. We would like to talk to you about the purpose and objective of
our tactical plan. Talk with you a little bit about 2010 to 2015 strategic plan and
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 17 of 62
the performance that we were able to achieve on that plan. We will also talk with
you about the development of the new plan, which is what we are calling a
tactical plan right now for the department. We will also share with you how we
plan to integrate that plan into the city-wide strategic plan and also utilize the
modified balanced score card as a way to track performance and reporting in
regards to our tactical plan. We will talk about the staff input process, as well as
the regular involvement process that we used from a vetting standpoint and,
then, finally, we will share with you some brief statistics about the strategic plan
and its alignment with the citywide strategic plan and the past strategic plan that
we had for the department. And, then, we will follow up with any questions you
might have after that. So, the objective of tactical or strategic planning is many
fold. First of all, for us in our department it's important for us to identify the
actions that we need to take after a vision has been developed that we would
need to move or advance our organization to the attainment of that particular
vision. So, these particular actions are things that we would align our resources
as well as our physical reach -- whether those be fiscal resources or human
resources or whatnot, equipment, materials, supplies, all of those sorts of things
to move forward and advance the attainment of the -- of the vision that we have
set for ourselves and, then, finally, we need to make sure that we are moving in
the direction and at the pace that we want or desire for our organization, so we
have performance measures also built into the tactical plan that allows to track
our performance going forward. And the desired outcome, of course, have any
tactical or strategic plan is to insure that the most important priorities in your
organization are identified, communicated, and achieved with direction and
effective planning and that is certainly the goal for our department tactical plan.
Now, you have heard me already use the term tactical plan and strategic plan
interchangeably, so let me just get that out of the way for you. In 2010 the Public
Works Department developed the first strategic plan that the -- that any
department had developed for the City of Meridian and it was considered, really,
the first strategic plan inside the City of Meridian at all. So, we called it a
strategic plan. That's what it was. This time around we are operating under the
tenants of a citywide strategic plan, as you know, that was adopted by this
Council last year and, then, also earlier this year in amended form and so we did
not want to confuse staff or the community or anyone else for that matter by
using the term strategic plan as we talk to and referred to the actions and
activities of our department and so we are -- we have switched the term to
tactical plan for the Public Works Department to show visibly that there is a
relationship between the citywide strategic plan and our department's tactical
plan and to denote that the tactical plan is subordinate to and supports the
citywide strategic plan. But because I'm referring to last period plan, which was a
strategic plan and this period plan, which is a tactical plan, it could be a bit
confusing. So, I thought I'd clear that up for you. Hopefully, that's as clear as --
De Weerd: Thank you. Very clear now.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 18 of 62
Barry: Thank you. That's fantastic. So, in any event, back in 2009 we started to
work on the development of a departmental strategic plan, which was adopted by
the City Council at that time in 2010. It was the first departmental strategic plan,
as I mentioned, in the city at the time. It was developed internally with all internal
resources and it was developed in what many of you might remember were very
challenging times for the department and that almost precipitated its need, if you
will, to help us get organized and move forward and create a new vision for the
department. It was done with people inside the department that generally had a
lack of experience and expertise in strategic planning, but it was an astounding
document that I'm very proud of, even to this day. The benefits of developing the
plan at that point in time helped us to communicate not only our vision to the
Council, but also to the community and the staff. It helped us to plan and
organize our work and our resources and, of course, that's the benefit of any
strategic or tactical plan. I wanted to talk about performance, so, you know, the
question I'm sure you all are dying to know is how did you do on the last plan?
You know, you're bringing forward a new plan, so what did you do with the last
one. Well, there were sixty-four tactics in the last plan or what we call the
objectives at that time related to Public Works and 321 total activities. Of the 321
total activities, we had 170 that we completed. There were 90 that were partially
complete and there were 61 that we did not complete it all and that could be
because it was outdated, it wasn't important, it became lesser of a priority, wasn't
needed any longer, a number of different reasons, just depends upon what
activity we are talking about. But that equates to a completion rate of about 81
percent for that particular plan, which is not bad for a first time, out-of-the-gate
attempt at strategic planning on a department-wide level. So, what do we learn
by this? Well, back in 2009 and '10 that was a first-time experience for most
folks in the department, particularly the leadership team at the time. We realized,
though, that the plan was very ambitious and it was extremely ambitious. We
had a lot of things that we wanted to do. We had a very high level of complexity.
The time frames were best guesses at the time based upon the skill and
capability and pace at which we assumed we could achieve the work and, then,
also the resources needs that we ended up reviewing were underestimated for
that matter. We also learned that we threw a lot of stuff into that plan and a lot of
it probably shouldn't have been in the plan. It was very operational. We think of
strategic planning or tactical planning as moving an organization from a certain
place and point in time to another place and point in time. Not doing the same
things over and over again and just improving upon them. That's operational.
So, we took that kitchen sink approach at the time and that's going to cost us, if
you will. We also learned that we need to be better about managing the plan.
We started down the path of doing the work and, then, we didn't really look at our
progress until about two and a half to three years into it with a revision to the
plan. So, we revised the plan at that point in time. There were a number of
things that changed in our department. So, we revised the plan and, then, we
looked at it again about a year to 18 months afterward. So, really, what we
learned by that is we really need to have more diligent and timely review and
reporting of the progress of the plan. So, that's a lesson that we have learned
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 19 of 62
and we are taking into the next -- development of the next tactical plan. So, after
all of this we began to work developing our new tactical plan. Here is kind of the
planning cycle. This was straight out of the planning cycle that we used in 2009
and '10 when we developed the last plan and as we started through this planning
cycle I stopped the team or slowed the team progress, because about three to
four months into it the city had made the decision that it was going to develop a
citywide strategic plan, so I didn't want to be out in front of that as a department,
so we paused the work and we devoted the resources at the time to the
development of the citywide strategic plan. As you may know, I was on the
citywide strategic planning subcommittee with several other of my colleagues
and we worked together to develop the citywide strategic plan, which was
ultimately adopted, as I mentioned and, then, as we neared adoption of that plan
we went back to the work of developing the tactical plan. We wanted to make
sure that it aligned well with the citywide strategic plan. So, this was the -- these
were the steps that the citywide strategic plan followed. I don't have to go
through this, because you have already been through that. But we followed a
similar plan when we developed -- or a similar approach when we developed the
tactical plan for the department. So, how do the tactical plan for the department
and the citywide strategic plan align. You have seen this triangle before. It's in
the citywide strategic plan and it's an attempt to sort of show the relationship
between the tactical and strategic plan. As you know, the tactics drive the
attainment of the objectives and the goals, which are driven by the vision of the
organization. So, we wanted to make sure that what we worked on in our
department aligned well with the citywide strategic plan. Maybe a better way to
look at this is with this graphic. If you look at the red dashed line that runs
horizontally across the page, everything above that's in the citywide strategic
plan. We talked about vision, mission, values, the way that we work, all the five
focus areas. The goals and objectives, which all have worksheets developed for
them. Under that is where the work of this tactical plan starts and finishes. We
talk about the tactics which support the goals and objectives. Also the activities,
the actions, and, then, of course, the performance measures and reporting that
we intend with this plan. Now, as you might imagine, there is an enormous
amount of work that's done to develop a tactical plan or a strategic plan, for that
matter, and it is not the work of just one person. We have an entire team that
was dedicated for many, many months working on this. There is a strategic
leadership team for the department that are represented here in Council today
and I want to thank them personally for all of their hard work, time, and effort in
putting forward this particular plan. But I really would like to point out Mr. Mike
Peppin, our deputy director, who was the project manager for this, has done a
fantastic job keeping the group corralled and on point most of the time and on
task and productive. He's done a really fantastic job and that was something that
he stepped up and volunteered for. So, I was very grateful for that.
De Weerd: And it looks like a really unruly group at that.
Barry: It can be at times.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 20 of 62
De Weerd: I'm glad you could corral them.
Barry: In any event, Mike's going to come up now and talk with you about the
process that we used in the department to develop the plan and, then, I will visit
with you for just a few minutes at the end talking about its integration and
alignment back to the city -- citywide strategic. So, with that we will turn it over to
Mike and, then, after which we will have time for questions and comments.
Thank you.
Peppin: Thanks, Tom.
De Weerd: Thank you, Tom.
Peppin: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, thanks for your time today. As
Tom mentioned, I volunteered for this assignment. Absolutely. Who wouldn't
want to get in the throes of the Public Works Department after only being with
them for a few months and this is a perfect way to do it, so -- also evaluations are
coming up in October, so I thought it was opportunistic that I get this done prior to
that, as no one reminds me, as you can expect. So, what I want to do, as Tom
has mentioned, is thank you for allowing us an opportunity to discuss with you
and share with you the plan prior to in a draft form to have open discussion
today. But I wanted to spend a little bit of time with yourselves and, then, also
with the viewing public on how we went about developing the plan itself, because
I think it's important for folks to know that this just wasn't something that we
loosely put together and decided to throw a dart at something and hit it. There
was a lot of thought that went into this. So, the first thing we did is we put
together a -- about a 20 page document. Leave it up to Public Works to develop
a plan to prepare and provide a plan. So, we put together a document that was
going to encapsulate every single step along the way that had milestones and
requirements and deliverables that would guide our planning efforts. Now, some
of those timelines were busted and there was reasons for that, but what we didn't
do is sacrifice quality and I think after sharing it with many of you, you -- you
agree that there is a quality plan that we presented to you in draft form. But
Susie and I spent a lot of time putting together information. We thought it was
important, because one thing we learned that Tom mentioned from the last plan
is when you throw the kitchen sink into something and it -- it's hard to monitor or
track and maybe you could have been a little bit more proactive with that, we
didn't want that to be a problem this time around, so we built some tools where
we could educate and form and communicate with staff throughout the entire
planning process. So, there was certain gates, if I can use that phrase, along the
planning process where we would send out information or we engaged staff to let
them know what your senior leadership team -- strategic leadership team is doing
on their behalf in their efforts -- for their efforts as we move the department
forward. So, we put together a document like this one. I want to share it really
quickly, so you can kind of see it's the -- it's the strategic leadership team to take
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 21 of 62
on the role to conduct a SWOT analysis and I will share with that -- that -- those
results with you briefly in a moment. We also went through and revised the
vision, mission, values. We looked at the citywide strategic plan to make sure we
had alignment and, then, we pushed it back out to them and asked for their
feedback. We got other feedback and, then, here we are with the draft plan
today. So, one of the things when we sit down with the strategic plan that all of
the experts and I support, as I'm sure many of you would, too, is to conduct a
good SWOT analysis. So, to look at your internal strengths and weaknesses,
but, then, also to do a good evaluation as a team of your external opportunities
and threats. So, these are the results. I won't go through each one of them, but
some things to highlight. As a department we are very proud that customer
service is an internal strength of ours. We know that our workforce is committed
to quality customer service that's exemplified by willingness to serve. Why is that
important? Because as you develop and plan you can leverage things like that to
advance the work that's in your plan. A weakness that we believe is harmful
internally is communication. We have three geographically separated entities of
Public Works. We have City Hall folks. We have a water division. We have a
wastewater division. We can do better at communication with consistency
across the way we communicate all divisions and we know as a planning team
that that's one weakness area that we can improve upon. So, you have seen in
the document that we provided you that there is a tactic that addresses an
improvement to communications internally. Externally we look at opportunities.
One thing that rises is technology. We have a lot of good technologies in the
department right now, but we know there are a lot more that are out there that we
can add to our existing or bring on board that will improve some of the
opportunities that external firms or vendors may be able to offer. It just increases
our service level. And, then, of course, there is threats externally. One that
you're very aware of and we bring to you very often is the regulatory threat, in
and around unfunded activities that are mandated upon us. So, we want to be
very conscious when we go to plan that we don't lose sight of regulatory threats,
because sometimes we don't have the ability to weigh in or influence those
before they come to us. So, from there we get a SWOT analysis done and we
reviewed -- because we already had on file, as Tom mentioned in our previous
plan, vision, mission, and value statements. So, what we did is we looked at
those and we wanted to ensure that moving forward they accurately represented
the department. Workforces changes, so what was -- what was here in 2009 and
2010 is much different than what we have in 2016 and moving forward into 2021.
