HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-02-14Meridian City Council Workshop January 14, 2017
A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 3:02 p.m., Tuesday,
January 14, 2016, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Joe Borton, Keith Bird, Genesis
Milam, Luke Cavener, Ty Palmer and Anne Little Roberts.
Others Present: Bill Nary, C.Jay Coles, Jaycee Holman, Dale Bolthouse,
Warren, Stewart, Kyle Radek, Tracy Basterrechea, David Jones, Steve
Siddoway, Colin Moss, Dale Bolthouse and Dean Willis.
Item 1: Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X_ Anne Little Roberts X_ _Joe Borton
X__ Ty Palmer X_ Keith Bird
__X__ Genesis Milam __X__ Lucas Cavener
__X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
De Weerd: Welcome to our City Council meeting. Thank you for joining us. For
the record it is Valentine's Day, Tuesday, February 14th. It's two minutes after
3:00. We will start with roll call attendance, Mr. Clerk.
Item 2: Pledge of Allegiance
De Weerd: Item No. 2 is the Pledge of Allegiance. If you will all rise and join us
in the pledge to our flag.
(Pledge of Allegiance recited.)
Item 3: Adoption of the Agenda
De Weerd: Okay. Item No. 3 is adoption of the agenda.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: On the agenda we have Item No. 9, the Executive Session needs to be
amended to include 74-206(1)(a) and 74-206(1)(d). And with that I move we
approve the amended agenda.
Borton: Second.
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February 14, 2017
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De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the amended agenda. All
those in favor say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 4: Consent Agenda
A. Hill's Century Farm Subdivision No. 5 Pedestrian
Pathway Easement with Brighton Development, Inc.
B. Sanitary Sewer Easement with Red Tail Communities,
LLC
C. Agreement For Provision of Sewer Service Outside
Meridian City Limits: 940 S. Mustang Street
D. Agreement for Joint Use of Sports Facilities between
Cole Valley Christian School and the City of Meridian
E. Acceptance Agreement for Display of Artwork in Initial
Point Gallery, Meridian City Hall between City of
Meridian and: Terri Thickstun, July 2017 Idaho Gourd
Society, December 2017
F. License Agreement with Charles Haman for Traffic Box
Community Art Project
G. Memorandum of Agreement with Meridian Development
Corporation (MDC) for MDC’s Contribution of up to
$5,000 to Traffic Box Community Art Project
H. Approval of Change Order No. 3 to Granite Excavation,
Inc. for the “Five Mile Trunk Relief and Water Line
Replacement at 8th Street Park” project for a Not-To-
Exceed amount of $64,331.25
I. Approval of Task Order 10704.A to Mountain
Waterworks for the “BOISE RIVER OUTFALL PUMP
STATION DESIGN” project for a Not-To-Exceed amount
of $145,690.00
J. Approval of Professional Services Agreement to Infor
US for the “MACP & PACP Configuration” project for a
Not-To-Exceed amount of $18,180.00
De Weerd: Item 4 is our Consent Agenda.
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February 14, 2017
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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 Clerk to attest.
Borton: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda. Mr.
Clerk, 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 5: Items Moved From the Consent Agenda
De Weerd: There were no items moved from the Consent Agenda.
Item 6: Community Items/Presentations
A. Ada Soil & Water Conservation District
De Weerd: So, Item 6-A is a community presentation by the Ada Soil and Water
Conservation District. Thank you for joining us.
Erskine: Thank you, Mayor and Council. My name is Josie Erskine. I'm the
manager of the Ada Soil and Water Conservation District. We haven't reached
out to cities very well in the past and let you know that we are here to partner
with you and who we are and what we do and ways that we can become partners
together. I represent a board of directors that are locally elected officials. Their
names don't show up on the ballot unless they are contested, but they are -- we
are a state agency. So, you know, the Soil and Water Conservation District of
Ada County started during kind of the Dust Bowl is when the Soil and Water
Conservation District started and we work a lot with farmers, ranchers,
landowners, but now that we are kind of an urban ag interface we find ourselves
now branching out to new partners. Stormwater is something that we are
interested in looking at. Community Gardens is something that we are also
starting to look at and be interested in. One of the big things that we do is we
rent out a no till drill and, really, why we do that is for water quality. So, this is a
piece of equipment that makes it so that you don't have to till before you can
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February 14, 2017
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plant, you can plant straight into the residue , and we have been tracking this and
you can see that in the years that we have it in the display that we think that we
have estimated over 112 semi loads of sediment from entering our waterways
through this technology. We are making documentaries where we follow farmers
right now in the Treasure Valley that use that and show that sediment reduction
just through this simple piece of equipment. Also this piece of equipment
eliminates tillage. So, that saves the farmer money. So, we are seeing that a
farmer saves around 163 dollars per acre just by using this piece of equipment
and that is in fuel, labor costs on the field. This is a win-win. Farmers are
making money. We are reducing our sediment into our water. This is a way that
we can start partnering with cities when we look at ag land of how can we start
doing some of those water trading credits. This is a great water trading credit
that farmers can use as this no till drill. We rent it out. The district does. We are
really interested in creating a learning farm. The city of Boise brought forward a
piece of property to us last year, the McGurdio farm, and, then, took it away and I
was at the Growing Together meeting last with your Mayor and it was presented
that there is a space that Meridian is looking at around the natural gas facility that
would like to stay in ag land. The Ada County Soil and Water Conservation
District would like to create a learning farm. We already have partners and we
have funding for this. NRCS, U of I, we would like to create demonstration
gardens, also demonstration of conservation, also a range land ecosystem where
we show what that ecosystem looks like. So, we are really looking to see is there
a city that has -- would like to partner with us and bring forward a project like this.
We are looking for around 50 acres to make this happen . It's something that we
would really like to bring forward. I think I skipped. I didn't. It's not in here.
Another project that we do is we do a 5th grade field day and we haven't had
Meridian participate in this yet, but we had around 1,700 -- or 1,500 fifth graders
last year participate in our 5th grade field day. They go through different
conservation stations with us. We now have Kuna and Boise. But we would
really like to see Meridian school children see this conservation field day with us
with all of our different partners. They learn about where their food comes from .
They learn about clean water with DEQ. Wildlife with Fish and Game. We have
about 20 partners that go through this 5th grade field day and we would love to
work with the City of Meridian to find a place where we can make that happen. In
Boise we use the Boise Urban Garden school and we would love to partner with
you for that. You know, the last thing that we really want to talk to you about is
ag land preservation, so that Ada County Soil and Water Conservation District is
part of a statewide entity, which is the Idaho Soil and W ater Conservation
District, and we are looking to bring forward legislation next year that will create
ag land preservation legislation that will be held in the state of Idaho . The idea is
that farmers could put land into conservation easements, so working with cities
like Meridian to figure out where those corridors are that they would like to
protect and how we can start protecting them as a county. Does anybody have
any questions for me? We just had a few short minutes.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Ma'am, I wonder if you could -- I was reading right here on the back of
your flyer and help me understand more about a conservation easement , what
exactly that means and what it does?
Erskine: How that works. So, in essence, say I have a hundred acres -- I'm a
farmer and I have a hundred acres. I would put a conservation easement on
that. There are federal funds that we don't have access to in Idaho, because we
don't have matching funds. In a sense, what that removes is my development
rights. My development rights would be bought from me . They wouldn't apply
somewhere else, but a conservation easement would be put on that piece of land
and it would go into ag. So, it's -- future sales would be as ag land. So, my
family could keep selling it, but only as ag. It wouldn't ever go back that there
was a potential for development. So, it's a voluntary program. The farmer
makes that decision or the farmer's family makes that decision to keep it into ag
and, then, they see a financial benefit from that, so that they can make that
decision, so their retirement isn't hinged upon the sale of that land to a developer .
Areas across the country that have done it have done it really strategically. We
will take Delaware, for example. They have a fund, farmers go through a ranking
system, rank out from wetlands, to water, to a proximity to sprawl -- all these
different ranking systems and, then, they put a price on what that looks like and,
then, farmers around the entire state bid for it. Delaware is about the size of the
Treasure Valley. In ten years they have saved over 50 percent of their
agricultural land through this kind of voluntary conservation program. They also
now have to invite a young farmer -- kind of hook up to the system in their state,
so they are attracting new young farmers to their state through this program.
Last I heard they had a 125 person waiting list to acquire land, because, then,
that land can go through the state, which we already do have state-funded ag
loans at low rates. So, that land can go through those ag loans, attract young
farmers to that area, and they are also seeing that companies -- ag companies
are more interested in coming to those states, because they know their raw
product is protected. They know that ag product is going to be there, because
that land is going to be there. They can see the state taking measures. So,
Delaware is seeing a huge boost in their ag economy through that. Does that
answer that question?
Palmer: It sure does. Thank you.
Erskine: Okay.
De Weerd: Other questions from Council? Were you familiar with our Meridian
Youth Farmers Market?
Erskine: No.
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De Weerd: Okay. Well, we need to make sure you are.
Erskine: We would love to know more about it.
De Weerd: Last year we kicked off a Youth Farmers Market in our City Hall
Plaza on Wednesdays and -- on Wednesdays -- on Saturdays -- weekly on
Saturdays, starting -- usually kicks off around Dairy Days and goes through
September and it's -- 75 percent of the vendors are youth and they have to grow
or make their own product and so we would love to get more involvement within
the ag community and getting our youth exposed to growing their own products,
starting their own business, learning life skills that I think will -- will benefit them
certainly throughout their adulthood. So, our Parks Department is taking notes. I
see our director over there nodding his head as well. So, we will reach out to
you, because we are certainly -- they don't have to be a Meridian resident and we
are also looking for that family-oriented ag business that can be the staple,
because our kids don't have to be there every week , they can choose one time
only or every week or once a month , it really varies. But we would love to get
your engagement on that, too.
