Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004 07-27 PreCITY OF MERIDIAN PRE -COUNCIL MEETING AGENDA Tuesday, July 27, 2004 at 6:00 p.m. City Council Chambers Roll -call Attendance: X Shaun Wardle O Bill Nary X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird X Mayor Tammy de Weerd 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Approve 3. University of Phoenix Presentation on Economic Development Study: Presented (*45 minutes) 4. Discussion of Resolution for Investment Policy: Place on August 3, 2004 Consent Agenda 5. Finance Third Quarter Report: Presented 6. Discussion of Request for Funds for Pedestrian and Bicycle Facility Data Collection Project: Include in FY04 amended budget *Approximate allowable time set for agenda item may change depending on discussion. Please use the designated minutes as a guideline only. Meridian City Pre -Council Agenda — July20, 2004 Page 1 of 1 All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian. Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearings please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours pdor to the public meeting. Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 The Meridian City Pre -Council meeting was called to order at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, July 27, 2004 by Councilman Bird. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Shaun Wardle and Charlie Rountree. Others Present: Anna Powell, Bill Nichols, William Musser, Dean Willis and Will Berg, Cheryl Brown. Item 1. Roll -call Attendance: O Bill Nary X Keith Bird X Shaun Wardle X Charlie Rountree X Mayor Tammy de Weerd Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Bird: Do I have a motion? Rountree: So moved. Wardle: Second. Bird: Okay, it's been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as published. All in favor say aye. ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. Item 3. University of Phoenix Presentation on Economic Development Study: Bird: Mayor, I think you want to introduce this one. De Weerd: Thank you, Councilman Bird. I appreciate the opportunity to introduce the presentation we are about to hear. This is a partnership that we formed with the University of Phoenix, Meridian Campus. Sorry, Juliet, I know it's the Idaho Campus, but I really like the Meridian Campus better. You are just lucky it didn't say University of Meridian. This is a wonderful beginning of a relationship with the University and there are students and faculty members and truly, I think you will see a very fruitful and beneficial relationship as well. I talked with Julie Johnson who is the Vice President of the Meridian Campus and she said if you have any ideas of how we could partner and, of course, I did. She actually led me to Stuart and he came and met with me and I told him my wild idea and surprisingly enough he was very excited about it and took the ball and Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 2 of 22 ran. I understand he had a wonderful group of students to really hand this project over to Eric Wallentine. I believe most of you here on the Council know Eric. He was the project leader and I guess you are here to hear their presentation, not mine because I could probably present it for them, but I appreciate Stuart, you and your class, Eric and your team being here with us tonight and if you will introduce your team and I'll just turn things over to you. Wallentine: Before we begin I would like to give each of you a copy of the presentation and the report. Mayor De Weerd and City Council I 'd like to thank you for the opportunity to not only present tonight, but also to get into this interesting topic of our city government and learn more about the city, learn more about the business and how it interacts with the city and the different topics that we have been able to run across it. It's been a grueling six weeks, but that's the way to learn is to really get yourself absorbed into something like this and hit it hard. So, I appreciate the opportunity. I'd like to go ahead and start the plan with an introduction of our team members. My name is Eric Wallentine as Mayor De Weerd mentioned. We have Stephanie Standley, we have Don Currie, we have Tom Stratton, (inaudible name) and Callie (last name ?) and then we have our instructor, Stuart Gustesson. We also have Daniel Arhona who is on a plane right now, so he wasn't able to make it tonight, who was also a very big help. I'd like to start off first by talking a little bit about what we did at the beginning. As we start with our research plan and that was we were going to take a look at Meridian's overall vision and then the economic development plan's mission and then look at Meridian's identity and what it is or what we wanted it to be or what the city wanted it to be and then look at Meridian's primary goals, which is to attract, retain and expand businesses within the city. Then what are the next steps, you know, where do we take the plan from here? Meridian's vision is Meridian is a vibrant community at the center of the Treasure Valley dedicated to embrace in it's heritage and provide a high quality of life, where it's citizens can live, work and raise a family. The economic development plan mission was to develop and maintain an environment that has a competitive edge to attract and maintain diverse and high quality businesses. The reason we wanted to address these vision and the mission first of all was because as we went through the goals we wanted to make sure that the things that we came up with supported your — the city's vision and the economic development plan's mission and that's the purpose of having these missions and visions as so we can — it keeps us focused on the goal. The next area we wanted to look at was Meridian's identity. I mean, some of the materials that Mayor De Weerd provided us gave a definition of what the media thought Meridian's identity was so they made their own definition and that was the typical age — or at least from their perception is 34 to 44 years old. Meridian residents shop at Winco, Target, sporting good stores, do business at credit unions or craftsman, foreman, clerical and homemakers. We belong to HMO's. We have young kids at home, typically in the ages of three to five and we shop online. So, if you ask an outside entity or the media this is what their perception was of Meridian. Now, according to research that we did, the reports we read and some of the surveys we performed, we got a little bit Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 3 of 22 different picture and that was that first of all, statistically, if you compare Meridian's or the residents of Meridian's income verses their housing prices, their income was a little higher than the other areas in the city — actually the highest out of all the surrounding cities. That's significant because it just tells you that the residents of Meridian are spending less of their income on their housing and more on other things, which bodes well for businesses in the city. The other thing is and I don't think we have to tell the City Council this, but the explosive growth is another thing that was huge in Meridian's identity and this explosive growth can often shape the identity of the city if it's just left to itself to do. The next thing is the citizen age profile. As