So, we wanted to redefine, reevaluate our vision. So, our vision statement
moving forward -- you will see a couple components in there that are very
important to us and that is continuous improvement. Status quo is not enough in
Public Works. We want to continually improve upon something. We can
celebrate a success tomorrow, but we are going to work on improving on that
success the next day. So, we are committed to that. It will also enable us to be
a high-performing organization. National recognition can come from that. We
have seen that in some of the things that we have shared with you already, but it
also puts us in an industry leader position and that's important for us. Our
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 22 of 62
mission statement -- that's really the butter on the bread. That's what we do. We
anticipate, we plan, and we provide and the rest of it I will let you read, but that's
really the core of Public Works. So, we believe that those three action words are
important in our mission statement for the Public Works Department. That's not
a change from what you previously saw five years ago. It's very -- it was
supported then and it's very much supported now as we move forward. One
thing that changed a little bit was down at the bottom we absolutely support and
adopt the CARE values for the city, but as a Public Works Department we are a
little bit -- we are quite diverse compared to some of the other divisions or,
excuse me, departments in the city, so we have our own industry or industries
that we aligned, so we thought it was also appropriate that we looked at what our
industry, the American Public Works Association, utilizes that's kind of a standard
of conduct for their members and we are all members of the APWA. So, just let
me share an example, one thing -- when the words public trust come up we -- we
take that as if I'm an employee of Public Works I will put public interest above
individual, group, or societal interest and consider my chosen profession among
anything other. So, that's just an example of aligning with the behavior and the
CARE values, but also taking the standards of conduct a little bit further with the
alignment with the industry standards. So, we thought it was important to adopt
those. So, as Tom mentioned, we got in the throes of this. Got really excited. I
thought we would get it done in like a month and a half, maybe 50 days,
something like that, and, then, he asked me to pause and everyone else and we
were very upset about that. So, we paused to help support the citywide strategic
plan, as you are all aware. Tom worked on a core team that was very involved in
that, so they pulled him away, but myself and a good handful of other members
on our strategic leadership team were also asked to help support the
development and, then, the worksheets that followed and the tactics of the
citywide plan. So, we paused on ours. It also was twofold, because as the
Mayor was -- was asking us to put this document together, we also wanted to
ensure that any plan we developed was subservient to that, so nomenclature,
you know, a strategic plan and now a tactical plan, so we had to sort some that
stuff out. So, it was beneficial for us just to pause for a moment. But once those
activities were done and those were brought to you, we moved forward and we
identified -- Tom mentioned that there was about 19 percent of the old plan that
wasn't completed. Well, not all of that stuff was just grabbed and carried forward,
there is some of it that didn't require to be carried forward, but a good portion of it
was looked at and so we looked at those items that were previously identified. It
wasn't just a cut and paste into the new plan, we looked at it to ensure that there
wasn't anything that's going to be redundant, we can combine certain activities if
it made sense, because resources are sometimes scarce. We also made sure
that we had new titles to refresh things. That plan was put together by a different
team. This is a -- this is a new team moving forward with this plan, so we wanted
to ensure that while the work previously was very important identified, the work
moving forward is equally important and we wanted to redefine it. So, this is a
busy slide, but this goes to show that work from the old plan was carried forward
into the new plan. So, once we get done with some carry forward we identified
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 23 of 62
some new tactics, new ideas, new brainstorming sessions. It's a -- it's a
challenge to lead a team as diverse as ours in a brainstorming activity and, then,
get them to narrow that brainstorming activity down. But I was somewhat
successful to do that. So, we ended up with about eight new tactics. So, mass
and public, that's 18 total package sets you have in the final draft of the plan that
we are providing you today. Now, one may say, well, you had 64 in your old
plan, you only have 18 now, what are you going to do with all that extra time? I
can tell you that after a thorough review of the old plan and the development of
this one, there is a whole lot of work that we are committed to doing in 18 tactics
in the new plan. Not to mention the citywide strategic plan has work that we are
responsible to lead and support throughout as well and we want to make sure we
are available for those efforts, too. So, what I'm trying to say is I don't think we
are in over our heads and we are committed to doing the work and trying as hard
as we can. So, you get this plan put together and have all these fancy ideas and
you have these great titles, but what does it really mean? Well, we sat down and
we shipped this back out to some of the divisions and we said help us develop
the work that it's going to take to achieve attainment of some of these tactics.
So, inside the plan there is a tactical worksheet for every single one of those 18
tactics that gets in depth on the title, the alignment to the citywide plan, the lead,
the support agencies that are going to be required to be involved in the
attainment of that tactical objective. We used a focus area to modify a balanced
scorecard. I will get to that in a moment, why it's important for us to align with
that. We prioritized it. We provided some other information. We give a good
tactic summary, because my goal -- our goal is to hand this off to someone that
could take my place in a couple years, pick this plan up and know what I was
thinking, what we were thinking when we put this together. It shouldn't be -- well,
this can only be executed by these 12 people. It shouldn't be that way. So, we
want to make sure it was very adaptive to anyone that came along. And, then,
the activities and performance measures were also included. So, the next step
we did is we have got these 18 tactics and we have got all these worksheets and
we have got a plan that's really coming together and it's about 80 percent, you
can see the thing forming, how do you prioritize the work. So, what we did is we
wanted to make sure we had some criteria in case we were asked, but, then,
also for us to follow. So, we developed these nine criteria area and the executive
team, which includes five of us in Public Works, we sat down, we individually
scored all of these from one to five in these areas and, then, we aggregated
those scores and we realized that we had some conversations to have and so we
sat around the table and we had conversations and the prioritization shifted just a
little bit and, then, we brought that back and we gave it to our strategic leadership
team and the 12 of them looked at us and some of them had eyebrows raised
and others said I can live with that, but we felt it was important for them to weigh
in and we tweaked it a little bit more and, then, we gave it to our staff and they
give us feedback on prioritization. So, the prioritization as it's landed right now
that's in front of you, that -- that includes -- nearly every member in Public Works
had involvement in the prioritization of our plan. Now, the prioritization doesn't
mean that we are going to put all of our efforts into number one and we are going
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 24 of 62
to leave number 18 alone until one through 17 are done. Some of these can be
going on concurrently. It just depends on what the resources are available and
the allocation of the resources. So, for instance, number one is chief compliance
with the permits, that's going to be a -- that's a five-year activity worksheet. We
will also be working on number 14 or number 15, improved consumable resource
management while that's going on, too, because that takes other resources,
other employees and other support agencies. So, I provide that because this
isn't a prioritization order, it's just a prioritization, if we had to choose to divert
resources if they are competing, this is what we would go back to. As Tom
mentioned, we in Public Works utilize a modified balanced score card and we
use what we refer to as focus areas and that's the financials, operations,
customer service, utility employees and, then, strategy. So, we aligned each one
of our 18 tactics with one of these areas, which allows us to collect information
and report internally to the department, but, then, back to you on a consistent
basis so you know what we are talking about. And, then, the second piece we
did is we wanted to align it with the citywide strategic plan. So, here is a quick
snapshot of how all 18 of those tactics align with our modified balanced score
card and you can see it's distributed pretty fairly. The one area you might look at
and say, well, you have only got one of the utility employees. Well, let me tell
you that -- well, a worksheet and, then, utility employees, that tactic has more
activities than any other one of them that we put together and there is a lot of
work in and around how we develop, retain, and attract employees for our
organization. So, there is a lot of work in that one and that one will be ongoing
over five years. And, then, secondly, as I mentioned, we align it with the citywide
plan, so you're very familiar the citywide plan has five focus areas and that's
identified by the numbering there on the left and, then, it has your goal areas, A,
B, C, D, E, F -- so on and so forth. So, what we did is once we developed the
tactics themselves, we aligned them underneath the citywide plan, so that you
could see subordination to that plan and, then, we just added our own PW1 and
so on and so forth so we could track it that way. So, all of those efforts that I just
spoke about get us here to today and I will turn it back over to Tom, not before
saying thanks to him and the other members of the team for trusting in me and
allowing me to guide them through the process. It's been very worthwhile and I
very much appreciate their support, so thanks.
De Weerd: Thank you, Mike.
Barry: Thank you, Mike. Very nice work. So, to continue forward, we wanted to
talk briefly about alignment and vetting of the plan as it was in its final form. You
might know some of the schedule here, but let me just run it through you real
quick. The strategic leadership team upon the draft completion went through a
series of iterations, look at the plan for a few weeks, made sure that before we
sent it out it was in good final form. All the staff were given an opportunity to
review the plan. We took this presentation or something very similar to this to all
of the divisions in Public Works, presented this, talked about the past
performance -- pretty much everything we shared with you today and, then, we
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 25 of 62
gave them access to the strategic -- or the tactical plan, rather, that was
developed and we asked for their comments and we wanted everyone to have an
opportunity to comment and we promised them that we would address every
comment, which we have and that work is continuing. A lot of those comments
are going to be filtered back down through the strategic leadership team back to
the employees over the next week or so. The Mayor has had an opportunity to
look at it for several weeks. I shared this with the department directors, gave a
very similar presentation to the department directors team. They have had it for
several weeks. And, then, also, as you know, we shared this with the City
Council about three and a half weeks or so ago and met with you separately last
week for your feedback and we appreciate that very much. Just a couple things
to talk about alignment and integration with the citywide plan. This plan, similar
to the one we did five years ago, was developed in house with all of our own
resources. This allows and encourages an engagement approach to be taken,
which allows us to tap the expertise of our professionals. We don't have some
outsider coming in telling us what they think we should be doing, because they
don't really know our operation. We know our operation and we know what the
emerging trends are that are coming down the road and where we need to place
our materials, resources, equipment and whatnot. So, we have no outsourcing
costs and I believe that we have a much better product. This plan aligns with the
citywide strategic plan, as Mike just mentioned. Not just in nomenclature, but
you won't find anything in our plan that isn't or cannot be supported by the
citywide strategic plan. If we couldn't find alignment with this -- with an initiative
that we wanted to do in the department with the citywide strategic plan, we didn't
include it. Simply said. As we mentioned, the nomenclature also allows you to
be able to track that, just as a way to vet the alignment. Lastly, one question that
you might have is, okay, so you got work to do in the tactical plan that you have
presented, but what about the work that you're supposed to be doing in the
citywide strategic plan? Well, that is separate and apart from this. We have
talked about 18 tactics in this new plan, but that doesn't include the three
strategic objectives that we are responsible for leading in the citywide strategic
plan, nor does it include the 17 support objectives or the objectives in the
citywide strategic plan and we are supposed to be support for. So, if you add all
of that up, we have a lot of work in our department to do between the citywide
strategic plan and our tactical plan and that's where you get a good bulk of that
work going forward over the next five years.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: A quick -- on that point I don't see the distinction. If one of the
obligations is to accomplish the duties associated with the citywide strategic plan
Barry: Uh-huh.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 26 of 62
Borton: -- why would not -- why would that task not be one of your tactical plans?
Barry: Well, it is. It is, Councilman Borton.
Borton: I might have heard you backwards.
Barry: No. That's okay. No. I don't know if you did. But the objective
worksheets have all been developed for the citywide strategic plan. Those
objective worksheets are akin to our tactical worksheets. So, they have already
been separately developed and are included in the citywide strategic plan, that's
why we didn't pull them back out and stick them in our tactical plan. Essentially,
the tactical plan supports the three objective worksheets that are already in the
citywide strategic plan, already to develop, and, then, we have our name listed
on 17 others in the citywide strategic plan. So, all I'm simply saying is that the
tactical plan essentially references that, but we didn't duplicate those sheets in
the tactical plan. They are two different documents, but they do align well and
that's how, essentially, we wanted to communicate the work and particularly
where the emphasis was on the hierarchy between the citywide strategic plan
and the tactical plan. Does that help?
Borton: It does.