Erskine: And I think Jessica Harrold, who is our programs manager, that sounds
right up her alley and I'd like to say I do have two more board members here .
Our chair president Glenn Edwards and Kent Foster have joined me today to
help back me up. I get a little nervous speaking in front of people.
De Weerd: Think you did really well.
Erskine: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you for being here and sharing what you're about. Certainly
we have also a very successful community garden in Kleiner Park that we have a
co-op that's very engaged with and works very closely with our parks team as
well. So, would love to see if there is some cross-pollination and we appreciate
your involvement and your interest in coming and talking with us today.
Erskine: Yes. And we would love to work with the City of Meridian. There is a
project that you're looking for funding that has to do with water quality or ag and
you're looking for partners to help find funding, that is exactly what we would like
to work with you on. So, just kind of keep that in the back of your mind that, you
know, you can reach out to us and we would love to partner with you .
De Weerd: Thank you.
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mrs. Milam.
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Milam: Sorry. Have you reached out to the West Ada School District? You say
you're looking for -- for the 5th graders to participate in your field day.
De Weerd: We need you -- we would need you to speak into the record there.
Harrold: May name is Jessica Harrold. Yes, we actually did, I think, have maybe
two schools last year, but it was very small involvement. But this year there will
be probably a whole field day that's just Meridian student s. So, about 200
students this year.
De Weerd: Well -- and as you look at programming, Jessica, I know that there is
a greenhouse facility out by one of our alternative schools , Meridian Academy,
and at one point they were utilizing it, but I think it became a little bit too much of
a bite to chew and always looking for -- for partners in that, so -- and that is
through the West Ada School District, but that's Meridian Academy High School
and always looking for people that will mentor and -- and help share their passion
for agriculture for the growing of some our foods and those kind of things. So,
keep that in mind as well.
Erskine: Thank you very much. Thank you for your time.
Item 7: Department Reports
A. Legal: Annual Department Report
De Weerd: Thank you. Appreciate yours. Okay. Item 7 under Department
Reports. I see Mr. Nary is making his way forward. You each have your slide --
your PowerPoint presentation in front of you as well.
Nary: Okay. So, I'm going to be like everybody else. How do I advance this
slide?
Coles: The arrow on the keyboard.
Nary: Okay. All right.
De Weerd: Did we make you practice that?
Nary: Sorry. I didn't practice. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I know
you look all forward all year to our update. I know it's scintillating stuff. I know
it's very exciting. I know today kind of feels like we are warming up back for
Public Works, but that's okay. I'm always proud to bring you an update on what
we have been doing and what types of activities we have been engaged in. We
are small, but mighty.
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De Weerd: And there is your backup team.
Nary: We are a small but mighty team. We have been together now for 12 years
for some of us and Andrea is our newest member of our team and has been here
almost ten years. So, we have a lot of depth and a lot of time invested in our city,
because we care. We really do. We want to make sure things work and work
correctly and we try to do everything we can to make that happen . Okay. I want
to try this. There we go. Words to the wise. I like to make sure there is a few
things in there that you could take away. Okay. Our mission statement. Again,
I'm not going to read it to you, but our mission is to make sure that we are doing
everything legal, we are doing everything safe, and we are doing everything
consistently across the board. We are providing assistance to the community by
us -- by the city doing things right and as we do think it's important that we
provide you the best legal advice and both leadership and counsel to both you
and as well as the employees of the city. We take our job very seriously. We
have a lot of fun, too, but we take our job very seriously. We want to make sure
we are doing things to the best of our ability for the citizens of our city. Ongoing
tasks. I know everybody is so excited about how many development agreements
we wrote or how many resolutions we brought. I wanted to make sure you knew
how many there are in the course of a year and as most of you know, because
you have been -- if you have been here a while, you know that there is a lot more
than that to that number than just the number. You know there is a lot of time
and effort, there is a lot of discussion with departments, there is a lot of work that
gets involved. One agreement might take weeks or months to work through and
others might take minutes to work through. It just depends on the particular
project. But we take them all really -- we take them all very seriously and I did
not highlight the first bullet, but I have mentioned it to you many times before --
you know, that prep time is so critical to making this meeting work well for all of
you and when this meeting works well for all of you, then, it works well for
everybody out in our community. So, that prep time with departments, with the
individuals, with the different projects -- all of those -- that time and effort -- you
know, I have said it many times, we work really hard to make it look really easy
and the time we spend we feel is very valuable and we feel very much embedded
in what goes on on a daily basis in the city, but I was just talking to the Mayor
yesterday in a meeting -- I said sometimes it's hard to put that in a slide of -- we
spent a lot of time making this work and you didn't even see it . I mean some of --
most of the things you see on your Consent Agenda are things that may have
taken a great deal of time and you looked at it over the weekend and you passed
it in five minutes and, then, it's good for you to know, as well as the public, there
is a lot of time and effort that went into that and we are intricately involved in
virtually all of that. We do, again, think it's really important to make sure that the
city is compliant, but also -- it's not because the legal -- the law requires it, but
because we as a city need to set that example and we feel that 's a critical part of
what we do. Again, we staff all our your Council meetings and commission
meetings, so, again, there is a lot of commissions that really are reliant on our
input and our participation in what they do and how they do things. Again, your
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citizen volunteer commissioners many times don't know what they can or can't do
and so between the staff that might be supporting the meeting, as well as the
attorney that supports the meeting, it really helps them, again, accomplish what
they are set out to do, whether it's arts or transportation or parks, or HPC. Again,
some of the things we want to highlight that we did. So, we did do an expansion
of the well lot on -- off of Franklin Road last year. Took a little bit of time and
effort in doing that. Again, we had some different agreements. Probably the
bigger ones -- because the most visible ones are the public art, you know, again
they were all very complicated, they are all unique and individual, whether it's a
donation agreement for a park where there is art, whether it's an art box or an art
piece, but, you know, those are the ones that people get to see. So, I wanted to
make sure at least highlight that for the public, as well as all of you, but those are
just -- again, those are part of those -- that other number that we had before and
the different things that we work on on a daily basis. And, again, some go very
quickly and some take a little bit longer. This is the biggest thing we bought I
think since we have been here. I mean we have bought ground that was bigger,
but the biggest -- the biggest, most expensive thing I think we have bought is this
Home Court and there was a lot of joint effort. You know, we -- and as all of you
probably know, but most of you know, everything we do in our office is very
collaborative. We -- none of us know everything, but collectively I think we do a
pretty good job in figuring it out and working together and bouncing off ideas and
this is really a team effort by all of our -- our departments, because, again, this
wasn't just us, I mean this is Parks as well, this is the Mayor's office. I mean
there is a lot of other moving parts to this, but there was a lot of effort by all five
of us to make this acquisition and this agreement and all of the different things
that have gone into both this, as well as the Y project, really come together and --
and if you have ever stopped by our office you know we have a round table that's
kind of in the center of our workspace and virtually any time of the day you come
there and we are talking about something that's going on and some question or
issue or problem and trying to figure it out and whether it's one or two of us or all
five of us there, we are always trying to figure out the best we can. We all have
different levels of experience and different levels of expertise and use that and
this is really a culmination of that effort as a team in getting this -- this project
done, this land purchase, or this property purchased and getting this transitioned
to the city and I think -- I think -- Steve's in the room and I think the Parks
Department would agree, I think we worked very collaboratively on this project
and we continue to and we will continue to as you will see in a slide, but we are
all pretty proud of this particular one, because it was a very big thing and a great
thing for our city and our citizens and we are very proud of it getting
accomplished. It is tough to make a living out there, so I just wanted you to know
some people out there are really working at it, so there is a lot of other ways to
find lawyers out there in the world. And I don't know that 99 percent of t he
lawyers give the rest a bad name, but -- so, again, various agreements. Again,
lawyer's life blood is writing contracts, reading contracts, reviewing contracts,
rewriting them in all different levels of agreements and these are some of the
highlights, again, of things that we worked on that we are really proud of and
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really happy that we got to be a part of. The park that's downtown, the Idaho
Avenue placemaking project, is a real unique thing for our downtown and we
were glad we were part of that and helping that happen. We didn’t put the paint
on the street, but we got the paint on the street, so that's -- that was our role in
getting that license agreement facilitated with ACHD. We have a lot of special
events. This is -- I only highlighted one, but we have a number of -- of special
events that come through the clerk's office. We have a member or two of our
staff that goes to all of those meetings and helping get that set up and making
sure whatever is needed, whether it's things related to safety, things related to
liability, things that are related to protecting the public for that safe event and this
happens to just be the one that is by far probably the largest event and they say
it's the largest in the country, although they don't really have a way to verify that,
but that's how they -- that's how they phrase it. We are in agreement if that's
what they think. It's okay by us. Those are -- those are just one of the many
types of -- of temporary use permits and special event activities that we are
involved in to make sure, again, they come off without a hitch and the public isn't
impacted in a negative way and that people understand. Again, we have -- we
have rules for a reason and a lot of these are simply things that are dealing with
safety and the public's best -- or public's welfare. The monument sign
agreements. Again, we really like those. I think they are a nice addition to our
community and they are kind of neat when you can see them and, again, just
another thing that we have helped through the Mayor's office and Planning to
make those things happen. Again, code is another thing that's kind of our
lifeblood. You know, we write different parts of the city code and bring those to
you. This last year there was a couple that were really important from the clerk's
office standpoint. Both the dog licensing was a way to make it simpler and a little
bit more streamlined and easier for the public. Having just realized to my dog it
seemed pretty easy. So, I think it works, so -- the fingerprinting was another one
that has to go through a very elongated process with the federal authorities to
make that work and so we worked through that issue as well to make sure we
can continue to do that both for our background checks for employment, as well
as our background checks for licensing. Again, we had a Department of Justice
agreement on our ADA compliance with our plaza and our parks, as well as a
couple of others. Joint Powers Agreement with Fire I think was something very
unique. I think the chief was the one that really spearheaded that, but we helped
worked through some of the issues with it to make that real successful. We just
did the first academy -- graduated in December of last year and I think -- I think it
was successful. I think it's exactly what we wanted it to be, it was something that
we could work together and, again, get the most value with all these different
departments in training and everything else and so we were happy to be a part of
that. Union negotiations. Again, we had an agreement that came through, we
got done in October of last year, and we are happy with that and we don't have to
talk about that for another couple years and I'm okay with that , too. But I think it's
still a good process. I think there is some things in the process that we could
help make better and each time we learn things that we could help for the next
time and I think we have been, again, an integral part of making that successful.