you will notice, we have a hole in the 18 and 24 year olds and the 65 and up age. One explanation for the 18 to 24 year olds is they leave and they go to college and universities and I did not quite at 18, but close to that area and my problem was I didn't finish when I was 24. Took me a little longer. The 65 and up age, this could be due to the residents that live here, staying here and then we have the explosive growth, probably would be more likely in the 24 to 44 age range and then it appears from the numbers that they are bringing their children that are under 18 with them. Another attribute of the Meridian City is it has the largest families in the Treasure Valley. It was almost three people per family or per household, which was higher than the other cities nearby. Another linked statistic was that by household we had the most families in the Treasure Valley, which was fifty percent and then last we had the second highest income in the Treasure Valley second only to Eagle. So, the question is first of all why did we look at the media's identity and the statistical identity as you could call it and that is because we have three options the way we saw it and one of them is to let the media to define who we are as a city. The option two was to let it define itself and option three was to create an identity and then promote that. So, our question is what do you suggest? The thought that we come up with is that we want to create an identity as a city and then promote that. So, after doing some brainstorming, this is something that we came up with and this would be a suggestion. So, let me explain a little bit of this and that was Meridian would be the gem of Idaho and the heart of the Treasure Valley. The significance of this statement is the word "gem" implies that it's an unspoiled jewel or gem. It's also in the gem state, so it ties in two ways and then in the heart of the Treasure Valley, not only is Meridian could it be perceived as the pulse of the Treasure Valley, but it's also the center and it also captures the feeling of what Meridian is really all about. Having lived here since 1971 with a short absence in there, that's one thing that Meridian can be really well known for is how friendly the people are here. It's nice to be able to go — I mean, if you have got to go to a nearby city like Boise to get something that isn't offered here, it's nice to come home and feel the warmth of the city. So, the next area we looked at was Meridian's goals. As I mentioned before, we had to attract new businesses, retain businesses and once we have got the businesses we want to be able to help them and work back and forth to help them expand and then retain them once they have expanded. The only problem with this was as we went to do the research we ran into a barrier and that barrier was that we needed the information and now I am going to turn the time over to Stephanie Standley Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 4 of 22 and she is going to talk a little bit about the information that we looked into and some of the barriers that we ran into and some of the solutions that we came up with to deal with that. Standley: Good evening. Thank you for allowing us to come here as Eric had said. I am going to cover some of the information that we found that we needed and the reasons why we felt that you needed this information. One of the first barriers that we ran into is that we looked at it and we said we need a list of active businesses that are in the Meridian area and we need to know that because we needed to know who our customers are. So, we went — our first thought was we would go to the Chamber of Commerce and we found that the Chamber of Commerce only has a listing of about 500 businesses. Well, logically, that says that isn't a complete listing of all your businesses. So, we went to the Questdex online, which has about 3,000 businesses and we used that compilation for our needs for our project. What we later found for a very minimal fee is that the Idaho Secretary of State does have a complete listing of businesses for Meridian that have still current permits to do business so they are all still functioning and still running and that has 14,000 businesses. It's (inaudible) to say though that this also includes the Avon mom who does business out of her home or the discovery toys to the large corporations so it encompasses all those businesses. The other thing that we found that once you know your businesses that you have all 14,000 of these the next step is to understand these businesses. You need to have a comprehensive survey to go out and find out what these businesses require from you as a city. What are their needs? What do they want from you? What do they expect from you? Do they know you? One possibility of this, we got some more information from the Mayor and there was a small — an outline of a business outreach survey that was already started in there that was kind of our jumping point to do a 12 -question survey of our own. What we found from our survey was that 89 percent of the businesses in Meridian felt that this was the right place to be doing business. So, that is great. So, you have almost 90 percent of your businesses that are doing here that we talked to said that this is the place that they want to be. Of those businesses we surveyed 32 percent of them came here because of the growth. They wanted to be here because of it's explosive growth, it's vibrant, it's growing and it has lots of potential. Twenty-eight percent of those businesses said they were here because of location. Location either based on being in the heart of the Treasure Valley and easy access ability to other cities, freeway, rail, whatever it may be. However, we did find some more information that we thought that needed to be pointed out. The businesses that we talked to, we spoke to them and said what is your perception of Meridian? The City Council? The City Government of Meridian? Fifty-six percent of them said it was positive. So, that is great. However, 37 percent of them said it was negative. We took negative as that they either said that they didn't know any services that you had to offer or that who to contact for certain things or that you were there for businesses. They kind of just felt like they were just there on their own. Six percent of them were neutral; didn't care if you were here or weren't here, so that's okay. We also in Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 5 of 22 our survey we asked them what we thought that they believed that could improve their businesses or what the City of Meridian could do to help them improve their business. You'll notice over here the first thing that stands out is the 37.5 percent of other and we all have done statistics and know that "other" is bad because you have no idea what is in 'other'. This just solidifies the idea that you need to have a good comprehensive survey when you do take the resources to do this because you want to know what that other is. We broke down what we could in our survey in the amount of time that we had that 15 percent said that what the City of Meridian could do to help them was to promote Meridian businesses; promote and help activities that are in the community from kind of like the Buy Idaho and it was more promote come and spend