Barry: Okay. Great. So, now let's just compare, just in brief, the last period's
department plan to this period's department plan. Both plans had a five-year
time horizon and what's nice about this particular plan is -- we are operating, as I
mentioned, under the citywide strategic plan, which also has a five-year time
horizon, so that's all aligned. There were 56 total pages in the original plan.
There is 36 in this one. There was 64 tactics and 321 activities, as I have
already mentioned. That's excluding the community development activities and
tactics. You may or may not recall, but when the first strategic plan for our
department was developed we had Development Services in Public Works, but
there was an organizational change -- I want to say 2012 or something like that,
where Development Services went to combine with Planning and that's how we
created the Community Development Department. So, that separation was
made and we took those objectives and tactics out of the plan. So, that's why I
reference that. The plan -- one thing that's very interesting to note -- and I think
an important lesson learned that I didn't already highlight -- is that the plan we
developed in 2010, which was ultimately adopted, was very siloed and if you look
back to it you will see that, you know, we had engineering kind of doing their own
thing. These are the top engineering tactics. These were the top water tactics.
The top wastewater tactics. Yes, there was a relationship from a support and
lead standpoint, but it was really each division was responsible for their own
particular tactic. We have totally changed that and we have -- I think to the
betterment and to strengthen this plan we have created a consolidated plan that
is not segregated by division. So, it's a lot more collaborative and I think we are
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 27 of 62
engaging more of the right people in the plan and I think we will be more
successful in achieving better quality outcomes. So, that's what I mean when I
say the current plan is more integrated than it was back in the 2010. And, then,
again, we did not roll over anything from Development Services or Community
Development from the old plan. So, what's the next steps? Well, the next steps
for us that are currently underway are to resource the plan. So, we have to
identify the resources and the time frames by which those resources can get the
work done and try to maximize the amount of work that gets done over a certain
period of time. We are taking a project management approach to this and all of
the leads for each of the tactical worksheets that we have developed are going to
receive project manager -- project management refresher and also get access to
Microsoft Project, which is how we are going to be tracking our progress and
Milestones along the way. This is a snapshot of work in process.
De Weerd: I thought maybe Todd made the slide.
Barry: Oh, no. Well -- oh, because of the font. Yes. I see. I see the
relationship there. No. This is what we could squeeze on the screen. Oh,
brutal. That's brutal. So, in any event, over the next couple of weeks we are
going to be finishing the resourcing of the plan and, then, we expect to launch
October 1st and we are excited about that and so that's the plan at this point. As
sorry for the typo on the second bullet there, but the reporting and adaptive
management. This is where we look at the plan and, then, we modify as we
need to our goals, objectives, resources, time frames and whatnot. We are going
to commit to doing annually, which is similar to what we have committed to in the
citywide strategic plan. And, then, finally, if revisions become so large or
needed, then, we will just update the plan and draw your attention to that as
needed. So, with that that's all we have for you in regards to our tactical plan and
we will entertain any questions, comments, or concerns you might have.
De Weerd: Thank you, Tom. And team. Council, any questions? I know you
have had a chance to -- to meet with Tom and some of the team to review this, to
have an opportunity to share any thoughts or concerns. Do you have anything
today?
Bird: Very nice presentation.
Barry: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you so much. And, again, we will see you -- we will look
forward to the report on how you are doing.
Barry: Excellent. Well, thank you, once again, for your support. We appreciate
that very much and are excited to get to the good work ahead. Thank you.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 28 of 62
De Weerd: And I would say that, as Tom noted, this did go to the -- the senior
management team and -- and it is -- it did create a template that I think people
will be using to show how their -- their operational plans and tactical plans relate
to the strategic plan and so I think you took something that was very complex
and gave a good template for others to use, too. So, thank you for that.
D. Public Works Department: Amending Meridian City
Code Sections 9-1-16 and 9-4-26(A), Regarding Connection to
City Sewer System Outside City Limits, the Ordinance
Amendments will Replace the Public Works Application
with a Written Request and Revise the Code Sections for
Consistency.
De Weerd: Okay. Item 6-D is also under our Public Works and, Warren, I turn
the spotlight on you.
Stewart: Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. From time
to time, as you know, there are people who come to the City of Meridian and
request services for sewer and water who are not able to annex into the City of
Meridian. We have a process that was identified in ordinance for -- that they
needed to go through in order to accomplish that. Most recently you might recall
that we ran a water line down Amity Road right in front of Mary McPherson
Elementary School and they had requested that they be able to hook up to the
water. They are not currently contiguous with the City of Meridian's boundary, so
they can't annex. So, we went through the process to allow them to -- or to
receive services from the City of Meridian, even though they aren't currently
annexed. We found in going through that process that our ordinance referred to
a form that needed to be filled out -- or an application that needed to be filled out
and that application, frankly, didn't exist. So, we had to give them, you know,
other options and so we decided, you know, maybe we should clean up this bit of
ordinance with regards to water and sewer and how an individual would go about
making a request to get city services outside of annexation and so we worked
with the Legal Department, Emily Kane, and she put together some changes to
the ordinance and made both the water and sewer ordinance consistent and now
it does not refer to an application process, but simply refers to the need to put
together a letter with certain information included in that letter that can be
submitted to the city in order to make that request. So, that's what this is about.
It's just getting your okay to adopt the ordinance and make the changes to make
that process simpler and more consistent.
De Weerd: Thank you, Warren. Any questions?
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 29 of 62
Bird: I would recommend we go forward with bringing that ordinance -- amended
ordinance forward for passage as soon as possible. That would be my
recommendation. I don't know about the other five.
De Weerd: Okay. Anyone in disagreement?
Stewart: Thank you.
E. Community Development & Public Works: Annexation of
Enclaves
De Weerd: Thank you. Which brings up Item E, which could be caused by Item
C.
Hood: Yes, Madam Mayor, there is some relationship there to what Warren just
talked about and what I'm about to speak -- and, actually, Warren is part of this
presentation as well. So, last year earlier in the spring you all met with the Ada
County Board of Commissioners and at the end of that meeting they handed you
a map and said here is a map showing all of the enclaves that are within your
area of city impact. The map -- this is not the same map, but it shows the same
thing. This is all of -- all of the enclave parcels that are in Meridian. So, an
enclave being property or properties that are surrounded by existing city limits.
So, we took that map and used -- and went to GIS and looked at all properties
that are eligible for annexation and by state code a property is eligible for
annexation if it touches existing city limits. So, as Warren just mentioned, Mary
Mac Elementary is not eligible for annexation, because limits aren't quite there
yet. So, when they are we can -- we can clean up the city limits and -- and bring
them in. But until such time the city would not be able to annex that property.
So, we looked at these -- these enclaves, which are often our limits are called
Swiss cheese because of all the holes that are in it. Enclaves aren't ideal, not
just on a map, but also with regard to services as you just talked about. It's not
that efficient usually to leapfrog or skip county properties and provide services to
properties on the far end of that service. It can create gaps or overlap in some
services. The example of emergency service dispatch receiving a call at like
Locust Grove and Fairview and depending on what side of the intersection you're
on there it could be the sheriff that's lead or it could be Meridian police. So, there
are certainly some efficiencies to having a consistent boundary between the city
limits and unincorporated Ada county properties. It can also be considered
inequitable for some of those county properties to not pay property taxes and yet
enjoy benefits of city parks, being hooked up to sewer and/or water service, but
yet not paying those property taxes to pay for the -- the general maintenance of
those types of services. So, we as staff, again, looked the -- the properties that
were enclaved and eligible by state codes -- so, again, contiguous and also
looked at them being -- some of the criteria that further goes on in state code -- a
property, if it's greater than five acres and not connected to a city sewer or water
service, is, essentially, free or ineligible for annexation unless they consent to it,
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 30 of 62
unless they explicitly write something saying, yes, I agree to be annexed. They
can't forcibly be annexed into the city. So, we kind of -- we as staff developed
three different categories or scenarios and have a spreadsheet handout that the
clerks -- I don't know if those have already gone down. But we prepared a
spreadsheet and there are 36 properties that are -- that we would recommend
moving forward with annexing that have currently -- that currently meet those
criteria. They are contiguous. They are less than five acres. And, actually,
these have a water and/or sewer service and I will run through the spreadsheet
here in just a minute to kind of explain this. What you won't see on the
spreadsheet or what isn't highlighted is Black Rock Subdivision. That is not on
your spreadsheet. And there are also a couple of ACHD and Idaho Power
properties -- this is the Idaho Power substation on Stoddard. Brian McClure
actually will be before you next week talking about that annexation, but it's --
again, it's in the same vein. There are properties that are receiving city services
today that have previously consented by implied consent, because they are
receiving those services today. So, you will have one of those next week, kind of
a cleanup of the map, but it's on a smaller scale. So, we met as -- I think we met
three or four times, something like that, as staff. We had members from the
Police Department, code enforcement. Planning. MUBS. Public Works. Fire
and Legal. And to just really confirm that these folks are -- there was some
discrepancies in some of the records about if property is receiving one or both
sewer or water service and if they had signed a consent to annex agreement
previously. If there were code enforcement issues, so code enforcement went
out to all these properties and verified if they had -- if they had or have known of
any issues on the property, that if we annex them it may become headaches for
them and so we kind of went through that process to develop again the
spreadsheet that you have before you. Now, I will just note -- I did attach the
same spreadsheet to your memo. There were -- there were a couple of glitches
in that, so I would ask that you use this one. There was a -- or a column that was
left out -- the signed consent to annex column for some reason got removed from
that and there was one property that actually got taken off of the -- the
spreadsheet that you had in your packet. So, this is the most current and up-to-
date table that's out there and, again, after discussing those properties we would
like to have your blessing on moving forward at least at this point with engaging
with these property owners, inviting them to an open house here at City Hall, as
we have historically done. I have been a part of this process two other times.
We typically have -- had someone from Legal and someone from SS -- or
Republic Services. Excuse me. It was SSC back when I did it the last time.
Republic Services and typically Public Works here at the open house to answer
any questions. A lot of them tend to be around, you know, what is it going to do
to my taxes, but there are implications to, again, Republic Services. Once you're
annexed your delivery schedule may change. The amount of garbage and
recycling you're able to bring curbside changes as well. So, that's -- that's kind of
our -- to cut to the chase that's our -- our recommendation. I would like to spend
a few minutes and go through this spreadsheet and highlight a couple of the
properties. We are not going to spend time on all of them. You can look at this,
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 31 of 62
review it at your leisure, but there are a couple of them that were -- that we spent
quite a bit of time discussing and the first one that I want to point out is 825 East
Pine and I will just note -- if you see on the spreadsheet there, the spreadsheet is
organized -- was that the first, second, third, fourth -- the sixth column over, the
sewer and water service column, and S is properties that are receiving sewer
service. A W is properties that are receiving your water service. And, then, on
the second page starts with the properties that are receiving both water and
sewer service. So, if you see water service comments, that's because they are
only receiving sewer service right now and they don't have water as of today.
But this is Public Works' comment on how difficult or easy it would be to hook up
to said water service of the city. So, again, it's kind of organized by those -- one
service or the other or both. And so the properties that are in the seven and
eight hundred block of Pine -- even the 900 block of Pine you will see kind of
grouped there at the bottom of the first sheet and onto -- you know, are all kind
of right here in the same block and receiving water service. The one that -- why
825 is called out -- and I have got the aerial up here. This one is a known issue
for Ada county code enforcement. You can see that there is a -- essentially a
wrecking yard in the backyard of this home and there is a wrecker that is parked
at this residence and he operators that out of his home. So, if annexed we would
zone this residential and by city code you can't operate a wrecking yard out of a
residential district. So, it's similar in the county in this case. Again, they are kind
of crossways with this property owner. At the end of the day we thought
compliance would be best caught -- again, this was in consultation with code,
police enforcement, if it is annexed into the city, but wanted to put you on notice
and, then, eventually, the property owner on notice that they are going to have,
you know, a duration of time that they are going to need to come into compliance
and this needs to be cleaned up and it's not okay to operate this type of
business. But that's not -- it's not ideal. I mean it's not -- it's not ideal to welcome
somebody to the city and say, by the way, you need to change the way that
you're using the property. So, that's why it's highlighted and called out for you.