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Different types of programs that we do in the city and -- and the hand-to-hand
recycling -- I really have to give kudos to Andrea Pogue from -- from our team,
because she's part of our solid waste commission, she's integral in making those
things happen for them and that, again, helps our community and this hand-to-
hand recycling programs was very much her -- her initiative and desire to get this
done, to make this happen, and it is a great idea and a great program for our
community and, again, it brings that recycling message back to our citizens that
there is value in recycling and that there is something to be gained from that and ,
then, of course, as you all know the city gets value back from that. If we can
make that a successful program we get funds to help us do some things in the
city that are -- are exciting, things in our parks and things for the community. So,
that's a great program and Andrea -- kudos to her for helping really spearhead
that. Again, a lot of these other things -- you know, for the general public some
of these things probably don't seem very interesting or significant , but, yet, as
you know, since you have to hear all of these things, whether it's the Urban
Renewal District or even a hearing, as small as it is, it's very critical to the -- our
community partner and Ambrose school. So, making sure all those things
happen timely as necessary so that things can occur. We, again, are glad that
we can be a part of that success. Snowmaggeden. And everybody likes using
that. I was going to use something else, but it seems like that's what's become
the name of the game for that recent one. That was something we have talked
about a number of times, both in front of you, as well as internally. This was
certainly unprecedented for -- for us as a city, us as a department. We have
talked in the past about the what-ifs and done some table tops and done some
training on -- on doing disaster declarations and what does that look like and one
thing they don't tell you in the training is that when you need it it's not like it's
going to be three days from now, it's we need it in 45 minutes and so no matter
how much training you had, you probably didn't have it yesterday, so you have to
make sure you understand what you're doing very, very quickly and, again, I
think it shows the power of team that we have that this was Friday, if my
recollection is right. I think it was a Thursday or Friday and it was a very quick --
again, we are dealing with the weather, things are happening, they are
happening right now, we have to make decisions on what we are going to do and
we as a team pulled together and was able to put this together in a very short
time to, again, make the rest of the operation work and making sure that things
can be done legally and can be done in a way that's the least impact to us or
least impact to the public, because nothing is worse than doing it over. You
know, you always want to do it right the first time , because doing it over usually
costs more money and takes more time. So, this was one that was really an
interesting process. Again, a lot of lessons learned internally in all the
departments that were involved. This was a real interesting one and, fortunately,
I think was, you know, again, more positives than negatives. I put sidewalks at
the end, because I know there is still that question that the public has about
sidewalks out there. I don't know when and how that's going to get resolved. I
don't know that we are really going to be the driver of that anyway. I think
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someone else might be driving that question and we may just be the recipient of
what that result is.
De Weerd: But why take all the fun away from Emily.
Nary: Exactly. Exactly. Again, it's really tough to make a living out there. There
is lots of these out there if you want to find them. Some of these are local. I'm
sure you have heard of a couple of these people, so -- risk management. This is
another piece -- you know, again, most of these things don't come before you
very much. These are things that happen out there. It was good -- again, part of
the -- the snow apocalypse situation was really helping, again, educate the
departments, because some of the departments that are involved in -- in risk
management issues or claims management that we have are things that occur at
least frequently enough they understand how to file a claim, how to tell the public
how to file a claim if they think there is something going on, but the snow event
really expanded that audience greater than what we usually have had. Now we
have people that never have an issue with the city and suddenly they have
potholes on the street and they think it's our responsibility or somebody mowed
their mailbox down because of the snow or whatever it may be. Or we had
buildings that had damage related to the snow. So, it was a good educational
opportunity to the departments for us to say here is the forms, here is how you do
it, here is what you need to do and this is out to educate the public. When you
come into contact with somebody who has a concern and a claim of some sort
that they think the city is involved with, here is how to give them the information
so that we can work on it and try to do it quickly and through that snow event
there was a lot of people that had concerns that were immediate and weren't
something that we could wait and address three weeks from now or three months
from now and so there was occasion where we really had to kick it into gear and
get the resolution and quickly, if it was damage to a vehicle and that was their
only means of transportation, they are not going to get themselves around in the
middle of a snowstorm through any other means. So, there was a lot of time and
effort by all of our team to help make all of that happen. These are the number of
claims you have had this year. You haven't seen many of them, because most of
them are claims that either get resolved at the claims level or they get denied,
because they are really not a claim for us or they are not our responsibility or the
city's liability and so very few ever do come back. When they do you will hear
about them. We just haven't had very many. We -- we always watch for trends
with departments. We look for those and we haven't really -- our departments do
a really good job of both safety training, as well as preventative training, whether
it's driving, whether with the police in their -- in their self-defense training and
their physical training. The Fire Department, again, with their physical training
and driving instructions. You know, we don't have a lot of collisions, we don't
have a lot of injuries, we don't have a lot of those types of things that we look for
in the risk management side to see if we need to do something to kind of move
that number down. We have very low lost work time from injuries. We have very
low claims for damages of any significance. Most of them are fairly small. I
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mean an example during the snow event we had a fire truck the slid on some ice
and damaged two cars. We took the -- our insurance -- those cars got repaired,
life goes on, it wasn't a significant -- they weren't going very fast, because it was
snowing and so the damage was very minor because of that, so our departments
are really good at managing their workload and how they do their work and that
helps keep claims down to a minimum. Again, we get a number -- we get -- I
didn't break it out, but we do get a number of claims annually that have nothing to
do with us and isn't anything that we did. Sometimes there are other entities that
are responsible for them or nobody is responsible for them. So, it's -- it's an
interesting world on the claims side, but we don't have very many for a city of our
size. To say we had 16 against the city in a year and we paid nine, that's pretty
small. We would get 16 in a month when I worked at the city of Boise. So, this is
really not much for a year. So, on the horizon where are we going? You know,
we have talked a number times about the court facilities. That case is not
resolved yet. That issue isn't resolved yet. So, we are still keeping our eye on it
and what that's going to mean for the city and we are looking at, you know,
hopefully some solutions to that and just, hopefully, we will get some resolution of
that in a positive way. I listed the next bullet as the police and prosecution. You
all know we have an annual contract with the city of Boise to provide both of
those services and it's always been my belief that if a court facility was going to
be located here in the city, we may have to reevaluate that. Is that the best use
of our resources if that's the case. Right now part of the value of using the city of
Boise is they are three blocks from the courthouse. If they have to drive out
here, then, that maybe isn't the best use of time to do that. I also don't know if
they would continue do it if they didn't have a facility downtown to use. So, I
don't know how that's going to impact it. I just want to make sure that it's always
on our radar that that's a part of the conversation on what impacts to the city will
be in relation to that particular issue. Partnership with the Hill. You know, that's
not going to be a one and done. I mean that's definitely something that's going to
be an ongoing for a while, at least until the park gets built and, then, we will see
what other things derive from that with the Y, with Western Ada School District
and, of course, we have an ongoing relationship with the school district anyway
for facility use and so we -- we know that that partnership is going to be ongoing
for a long time and we want to make sure, again, we are in front of that. They
have been great -- great entities to work with. We have had no -- no issues or
friction or problems with those. They have always been very supportive and very
helpful in trying to get to the same conclusion and the same resolution for
everybody. Regulatory changes. I kind of made that sort of generic, because,
again, I don't have a clue -- I read the paper, just like all of you, and every day I
can't tell if changes are going to come that will affect us or not, so there is going
to be some changes that we can foresee and that may or may not affect how we
do business or what we do, but I can anticipate that there will be some. I don't
anticipate it from a perspective of impacting our legal department team for the
next budget year, but we have to watch through it, we are either going to be
coming forward saying here is what's changed dramatically and here is how we
need to address it and how would you like to do that and I don't think we will have
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enough time between now and July or June to really know that . But, definitely,
maybe by in -- for FY-19 we might. We don't just read books, but we do -- do a
lot of the bottom very corner there. Questions?
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Milam: Back to the beginning of this -- I was wondering if you wanted us to take
a little longer before we approve the Consent Agenda in respect to the time and
after that you guys have all put into it.
Nary: No. The intent is to make it quick and easy for you.
Milam: All right. I just want to make sure you were good with that.
Nary: No. You're perfectly great with that.