your money here, come and see what we are about, come and support the local businesses. The other 15 percent was government services. They would like support. They would like to know who you are. They would like to know what services you offer. They would like to know what services they have that are already available to them. They would like to know that they have a voice and a face to a name. The other 12 percent is for parking and traffic and we'd like to point out that that's mainly from the downtown businesses, where they felt that improving the parking and the traffic area would help their businesses. What we also looked at as being non -building or non -business owners, but said you know would we look at if we went and we wanted to build in Meridian as a new business or in the Boise area. We looked at the building process. We went and we talked to an architectural firm that does business in Boise and in Meridian and then we also went and talked to the Planning and Zoning Commission of Boise and Meridian and then we also talked to the Building Department of Meridian. So, we got our facts and everybody supported everybody's data and as you can see, there seems to be a discrepancy here; however, in Boise it looks like they are more streamlined than Meridian. However, when we got more talking to these people, there is an actual of a possibility of a two-month design approval process in Boise. So, if you add that on top of there, the timelines come out a little more even. What we thought was interesting about this is that unless you are savvy and you know that information, you'd think that it's easier to go build in Boise and not Meridian. So, we thought it was important to point out that Meridian should really kind of know their competition if they are fighting for businesses, they should know what the other cities are doing so that they could really make sure that business entities are comparing apples to apples when they are looking at their design process and their permit process. The other thing that we thought was worthwhile pointing out was two of your successes and to learn from these successes. One was that Meridian came in and helped streamline the process for Citigroup, which meant 3,200 jobs to your area. What's great about this process, about this example is that Citigroup was so impressed with this that they are talking about possibly whaling their new project in Kentucky and looking at Meridian from that next phase of building, which would bring an additional 3,000 jobs to the area. So, that's something to be really proud of that you were able to do such a great job there. The other thing that we thought was great on the other side of not being a new business was that Meridian got in and helped Louisiana Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 6 of 22 Pacific expand and stay in the area. They went in there and helped them with the permits, for the infrastructure and helped them realize that you don't need to go anywhere else. Meridian has what you need to offer. What we wanted to look at this is what lessons did we learn here and can those lessons that we learned that we did for these two very high profile people, can it be standardized and can it be brought to any business that is coming into or any size of business. But, that would help if you standardized it, we all know that when we get in there and we help we do something special. It usually takes more resources, you are always putting something on the backburner. If you make it standardized, it's something that you can be useful for all businesses that are coming here and it helps you in your time. The other thing that we looked at was the website. In the day of technology everybody has got a website and they range in all quality and content. What we wanted to look at is that how if someone that is coming into Meridian, what would they see? A lot of times, especially if you are attracting new business this is going to be your first impression to new residents and it is going to be your first impression to new businesses. It also can be a great resource for existing businesses. What we thought were some main ideas that we wanted to look at here was that the website should be optimized and maintained and what we mean by that is that they website should be looked at should be usable by all people, no matter what kind of connection they have, whether it's the dial up for the contractor that is starting out of their home or to the cable for the DSL for the large corporations. It should be easy for everybody. The other part is to view the website as a living document, as a living entity, that it's forever changing. It's changing just as City Council changes, just as the city changes and dates change, events change and so should this website. It shouldn't be done and walked away from and thought that it's a done task and check it off and move on to something else. It's something that needs to be maintained and should be something that is reflective of what's really going on with you guys. An example of that is maintain a current events calendar. It's pretty easy, but someone has to be responsible for it to go in there, just shows and bodes well for the city that you are saying come and visit us, we want you to know this information it is important to us. The other thing we thought would be really great would be to have how to open a business tab on the website. When we talk to the Chamber of Commerce or the Planning and Zoning Commission, we got a lot of different answers of what we needed to do, where you needed to go, who you needed to talk to, the process. It was a little discouraging, a little overwhelming for us and maybe it's because we had so much else going on, but we thought it would be really great and probably would save some people some time as well if you had all the processes they needed to do, all the people they needed to contact, maybe some timelines on there and what they expect. Don't expect this to get turned around in a week, it takes a couple more days than that, but it would help them. The other thing we thought would have been great is to have maybe some links on there so they could fill out any applications they needed to do online, submit it electronically or have the forms on there in a PDF format so they can print them out, fill them out at home, and mail them in. The other option is that the State of Idaho has a link on their website that is called Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 7 of 22 Biznet. This has all that information on there, so even to do a shortcut way you just put a link on your site to go on their link and it's all there. The other thing was to have "are you moving to Meridian" tab? You have a lot of growth going on and you probably have a lot of questions coming into your offices about probably pretty frequently asked questions, have it on there. Have those questions answered for those people right away. Have it on there what you think is great. Have a link to the Chamber of Commerce. Give them some ideas of why they want to be moving here and the things that you have to offer. The other thought that we had on here was to implement an automatic permit and application process. This was something that we wanted to just kind of maybe get everybody thinking outside of the box a little bit