Again, this was something that we talked about. Not to go into too much of the
pros and cons, but we don't want the message to be to these property owners if
you junk your property up enough the city won't come after you and annex you.
You can -- you can live scot-free if you just make your property ugly enough or
difficult enough for the city, they will leave you alone. We didn't think that was
the right message to send to anybody either. So, again, not that that was, you
know, the only reason, but that was -- we didn't -- if there is two other neighbors
in this block and we are saying, hey, it's right to annex them, but we are going to
not annex you because it's difficult or because you're a headache or because it
doesn't look the way -- you know, because there is code enforcement violations,
we didn't think that was the right message. But, again, I'm bringing that before
you and if you're not comfortable with that approach -- but we think the
overarching goal I think that we had, again, is one of equity and these folks are
hooked up to city services, yet not paying the property taxes that support those
services. So, that's one on -- on the first page that I wanted to highlight. And,
then, the top of the second page --
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 32 of 62
De Weerd: Hey, Caleb?
Hood: Yes.
De Weerd: So, how did these get hooked up? I mean were there agreements
that they would annex at some point?
Hood: So, Madam Mayor, in this case, no. If you look, again, in that -- it's about
the tenth column over, the signed consent to annex, if so date. So, it is
somewhat of a mystery on how some of these got hooked up. Some of those
that that field is populated -- if you look on page two there is quite a few of the
properties that do -- that have signed -- like Mary McPherson have entered into
an agreement with the city and said, yes, once I'm eligible for annexation I agree
to hook up. I do not know how some of these properties came to be hooked up
to services. I -- I know how some have been hooked up and sometimes it's when
ACHD does a roadway widening project that will wipe out somebody's septic
system and our sewer line is going in with that project, so we hook them up. This
one and where it's at, there hasn't been a roadway project where that would be
the case, so I don't know if it was just something when a water line extension was
being put in or -- I really don't know the history on some of them, so -- and this is
the case where, again, it's sort of a mystery to me and I don't know if Warren
knows how or why, but we don't have anything that we can find as staff -- a
record of how they got hooked up or why.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Does the sewer go to the -- the back of the place going through? It don't
go up the road there, does it?
Hood: Huh-uh.
Bird: Or is it in the road? Is it in Pine? When we widened it we were putting it in
Pine, but is it in there now? Warren, do you -- do you recall?
Stewart: On this particular one, the note that I have on there -- sorry, I can't
remember all these things to keep them all in my --
Bird: I --
Stewart: It says it's a ten foot deep sewer that runs through the property. So, in
this case my guess is that you actually have a sewer line --
Bird: In the back.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 33 of 62
Stewart: -- that runs either through the back or along the side.
Bird: And then -- and I think that was done years ago when they put that -- when
our building inspector at the time put his subdivision out there.
Stewart: Some of the other parcels along there -- it says there is an eight foot
sewer that borders to the south and, then, one of those additionally on this --
there is one that fronts Pine Avenue, at least for a portion of that. So, different
scenarios with each one, but they each have access to sewer readily -- in this
case they each have access to sewer readily adjacent to their property or on their
property. But they are not currently hooked up, they are just hooked up to water.
Bird: But the sewer is available there --
Stewart: Yeah.
Hood: So, the other one on the spreadsheet that I wanted to call to your
attention is up near Irvine Subdivision and it is this out parcel from the rest of
Irvine and it's just a little bit different in that there is a -- as you will see in the
notes there, the water service is a sprinkler account, so it was stubbed with the
roadway that's stubbed here to that property, although it doesn't look like it's
been turned on, but the service is provided to them. But, again, it's just the water
service for sprinkler, city limits, it is, you know, again, by definition an enclave,
totally surrounded by city limits and just water only at this point in time, that
sprinkler account. 1030 -- 1035 East Fairview is one that some of you are
probably familiar with and I'm just going to go there real quick. The reason that
this one is -- it is highlighted is they recently, just in the past couple of months,
put a digital billboard out on this property, so this has been one that's been
different -- different businesses in a home I think back in the day, but it's been a
title -- I think it's a title company -- title loan company right now even. I think
there was a drive-thru coffee shop there at one time and -- it's been different
things. But, again, it's an enclave property, totally surrounded. This is the car
dealership. This is the new Touchstone Place Subdivision. You can see it looks
this is a little bit outdated. There is the street view. But, yeah, there is a digital
reader board now on this site. So, that's the only reason I bring it up, is we would
be annexing your property and we went through this with Maverick about having
billboard signs and an agreement to take it down in ten years and that whole
thing. So, again, this one we had the discussion saying, well, when they want to
do something else they are coming to the city, they are not working with the
county anymore, they are coming to the city now, so at least we have that -- we
can have that dialogue with them if they come in and want to expand or whatever
they need to do. So, that was a summary of that dialogue.
Bird: Hasn't that been before us on an annexation before 1035?
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 34 of 62
Hood: I'm sorry?
Bird: Hasn't that 1035 been before us before on a --
Hood: We -- we have certainly talked about it. I don't think an application has
ever been submitted. Yeah, they have had requests similar to what Warren was
saying before for services -- that other service to be provided to this property.
Bird: Yeah. That's it.
Hood: And -- but they didn't want to annex.
Bird: Yeah. You're right. So, the next one I wanted to highlight is -- and I don't
know that we need to jump there, but down at -- near the southeast corner of
Meridian Road and Amity is the sheriff's office tower that's right adjacent to the
nine -- about nine acres that Public Works -- the city has for the future well and --
what's the one on that property? I can't remember. It's a well -- it's a tank. It's a
reservoir property there. The sheriff's office has a communications tower. The
reason I called this one out is because if you look on the table and columns four
and seven, there is no -- there is no value there, because they aren't -- there isn't
sewer or water there, because it's just a tower but it is an enclave. It's totally
surrounded by city limits, but there isn't any services there. So, again, it's not in
the same -- it doesn't -- it's an outlier to the rest of the -- the properties that you
see on this table, because they aren't receiving the service. However, they are
enclaves and it's a county property, so I thought this was a good way to show the
county how they can help us clean up our city limits, we can have some of their
property annexed in the City of Meridian to help us with the enclave issue. So,
that one's just, again, called out because it's a little bit of an outlier that it is. And,
then, the final one that I wanted to run through with you -- and this one is kind of
fun. Not really, but -- it's at 1777 -- or 1775 West Pine and there is actually three
different properties here. These are the Zimmerman properties at 1775 and
1785. Like I said, there were three different parcels here. There is a home up
front, there is a business in the back, and, then, what you can't really see from
this is there is a strip of ground -- I think it's only five or seven, ten -- maybe ten
feet wide that kind of run along the boundary here. So, they are different parcels
really two different things. But it's -- the owner operates this business. It's in
the county. We actually met -- they did a pre-app with us several months ago
now -- earlier this year anyways. Ada county code enforcement was there,
because this has been another enforcement issue at the county, but there is --
this is an automobile repair shop. They have got -- you know, I think pain even
back there, Perry. I don't know if you have actually been out there. I know Joe
Silva's been out there. But paint booths and --
Bird: Yeah. They paint.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 35 of 62
Hood: I mean they are -- they are doing some things back here that hasn't been
inspected or -- I shouldn't say that. But it's been reviewed, it just may not be up
to all code. And, anyways, I bring that up, because if we annex this property the
Comprehensive Plan has a residential designation on this property with the
residences here, this is an industrial use per our code, we would -- we are
proposing to zone them R-4. So, the automobile -- similar to that first one I
showed you -- R-4, you wouldn't be able to do this business within the city limits.
Again, I don't know all the history with this property in the county, but it's very
rare for us in Planning to have a pre-application meeting with Ada county code
enforcement. There is -- there is some -- a story here and they were doing what
they could to, you know, get this cleaned up, if you will, on the city, because it's
been an issue for them in the county, again, that one I don't -- I don't have the
whole story. We have talked with building -- building services about what we can
do to, you know, basically work with them. They have a path forward. If they
apply for annexation, we talked to them about a comp plan map amendment that
they could propose and do these steps and they haven't come forward. So, I
don't know how much longer we wait. We aren't proposing the wait. We are
proposing to annex them. That's what we decided as staff to recommend to you
is that we propose to annex them. If they want to submit a comp plan map
amendment and run this business, that's up to them to do, but right now it's not in
alignment with the vision of the city. So, those are the few on this list. The rest
of them are not that weird or complex. Difficult. Most of these other ones are
just single family homes that are hooked up to sewer and/or water, they are
enclaves, they are eligible for annexation and we propose it, but there are a
handful of them that have a story to tell there and I just wanted to get those out
there.
De Weerd: So, Caleb, even with your comment that you could do a comp plan
amendment, that doesn't move that building further away from the home and
that's the -- that's the code enforcement concern; right?
Hood: Again, Madam Mayor, I don't know all -- any or all of the violations at the
county. My understanding in talking with the property owner, these neighbors
are okay and he was willing to -- as part of that we encouraged them, we said,
hey, it will help you get a long ways, if you can get something from these property
owners saying I don't have a problem with this business. It doesn't hurt my
quality of life. I don't smell it. I don't hear it. I'm fine with them. That goes a long
ways towards them potentially being able to operate this. So, I can't speak to
what the issue really is at the county or who complained or how they happened
upon this business. I really -- I don't know. Yeah. Sorry. I don't have a lot of the
the back story there.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
Hood: But, you're right, it wouldn't -- it wouldn't change the location of the
building.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 36 of 62
De Weerd: Right. Mr. Bird.
Bird: Chief Perry -- Palmer. They are -- they are surely being inspected by the
fire department, aren't they?
Palmer: I would have to check our records, but I'm sure that we have.
Bird: I believe they are in the rural fire district.
Palmer: Yeah.
Bird: Part of our deal. So, we got to -- Caleb, we have got to know what those
buildings are -- what's in those buildings and stuff. Fire inspectors -- our fire
inspectors.
Hood: So, I want to just go back to the map real quick -- or the series of maps.
So, again, here -- here are the properties that are on that spreadsheet that are
kind of in that -- I think they are more red is what it shows on my monitor
anyways. But these are the properties throughout our area of city impact that we
would propose. Here is that sheriff's office tower that I was talking about that --
near Meridian and Amity. So, if these go forward and all these are annexed,
here is what your city limits look like. A lot better, uh? Well, not really. You can't
really see, because it's not -- these aren't the big -- again, these aren't five acres
or bigger, they are pretty small. It doesn't really make a big dent in the Swiss
cheese effect. So, what we did is kind of took this a step further and did some
more analysis and this is kind of where I'm going to pass the baton to Warren a
little bit to talk to you about what we could potentially do and what we are calling
scenario two. I will just highlight the main difference between scenario one and
scenario two. The main difference between them is that these properties do not
have sewer or water connections. But everything else is largely the same in this
scenario. So, Warren?
Stewart: Thanks, Caleb. So, I will try and articulate, you know, maybe what the
difference is between these two scenarios. So, just real briefly, if you're looking
just at a high level, the first level we tried to say, okay, what makes sense, what
seems to be fairly straightforward as far as moving forward with an annexation.
You got parcels that are annexed, they are already receiving -- or not annexed,
but they are already completely surrounded by city limits. They are already
receiving many of the city services. Many of those, as you can see on this list
that Caleb talked about, have already signed consent to annex agreements with
the city and so they seem fairly straightforward in many ways. The next level
was those who were not currently receiving essentially sewer or water services.
They may still be benefiting from the parks and other services that the city has to
provide because of their proximity and that's what this map shows. So, this is,
again, properties that are eligible for annexation. They do not currently have
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 37 of 62
sewer or water services. They are less than five acres. There are a few other
filters that I think I need to talk about -- and, Caleb, you can correct me if I'm
wrong, but I think there is some other filters that we put on this map to kind of
eliminate some parcels. For instance, if there was not a significant connection to
city limits -- in other words, you will see that most of these, if not all of them, have
are surrounded on at least three sides by the city limits. If there was a parcel
that was maybe just touching at one little spot, we filtered that out, thinking that
that will come along at a future date. In other words, if they are on the outside
edge there somewhere there was very little or minimal connection with the city
limits, we filtered that parcel out. We also filtered out properties that were likely
to be redeveloped in the very near future or they were prime development
parcels. As those parcels come in, of course, we will have an opportunity to
condition those as they come in and so those parcels that -- that were either
prime redevelopment parcels are likely to redevelop soon were also filtered out.