De Weerd: Anything further?
Nary: All right. Thank you.
Milam: We appreciate you all.
De Weerd: Yeah. Thank you for making things seamless.
Nary: Thank you.
De Weerd: Most of the time. I had to throw that in so maybe you can consider
your own billboard at some point.
Milam: I know a spot.
B. Public Works: Annual Department Report
De Weerd: Oh, yeah. We have a spot for it. Okay. Item 7-B is under Public
Works and I will turn this over to Dale. Welcome.
Bolthouse: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Members of the Council. I
appreciate the opportunity to address you today with a little bit more of an
update. I also want to thank the Public Works staff for allowing me to be their
representative in this interim director role and I will tell you that a lot of the topics
that we are going to hit on will slide through -- many of them have been caught in
the Mayor's State of the City, Warren's update on the engineering projects,
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February 14, 2017
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yadda, yadda. So, anyway, we will -- we will hit some of those highlights,
because I think they are -- they are worthy of it, but --
De Weerd: Did we steal your thunder?
Bolthouse: You know, yeah, had this happened in November I would have been
leading the way on the thunder, but -- it didn't, but, you know, before -- before we
get started here I wanted to -- I wanted to take a moment and see if there is
going to be another shoe fall here, because last time that I visited you in January
I literally was walking up here and got the word from Laurelei that we are
approaching a near record flow down to our waste treatment plant and as we
kind of look at that -- you know, we -- we have a daily average of somewhere
around seven million gallons of Wastewater treated and during our Peak flows
we may approach, you know, that ten to 12 million gallon per day rate and at that
point we thought, okay, this is a -- you know, we are starting to climb, we are at
somewhere around 15 million gallons and we can probably manage that, as long
as it doesn't get any higher and so as we left our discussion , within about two
hours the wastewater treatment plant experienced a flow rate of about 30 million
gallons per day rate and that was unprecedented and at that point Laurelei and
her team, you know, sent out the all hands on deck and we, you know, got
everybody to collapse around the wastewater treatment plant in hopes that we
could do something to help and we had no idea what was still coming . By the
time we got into the later hours of the evening we were seeing flow rates that
were in excess of 50 million gallons per day rate and at that point there is just not
a whole lot you can do, but I will tell you that within the powers that they had , the
wastewater team -- we had business operations people out there, we had city
engineering staff out there, we had water, we had wastewater, we had everybody
collapse around that to do whatever we could to assist in managing that kind of
instantaneous flow and the -- the team came together. We borrowed pumps
from ACHD. They had probably the largest pump in the area to help us move
that flow through the process and I'm pleased to say that we actually worked our
way through that challenge and still met all of our end-of-pipe criteria for our
NPDES permit. So, that I think speaks for itself. Just a tremendous effort by the
entire department to collapse around that one p articular incident that was
unprecedented and I hope we don't see that again . You may see in the budget
cycle a request for a pump -- a little larger than what we have got, although we
don't anticipate seeing this kind of flow. You know, as that facility builds we need
to be able to have that -- that capability. So, great effort on their part for our little
bit on Snowmageddon on that day. We --
De Weerd: And, Dale, I think it's important to also know that this isn't the first
time we have kind of had that kind of -- well, those kind of flows. But we had a
summer storm, too, the tested our staff and their ingenuity and that sort of thing
as well with a massive amount of water and so --
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Bolthouse: Just for some context, that massive amount of water would have
been about this green bar.
De Weerd: Oh, wow.
Bolthouse: So, it was -- you know, it was --
De Weerd: It was massive at the time.
Bolthouse: This was even -- it is. And it will continue to be massive and we will
-- we will see those kind of events, but they are typically much lower and much
less in duration and there are ways we can handle it and our -- our staff is very
professional at doing that and so very -- very proud of the entire team in coming
through that, so -- what I'd like to do today is kind of walk you through and review
kind of on a utility basis. So, we will take a look at the wastewater utility. The
water utility. Many of the other key initiatives that we have going on . And, then,
finish up with some focus on our employees , which we consider to be the
foundation of our organization. So, let's start with a wastewater utility. The topic
that just doesn't seem to go away -- and we are okay with it -- that is our NPDES
permit -- the wait continues. Nampa and Caldwell have had their permits go
final. They have been out for a while and so we see that as kind of a benefit for
us here in Meridian, that they are now separated from our schedule and we
believe it's going to give us a unique opportunity, as these five year permit cycles
go, for us getting a view of what's new and what's trending in that -- in that whole
area. So, we are in no hurry. It's okay that things delay. It's offering us much
more time to be prepared. But we do think that there is nothing from our end that
stands before us in the issuance of that permit. So, we are literally now at the
mercy of the EPA and the DEQ in getting that permit finalized. One of the
reasons why we delayed was that we had a constituent in our new permit
associated with bis-thilate. That's a plasticizer component that they wanted to
impart limits in our permit and -- and our savvy NPDES management team, made
up of engineering and operations and laboratory folks, recognized that they were
trying to impart a constituent on us that physically could not be monitored ,
measured, or controlled and the team implemented with EPA a large bis-thilate
study to, indeed, proof just that, that we could not do that. That was some
expense on our part. It was a lot of time spent by the wastewater lab folks in
gathering samples and sending them off to various labs and the result of that was
very good for us and that is that the EPA removed that constituent from our
permit. So, between the draft permit and final permit that's now been removed.
We have consented to monitoring for it -- and that's assuming that we can find
laboratory facilities that even have the capability to measure that constituent at
the low levels that they were going to impart in our permit. So, just an excellent
job done by our laboratory and wastewater staff to get that component removed.
That was the final hurdle from our perspective, though, in getting the permit, so
now it's just under review and we are still expecting to see that -- that permit
come here in the next -- in the next couple of months. We are not wasting time,
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February 14, 2017
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though, while we wait. We know what's coming in that permit from the draft
permits that we have seen. There is an awful lot of activity going on. So, we
have -- as you're aware we have constructed the facilities and lab and things of
that nature. We have hired the staff. We are preparing them and training them
in all the necessities to meet our new permits. We are also taking advantage of
preparing the legwork for a lot of the plans, so, much of the work in the very first
six months of this new permit is that we have to generate and deliver back
operations and maintenance plans, quality assurance plans, facility plans,
emergency response plans, those all have to be developed and submitted early
on in that permit cycle. So, we are taking advantage of this time right now to go
ahead and -- and get a lot of those things prepared, so that we will be in great
shape once that permit hits us. One that you have also been pretty familiar with
is, you know, what we are calling our wastewater treatment capacity expansion
phase one and you're hearing a lot of different numbers . There is a variety of
projects and, really, you have four initiatives that we consider make up the phase
one effort of expanding our wastewater treatment plant. The first, which is now
complete, is the UV expansion and that is the final disinfection step in our
process before we discharge to our outfalls, which is primarily the Five Mile
Creek. That project in itself is really what saved our bacon in the high flow
scenarios where we were able to take what at that point is highly deluded
processed water and we had the capacity to disinfect it and that allowed us to
meet our end-of-pipe criteria as it relates to those certain criteria . So, that was --
that was good that that project was completed. The second project that's been in
progress is centrate and that's a -- that's a process -- or project to optimize for
food sources for the bugs and I guess the best words that we come up with is
just we need to feed the process a steady diet and that's exactly what this
centrate project does in terms of leveling out and smoothing the food sources
across the periods of time that we have variable flow and that allows us to
optimize our project. The one that probably gets the most attention is the liquid
stream project and that is an entirely new treatment train process that truly gives
us that additional capacity. So, we are talking about primary and secondary
clarifiers, a full set of aeration basins, and that's the project that has just gotten
underway. The total initiative is approximately 44 million dollars . The contract
for construction was about 35 million dollars that was recently bid and let out and
that's -- and that this underway. They are out there turning dirt and that -- that's a
big component of our capacity expansion . And the final initiative that will be
going out to bid here shortly is the headworks. So, that's the first step in our
process where we collect all the feeder lines, we do all the initial of pumping and
screening and grit removal and flow splitting and that will all be done in a new
facility that will have odor control, because it's also the most odorous part of our
operation where you have the -- the influent coming in. So, both together all
make up that first phase of our capacity expansion. We are looking at about 36
months worth of construction and we are -- we are very excited to see all of those
initiatives getting off the ground. Reclaimed water. We have kind of beat this
one to death. We are not going to talk a lot about it. But per your direction and
our recommendation we are going to continue the program has it is today. So,
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February 14, 2017
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you know, we roughly have up to a million gallons a day that we can deliver up
and down Ten Mile corridor to the parks and Ten Mile interchange and some of
our other customers. We are going to be able to expand slightly on our
distribution and we are going to be delivering reclaimed water to the Bellano Park
Subdivision Park and Rita Huskey Park and there may be a few other initiatives.