and it was an example we looked at was with the State of Idaho offers a book of permits and you have this book of permits and it has all the permits that you wanted with already a permit number on it. It's not done via website, but it's done over the phone. If I wanted to have this permit activated, I'd call a number. I'd put in the permit number. I'd tell them the information and as soon as that phone call was over with that permit was activated and the process was done. So, it doesn't necessarily have to be over the phone, but that just gets you thinking of some ideas that can be automated and that can be done via the website and maybe free up some other people within the City Council. The next thing that we looked at was the tax base. You should know where your money is coming from. You should know where this is coming from and the first part that we allot into is that we wanted to know what's the property tax mix? What's coming from residential and what's coming from commercial? We still did not find this information. So, it was something we thought was important to know, you know, where are your dollars coming from? The other part was is that once you find this out, what's the best mix? Is there a healthy mix? There probably is for Meridian. Can you kind of steal some ideas from some other cities that are like Meridian? Probably. Again, no sense in reinventing the wheel. Then, once you find that best balance, does Meridian's Planning and Zoning effort support that right balance? It could be. It might need some changing, but at least you would be for sure that you are actually supporting the information that you brought in. So, the next steps that we thought that we would want to do is that after doing your supporting tasks and you'll notice in the back of your presentation the pamphlet that was given to you, at the back of the slides there is actually some goals, some objectives and some tasks to do, some action items that will help support doing these supporting tasks as well as your primary goal. But, the spirit behind that is to do your business listings. You need to know who your customers are. Do the surveys. Find out what your customers want. Give them the information in an easily available format on the website. Keep it current. Keep it moving and keep it vibrant. Understand your tax base. Understand where you make your money. Do I make it more from residence then I need to probably go in one direction. If I make it more from businesses, I probably need to go into another direction. After that information is done and you have good foundation to start moving forward, you can go back to your main goals of attracting, retaining and expanding in your mission and your vision. This is where we wanted to start. We wanted to do how Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 8 of 22 do we attract, retain, expand your businesses, but as we got into it, we thought darn there is other stuff that we have got to do first before we can move forward. So, that's why we wanted to do this presentation and have you understand why we gave you that information and why we wanted to go forward. If there is any feedback the rest of the team is here or any questions time allowing, we'd be happy to answer any of them for you. Thank you for your time. Bird: Thank you. Council, any questions for the team? De Weerd: Council, I told them that you were going to grill them, so — (Inaudible speaker). Bird: You have to go into the mic, Stacy Kilchenmann: We can tell you what our tax base mix is. We can get that information from Ada County. I don't know if you called the Accounting Department, I am the Finance Director. But, if you call me I can give you that information. Standley: When we were doing our dry run for this presentation, we knew that someone would say that. We knew someone knew. But our thought was it's not — it didn't seem like the people that would logically have the information had it, so that's why we thought it was worthwhile. You know, it's kind of the same thing in any growing company, communication is always trying to get the right information and the right peoples; it seems to always be so difficult, but we knew someone knew. We just didn't know. Bird: If nobody else had a question I have one for Eric. Eric on the perception and support from the businesses, we have 37.5 percent negative. Was it any style of business that stood out that way that was — I mean was it all like a retail or industrial, manufacturing or was it intermingled? Wallentine: I would say it was intermingled, but I am also going to defer that to the whole team because they are actually the ones that did the surveys, but — is that a fair assessment? (Inaudible speaker ------) Wallentine: I just want to re-emphasize on that part, what Tom just said was that it was across the board. But, on that point they also — they weren't necessarily violently against the government, but what the comment that we saw a lot was I don't know do they do something for me? You know, that was rated more on the negative side than the positive or the neutral. But, I mean it was also just what do they do for me? It's like well if you don't know what's available to you — Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 9 of 22 Bird: It basically was a question of not knowing? Wallentine: Exactly. Bird: Okay. I hope we have taken care of some of that by hiring an economic consultant that we have hired that will help on that. I thought that was odd, I didn't think it was really negative it was just a question of not knowing what was here. Wallentine: Right. Bird: Hopefully we get that message out. Any questions? Wardle: Mr. Vice President. Bird: Mr. Wardle. Wardle: First I'd like to thank the group for their excellent presentation. Very thorough. It raises in mind a couple of questions and one of those is that in the identity phase of this we see that obviously we have a large percentage of families and then we have a large percentage of adults within that age bracket. The six percent age 18 to 24 kind of surprised me. I wonder what the effects of affordable housing have on that individual population and so while I know this is a final project for you, just a couple — maybe Julie, some follow up kind of things from maybe another group. My next question is within the tax base structure and our percentage of residential verses commercial the city does have a comprehensive plan and I would wonder how close we are coming to achieving some of those kinds of things and so taking our tax base and the information you gathered and melding that with our comprehensive plan and finding out what kind of goals that we have achieved. Wallentine: Let me just add something to that real quick. Another thing that we looked at that is in the report, but wasn't in the presentation was that the average house price in Meridian is about $160,000. You just brought in a company where the average salary from my understanding is about $32,000 a year. When you look at those two they don't quite match up. That's a good point that you brought up is do you have — I mean if you are going to have more 18 to 24 year olds here taking those positions at this new company or in all the new companies that come in, can they support — you know, can they continue to live here? Which goes along with the mission that you have set out. De Weerd: Mr. President. Bird: Madame Mayor. Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 10 of 22 De Weerd: I appreciate that and we have done a little bit in terms of the six percent in that 18 to 24. A lot of it is we haven't had apartments. Our rental market has been pretty low until the last couple of years and so we imagined that that should pick up on some of that population. Some of it is like you said they are going to college and do move back in. We have seen over the last couple of years, too, more affordable houses that will appeal to the first time homebuilders and so we are building that diversity and leveling the balance that we have in housing choices. I think we still have a little ways to go in those terms. But, those are all influences and we didn't really have the job market here to really keep those people that are in the rental area really to stay in town, so they moved into Nampa or Boise because that's where rentals were available and they were closer to their jobs. So, we would anticipate to start seeing some of that build back up in addition to our senior community as well. With some of our senior living communities that have been added, we should start seeing a little bit of a balance, but I will tell you what that when I went door to door, it was amazing the phase of Meridian is exactly the demographics that you show. Our senior community that are really moving here because their kids are here and they want to be closer to their grandchildren and just that family unit. It's interesting the demographics continue to support a lot of that. I (inaudible----) wanted to copy to Council and that was Matt's report. Matt our summer intern has been working on a business list. In fact, your statement about the quest yellow pages really helped him and I think he has been working diligently. That was his summer project is creating that business list. So, it should save in helping to identify who our business community is and moving to a certain direction on that. Our website will be launched in two weeks and so we have had a group of web developers helping give that a face-lift. We well recognize that that is a real sore spot I think for all of us sitting up here that it is outdated. I challenge — I was the speaker this morning at 7:00 a.m. and I usually don't speak at 7:00 a.m., but I actually managed this morning. I challenge them to find a certain element on our website. Knowing that they are not going to find it until we launch our new one, so it was a real safe bet. But, I would like to take an opportunity to have Cheryl Brown stand up, she is our new Economic Development Coordinator and you have given her a great start in being able to take off on this position and I think she even has a response, knowing Cheryl, she does. But, as Keith said we will give you a couple of weeks, Cheryl and then you have to have this done. Bird: Cheryl, we do want a quarterly report like this every quarter. Brown: Keith, I have no problem with that. I just wanted to kind of address what I have been working on, on day four. I have only been here for four days and I have got quite a list, though and I have been working with Eric a little bit and making up some other contacts with some other people. I am working on an economic development section for the website, just addressing economic development with everything that they suggested on there, I completely agree. I am working also with the Chamber of Commerce right now on a new brochure to go in the packets to send out for inquiries for businesses. I am working on a Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 11 of 22 developer's list to help this department generate funding for the economic development for the City of Meridian because I would like to find some outside sources for funding for this department because I see it benefiting the developers as well as the city. I have also been working with two projects going on also. One of them finally coming to an end last week with the ribbon cutting and the release of their CUP. Yeah, thanks, Anna. We are working on the business list for Meridian. Eric just sent me over another list and it's got the 14,000 businesses on there that we are trying to weed through, but I would like to take that even farther and break it down to how many construction companies are in Meridian? How many retailers are in Meridian? How many technical companies are here? So when the phone calls come in I can say well we have got these other businesses here in town that will help support your business. So, they can kind of feed off of each other as well. I am meeting with Anna and Daunt and I have talked to Brad and we are meeting the end of this week to go over streamlining the improvement process with the applicants. I have made some connections with BSU West Campus and working on getting them and hopefully the University of Phoenix again to do other statistics findings and connectivity for the City of Meridian. I have a meeting with a couple of other businesses in town to see what we need and kind of whether they would like to go and what is going to help them to expand on their businesses as well. I will be at the Idaho Economic Development Association all day Thursday with the other cities in Idaho and other agencies. De Weerd: Mr. Vice President. Bird: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I don't think that you have done enough in your first four days, but it is a good start. I do believe that the work done by this team has been a great catalyst for jump-starting even the efforts that Cheryl will be undertaking. I know after we met with Stuart and Eric with the original findings, it really helped him in setting a direction for Cheryl to really hit the ground running. Brown: Tremendous. De Weerd: Your work is phenomenal and I appreciate that. Yes, I too, thought that yeah they will just start right into that attract, retain and you guys did good work to be able to identify the areas that first need to be focused on before you can really attack a real strong effort. We appreciate your efforts and you do a great job. Thank you, very much. Wallentine: Very quickly, we would like to give Cheryl the unabridged version. Brown: Oh, my gosh, I don't want it. Wallentine: Well then you will have to get one of them to trade. Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 12 of 22 Bird: Anybody else got anything, if not I can't thank you guys enough for what you have done for this, Eric. I think that this team has really put forth an effort that will help us get started in the right foot and we just appreciate the work you've done for the City of Meridian and we can't thank you enough and I think Anna has got something to say. Canning: Yeah, just one of the presentation points was the right balance between commercial and residential and one would think that is rather (inaudible) thing, unfortunately it isn't and it would make a great follow up project for the next class because it is very specific to the taxing structure, to the services that are provided, the growth rate, the level of service desired by the community and it would make a fantastic follow up project and something I have been hoping we could get at some point. Go team, go. Johnson: Mr. Vice President. Bird: Yes. Johnson: My name is Julie Johnson and I just wanted to make an offer on behalf of the University that we will help in whatever way we can with any continued projects and also appreciate the work of these students. They have put in a tremendous amount of time and additional effort on this project in addition to the faculty members and the Mayor and we appreciate that. So, we are here to help and we are very proud to be a business member in Meridian and look forward to a long relationship. Thank you for this opportunity. Wardle: Mr. Vice President. Bird: Mr. Wardle. Wardle: If I could just make a quick comment to Julie's comment. If we can expect a well thought out presentation and a thorough report such as this group has put together then I would welcome any other project that we could work on together. Bird: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Thank you. I, too, want to offer my thanks to the students and the University for this effort. It's 40 more pages that I add to my reading list. I have no specific questions about what you produced other than I like some of the ideas that you brought forth in your presentation and it sounds like we have taken action on a couple of them already. That's a good thing and hopefully we can get in depth in what your words are and get Cheryl to either refine or pull out all of the high spots of that three-inch binder and get to the Council and the Mayor for our consideration. But, I thank you for your efforts. I wish you well on your Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 13 of 22 endeavors and your studies and hopefully this is your last project and for some of you if it is, I wish you well out in the real world and wealth and finding a job and those sorts of things. If we have future questions on this particular study or plan, my question is whom do we direct those to? Would it be Stuart or Julie or Wade? De Weerd: Looks like Wade is the man. Bird: He is volunteering. Rountree: Well, I will take that as an indication, but again thank you. De Weerd: Mr. Vice President. Bird: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I just wanted to say a word of thanks to Stuart. He gave — I think, the student team a great deal of leeway to really take this the direction they felt most appropriate and that's a great leadership quality because we got a great project and great results out of that so I appreciate the leadership in this and certainly, Eric, your leadership it was a big bite that you took out of this project and I appreciate that realizing these are professionals who work all day and go to school at night. We gave them a second full-time job on this project, didn't we? Again, we appreciate that. Thank you Mr. Vice President. Item 4. Discussion of Resolution for Investment Policy: Bird: Is that you, Stacy? Actually, we could even do Item No. 5 at the same time, the Financial third quarter report. Kilchenmann: For the investment policy this is a fairly short, straight forward policy that is similar to most government agencies that the Mayor felt like was on my list of policies and she wanted to get that done and written and through. I believe Tara said she included that Bill has reviewed it and Bill has reviewed it and neither one of them gave me any comments, so I assume it's okay and I think it was on your CD? So, does anyone have any questions about it? I know it's riveting reading. Bird: When was it on our CD? Kilchenmann: She said she put it on there Friday. Bird: Is it on today? Berg: Yeah. Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 14 of 22 Bird: Oh, I am on the — De Weerd: It was on your CD that was attached to your agenda. Bird: It wasn't on the web? Wardle: It's on the web. It's on the Pre -Council. Okay. De Weerd: I read it, Stacy, it looks fine. It was real interesting. You have to have a passion for that. Bird: Council, what would you like to do? Should we push it on forward to — Berg: Make a comment? Bird: I beg your pardon, Will? Berg: Mr. Vice President. I just want to make a point that it refers to several other documents that are standard things that just highlights that we need to follow those and looking at some of those, it's really interesting reading, so I am sure as it says in the State Code we need to do that, then we need to do that. I kind of looked through some of those things and it was real interesting and thank you Stacy. Bird: Okay, Council, what is your pleasure? Shall we move it on to a regular agenda? Rountree: Yes. Bird: As consent agenda as a resolution? Rountree: That would be my preference. Bird: Okay, Shaun, same with you? Wardle: Yes it would. Bird: Do you need a motion? Rountree: No. Bird: Mr. Clerk, will you see that it gets on the consent agenda? Item 5. Finance Third Quarter Report: Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 15 of 22 Kilchenmann: Okay, for the third quarter everything — what I mainly am going to talk about is the budget amendment. We just barely finished it before I set it in front of you. Just quickly on the Financial Statements doing the revenue analysis for the general fund, I am showing right now with projections that we will come in $19,000 short, but which in the millions of dollars, that's you know pretty good. I think I am low on property tax. I think our property tax actually will be a little higher. So, there is a possibility we could even come in as much as a $100,000 over in our revenue. Some of that revenue is in Parks and Recreation and they are not quite making their revenue, but they are not quite spending their expenses either, so overall, I think, everything is going to be fine. (Inaudible) is not increasing, so that's one of our weak areas and the franchise fees are a little lower than they have been in some of the past years. Rountree: Is there any reason for that? Kilchenmann: Well, one of them is the weather, I think because we have had some warmer winters. Then they anticipated some rate increases that they didn't get and another thing that our Treasurer is going to look at and make sure that the they are getting the right households that should be in the city limits to make sure that they are not missing — you know, we don't know how they update their data, so that's the next thing she is going to work on now that she finished the property tax audit. But, she does call them quarterly and she gets estimates and De Weerd: Mr. Vice President. Bird: Madame Mayor De Weerd: I forwarded you an email that talked about the audit she did do, Janice, and she did find a pretty significant piece of revenue and now she will look at not just homes, but I think annexations — property annexations. Kilchenmann: Yes, she is going to do that one next. But, that won't take her anywhere near as long as the other one and then she can do the franchise. De Weerd: Just to note that in our growth funds with the park impact fees and in the building's special service's funds we have tripled anything that was anticipated, so those funds are doing well that can lend toward capital expenditures. Kilchenmann: Thankfully because property taxes are not going to increase no matter how much we grow. So, if you want to look at the budget amendment, I tried — in the accounting system this is actually pages and pages long because it's broken into each department and each an account code, so I tried to summarize it to give you