There is also some subdivisions that are included in the city limits that had lots
that are both above and below the five acre threshold. If there were lots that are
above the five acre threshold, they, by definition, would not be eligible for
annexation and it didn't seem to make sense for us to annex a portion of a
subdivision. So, it's kind of an all-or-nothing thing. If they didn't -- if they weren't
eligible for the whole subdivision to be annexed, we filtered them out. So, what
you see is what's left over after we applied those filters to the main criteria for
scenario two. Other things that are important to consider -- obviously, there are
additional challenges, as well as benefits that this scenario or this level may
provide, but other things that we felt like it was important to consider is -- sorry, I
missed -- looking at my notes real quick. Is are -- one of the main ones was our
ability to provide sewer and water services to these. How difficult is it going to
be. Also are there code enforcement issues that we would need to address.
Most of these probably don't have significant code enforcement issues or they
might have been filtered out as well. They are in some of these cases may be
significant capital outlay in order for us to provide sewer and water services to
them. So, that's certainly something that we want to consider. And some of
these parcels -- especially the subdivisions -- may have existing community
water or sewer systems. That's an important factor, because if we -- if we decide
to take those on we can, essentially, just take over maintenance operations of
those systems and that's significantly cheaper for the -- for the city, as opposed
to putting in new sewer and water lines within those subdivisions. If we -- if we
move forward with a level two type scenario, you can see from this map that
there is a lot more parcels that would be affected. Caleb, if you want to jump to
that next slide. You can see that although there is still some Swiss cheese, if you
will, in the city, it does help to make a difference in the amount of holes we have
in the city limits. There is -- Caleb, jump back to this -- this slide, if you would.
So, I want to talk just a little bit about the possible scenarios. I won't take you
through all of this, but there are some important considerations here. So, if you
look at the scenario two and you look at your starting point, you would look and
say, okay, are there any land code or land use issues. If there are, then, you,
you know, can discuss those pros and cons, but that probably leads you to a --
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 38 of 62
it's not time to annex that parcel at this point or that subdivision or whatever the
case may be. Looking at the top left-hand corner, of course, there is some other
avenues that you can go with this decision tree. There are four different avenues
that would actually lead you to a scenario where you might want to consider
annexation. But I want to kind of look at those two yellow boxes or talk about
those two yellow boxes for a minute. One of the things that -- and Bill could
correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is what I understood. One of the things
the state code says is that if you decide to annex these properties and they don't
currently have available -- services are not currently available, specifically
speaking of water and sewer services, you have to provide a plan whereby you
can provide those services. Now, that doesn't mean that you have to do it
immediately. From what I understand -- and part of that plan could simply mean
that you're going to continue to allow them to operate their -- a community water
or sewer system for a period of time, but at some point you have to have a plan
to provide water and sewer services, as well as police and fire and other services
to them. So, that would also have to be a consideration as you look at which
ones we move forward with this is how are we going to provide services to these
parcels, what is the cost of providing services to these parcels. We know that
right now we are in a situation where we have significant expenses on the water
and wastewater side -- or specifically on the wastewater side for our wastewater
treatment plant expansions and so we have to think about how that works in the
timeline. You know, where is the funding going to come for that. So, these are
all things that we would have to consider. I do think there is a side of the
argument that would say they are benefiting from the fact that they -- because of
where they are from other city services, police, fire, parks and there -- is this
issue that Caleb brought up earlier about is it equitable for these people to,
essentially, not be contributing to those expenses or the revenue that's required
for those, but there is also the issue of providing water and sewer service and
what that cost would be. So, with that I will stand for the questions or back to
Caleb if he has stuff he wants to add to that.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: On your last one on your spreadsheet, City of Meridian, Tully Park, I vote
we don't go in the city. So, why isn't that in the city?
Hood: That was a mapping error, like a --
Bird: Oh.
Hood: -- surveying error back in the day. So, that's just a cleanup thing that
needs to be cleaned up, because as we have stumbled upon it as we were going
through these properties and looked at the official zoning maps and it shows that
as not being annexed yet, so it was -- I think it was assumed when the
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 39 of 62
subdivision went in, that that was part of it, but according to the documents that
were filed with the county and the state, it wasn't actually part of that legal
description, so --
Bird: Thank you, Caleb.
Hood: Madam Mayor, if I can, just -- just a little bit on scenario two from what
Warren said. I think with that one what we are looking for is some direction or if
there is any -- it's going to take a lot of work to develop these potential service
plans that we talked about to provide those services, that's a lot of work, it's a lot
of effort, and we just wanted to gauge if there is any will for you to, you know,
direct us to do that if at the end of the day we draft these plans and you're like we
don't have any intentions to annex these subdivisions, even though we have got
a plan to provide them services. We don't want to spin our wheels developing a
plan that you don't want to implement. So, that's why scenario two we are here
to say are we -- if this is something you want to do we will do the work, but we
don't want to do the work if it's something at the end of the day where you got
people in the audience that are saying what are you doing, you don't, we will
have the public hearing, but if there is really even at this point no inclination to go
there, we -- we don't -- again, we don't want to waste time developing something
that you don't see any hope for actually adopting or implementing, so --
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Ms. Milam.
Milam: Caleb, I -- on the scenario two ones, I am kind of mixed on those. I have
a hard time forcing somebody to annex their property that aren't -- they might
have access to a park. You know, that's their property, though. They might have
a horse and now they can't have a horse anymore and they don't even go to the
park. So, you know, without consent of those owners, I really have a hard time if
they are not hooked up to -- to our services forcing them to annex. I feel
differently on the ones that are -- that have water-sewer that are you -- you know,
they probably wanted to be at one time anyway, but I have got some issues with
that.
Hood: Some of the -- excuse me Madam Mayor. Some of this is just to how we
are Swiss cheese because we have county subdivisions right in town. I mean
that's what a lot of these are are our older one and two acre county subdivisions
and it sort of is what it is. Unless we do that we are going to be Swiss cheese
and I'm not saying I'm necessarily going to like it, but there is nothing wrong with
it necessarily, besides those things that were pointed out at the beginning where
it's not the most efficient use of services, but that's -- that's the decision point we
are. If we ever want to clean it up, this is what we are going to have to do at
some point. And I'm not saying we have to do it now, but --
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 40 of 62
De Weerd: Right. But what the benefits of those -- of that? In particular
probably, police, fire already has to serve it. I know the police and sheriff's
department with these enclaves the sheriff is supposed respond --
Colaianni: Madam Mayor, Council Members. So, it's -- it's an issue of response
times. So, with these -- these Swiss cheese -- these enclaves or whatever we
want to call them, you're bringing sheriff's deputies into the middle of the city to
handle a call where we are already at and so you have people that are waiting for
police services that may be further away. If they were in the city that wouldn't be
the case. So, that's really the biggest issue. We see this with the roadways, too,
which is a whole different topic -- where half the intersection lies in the city and
the other half lies in the county and when they dispatch for an injury accident
they are sending the sheriff's department, who may be six or seven miles away,
when one is down the street from us and it gets really weird. It's the same thing
with the properties, so --
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Scott, don't we have an MOU that allows us that whoever is closest to
come -- be the first responder in there?
Colaianni: If it is an emergency, everybody can and will respond.
Bird: Okay.
Colaianni: If there is enforcement action being taken -- if there is enforcement
action or crimes in reporting and stuff like that, it's the jurisdiction that has it that -
that's the first in. Yeah.
Bird: But on an emergency or something, we would respond if we were closer.
Colaianni: Correct.
Bird: And dispatch would send us.
Basterrechea: Yes. The other thing we run into, though, is because they are
surrounded by the city they oftentimes show up to the police department and
want our services and, then, we have to send them to the county and we had a
lot of that with the property at Meridian Road and Cherry Lane there on the
corner where Rudy Rodriquez had the property, so --
De Weerd: So, did we do a pro and con type of scenario for this as to why -- why
would we and if we don't why that's bad as well?
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 41 of 62
Colaianni: We did a little bit -- and, Caleb, you can -- we can talk to that. I mean
we -- just for the first scenario, I mean we didn't -- when we met as a group we
didn't go too far down on the second scenario, unless we had direction from
Council. Certainly there is some other challenges.
De Weerd: I think the first scenario definitely with city services --
Colaianni: Yeah. The first scenario -- the way we looked at it and the reason I'm
here is when our code people went out and looked at these properties -- we are
very intimately familiar with it. They are. That's what they do. And we looked at
them and it just made sense from us, again, back to the service delivery to -- to
have them in there. They are already receiving some sort of service, water and
sewer, from us and there are some challenges there from a code perspective,
but I don't think it's anything in talking with my code staff that can't be overcome,
so --
Hood: And, again, Madam Mayor, as Mr. Colaianni just -- just stated, we really
didn't go so far as in scenario two to develop the full pros and cons. We want to
see if there is -- even just at this level -- you know, that's a high level of these
people that are in the county that may or may not have a horse of whatever, you
know, I can envision them being here already telling you what the cons are. We
can do that if you think that's worth -- if it's worth the effort to bring it back. I have
no problem doing that, but like we said, we really focused in on scenario one.
We talked about scenario two should not rise to the level of scenario one and we
weren't -- without further direction from you we weren't comfortable developing
that scenario as a recommendation to move forward at this point. But we
certainly could.
Stewart: Madam Mayor? It was kind of the Public Works who was kind of tasked
looking at scenario two to some degree, because it had a lot to do with services.
So, in fact, we actually did do a draft pros and cons. We didn't put that in a
formalized spreadsheet or whatever to present to the Council, but I will say this,
that pros and cons list that we developed actually was a significant part of how
we came up with this. So, we looked at those pros and cons and those decisions
that would have to be made and that helped to formulate this decision tree. So,
there was some draft pros and cons developed for scenario two and those were
part of what factored into the decision tree matrix that you see. So, if you look at
some of these -- you know, we looked at the pros and cons with regards to land
use issues and off-site improvements that would have to be made, whether or
not there were existing sewer and water services -- community-based water and
sewer services that could be, essentially, taken over and operated and
maintained or whether we had to go in and tear up the streets and put new water
and sewer services in, whether it was readily available at the subdivision or the
property's boundary. We focused a little bit on -- on subdivisions in this case, but
I do want to point out that even in scenario two there are some properties who
are completely surrounded by city limits, who are less than five acres, and who
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 42 of 62
have water and sewer sitting in the street in front of their home. All they need to
do is connect up. So, there is that scenario as well, which although they don't
currently receive water and sewer services, there are -- you couldn't make an
argument that they are, essentially, enjoying the benefits of living within the City
of Meridian without -- with the exception of water and sewer -- without having to
be a part of the City of Meridian and it wouldn't take much to annex -- or to
connect those. So, there is -- there is different scenarios that we looked at and
pros and cons to each one of those kind of options or -- or situations without
doing the subdivisions -- the county subdivisions that you see on the -- on the
map, it would be difficult to make a significant difference in the amount of Swiss
cheese that you have in the city, as you can see. But you can also see that there
are some very small little parcels there that are completely surrounded. Maybe --
maybe it does, maybe it doesn't make sense to go ahead and annex those. They
wouldn't necessarily take much to make that happen from a utility services
standpoint.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Caleb, on the parcels under four acres, acre and a half, two acres, that
might have some animals and stuff on it, we have -- we have grandfathered
those in at times and -- and made the stipulation that once the animal is gone or -
you can't replace -- haven't we done that?
Hood: Madam Mayor, Councilman Bird, we have done that. We have actually
changed our nuisance ordinance I think since some of those times that we have
done that, though, and we don't prohibit livestock per se anymore within the city
limits. It's all covered under our nuisance ordinance. So, if you have a horse and
it's neighing all the time and your neighbor complains at midnight, because of
that then --
Bird: A horse neighing, you -- you don't have a horse. You have a mule.