Part of that's made available because we had water watering are back 40, if you
will. A lot of that's now under construction being consumed. So, we are going to
be able to, you know, deliver some of that water around. We actually had our
highest reclaimed water year ever, so we are at 70 million gallons of water
distributed during the irrigation season this year and we are in the process of
working with DEQ to renew our reclaim ed water application and permit and that
started here a few months ago where we had a pre -application meeting. We
have to submit all the application requirements by April and, then, they will
ultimately issue us a permit that will go into effect next -- next fall, so -- resource
recovery. So, we are finally getting into some of the topics that took this thing
from a WWTP to a WRRF and all that kind of stuff. So, those -- those two middle
letters, it took a lot of foresight and vision, but we are there. We are on the
resource recovery activities associated with our namesake now and it -- it really
covers four fronts. New technology. One of the things that we did a pilot test this
year on was the removal of phosphorus out of the system and if you do it in a
proper way you can actually utilize that as a fertilizer type substrate . It's very
expensive in order to do that, but it's something that we wanted to look at, so we
had a successful pilot that demonstrated we could actually do that. We also are
embarking on a facility plan update and one of the real purposes of that facility
plan is to look out ten to twenty years and really scour the new technology that's
available out there in the waste treatment industry today. So, that -- that's under
the new technology. Sustainability. One of the unique things that Laurelei and
her team are working on is that our disinfection process -- so, when we look at
reclaimed water, we disinfect through the UV process and, then, we also disinfect
through a secondary chlorination process and that's required. But if you go
through a proper study to demonstrate that your UV disinfection process is
effective, we can eliminate the chemical addition and chlorine addition and that's
a very exciting effort that we think is going to be beneficial to the community and
-- and to our costs in chemicals and those kinds of things, so --
De Weerd: And it would have saved a lot of stress earlier, too.
Bolthouse: So, it -- so, that's actually a good one under -- under our
sustainability efforts. The other one is that we currently use in a lot of areas is
still potable water and we are using it for cooling of seals and -- and different
nonpotable water at -- you know, efforts and with the project that we have going
on we are going to expand our capability to take and actually reuse more water
within the facility, which will save us on potable water use. Cost efficiency. A lot
of that is focused on process optimization. So, we are constantly trying to find
ways to do a better job in managing our process and that ultimately results in
fewer -- or less chemical use. We are now being much smarter about the way
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February 14, 2017
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we purchase chemicals. We are looking at consolidating chemical purchasing
contracts with other utilities and things, so that we can, you know, drive our costs
down as much as we can and we are also taking on a lot of efforts that we used
to consult out. We have people -- we have the skills and ability to do a lot of
efforts within our organization and we are starting to leverage those and so we
are doing a lot more in-house project management and those planned
preparations that we talked about and so instead of paying a consultant, we learn
and we can gain value out of doing that ourselves and so we are doing that on a
lot of fronts. And, finally, by-product utilization, you know, we -- we generate
things like bio-gas and are there other opportunities to use that and we also
generate solids that have to be landfilled and things. So, we are going to be
placing quite a bit of effort on that whole area of by product utilization. We have
an emerging issue at the wastewater treatment plant that involves our backup
power generation and our power supplier Idaho Power . We have a very unique
relationship in that we -- Idaho Power owns the entire distribution system within
our facility and the back up -- centralized backup power generation that we use in
case of a power outage we own, but, then, we put it onto their distribution
facilities to be distributed to the critical pieces of equipment in case of a power
outage. That was all spelled out in a 2008 memorandum of understanding that
we had with Idaho Power and there is some limitations and some criteria there
and they have recently approached us about their concerns associated with that
agreement, along with the desired expansion that we want to make out the waste
treatment plant. So, we are in the -- in the process of trying to figure out what our
options are and will be coming to Council here with an update shortly, because
we are going to have to make some tough decisions as it relates to our power
distribution, our backup power distribution, and how that all fits in with Idaho
Power. So, I just wanted to give you a heads up on that , that that's kind of an
emerging issue for us at wastewater. Shifting gears a little bit. Let's head over to
the water utility and talk a little bit about some of the things they have got going
on. Obviously, as the city grows we have to grow our water supply and -- and
that typically, you know, has meant that we have got to go out, we have got to
construct new wells. We need to the construct them where the growth is
occurring and this just kind of gives you a snapshot of the various wells that we
have in progress that are going to be a part of our mix. So, we currently have 23
wells. With the completion of these we will have 27. Kyle indicated to me the
other day that this is probably -- when these are complete we will probably see a
little lull in -- in well construction, because we will be in pretty good shape, unless
we have some unprecedented growth that we can't -- we can't plan for, but -- so,
these are the wells that are in process. You know, one of the things that we talk
about when we stage well construction from design and test wells and pumping
facilities and how it drags out, the whole test well protocol has just been so
valuable to us in defining where in that area that we can secure water, the best
quality, the right quantities, those kind of things and so had to put in a plug for
that effort. It's a little bit expensive, but it does -- it does allow us to select the
absolute best aquifer to pull those supplies from . You know, we also have in our
ten year plan some reservoirs and we kind of salt those reservoirs in for peak
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February 14, 2017
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demand storage, fire flow requirements, those kinds of things and we have some
land for those and we will be -- we will continue to fit those reservoirs in, like the
Victory reservoir, where that makes sense in the overall mix. Water quality
improvements is largely -- in addition to selecting the absolute best water we can
find in the areas we need it, has also taken shape in the -- in the form of the
treatment facilities and we now have three water quality treatment facilities that
are online and those are all in pressure zone two. That's the largest of our water
demand areas and serves the greatest number of population and those have
been working exceptionally well. We primarily are utilizing them for iron and
manganese removal, which is a -- which is a popular constituent as we go down
into the deep aquifers and it's -- it's, basically, a specialized filtration methodology
that allows us to remove those and we are getting 98, 99 percent removal of
those constituents in our -- in our processes and the photograph you see there is
the kind of tanks that are going into buildings and pump stations to -- to do that
filtration. We have got another one in progress in zone three and we have a
couple planned, one each in zone four and five that are going to be coming
around the corner. So, good high quality water is hard to find, but with this kind
of technology we can -- we can leverage the quality that we have got. A couple
areas that have gotten a lot of attention and I think you're very familiar with . We
kind of breezed by. But we -- you know, we thought this year the area of drilling
concern efforts by Kyle and his team were very good at protecting our future
water sources and although we petitioned for an area of drilling concern and we
did not get that, we got all the commitments that we felt was necessary out of the
Department of Water Resources to properly manage and ensure that our
aquifers going forward will not be contaminated by the well drilling practices that
we see around the valley. So, I think that was 99 percent successful in that
effort. The other one that I know you have been hearing about is water rights
transfer. It's very important for us to have the ability to move those points of
diversion around, give us maximum flexibility, so that we can pump the water we
need, any combination of the wells that we need, irregardless of the particular
water right that might exist at that particular well. So, that gives us the flexibility
to cherry pick the best sources, the best quality to meet our -- our citizen needs,
so -- kind of move you into some other areas. We -- you know, there is a lot of
things -- a lot of irons in the fire, a lot of initiatives that we have been working on.
We are going to highlight just a couple of those . You're very familiar with the
utility billing software, but what you may not be familiar with is that this was an
extensive effort by our asset management and water team , Dennis and Kathy,
led a multi-month effort -- I think it probably was seven or eight months of work to
solidify the back of the house efforts that were associated with that. So, you
know, new billing and customer interface were all excellent results, but we
realized significant benefit on the back of the house and that's how we process a
lot of the work we do out of our -- out of our water department. So, the benefits
that we -- you know, we have got listed here is it -- it delivered paperless service
order and work order processing, which we have been dreaming about I think for
a long time, but finally came to fruition. It gives us remote data access, so our
people out in the field can access everything they need in order to adequately do
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their -- their work. The new platform is integrated, so it -- you know, that allows
us to tie into other kinds of systems, like backflow and shut off and turn off kinds
of activities and so it integrates all that. It automates and standardizes a lot of
those processes, so I know Dennis and Kathy are experts in work breakdown
structure, as they went through virtually every process that we were doing within
the water department and optimized it to make it work here. So, it's efficient. It's
accurate. We are offering better timely response and I really -- we really
appreciate the efforts of them to pull this together. So, just a plug for that behind-
the-scenes thing you don't always hear about. Asset management program.
You know, this is one that we have been investing in for some time and rightfully
so. You know, this is -- this is the tool that allows us to identify and document all
of the key assets and infrastructure within the city. We have about 70,000 assets
that are now in our asset program management and that drives an integrated
work order processing system. So, last year alone we processed about 34,000
work orders through this system. Many of them are automatically generated
work orders that are predicting what we need to be doing . About 80 percent of
those work orders are now preventative, as opposed to reactive in nature and
that's exactly the way you want to -- you want to go on this thing. So, the whole
goal -- maximize that life cycle, understand what's happening on those assets,
and be wiser and be able to plan for replacement obsolescence in the most cost
and value methodology that we can. Financial planning never ends and we have
got -- we have got a few highlighted here that we have been working on quite
diligently. Obviously, the support of the CFP -- and I don't know where that
stands in terms of your visibility, but I understand if you haven't gotten it you will
be getting it soon here. But on the CIP side of things, we have always been
forced to lookout ten to fifteen years. Where do we need to invest that capital.
What's it going to look like. The technology, those kinds of things. But from an
operating cost standpoint, this was the first exercise for us and it was a good
one. One of the outcomes on that CFP effort and one that we -- we I guess
passionately called The Grove Summit was I think for the first time got our Public
Works, our Finance, and our development groups all in the room together and
say, listen, we need one projection of growth for the next ten years. Let's give it
our best effort and, then, we can all use it accordingly and that was -- I think that
was an outstanding effort by those groups to -- to develop that and you will see
that -- that's what led and drove a lot of the criteria in the CFP. Mentioned the
CIP. That's a constant massaging by our engineering and operations group to
make sure that we have got projects planned out in front of us. Rate modeling.