a picture of what it will look like and we haven't quite balanced the general fund, so we will get that done this week and then get you a Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 16 of 22 final copy and get Will the final, how it will look when you actually approve it and how it will be noticed. In the general fund we started out and initially we had reserved the $215,710 for merit — (Tape turned over) Kilchenmann: -- we actually ended up using $104,000. So, we put that money in the Council budget so that $104,000 is action entered to move it into all of the individual departments and into FICA and into salary and into insurance and so forth. Then there is a list of other items and some of these have already been approved. I didn't separate them, I mixed them together, but there is a list of items that we basically could do using the savings from essentially a salary savings and I think you have seen almost all of them. The Mayor talked to you about the interns we have. We have an intern for IT, Police and the Mayor and then the Economic Development Specialist — that $4,000 is just for her furniture because the actual money for her contract comes out of Planning and Zoning Special Services. Then we put two amounts into — one into the Mayor's budget for incentive awards and one into HR's budget for longevity awards and we are not sure if we got that right. Is that right, $3,000 in each budget? De Weerd: No. Kilchenmann: You want just one $3,000? That would be in HR so we could split it with Enterprise. De Weerd: No, I appreciate that, but — Kilchenmann: Yeah, we weren't sure about that one. So, we will take out $3,000. Then, unfortunately, we have unemployment for the Mayor's Office. We have some unemployment in Parks and some unemployment in Police and we don't budget for unemployment because it's so unpredictable, so when we have unemployment then if we don't have a big chunk of salary savings. Like in the Mayor's there is only two people, so there is not going to be a lot of salary savings, we just automatically amend for that. Then we have — when the Mayor first moved in when they organized their files for $2,000 then we are partnering with ACHD for bicycle pathways — is that the right wording for that? — study for $6,400. We had to replace some defective bulletproof vests, which actually, I think that was over $7,000 and the Police rounded up almost the total amount of that from other sources so we just have to come up with a $1,000. Parks got hit with irrigation taxes on their new land that they bought that they hadn't foreseen for $2,400. Then these last two items, I don't know if these had been officially approved, but I wanted to get them in here and get your input on them. One is Park's surveillance cameras for $8,000 and the other one is to repair the restroom doors in Tulley Park for $8,300 and neither — Parks can't absorb either of those two in their existing budget. Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 17 of 22 De Weerd: Mr. Vice President. Bird: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: During the budget presentations we did have a discussion on this. I don't think there was any formal — they did want a price to be brought back on the surveillance cameras and at that time I don't think that the Parks Department had a final total on what the vandalism damage was, but you are probably seeing a final total unless we have further damage, but this is the damage to date. I would say, too, since the Police Department and in the Parks personnel have talked to — have looked at the situation, talked to some of the people that utilize the park and they have arrested two people that were doing some vandalism and in the last two weeks the vandalism has not occurred. It does look more positive. Bird: Anybody --? Kilchenmann: Okay then there are several items that are just shifting money from department to department or operating to personnel or capital outlay. The purchase of the Mayor's car is shift from Council operating to the Mayor's operating capital outlay. We purchased a Parks snowplow that was split among four departments that share in the cost of that, so it went from their billing maintenance to Parks capital outlay. We had this — the City Clerk and both the Mayor had temporary help, personnel positions were vacant so we just switched the money from personnel to contract labor to cover the costs of those temps. We budgeted Centennial Park, got put in other government and it really should have been in Parks. Parks purchased an aerator that they put in operating, but it was actually capital outlay items so we just moved the money down to capital outlay. When we got our IT intern, we actually paid for that out of our operating computer lines, so it turned out that interns need to be paid as employees so we transferred the money for that between the two accounts. We increased the Fire for the opticom and that's because they had to purchase the extra opticom they hadn't anticipated. But, their fire inspection fees have increased, so we just offset that so that has not impact. Then this year we actually literally separated the fire truck and the Park impact fees so that they would track their own — they get to keep their own interest and their own revenue and they also have to pay their own investment fees, so we just moved that interest to the fire truck and park impact accounts and that's a total that is split between the two of them. That's kind of bookkeeping measure. Then there was with the Borup land purchases, you remember we had to purchase an extra acre, so you'd already approved that we take that out of the Park impact fee fund balance. Bear Creek there was a transfer between two projects between Lochsa and Bear Creek, so that's what that $13,000 is for and then again we have to record the fire truck investment fees and that's $1,200, so that will come out of the fire truck fund balance. Finally, we did match for a FEMA grant that Fire got for $3,200. So, the net result of all these entries is that we have a $20,661 increase in the general fund balance. Are there any questions about that? That's a lot of detail. Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 18 of 22 Bird: Council, any questions? Mayor? Thanks, Stacy. Kilchenmann: Okay then the next one that is only one fund, but that's the longest one. Special services. What we are doing here in that first long entry is just increasing the revenue for the increased revenue and increasing the operating expense for the increased cost (inaudible) inspectors and actually we come out, I think, it's just from this entry alone we come out with the $600,000 profit. So, that is not bad. Then it shows where we used the left over merit money because we didn't use it all — the special services merit money for the economic development position. Then the third entry is to put the planner, move it from '05 to '04, so the portion you are seeing is just what we need to get through the end of the year. Then we have the traffic study with ACHD and that actually will come out of fund balance for the $30,000 and Council will pick up the other $20,000 but we don't need to do an amendment for Council's portion. Then we have an education reimbursement because we had only $1,000 budgeted and two people actually went to college and by our