Hood: But we don't -- we don't say -- we used to have back in the day I think we
limited it to three -- you know, you could have up to -- and, then, we had some
that had more than that, which -- the current head you had you can keep, but you
can't replace them. But we don't -- we haven't really done that for a while,
because, again, it's covered in our nuisance. Even if you have one and it's being
a bad neighbor for your neighbors, our code enforcements will come and we cite
the nuisance ordinance of that. So, we say it's making a loud noise between the
hours of 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. or whatever it is. So, yes, we have done that
and -- and that would be the same case here. It would be just City Code. So, we
wouldn't need to grandfather anyone, but they would be playing by the city rules.
Bird: Okay.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 43 of 62
Nary: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: To add onto that, too, I mean, remember, in most of the scenarios you're
dealing with it's the person requesting an annexation and a development
agreement that gets done and there is an agreement between the city and the
property owner what they can or can't do. When we are city initiating the
annexation, you're not likely to get somebody to sign an agreement. So, those
types of benefits sometimes of development and when development should
occur, you probably need to consider as well.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I take it from you three that we are probably -- you feel comfortable with
scenario one?
Hood: Yeah. That was the consensus of the group of those folks that the
department --
Bird: You know, we have discussed this for 17, 18 years and haven't done
anything with it and at least we are going forward with it, Caleb, thanks to you
and your group. I'm comfortable with it if you are comfortable with it, as a Council
person, and so, you know, I think -- I think after we did scenario one, then, we
look at two and stuff, I -- Warren said about taking on some sewer systems of the
subdivisions and I hope we don't -- I hope we never want to do that, unless that
sewer system is up to our standards. We don't need another Meridian Heights.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: I have a question for police. And, please, forgive my ignorance if this is
an unrealistic or illogical option. The city legal contract with the county for police
services, can the county, likewise, contract with us to service the enclaves?
Colaianni: Well, that's a -- that's a political question. So, I'm going to tell you
maybe. I don't -- you know, that would have to be a discussion had by the chief
and the sheriff and certainly there is -- there is -- when you're servicing your
customers there is a certain amount of pride you have in going and taking care of
your area and in doing those things. So, I don't know how they would feel about
that. Is it possible? Anything's possible. Is it probable? I don't know. So --
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 44 of 62
Basterrechea: Ask the Commissioners.
Colaianni: Yeah. I just don't -- you know, then, there is that -- I mean there is --
yeah, it could be complicated.
Palmer: Okay.
Colaianni: I'm just going to leave it at that.
Palmer: And follow up. I guess to that point, while the sheriff would have pride in
taking care of them, apparently the Commissioners don't -- ask them to take
them off their hands, for me, then, aside from the police issues, there is no way I
I mean if they at some point made a great sales pitch to be able to hook up to
one or a couple city services and not have to be annexed, good for them, but
there is no way I could support forcing annexing anybody. You know, while they
may be using the park I'm sure there is lots of people from outside the city
boundaries altogether that come and enjoy our parks and I love it that they do,
because while they are here hopefully they are spending money at some of our
businesses and so while we may not be getting our cut from those that live in the
enclaves, the rest of the city is benefiting from having them here. And so I'm fine
with, you know, discussing with those in scenario one that not -- not that have
limited possible problems, but no possible problems with us having discussions
with them to see if it's something they would be interested in, but definitely not
force annexing anybody.
De Weerd: Any other comments at this point?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Question for Caleb or Warren. Do we have a provision in which we
could terminate service for either water or both of these for these enclaves?
Warren: I don't know.
De Weerd: You wouldn't think so, because, then, it would be a Central District
Health thing, you know, you would be encouraging drilling a well. You would be
taking away their sewer and, then, they have to put a septic in and --
Nary: Madam Mayor and Members of the Council, I think to answer your
question the answer I think is no, because they are paying for the service. So,
your -- your option is to annex them, so that they pay city taxes for all the
services, but you couldn't terminate their -- their service just because they are an
enclave.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 45 of 62
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Since the discussion is about thoughts and opinions, I tend to agree
with Councilman Palmer on this. I am one hundred -- one hundred percent
supportive of trying to create a pathway for those who want to choose to annex,
but forcing someone an annex because the city has grown around them to me is
a -- is a hard sell for this councilman.
De Weerd: Frankly, I would be more inclined -- I think you need to -- to work with
the people in scenario one and do the reach out in see what the -- the general
feel is on that. But there is concern on our commercial corridors in light of the
county putting unsightly things in the middle of our community and we need to
have a conversation at least minimally on that.
Hood: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: And I guess just one other thing is, you know, the most recent
example of the lack of -- of collaboration between the city and the county and we
have citizens that really believe that when something goes in their backyard and
it's allowed by the county, they come to the city and they are looking for our help
and -- and the county's thumbing their nose at them, too. So, it -- it just -- you
kind of are in a conundrum in some of these cases where -- where there is a cell
tower or electronic sign, there seems to be little interest in -- in working with the
city on -- and valuing the citizen input they are getting. But I don't know if their
hands are tied in being able to deny some of these requests based on being
surrounded by the city and following city standards.
Hood: Madam Mayor, a little bit on that. That's what -- I was going to talk a little
bit on that, because that was the real reason for our meeting with them earlier
this spring was to talk about development potential of these enclave parcels and
what's the incentive for some of them to go through the county versus the city.
Cell towers being a good example. You don't need sewer or water to operate a
cell tower and it's -- but codes are more lax in the county, so why would I annex a
property into the city, when I can go to the county and develop that. So, I just
want to circle back a little bit. We haven't heard anything from them really on that
meeting -- at least I haven't. Kind of left it up -- yeah, we will stew on this and get
back with you. We aren't waiting anymore. We are actually putting together right
now a package of code changes to Ada county code and we will submit that to
them and say here is what we propose as your code that you implement within
our area of city impact and if it's touching city limits you don't process it, you send
it to the City of Meridian to be processed and that's -- that's a very high level
oversimplification of the code amendments, but that's, essentially, what it's going
to be like. We talked about it again earlier this year. So, we are not -- we are not
waiting for them to, you know, send us more feedback, we are actually going
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 46 of 62
through and underline and strikethrough their code and saying here is an
amendment that you could do in your title and your code, because you are right,
Mayor, right now they have to play by the laws in effect and right now there -- a
cell tower proposed next to city limits is -- is still the county. It doesn't -- there is
no provision that says that you have to go to Meridian.
De Weerd: Well -- and they keep creating these enclaves that they want us to
clean up.
Hood: And that's the idea that we don't perpetuate this -- continue to perpetuate
this over time, that there is orderly development of the city limits, so -- but we are
still left with the current ones, but, again, the other -- what we are trying to do is
prevent that from really happening going forward as much as possible. So, we
are going to move forward with that. Obviously, we will bring that back to you all
before we submit something to the county, but we are doing that leg work now as
time allows to go through and propose changes to the code that -- that really limit
the ability for development to occur that's on, adjacent and eligible for annexation
into the city.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: While I don't believe we have ever force-annexed anybody and I certainly
don't back forced annexation, but I do think that we need to get out and talk to
them and if they have got water and sewer, I don't think your -- I don't think we
are really forcing them. They have got -- while they are paying -- don't get me
wrong, they are paying for the water and sewer. Well, I think most of them are.
We have found a few that was getting it and hadn't paid for 15 years. But,
anyway -- then I think we are talking about a different deal. But if they are not
getting it and we want to look at it, we need to talk to them and if they want to
come in they come in. But if they have got water and sewer I think it's under a
different ballgame then.
Stewart: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Warren.
Stewart: I do just to kind of make sure that I get everything out there for you
guys to consider. I do want to kind of point out that there is a section of our code
that basically says if you take water and sewer from the city you need to take all
the city services and I left -- I thought I had it here with me. I couldn't -- I can't
cite you that code. I had it in my office just before, but it, essentially, talks about
this scenario where if you have water or sewer -- you take water and sewer you,
essentially, are agreeing to be annexed or you need to agree to be annexed. So,
it's just something to think about. That's in our current ordinance. It's in our
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 47 of 62
current code. So, I don't know how that plays into things, but I thought I at least
ought to let you know that that's there.
Hood: And, Madam Mayor, I'd just like to piggy back a little bit on that if it's okay
to Mr. Bird's point. The city has not ever forced anybody to annex. We have,
though, done a couple of city-initiated annexations where it's in that situation
where you have implied consent and that's what this -- the statute speaks to
those. Now, the statute was amended three, four, five years ago and I think it
says if -- if you have worked a deal since 2009 or '10, I can't remember exactly
when that statute changed -- the city still needs written consent or it's not consent
at all. But if you have been hooked up for 20 years -- before that you have
consented to annexation. So, that's what we would be doing here is really the
statute allows us to do this, we still have to go through that category and all that,
but they are eligible. Again, all these properties are eligible by state code. We
aren't forcing anybody to do anything. They have accepted a service and by
doing so have consented to annexation. It's up to us to actually go and do that.
Now -- so, you know, we are talking, you know, forcing versus initiating. I
understand. I'm just saying that by state code -- by law this is something that the
city can do. Not saying -- it doesn't say we have to, it just says that we can do it.
And, again, the intent there is for the orderly growth and development of the city.
So, you don't have the situations of services and who -- is this your territory or
mine and all that. And, again, I realize this doesn't really even make a dent in
that, it's such a big problem, but -- yeah.
Stewart: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: I think this discussion raised a couple of interesting points and one is
that I hear consensus to move forward with scenario one, to have the
conversations with the property owners and get a general feel as to what -- what
the thought is and, then, you can report back to Council and they will have a
better sense of how to move it forward. The other point was I think interesting in
not the likelihood, but maybe the conversation as we look to clean up the
enclaves and to those that are not on city services is if they want to look at
lessening the load to their sheriff's department in responding in our city limits,
that we look at while this would be the cost if we were the ones to respond and
we could enter into a bulletproof agreement that you would pay us and it would
have to be bulletproof, because recently they had not a written agreement, but a
verbal agreement that Garden City provides services during the fair and they
paid for the overtime. Well, after the fact they decided, no, we don't want to pay
for the overtime, it's on you. We can't enter our citizens into the -- the murky
waters of -- of thinking you were going to be reimbursed and, then, on the backs
of our taxpaying citizens to provide services to those that don't. So, I think those
two areas to explore what those -- what that would look like and -- and, then, you
can get to scenario two if we move forward with scenario one to -- to start having
the conversations then.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 48 of 62
Colaianni: We could have those conversations. I can sit down with the chief and
the deputy chief and at least explore the idea. He's stepped out I think. Yeah.
De Weerd: It would be interesting.
Colaianni: Yeah. I think it's an intriguing idea. It -- it makes sense when our
police station is across the street from a huge county pocket of homes and -- and
when people need help we are right across the street and the county is, you
know, 20 minutes away. It's odd to me, but I understand that and so certainly we
could have those conversations. It doesn't hurt to ask. I can do that.
De Weerd: Well, when it's not an emergency I don't think we should be
responding. Let them respond. And when we get the complaints we say you're
in the county.
Colaianni: Yeah. And that's the way we do it now. That's the way we do it now.
De Weerd: Any other direction from Council? Was that kind of a summary on
the two points agreeable to Council at this point to -- to start moving towards?
Bird: Agreeable to me.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: The -- the theme I heard with regards to getting public input would be
consistent with describing the benefits. Listening to their -- their pros and cons
as well and learning the concerns the private property owner might have, but if
there are unique benefits from Public Works or police service that they might not
be aware of, that it's not a matter of explaining how and why we are going to do
this, I didn't take it that was the -- the tone, but more informative that there may
be some benefits where you might be interested in annexing and here is some of
those characteristics which make it appropriate. And they may or may not be
interested. I tend to agree, I think the collective will is to not pursue any non-
consensual annexation at all, but the conversation is always helpful, because,
you know, police service is -- is a really unique component of this that some of
the larger county subdivisions may or may not appreciate the impact of having to
rely on county services. The ones that are listed where you have got signed
consent to annex already, those should be going forward I presume. Is that the
intent? I mean if the property owner has already signed saying they consent to
annex it should be relatively straight forward.