We will be bringing you an update on our overall rate structures and assessment
fee structures and how we are doing on that relative to some of the changes we
have made in the last couple of years. New to me is miscellaneous fees. I
honestly did not understand miscellaneous fees very well until just a few months
ago. It's about a million dollars of revenue that we currently have. That's about
three percent of our budget, but it's one that definitely needs some work and we
will be bringing to you some recommendations very soon to make some -- make
some modifications on that front and, obviously, the budget -- we are -- we are
deep in that process. The team is -- is working and building their budgets. We
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February 14, 2017
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try to take a zero based approach as we build those up each year and so our --
our management team is -- is busily working on that and you will get a chance to
-- to see that as we work through the process here and I trust we will bring you
an honest and fair effort at a budget for FY-18. Just briefly on tactical plan.
Public Works actually had a strategic plan done back in 2010 to '15 and with the
introduction of the new city strategic plan we -- we took a little bit different tack
and -- and actually created a tactical plan and all of our efforts -- a lot of the
things that I have talked about already, you know, are things that are deeply part
of our tactical plan and that holds underneath and supports the city's strategic
plan and I think that we are off and running and I got a good start on that and
certainly continues to be a -- a major guiding document for the department as we
-- as we move ahead to support the city's strategic plan. Performance
management system. That's a task that is also part of our tactical plan, but it's a
-- it's an initiative that, basically, is founded on the standpoint that it -- you know,
you can't manage what you can't measure and this is a significant effort. We
have identified approximately 17 KP Is within our department that we think can be
good measures of our success and our performance that is supported by 64
matrix that make up those KPIs. We started data collection on those in Q4, FY-
16. We are right now going through the process of kind of vetting and validating
and rationalizing those KPIs and matrix to see if they still make sense. You
know, sometimes you get into them a little bit and, then, it, well, maybe was a
good idea and no longer is and doesn't really tell you much. So, we are in that
process and we are -- we are targeting Q3 of FY-17 to have this thing more
formalized and reporting and rolling that out to -- to the stakeholders who need
that kind of information. Obviously creates visibility, transparency, and ultimately,
you know, efficiency and effectiveness in our organization. South Meridian. You
know, we are -- we are on it. We are in it. You're aware of some of the
milestones that have been reached here recently and with the satisfaction of
getting the Simplot easement agreement out of the way, we are now working on
the -- and they have mobilized and are starting on the critical canal crossings.
Time is of the essence and we got to get that done. That's kind of the phase one
of this effort on the sewer side and we will have the phase two and phase three
commencing this summer as we -- as we move forward on the sewer side. On
water there was a stretch of that effort that was actually completed this last year
and we have two more phases in the water, one each in '18 and '19, which, then,
should complete and deliver that utility services to the parcels identified in the
annexation agreements. SCADA and PLC. It might be characterized as the -- as
the -- the area that's gotten away from us a little bit. This is so critical to our
water treatment and wastewater operations. It really has become the brains of
our operations. It's the system that automatically monitors and controls many
parts of that operation. You guys have supported as a Council, you know, almost
five million dollars worth of investment over the past , you know, six or so years
and -- and a lot of that was upgrading of the technology in the PLCs, but it's also
delivered us those products that allows us to manage it. So, you know,
components of that system include the HMIs, which is a human machine
interface, so that's -- you know, that's your -- your screens and your outputs, all
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of our significant alarming is what -- is very important to us, so that we can see
problems occurring before they -- before they happen. It's our historian. It's -- it
documents all of the attributes necessary for us to do trending reports. It does
report generation and more importantly -- or maybe most importantly it does give
us the backbone information that we have to report and confirm our compliance
to our permits and requirements and things. It's -- so, it's growing, it's evolving
technology, it's -- you know, it's always -- it's always changing and as a result we
currently have a task force assigned to get our arms around that . We had a
master plan that was developed over ten years ago to kind of help guide this
effort and it was one of those that was not well owned, it was shelved, although
we followed some parts of it, many of its obsolete, so we have asked the task
force to just look at this whole SCADA-PLC kind of issue, get our arms around it,
take a programmatic approach to it. Early indications are -- is that we have
allowed this thing to get out of control. We don't have the resources to support it.
So, we have -- we have engaged our IT Department, along with our operations
and engineering folks, to really try to pull this together and as we approach
budget time and as we hit some milestones in that effort we will be glad to bring it
back. But it is a -- it's a very critical part of our operation and we need to -- we
need to get on it, we need to resource it, and we need to develop a new master
plan, so that we -- we can stay ahead of it. The Nine Mile Creek floodplain
analysis is -- has, basically, you know, been completed. That took a long time. I
was surprised to see that, actually, the effort started in 2010 and here we are
now in 2017. We do have a -- preliminary maps have been published and that --
I guess the net of that effort is approximately 16 percent more land is now
classified within that floodplain for -- for Nine Mile. We had a number properties
added. We had some drop out, but we -- you know, net-net it was an increase.
We held public hearings to help explain that and we had near 200 citizens of the
City of Meridian attend those workshops and so that they could understand that.
We noticed everybody and let -- and informed everybody whether or not they
were in, they were out, they were new and so they have all -- all been aware of it
and, obviously, there is -- there is an impact on the flood insurance program.
The final maps I'm told should go final in the spring of 2018 . So, Dave Miles is
our local expert on this topic and rightfully so. You now know about what I know.
So, to kind of I guess move into the final part of our update is to talk a little bit
about our efforts to build our foundation and we talk a lot about our employee
and employee development. We have a -- we have a tendency -- I have a
tendency to jinx myself, not only on the flood event in -- in January, but I think I
was the one in July that said, man, can you believe it, we are fully staffed and,
boy, did I -- did I pay for that, because between the -- between July and
December, you know, we -- we saw us fall to approximately 15 vacancies. Now,
some of those were the new positions that you authorized in October that came
on and we appreciate that support, but we also got caught by a number of
unannounced retirements and things. So, you know, we are seeing -- we are
seeing an industry trend in a lot of municipalities and that is, you know, the
graying of the workforce and the difficulty to fill the jobs and succession planning,
a lot of those kinds of activities are -- are very impactful to us and so we are
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trying to be pro-active, we are trying to work our way back and as of -- as of here
recently we have got ourselves back to seven open positions and some of those I
will tell you are being held open purposely as we continue to optimize our
organization and things. So, we are not out necessarily actively trying to fill all
those jobs at this point in time, so we are trying to be selective. We are trying to
add value. When we get this opportunity we want to make sure the people are
good fits -- good fits with our organization, good fits with the city in terms of
value. So, it's -- I think John McCormick was the one who always said you got to
-- you got to go slow to go fast and when you're in the hiring process I think that's
great wisdom and making sure that we are making the right decisions that are
going to affect us for, hopefully, a long time. Interesting of note on here, though,
is that I think we are doing a pretty good job in that selection, because through
the course of this last year or so we have had eight internal promotion candidates
and there is nothing better than being able to fill vacancies and give people those
opportunities to expand on their abilities and so we really are proud of our
opportunities to promote our people internally. One of the reasons why we think
that's contributing to that is that we have -- we have had a leadership
development program now for over three years and we -- we passionately call it
the LDP 1, 2, 3 and now this year are in LDP 4 and that's a program that was
designed and built in collaboration with Boise State University and their center for
development -- professional development and we have had 34 individuals go
through the LDP 1 curriculum, that's a series of ten classroom learnings and a
retreat and it's -- and it's talking about everything from management to leadership
to problem-solving skills and that we think has been a very effective and very
popular program and we kind of now have morphed on LDP 4, we have morphed
that into more of a leadership type of emphasis and we have sixteen individuals
who are going through that program as we speak . That's a half-day session
every other week, again, in collaboration with Boise State and that emphasis is
really on, you know, all of us can be leaders. You don't have to be a manager to
be a leader and so we are really tapping into that aspect of having, you know,
informal leadership within our organization and they are off to a great start on
that. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that we submitted that program to the
APWA Rocky Mountain Chapter and as the picture indicates we were successful
and we won the technical and leadership program award for this effort. So, we
are very proud of that effort and it really supports our succession planning and
internal development and we trust that that will lead to many more future internal
promotion opportunities. One of the areas that we appreciated your support on,
you know, roughly a year ago we -- we brought in a safety program professional
into our organization, Tim Campbell, and at that time we were -- we were
significantly behind many of the efforts that needed to be done in order to have
an effective safety program for our employees and we kind of approach ed it on
these four prongs of training, worksite analysis, hazard prevention and, then, just
management commitment and I will tell you that we have made a lot of headrow
-- a lot of headway, excuse me, on our training backlog that we had within the
organization. You know, we identified that there were thousands of hours of
training that needed to occur for our employees in many of the areas of their
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work. We now have 95 percent of our training is done in-house. So, Tim and his
experience and his certification allows us to do a lot of this training internally now
with our folks, as opposed to subcontracting, having people come in or sending
them outside. So, a great effort on that front. We have nearly continuous facility
inspections, so -- and inspections that have engaged people who are in those
work areas and work departments and so as a result we continue to identify and
remove any potential hazards that are there and by engaging people in that
process they are becoming experts at identifying that as well and -- and that will
pay some very good dividends down the road. In terms of hazard prevention and
control, we have got -- you know, prevention is the best -- is the best medicine
here and we are now getting greater engagement in project planning activities
and things, so that we can design things in upfront. You know, we -- we were
dealing with recent facilities that don't even have exit signs and I don't -- we don't
know how that happens, but I assure you that if you put the right people around a
set of drawings and things we will have -- you know, you now have safety
professionals and people looking for those kinds of things and making sure that
the design of those efforts do have the appropriate safety systems in place. And,
finally, as it relates to, you know, management, employee commitment, I think
that, you know, these are one of those things that are a top down and our
management team is highly dedicate d to ensuring that our employees have a
safe place to work, that it's a collaborative environment and that we are focused
on prevention instead of running the risk of somebody getting hurt. So, a lot of
great strides this year in our safety effort. And to finish up I just want to talk
about a couple of items where you -- you might be familiar with. We are currently
in the throws -- when you look at volunteer education and outreach, we are
planning the ninth annual Public Works Week for early June and we are excited
about that effort. So, that's -- that's underway. We are involved in a lot of the
third grade tours. So, I -- the number I was given -- we gave 36 presentations to
third graders on water and wastewater utilities . So, great effort that. And I don't
know where -- I don't know where Laurelei and Adam get the time, but they have
toured in the last year over 500 citizens through the wastewater treatment facility.