policy we need to reimburse that $1,000. Then P&Z was approved for $600 for an intern. The $352,000 is — you have already approved that. That's where we actually transferred the '03 special service's fund balance to the capital improvement fund. Then again, just some bookkeeping entries, where we are moving interests from one fund to the other and one department to the other. Then as you remember we transferred a code enforcement officer to the other code enforcement officers under the control of the Police so that is what that entry is doing and then we had $11,000 in merit money left over for bottom line increase in the special service's fund of over one million dollars. Finally, the enterprise fund, they are mostly just moving money from place to place. They are because you approved the new type of meter. Those are more expensive, so we up their meter sales and we had to up the corresponding costs to purchase those meters. They didn't use $78,000 of their fund balance. They are budgeted for an intern for $3,700 and then just a couple project changes and we had to act as a clearinghouse for (inaudible) revenue and that went up, so we had to up the corresponding expense where we paid them out. So, they ended up with an increase and fund balance of $74,000. So, does anyone have any questions on any of that? Bird: Questions for Stacy? Thank you, Stacy for another nice report. Very clear. Kilchenmann: So, everything is okay with this and we can go ahead and --? Bird: Yeah. I mean, as far as I am concerned we have committed to it. There isn't nothing here that surprises me. Does it you, Mr. Rountree? Rountree: The only surprise I have is unemployment costs. Bird: Well, we need to question that. Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 19 of 22 Kilchenmann: Yeah, I think for the Mayor's Office they will probably have to pay that next year too. Bird: Okay. I wanted a better explanation than that, but we will get that later. Kilchenmann: Yeah. Bird: Shaun have you got any --? Wardle: No, no other comment other than in special services. I don't know if it's necessarily a profit as much as it is a surplus. Kilchenmann: Did I say profit? Wardle: You did. Kilchenmann: I guess I was slipping back to those — okay. Bird: Thank you very much. Okay, Item No. 6 Council Item 6. Discussion of Request for Funds for Pedestrian and Bicycle Facility Data Collection Project: Levihn: Yes, Council members, Katy Levihn, PPC Manager for ACRD. If you remember, I made the presentation last week and you just asked me to come back to answer questions. In case you had a discussion you were going to review your budget with your staff, I believe. Rountree: Which we just did. Bird: Do you have any questions, Council? Rountree: I guess, what's the status of the study? Is it (inaudible) the funds you need and getting ready to roll or what's going on? Levihn: Councilman Bird and Councilman Rountree, yes, we are expecting to complete the Tier 1 August 17th. We have completed two square miles in Meridian and miscellaneous others around the county. What came before you here, I believe Councilman Rountree, you weren't here last week. I had the chart and the full update report on that. What we are here for was asking for some contribution towards Tier 2, which would include all of your city limit area and the Tier 1 will be — the data collection will be done August 17th as our anticipated date if we continued on with all of Tier 2, it would be about the end of October and either case the draft report of whatever we manage to get done is due the middle of November with the final report the middle of December. To date, the City of Eagle has committed their funds. The City of Kuna has declined to Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 20 of 22 participate. Boise is reviewing it this week. You are reviewing it this week. I haven't heard back from Garden City or Ada County. Bird: Any other questions? Katy, that sum is $6,350? Is that right? From us? Levihn: To within $10, yes. Bird: What's your pleasure, Council? Rountree: Do we need to act on the budget amendment by official motion because that budget amendment includes the funding for this? De Weerd: Mr. Vice President. Bird: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: At this point, I don't think we need to move on that yet. It all has to be set by August 10`", but I think ACHD needs to know if — Bird: If we are committed to it. Okay. Levihn: And that could be either this fiscal year or next fiscal year, just so we know so we can keep those temporary data collectors we have got going. Bird: We (inaudible) this year's budget amendment. Levihn: Okay, I didn't know that. Bird: We will enact on it next deal. Wardle: Mr. Vice President. Bird: Yes, Mr. Wardle. Wardle: Just to follow up on our discussion from last week. We had that discussion of why is Meridian paying for something that ACHD is carrying out and simply is was that ACHD doesn't have the funding and communities that aren't going to fund it within internally aren't going to have the Phase 2 study done. I think that just given some of the events that have happened with the sidewalks and pedestrian pathways in relationships to schools and some of those issues with our north Meridian area, I think that we need to spend the money in this year to make sure that we get that study done so that we can — I believe our staff felt that it was an important tool for them to be able to look at some of those areas, too. That would be my opinion to move it forward. Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 21 of 22 Bird: Thanks, Councilman Wardle. Thank you Katy for coming and we will let you know. Levihn: So you conclude --? I need to report back to my Commission. You've included in your budget it will be adopted August 10th? Bird: It will be in our budget adjustment. We have included it for this fiscal year. Levihn: For this fiscal year? Thank you very much. I know we really appreciate your consideration of this and it's great to have partnerships where we can do it. So, thank you. Bird: Thank you very much. De Weerd: Mr. Vice President Bird: Madame Mayor De Weerd: I guess the underscore of this particular study was last Wednesday when we got together and talked about the pathway to Sawtooth Middle School and although we won't be a funding partner in that, this was our relationship to that and that underscored the need for the Tier 2 study, but ACHD is committed to moving forward with the pathway option. At the school district, we will have emergency busing and probably that path will be done in late September or October to get that taken care of too. So, we appreciate their partnership in bringing solutions and being able to adjust as well. So, I appreciate your support of funding this Tier 2 study. Bird: Thank you. Council, that takes care of our agenda for the Pre -Council meeting tonight and I would entertain a motion to close. Rountree: So moved Wardle: Second. Bird: It's been moved and seconded to close the Pre -Council meeting. All those in favor, say aye. ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:10 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting July 27, 2004 Page 22 of 22 TAMMY DE W5�15F�0, MAYOR OF SEAL A i 'O,'��a`'•'�Y`a'rLllW.i.,Vi.�i,'.r,,i��"t���\``` WILLIAM G. BERG, q, 7 /04 - DATE APPROVED CLERK