Hood: Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, again, the intent would be for
everybody on -- from staff's perspective before coming to you, our intent was
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 49 of 62
where they had -- we had something signed or if it was implied, because they are
hooked up to the service -- that they signed something reinforced that for us.
Borton: Yeah. I see a distinction there. They have signed and, then, clearly,
you know, in writing consented. The city service -- even though they are
receiving it, they are also paying for it. You know, if they are not receiving police
services absent an emergency, they are already paying for and receiving fire
service. It's whether or not use of parks and trade-off for business -- I'm not
necessarily interested in force annexing those or even applying some buried
consent annex component of our code. But the conversation at least is still
working with those individuals.
Hood: Mr. President, just full disclosure, this isn't fun for me either. I don't -- I
don't necessarily want to go after these folks either. I mean I'm the bad guy here,
right? I don't -- I don't really want to do any of this.
Borton: Mr. President? I don't think you are and what I heard you say is not here
is the plan to go an annex, it's to invite the conversation to happen, which really
what we are doing is educating county parcels about characteristics of being
adjacent to a city -- it may be in everyone's best interest that they choose to
annex into the city. That's what I heard you say.
Hood: And, Mr. President, that isn't quite what I meant to say. That's what I'm
hearing back from you all. It really is almost the reverse is the city is going to
propose to annex you and here is the benefits you will receive. I don't know if
going the other way if I can sell people on those benefits and here is the -- you
know, sign here. That's going to be a tougher sell. But we will get together and
we will talk to them about some of the benefits. I don't think that's going to tip the
scales, though, when they look at the cons on their side. But that's fine, I mean
that's -- if that's where you guys want to go -- that's why we are here is to get that
direction. We will do the best we can at developing that package, say here is the
benefits if you're annexed. Will you annex? The way we were kind of couching it
was we are going to annex you and here is the benefits you're going to receive.
You know, the additional benefits. You're already receiving some of our services
in fact, most of them. Now you -- now you get our police service, too. But if we
sell them on police service I don't know that I want to pay another -- any amount
of money to be in the City of Meridian. I'm just saying that's how the
conversation is going to probably go. But we can have -- I mean we can do the
best we can to come up with -- with that sales pitch to see if anyone is interested
in initiating that themselves.
De Weerd: Well, it seems to me -- yeah. That when you do cost benefit with the
taxing districts if they won't pay -- that they are currently paying versus city with
the rural fire district and -- it's not a huge difference to -- I mean it's been a while
since we have -- we have done this, but it wasn't a huge difference.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 50 of 62
Hood: And, Madam Mayor, we did it with Black Rock and those are pretty nice
homes up there. I don't know if you -- you have been there, but I mean it is -- so,
it's a little bit more substantial for them, but -- than most of these properties I
would think. But we can do that now. But, you're right, it's not that much, but it is
it's more. And, again, if I can still go to the park regardless why am I going to
pay any more. I can still go to the park. What is the benefit? Police is still going
to respond. So, really, what is the benefit? I mean there are some that we try to
convince them of and there are -- don't get me wrong, but it's -- is it worth paying
more in property taxes? I just don't know that you are going to find anybody that
says, yeah, let me submit an application, go through that process, so I can pay
more property taxes.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: That brings up the inverse question to the city to say what's -- in that
unique circumstance, other than the Swiss-cheese appearance, what's the
benefit to the city to initiate it in the first place?
Hood: We do get the property taxes. I mean that's the benefits to the city. But
the --
Borton: To accomplish what end, though?
Hood: In addition -- in addition to the other ones.
Borton: Madam Mayor, I think that -- that's the interesting discussion and if we
can't answer that question, the receipt of additional tax revenue merely for the
ability to receive additional tax revenue isn't --
Bird: That's not a good --
Borton: -- necessarily appealing.
Hood: No. And, Madam Mayor, if I can, I mean, again, the overarching theme
that we had as staff is -- it was one of equity. Living -- I will use Pine, just
because it was the last one we talked about. Folks on both sides of them are
annexed and have the same exact services, yet pay more -- not that much more,
but incrementally pay more for the exact same service. How is that fair to people
on either side and south of them that they get those services -- they are paying
for however much water and sewer they use, but they are not paying for that --
that service in property taxes to maintain that. So, how is that equitable for
everybody else that's around them? And that's how -- the lens we kind of looked
at it through was we are representing the other 90 some thousand people in
Meridian that are really paying -- subsidizing these people to not be in Meridian.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 51 of 62
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: And by the same argument, you know, we can make it that people
closer to the giant parks should pay more, because of their proximity to them,
where, you know, if you live on the outside border, you know, how is that fair to
them. As you go and have these conversations with people, I beg you to sell it
how you did, not -- and to avoid at all -- even the statement that, well, the city can
push you into this or -- I mean or the city has the option to do it anyway. We
want you to -- here is our -- here is the benefits, you know, to you anyway. I
really don't want anybody feeling like they are being pushed into it. More
completely invited. Until it gets to the point Council decides, okay, it's not
working and Council decides they want to start the pushing. Be, hopefully,
completely invitation until we get to that point.
Stewart: Madam Mayor? Not to sidetrack at all or anything, but I did want to
have a point of clarification. Caleb's talked about this whole list. Councilman
Borton brought up the folks that have already consented to annex and actually
signed agreements with the city. I just want to get some clarification on there.
Most of those people years ago signed a consent to annex form, because at the
time that they wanted the sewer or water service they were not contiguous with
the city. They said, yeah, we will annex as soon as we become contiguous.
They are now contiguous with the city and in some cases probably have been for
a while and we probably should have annexed them a long time ago, but haven't.
When we go to them and say, you know, you're not contiguous, you have already
signed this agreement. I bet you that there is still some of them that would rather
not be annexed, even though they have signed that agreement. So, are we okay
I guess I'm looking for some sense of what you guys want -- to go ahead and
annex them, because they have already signed an agreement saying we will
annex when we are contiguous.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: And to that point I'm on board for that. If we have something signed
saying they have agreed to that when the time came that it was an option -- my
concern is for the ones that -- that didn't -- that, again, sold us, however which
way they did, but they got hooked up, but they -- they are not in a contract to do
so and never maybe were ever told they would have to. But if they have signed
something saying, yeah, annex me once I'm eligible, because you're hooking me
up with services, then, I'm completely on board for that.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 52 of 62
Hood: And I would just like to say that's refreshing, because that's how we are --
Mary McPherson and some of those properties, that's how we are doing it is we
are getting these -- yes, we agree when we get there, we understand the city
limits aren't there, but if you give me that service I agree to be part of Meridian,
so that the city limits can keep going on. If you would have said no to that, why
are we here? You know, we are going have to be Swiss cheese forever,
because -- and if we -- and if we keep providing services to county properties
without that -- yeah. So, if that's -- kind of two different things. We will have a
separate meeting probably for the five or six property owners that have signed
consents and, again, kind of sell them to the other way, hey, you signed this --
remember you signed this, now is the time. I mean now you are contiguous. We
are going to annex you. Here is some of the other benefits you get from that
versus, hey, did you know if you annex you get these benefits. What do you
think about annexing?
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Milam: And I'm glad you guys are on top of it now and I think that this process
would be a whole lot easier if all of these had signed something somewhere
along the road. So, moving forward let's stay on that track and that will create -- I
think it will make it a lot easier for future annexations and Swiss cheese
prevention.
De Weerd: Well, the problem is -- and I think it said earlier -- is ACHD hooks
them up and it's part of the road improvement and they don't have to annex. Is
that not correct?
Stewart: Madam Mayor, that is correct. But we do have -- in those instances we
do make them sign consent to annex forms.
De Weerd: Okay.
Stewart: So, we have some parcels that are like that. At least recently in a
recent scenario where the county either eliminated their well or eliminated their
septic system and required them to hook up to city, we did, as part of that
process, go through and have everyone sign an agreement to consent to annex
when they became continuous.
De Weerd: And that practice changed once the -- the statute changed it, so the
city felt comfortable hooking people up prior to that, because the statute
supported when you get services that is implied consent.
Hood: Largely I think -- I think that's what happened, you know, back in the day.
I don't know how much ACHD even thought about that. They are like we are
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 53 of 62
taking out your septic, look, there is a water and sewer line, want us to hook you
up to that. So, I think it just sort of happened. They didn't really care the
implications to the adjacent service provider. But now we coordinate a lot more
closely with them on that to make sure, hey, we need belt and suspenders here.
Yeah, if they have implied consent because they are hooked up -- but we want
something in writing, because that's what the statute requires. So, we have got --
we have come a long way with ACHD in that -- in that regard.
Nary: Madam Mayor. To add to your point, back in 1999 there was a large scale
annexation in Boise that got a lot of press and a lot of unhappy customers that
were forced annexed based on that exact premise, that that's what the law
allowed. Once they receive services they didn't need a signed agreement. The
law changed in 2000 and it's changed a few times since then that, ultimately, now
you have to have a signed agreement. But back then you didn't. So, I don't
know how old some of these hookups are. Some are probably older than '99
even, so -- but up until then it was -- the way the law was -- was read up until
2000 you didn't need anything other than they were receiving services and so
that's why my guess is there is not a lot of signed agreements, because you
didn't need them.
Bird: I will bet some of these hookups, Madam Mayor, was a long time before Ty
was born and we were at the old sewer plant on Broadway, I will guarantee you
that.
Milam: I would like 1999. Just kidding.
De Weerd: So, on those who -- asking Council this -- to those implied consent
are those the ones that are included in as -- as agreeing to -- to move forward?
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: The problem I see is looking at the agreements that are signed, they are
2000 -- I think the newest one is 2010. I wonder how many times that house was
sold and -- I know there is -- the ones out on Pine aren't sold, they are still under
the same ownership, but some of the other places I wonder if -- but that -- but
goes with the title. It should. I don't know if it does, but --
De Weerd: Oh, God. This is murky as all get out. So, you know, staff, I
appreciate all the time and effort you put into this and I'm sorry that we asked you
to do this if there is not clear direction from this Council to do so. I -- you have
put a lot of time and effort into it. I would agree with Caleb, I would have an issue
my paying taxes for city services -- being hooked up to water and sewer if my
neighbor was and they -- they get a free pass. There is a cost to being in the city
and I think that's what they have tried to be leery of doing anything that didn't fall
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 54 of 62
within the parameters that they had to work with. Do they move forward or not?
Do we take this issue that we were asked to address -- and, again, I appreciate
our staff actually following up on a topic that was discussed with Council and the
Ada County Commissioners, instead of just thumbing our noses, so -- but it's --
I'm not going to allow our staff to thumb their nose. You guys can thumb your
noses and say, county commissioners, we don't think that cleaning up these
enclaves is our job.
Bird: Madam Mayor, I don't think we said that. I think we just --
De Weerd: You're saying that -- well, yes, if they didn't sign --
Bird: We don't want to force them. We don't want to force them.
De Weerd: If they didn't sign the agreement we shouldn't. If it's -- if the property
has changed hands.
Bird: No, we didn't say that. I just said it had -- what if they had changed.
De Weerd: You did say it.
Bird: But I don't think anybody said that we was going to force an annexation.
We wanted to go talk to them and follow through with it like we told the county
we would. I -- I think we need to get some comparisons, what --
De Weerd: On taxes?
Bird: On taxes. And I'm going to -- I will get -- I don't know what the value of the
place is, but I will get one taken care of between what -- I will get the county
taxes that he's paying now. They have got assessed this year and I will bring it
to Todd and he can figure out what in the city he would pay. I don't think there is
that much difference. Black Rock is a horse of a different color out there. But
the average ones we are talking about aren't Black Rock.
De Weerd: But we -- we went to Black Rock and we asked them to do it as well
and I don't think everyone in Black Rock was really thrilled about doing it, but
that's -- neither was Edinburgh or -- yeah. Vienna Woods.
Bird: But they all agreed to it.