So, a lot of time and effort to offer folks that exposure into our world of uti lities.
Under the category kind of stretching our capabilities, we got a great example on
that front and that is we have talked about some of these plans we are
developing. The collections team got together and determined that, hey, we can
-- we can do our own operations and maintenance manual . They had a -- you
know, they had kind of a straw model from previous consulting work and things of
that nature and -- and by golly they -- they got together, they developed probably
the best O&M plan we have ever had and one that was approved and completely
went through the scrutiny of DEQ and things and was a very successful effort
and saved tens of thousands of dollars if we were to outsource that. So, not
normal things they would do, but items that we can plan out in front of them and
-- and they -- they met the challenge on that front. Under the category of little
things matter. The photo you see here is -- so, on a cold wintery day later in the
evening a couple of our water operators were out completing service orders and
things and a dog come wandering up and they spent -- they spend a lot of time
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looking for the owners. There, obviously, was no collar, there was no
identification, it just wanted to hang around and so they -- they went up and down
the entire neighborhood knocking on doors trying to find the owner . Well, long
story short, one of the -- one of the gentlemen took the dog home, fed him,
watered him, went online, did all the searching and communication and I will be
darned if they didn't reconnect this dog with the owner the next day. So, just a --
just a kind -- just a little hint of what kind of people we have in the -- in the
department and it's not just for citizens, it's for dogs as well.
De Weerd: I thought maybe that was one of your volunteers.
Bolthouse: Yeah. Well, it looks like he's -- he's looking out for hazards while
they are driving down the road there, so I would say it's a pretty good partner, so
-- in terms of recognizing opportunities, you know, we -- we participate in the
Idaho Power incentive in looking for energy efficiency in our water and
wastewater operation -- our electrician, you know, really dogged this thing and
we are -- we are approaching a number of opportunities that have been
implemented that we have gotten rebates on and we have got one more big one
in the works right now that we will probably put it somewhere between 100 and
150 thousand dollars rebate for those efforts in looking for energy efficiency and
taking the time to apply for those rebates to come back. So, bottom line, above
and beyond, I think, you know, we have -- we have got to work with that Muni-
Care and cares about their work and cares about the community and this is --
this is a picture taken last fall. Kind of a -- kind of a tough looking group. This is
from our -- from our picnic in September and I will tell you that it's probably not
the world's greatest kickball players, I don't think we could find a better team to
operate your water and wastewater utilities and all the necess ary support, so --
and I do know there are some tremendous cornhole players, though, within that
group right there. So, anyway, with -- with that I will be -- I would probably stand
for questions and probably direct them somewhere else, but --
De Weerd: Thank you, Dale. Council, any questions?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Good presentation. Can you talk a little bit more about some of these
issues that we have pending with Idaho Power and I don't know if that makes
sense for a future presentation to dive a little deeper on that, but, obviously, that's
something that's got to be a big concern to you and your team and I know when I
heard about it it definitely made my ears perk up.
Bolthouse: Yes. Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, yes, we -- we know more
about it. We are meeting with the Mayor and Councilman Bird here in a week
and a half to give them kind of an update on the information , but -- but, basically,
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Idaho Power has indicated to us that due to the in creasing demand of power on
the -- on the system and the fact that we have such a unique situation with how
our backup power goes onto their system that they -- they believe that they have
grounds to terminate our memorandum of understanding and have somewhat
given us an ultimatum to come up with a different solution . So, we have got a
couple of options that we are evaluating on that front and it is of -- it is of high
importance to us, because we do not want this to influence the timing of our
expansion projects and things and so I think that's probably the best route is to
maybe allow us to do that. We have engaged with our finance team to evaluate
from a financial analysis standpoint some of the different options we have got
and those options include modifying completely our -- how our backup power
gets to the motor control centers where it's needed. Another one is that we -- up
to and including we could take control and purchase, if you will, all of the
infrastructure that's on our property where Idaho Power's responsibilities would
end at the property line, which is traditionally the way it's done.
Cavener: Sure.
Bolthouse: Most organizations and operations are set up that way. They deliver
to the property and, then, the owner takes it from there. So, stay tuned. I guess I
would ask for a little patience, but, you're right, it is a -- it's a critical issue and it's
one that we believe we are on top of and working towards a recommendation.
Cavener: Great. Thank you.
De Weerd: Any other questions?
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: This may be for follow up at a later discussion at or before the budget,
but the current status of the asset management data collection , does that
correlate directly with finance and the depreciation budget forecasts that you use,
so as you acquire more -- as they age that what's being allotted towards that
reserve is --
Bolthouse: Yeah. Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, it -- it does. It ultimately
will become part of that process of projecting and predicting the kinds of
expenses we are going to have with depreciation and asset replacement and its
first and most important now is to get that asset into the system with a condition
assessment and be able to track our efforts in mainte nance and repair against
those, so that we can come out of that with an analysis that gives you that
predictive ability of when those assets are going to need to be replaced . We are
a bit fortunate in that the bulk of our infrastructure in our city is relatively young
and so it's probably not too early, though, to start thinking about those major
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investments. You know, there are -- there are some locations that literally are
spending billions of dollars annually on their infrastructure replacement, but that's
primarily towns like Philadelphia and those that have had this infrastructure in
place for 70 to 100 years, where, in reality, the majority of our infrastructure is
probably, you know, less than 40 years. But that is the basis in the system that
will allow us to do those projections for -- for replacing depreciating assets.
Borton: Madam Mayor. Real quick follow up on that point. We have been,
obviously, compiling that data for all of the new installation -- at least for some
period of time into this -- into the system. Have we been utilizing the -- the
rotation of the camera inspections to continue to populate that -- that
management data set?
Bolthouse: Yeah.
Borton: And how close are we to having that complete and , then, continuing to
add to it as we go forward?
Bolthouse: Yeah. So, we -- we have introduced the inspection of that
infrastructure and that -- the result of those inspections does direct us to where
we apply either maintenance, repair, or replacement efforts today. I'm not sure,
Councilman Borton, I understand the second part of that question.
Borton: Well -- Madam Mayor. It's -- if we are through that process inspecting
this infrastructure, does that allow you to -- does it give you enough information
to assess the quality of that infrastructure to, then, put a depreciation value for
forecast something that says this particular portion of the infrastructure is going
to need replacement in ten years, not 50 years, in light of that inspection, so let's
fluctuate our depreciation reserves to account for that? Is that process
underway?
Bolthouse: Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, I would say that that process is
initiated. So, our first efforts is to get that initial assessment in the system and,
then, do it on an appropriate periodic basis when you're -- when you're looking at
sewer or water infrastructure, like the piping and things of that nature, and -- and
monitor and analyze how that condition is changing, which, then, would allow you
to flex that, you know, from a life cycle replacement standpoint when we are
going to experience, you know -- you know, large replacement costs and things.
So, that's -- that process is started. I can tell you that we have got enough
information on some of that to do , you know, a complete enough analysis to
make the kind of projection that we are hoping to make with time, but I think
probably the program is still a little too young in terms of some of those things to
offer as much benefit as what we will see down the road.
Borton: Thank you.
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Bolthouse: I hope that answers --
De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions? I would like to thank the team -- two
weeks in a row. This is true dedication. We appreciate everything that you do on
-- on the behalf of an infrastructure that we don't want to get any calls on,
because we know that generally when we do they are -- they are not nice ones,
but you do tremendous work in making sure that we don't get those phone calls
and we greatly appreciate it. Certainly I am hoping that part of those 36
presentations to the third graders are -- are hoping to pique their interest in a
career in Public Works, in water or sewer or engineering, because certainly we
need that workforce coming up as some of your number showed in retirements
and that sort of thing. So, just go back and make sure everyone knows they can't
retire until they find a replacement, so -- but thank you, Dale, and thank you
team.
C. Public Works: Discussion of Resolution Accepting All of
Volume 1 and The City’s Section of the Volume 2 Within
the Ada County Hazard Mitigation Plan
De Weerd: With that said we will turn this over to Kyle, who really costs us a lot
of money in his test wells and -- but we know that time is money and by drilling
those test wells first you ultimately save us time and money; right?
Radek: Madam Mayor, I couldn't agree more. They are -- they are investments
that will pay dividends in the future, no doubt about it. Madam Mayor, Council
Members, the purpose of this presentation is to give you some information about
the efforts we had over the past year to update the -- as a planning partner to
update the Ada County Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan. You may recall -- it was
about a year ago that we -- we asked for permission to put a staff member on the
planning committee to work on this plan and they have completed the update of
the plan and -- and we are ready to present it to you and hopefully get your
questions and discussion and, then, hopefully, get approval to have a -- have a
resolution drafted for next Tuesday. The staff members that I -- I worked on this
plan more in the 2011 update. This is the -- this is the second update of the plan,
so the third version of the plan since -- since it -- since it started and Dave Miles
and Max Jensen really did more of the work this year with the committee and I
just have the privilege of being able to present it to you, because I'm somebody
that usually goes to Council and Max -- Max didn't jump up and down and --
De Weerd: I think you should give -- just hand it over to Dave and say, Dave, it's
all yours.
Radek: Before I -- before I go to this slide I just -- I just have five slides and just a
few main points to make. Take about ten minutes. First of all, the hazard
mitigation plan is hazard mitigation, it's not an emergency management plan , so
the idea is we know there are natural hazards that -- that periodically affect us.
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What can we do now to mitigate the risks and the impacts associated with those
hazards. That's what the plan is about and there is a -- there is a plan that's a
countywide portion and, then, there is the -- the second volume, which is -- which
is our planning partner annex -- Meridian's annex. In your Council packets I
provided the executive summary of the main plan than our entire annex. Just as
a point of interest there were eight different hazard types that the -- the plan
considered and -- and, then, Meridian's annex, wouldn't you know that the
number one ranking hazard type is severe weather and among severe weather is
-- is a snowfall event. So, it's in there. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of
mitigation you can do for that kind of event that we had and the mitigation you
can do -- there is a list of mitigating activities you can do for that in the plan and if
you're already doing it that's not an action item that will be on annex, but the
main thing you can do to mitigate that kind of event is have sufficient building
codes and enforcement that includes snow load in this case, so -- so, we, in fact,
did mitigation for that event. We didn't have a lot of consequences that I'm aware
of, so -- there is a Meridian annex and in this update what was done is -- is the
planning partners went through their annexes -- and this is -- this table is a
snapshot of our old previous action plan items and what have we completed,
what will we carry forward to the next plan, what mitigation actions may no longer
be feasible. For example, the M5 at the end, consider the creation of a service
water utility, including fee collection. Well, we looked into that and decided that
that wasn't a feasible thing to do. Ada County is in charge of the -- the storm
drain system and they have -- they are the MS4 permittee with the -- with the
EPA and they should take care of that. So, that's no longer feasible and is no
longer the new plan. On the other hand, we had an action item M4 that was
completed, apply for participation in the community rating system in our
floodplain administration and we did apply and we are now members of the
community rating system, which will feed into this plan and actually being -- being
participants in this plan will give us credit in the community rating system, so --
so, there is that advantage. And the main advantage of -- of being part of the
plan -- you know, in the initial comments in the executive summary it says, well,
once you have a plan like this, then, you can be eligible for pre-disaster grant
funding or hazard mitigation funding, but I think the bigger advantage of being
part of a planning effort is that you have done the planning. I like the term -- a
plan is nothing, but planning is everything and I think it's true. This is a good
example here where what you see and hear is a -- is a success story where we
identified in our plan that one of the opportunities that we had to improve our risk
and impact to the hundred year flood was , gee whiz, wouldn't it be nice if we
didn't have the one hundred year flood overtopping the interstate at the Eagle
interchange and we communicated that to the transportation department.
Wouldn't it be nice -- and this is -- this wasn't anything that was enabled by grant
funding, this was just opportunity and preparation meeting and I'm not sure what
the -- what the impetus for ITD's project was, but we communicated with them
and said, hey, you need to do this if you have a chance and that was the pre -
project condition and that's the post-project condition and so -- yeah. So, even --
even with the absence of any kind of, you know, grant funding from a federal
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level, sometimes it's just a matter of the right people knowing that there is an
issue that needs to be addressed and I think that was the case here , so -- and
we continue to communicate with different pla nning partners and we will look for
more opportunities like this. I have with me Crash from the County Emergency
Management office and he will help me answer any detailed questions that you
have that I can't answer, but with that, that's -- that's about all I had for a
presentation and we are, like I said, looking for your -- any comments you have,
questions, discussion and then -- and, then, we appreciate your -- your direction
to move towards resolution for next week.
De Weerd: I guess, Kyle, something that came up in the previous presentation
on the Nine Mile floodplain -- or Nine Mile Creek floodplain and how its increased
in the number of properties that it impacts, how -- how did that increase and are
we looking at mitigation to some of those concerns?
Radek: Madam Mayor, Council Members, I could answer this question, but I
think there is another guy that could answer it better standing over there.
De Weerd: He will really get you up here.
Radek: The simple answer is, absolutely, we are looking at that. But I'm going to
let Dave answer it in a little more detail.
Miles: Madam Mayor, Council Members, thank you. Dave Miles --
De Weerd: That was a tag team.
Miles: It was. We had a little bit of division in duties, but, nonetheless, I'm aware
of the situation and, essentially, the new mapping that FEMA conducted on Nine
Mile Creek is a culmination of new hydrology and new hydraulics, so they have
better, newer technology with new results in the floodplain mapping of the
hundred year event and because of that that's the result where you see
additional properties being added to the flood plain. In answer to your second
question, we are looking at this type of program as an option, as well as other
options, whether it be the Army Corps of Engineers, who have a grant funding
program, as well as a budgetary straight budget funding program as partnership
and, then, looking at other opportunities as well with other agencies like MDC
and the efforts that they are making in partnership with their efforts, as well as
the highway district. So, we are looking at various options to mitigate those types
of issues that have come up from the new mapping.
De Weerd: I would say that was a real political answer. So, we haven't quite
figured out what we can do to help reduce the impact on the -- the property
owners.
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Miles: Madam Mayor and Council Members, we know what we can do and the
answer to that is increase the size of a culverts that are in Nine Mile Creek.
Typically most of the culverts along all of our creeks are undersized due to their
installation being years ago and not understanding the full magnitude of the flood
plain. So, we know we can increase the size of the culverts. The question
becomes how and what's the most effective and cost -effective way to do that. Is
that straight funds through the City of Meridian? Is that funds through
partnerships with the city and in the likes of the highway district and MDC or is
that utilizing in federal grant dollars through either the Army Corps of Engineers
or FEMA and asking them for their partnerships. There are costs and benefits to
both of those. Obviously, working with the federal government time is more of
the issue with what appears to be about the same cost. So, we are evaluating
those options. But, ultimately, we have to upsize the culverts in some manner.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Miles: Does that answer your question?
De Weerd: More so.
Miles: Okay.
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Bird: I have none.
De Weerd: Nothing for Crash? We do appreciate that you joined us.
Radek: Madam Mayor, Council, thank you. And so I will -- if there are no further
questions, I'm assuming that's acquiescence to go forward and put in on the
agenda for next Tuesday for a resolution.
De Weerd: I don't see any opposition to that.
Radek: Thank you, Madam Mayor.
D. Council: Formal Acceptance of FY2016 EideBailly Audit
Report
De Weerd: Thank you. Okay. Item 7 -D. Last week, Council, you heard the
report on the audit. We did need formal acceptance of that report, so this is more
of a technicality than anything else.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
Bird: Madam Mayor? Go ahead, Joe.
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February 14, 2017
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De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: I would move that we formally accept and approve the fiscal year 2016
audit report presented by Eide Bailly.
Bird: Second.
De Weerd: Okay. I have a motion and a second to approve Item 7 -D. Mr. Clerk,
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.
Item 8: Future Meeting Topics
De Weerd: Under future meeting topics. Council, I do have a couple reminders
of upcoming events. Police Department award ceremony is the 23rd at the West
Ada district offices. FFA has their Community Appreciation Breakfast on Friday,
the 24th, at 6:00 a.m. You don't have to be there at 6:00 a.m. But that is at the
Meridian Career Technical Center. And Light My Fire at the Riverside Hotel.
That is also on the 24th. That's at 5:30 p.m. And you can talk to Chief Jones or
Pam Orr has all the details. Pam has been a constant in that. If you haven't
attended you should. And ask if there are any topics under this item?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: A privilege if I may. I just wanted to congratulate you and your staff
and volunteers on a great State of the City address and specifically to the great
announcement about the new park coming to Meridian. So, a great event and a
great recognition to -- for Councilman Bird. So, job well done.
De Weerd: Thank you so much. And it will be coming to you to -- to vote on that.
So, I think that sounds like there is at least one vote.
Item 9: Amended Executive Session per Idaho State Code 74 -206(1)(d)
and 74-206(1)(a); (d): To consider records that are exempt from
disclosure as provided in Chapter 3, Title 9, Idaho Code; (a):
To Consider Hiring a Public Officer, Employee, Staff Member
or Individual Agent, Wherein the Respective Qualities of
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February 14, 2017
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Individuals Are to be Evaluated in Order to Fill a Particular
Vacancy or Need. This Paragraph Does Not Apply To Filling A
Vacancy In An Elective Office Or Deliberations About Staffing
Needs In General
De Weerd: Okay. Council, I would entertain a motion to adjourn into Executive
Session.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we go into Executive Session as per Idaho State Code 74-206(1)(a)
and (d).
Milam: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adjourn into Executive Session. Mr.
Clerk, 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.
EXECUTIVE SESSION: (4:54 p.m. to 5:51 p.m.)
De Weerd: I would entertain a motion to come out of Executive Session.
Bird: So moved.
Borton: Second.
De Weerd: All those in favor say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
De Weerd: Do I have a motion to adjourn?
Bird: So moved.
Borton: Second.
De Weerd: All those in favor. All ayes.
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February 14, 2017
Page 35 of 36
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 5:51 P.M.
(AUDIO REC L2D-fNC JaN FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
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MAYOR TAMVE WEERD DATE APPROVED
ATTEST: 70,RT
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