De Weerd: No. Not every house did. I will tell you that the only reason they
consented is because of the written consent to even move forward with the
development and you had many of those owners that were second homeowners
and all of that. So, it -- I think that before staff puts more time into this they have
to have some clear direction and if it's bringing back what the tax differences
would be on average, we can do that. Police, you may even look at response
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 55 of 62
times to -- in particular the scenarios that you have talked about where the
response time is 20 minutes and you can say we can get there in five or four,
those are kind of some of the things I think I hear you saying we need to know
what -- what we can offer as we talk to these citizens and let them know what
they get with the annexation. Am I on track?
Milam: Madam Mayor?
Bird: I will buy it.
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Milam: If you're going to have them go through that, I think another thing to look
at would be the value of property to next door properties. My feeling would be
that the city property would be -- have a higher value. It's maybe not a ton, if
they are right next door to each other, but the city does add value to the value of
the property, so -- another pro for the --
De Weerd: What? I think I would buy the county property and get all the benefits
of being in the city without paying the city tax.
Bird: Mayor, I think she brought up a good point and I was going to bring it up
and I don't know if, Caleb, maybe you know. Do they -- does the assessor use
the same valuation on the property in the county as he does as the city?
Hood: Madam Mayor, Mr. Bird, that is my understanding.
Bird: Okay.
Hood: That they aren't looking at -- so, we have different tax code areas and
they will look at that, but they aren't going to look at -- if it's the same home and
one is in the city and one is in the county on the same property, they are going to
be assessed the same. They aren't looking at that differently. I will just -- and we
can bring this when we meet with the property owners to tell them all the
benefits. We have this calculator now. I mean along with that exercise, you
enter in assessed property value, you know your homeowners exemption -- I can
tell you how much difference it's going to be right now if you're in the city. Here is
a 200,000 property -- so this is land and -- and improvements on the property,
claiming the full homeowner's exemption, so your net taxable property value, you
pay $159.40 more to be in Meridian than you do in Ada county. So, again, you
put in 500,000 here. We are still going to max out that. We have got 405,000 --
De Weerd: Those homes are worth --
Hood: I'm just saying this -- we have got it. I have got it right here. We can do it.
Tell me how much -- what did the assessor do last year, I can type it in here.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 56 of 62
What's your homeowners exemption? I can tell you how much more that's going
to cost you to be in Meridian every year. So, we have got it already. We can use
this tool as we meet with them. This isn't going to do us any favors, because
every time it's going to be -- if it's a dollar, it's still a dollar. It's not going to be
less to be in Meridian, because you're paying our levy rate. Right now you have
no -- this -- it's going to be whatever this is times this more. And, yet, you're
right, there are some subtractions. There is some --
De Weerd: Yeah.
Hood: -- subtractions for the fire department, but that's accounted for. PETS --
PETS goes away. But the levy rate on that is so much less it doesn't offset. And
it compares with -- to the other cities, by the way, so you can -- yeah. So,
anyway -- and we have got that. We can use that if you're curious. Yeah.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Are you assuming that these people are hooked up or not hooked up?
Hood: We are only going to be --
Bird: Of the county people.
De Weerd: It doesn't matter.
Bird: Well, now wait a minute. If you have got your own septic tank and you
have got your own well, you have got expenses every year.
Hood: Absolutely. That's one of the benefits we will sell them on when we meet
with them and say, listen, we will take -- for those that only have sewer or water,
we will say reliability of service is 99.99 percent of the time for whichever service
you don't have, you know, we will provide that other than to you. Now, again,
how many -- two-thirds or more -- yeah, about two-thirds, actually, of the people
on this list are already receiving both sewer and water. So, there is nothing to
sell them on. They are receiving both benefits now.
Bird: Yeah. That's right.
Hood: One-third of them have only sewer or water. So, we can sell them on the
other -- hey, look, we can -- we can get you the other service. That's great. And
reliability. Some people say I like the taste of my water. I don't want to -- I don't
want to have your chlorinated fluorided whatever stuff. I like -- I'm just saying
that's what they are going to say. I'm just telling you -- I have got my Joe Citizen
hat on; right? So, reliability, that's something we will sell them on. I mean that's
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 57 of 62
one of the things we will bring and say, listen, flush your toilet, guaranteed to go
down. Don't have to worry about -- I mean -- yeah. And I'm sorry if this was --
we tried to simplify it as best we could to -- so, if it was confusing and scattered I
apologize for that, because I really appreciate the time that other departments
have spent with me in coming up with this proposal and we have direction here I
think to meet with these folks and at least have the dialogue.
De Weerd: Scenario one.
Hood: With everybody in scenario one, but there is kind of two subgroups in
scenario one and those are the signed consent forms, we are going to -- we are
going to --
Bird: That shouldn't even be a scenario.
Hood: We are going to -- well, we still -- we still do the right thing and we meet
with them and we say, listen, here is what's happened, remember when -- and
maybe the property is sold, but, guess what, the previous owner signed this form
and he's saying when you're eligible for annexation you agree to come in without
hemming and hawing about it. The other group is the folks that we don't have
anything on record and they worked a deal or however they got hooked up and
we will say, listen, look at these other benefits, can you help us clean up our --
you know, the city limits and you get the benefit of having police response times
and reliability of service and all of those things. We will sell them more on them
applying to annex and report that -- how those meeting go back to you and we
well figure out where we go from there.
Basterrechea: Everyone wants to be number one, so --
Hood: Exactly. Welcome to our team. You can help us develop the pros or
when we meet with --
De Weerd: You can go with them, Tracy.
Hood: Scott, you have been replace. Sorry.
De Weerd: Okay. Anything further on this item? Thank you. We appreciate the
time and thought you put into this.
F. Legal Department Report: Alcohol Catering Permit
Ordinance Follow-up -Stakeholder Input and Draft
Ordinance
De Weerd: Okay. Item 6-F is under our Legal Department.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 58 of 62
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I will try to make this less than an
hour and a half. On August 23rd we came to you with a new alcohol permitting
ordinance, because of some state law changes that went into effect July 1st.
One that was the most critical change or different from that was having a process
in ordinance. Before we just had a process that existed and there is a -- we
recommended a time limit in which to apply prior. The direction was to reach out
to our vendors that use those. So, the clerk's office took that and sent it out to 28
different vendors that have applied for liquor catering permits in the last year to
two just to -- and all of them said thank you for letting us know and they were
fine. So, there was no push back, there was no negative response, there was
nothing. So, if you're comfortable with it I put it on the agenda, you could
approve it tonight. If you still want some time to think about it we can always
move it to another day.
De Weerd: Council?
Borton: No problem here.
De Weerd: Well, you were given two choices. You can put it off to another
agenda so it's posted appropriately --
Nary: It is posted. It's 7-A.
De Weerd: Oh, it's on the next one.
Nary: Yes.
Item 7: Ordinances
A. Ordinance No. 16-1705: Ordinance to Establish Alcohol
Catering Permit Process
De Weerd: So, I will go to Item 7-A and ask Mrs. Holman to, please, read this by
title.
Holman: Thank you, Madam Mayor. City of Meridian Ordinance No. 16-1705,
an ordinance amending Meridian City Code Section 3-2-6 regarding City of
Meridian alcohol beverage catering permit, renumbering Meridian City Code
Sections 3-2-6 and 3-2-7, adopting a savings clause and providing an effective
date.
De Weerd: Council -- I don't think Colin wants to hear it read in its entirety, so --
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 59 of 62
Milam: I move that we approve Ordinance No. 16-1705 with suspension of rules.
Bird: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 7-A. Mrs. Holman, will
you call roll.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
B. Ordinance No. 16-1706: An Ordinance (Ashley Manor H-
2016-0043) of the City of Meridian Granting Annexation
and Zoning for a Parcel of Land That is a Portion of Lot
10 of Crestwood Subdivision No. 1 as Shown on the
Official Plat thereof on File in Block 28 of Plats at Page
1157-1158 in the Office of the Recorder for Ada County,
Idaho, lying in the NW ¼ of Section 31, Township 4
North, Range 1 East, Boise, Ada County, Idaho; and
Adjacent and Contiguous to the Corporate Limits of
the City of Meridian as Requested by the City of
Meridian, Establishing and Determining the
Land Use Designation from RUT to L-O (Limited
Office) District in the Meridian City Code; and Providing
that Copies of this Ordinance shall be Filed with the
Ada County Assessor, the Ada County Recorder, and
the Idaho State Tax Commission, as Required by
Law; and Providing for a Summary of the Ordinance; and
Providing for An Effective Date
De Weerd: Item 7-B is Ordinance 16-1706. Madam --
Holman: Thank you, Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Sorry, I didn't mean madam. Madam Holman, will you call -- will you,
please, read this by title.
Holman: City of Meridian Ordinance No. 16-1706, an ordinance H-2016-0043 for
annexation and rezone of a parcel of land that is a portion of Lot 10 of Crestwood
Subdivision No. 1 as shown on the official plat thereof on file in Book 28 of Plats
at page 1156 to 1158 in the office of the Recorder, Ada county, Idaho, lying in the
northeast one quarter of Section 31, Township 4 North, Range 1 East, Boise
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 60 of 62
meridian, Ada county, Idaho, as described in Attachment A and annexing certain
lands and territory situated in Ada county, Idaho, and adjacent and contiguous to
the corporate limits of the City of Meridian, as requested by the City of Meridian,
establishing and determining the land use zoning classification of said lands from
RUT to L-O, Limited Office District, in the Meridian City Code, providing that
copies of this ordinance shall be filed with the Ada county Assessor, the Ada
county Recorder and the Idaho State Tax Commission as required by law and
providing for a summary of the ordinance and providing for a waiver of the
reading rules and providing an effective date.
De Weerd: Council?
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Milam: I move that we approve Ordinance No. 16-1706 with suspension of rules.
Bird: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 7-B. Mrs. Holman, will
you call roll.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 8: Amended onto Agenda: Executive Session 74-206A (1)(a) A
Governing Body or its Designated Representatives May Hold
an Executive Session for the Specific Purpose of: (a) Considering
a Labor Contract Offer or to Formulate a Counteroffer
De Weerd: Item 8 is Executive Session.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we go into Executive Session as per Idaho State Code 74-206(a)
and 1(a).
Borton: Second.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 61 of 62
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adjourn into Executive Session.
Mrs. Holman, will you call roll.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
EXECUTIVE SESSIONS: (6:02 p.m. to 7:09 p.m.)
Bird: Madam Mayor, I move we --
Milam: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to come out of Executive Session. All
those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Bird: I move we adjourn.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird, hold on. I do have on your upcoming events, so you are
kept informed, you have the parks tour tomorrow. Meridian Business Day is
Friday. It's from 7:45 to noon. I will tell you that if you come to City Hall you have
to park in either of the two employee parking lots, otherwise, parking will be
pretty strained, unless you're only here for a couple minutes, then, you can park
out on Broadway. Just know we will be enforcing time limits on Broadway
between Meridian and Main, so that the bank and our citizens have an
opportunity for a place to park. But there has been arrangements with Harvest
Church, with New Ventures Lab and someone else to -- where? Oh, the
Meridian Food Bank. And so, anyway, they will be parking in the front parking
lot. We are asking everyone not to park there, so that the attendees can. Park in
the Meridian or employee thing. Mountain View versus Rocky, the game on
Friday night at 7:00 o'clock. The Meridian Youth Farmers Market on Saturday.
The community block party is also coming up on Saturday, the 17th, from 10:00
a.m. to 5:00. The Recovery Day breakfast, Tuesday, the 20th, at the Police
Department from 8:00 to 9:00. So, with that I would entertain a motion to
adjourn.
Bird: So moved.
Cavener: Second.
De Weerd: All those in favor say aye. All ayes.
Meridian City Council Workshop
September 13, 2016
Page 62 of 62
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:11 P.M.
AUDIO REC6RDING ON LE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
r,
Kei-r the d, 6,o0N6,,(.
ATTEST:
A*,-A`T-IPd CITY CLERK
C -' t
DATE APPROVED
PtED AVG`
Sp
r Cily of
E IDIANI.--
IOAHO
SEAL 4,/