Loading...
9-7-04 Precouncil Minutes Meridian City Pre-Council Meetina September 7.2004 The Meridian City Pre-Council meeting was called to order at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, September 7,2004 by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Bill Nary, Keith Bird, Shaun Wardle and Charlie Rountree. Others Present: Gary Smith, Brad Watson, Bill Nichols, William Musser, Kenny Bowers and Will Berg. Item 1. Roll-call Attendance: ~ Bill Nary ~Keith Bird ~ Shaun Wardle ~ Charlie Rountree ---X- Mayor Tammy de Weerd Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Bird: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move that we adopt the agenda as published for the Pre-Council meeting. Rountree: Second. Nary: It's been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as published. All those in favor, say aye. ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. Item 3. Discussion of Black Cat Sewer Trunk by David Turnbull and Frank Varriale: Turnbull: Thank you Madame Mayor, Councilman Nary and members of the Council. We have between Frank Varriale and I we own a substantial amount of property out in the Black Cat, Ten Mile area. We have been planning our projects together as most of you know and they have had some discussion previously with Brad Watson about the Black Cat Sewer Trunk Line, which will service the majority of that property. We made the request to Brad to start moving on that project with design and construction. He indicated to us that he would need to get the direction from Council to approve commencement of that project so we have made that formal request to the City and have discussed it with the members of the Council and the Mayor. So, we are here to make that formal request. I think we have given you most of the background on it, Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 7,2004 Page 2 of 17 previously and if you have any further questions, we'd be happy to answers questions at this time. Nary: Council, do you have questions for Mr. Turnbull or do you want to hear from Mr. Watson first? Bird: I'd like to hear from Brad first. Watson: Thank you Mr. President, Mayor and Council members. I don't know that I have a whole lot to add. I have met with Mr. Turnbull on this issue and he paraphrased exactly what I said. This is not - this area is not in our capital improvement plan at this time. It is in our master plan. We have a preliminary design. We have cost estimates for it. With the other projects that we are doing, it just wasn't something that I would out of the blue propose that we do unless the Council directed us to. The only, maybe somewhat complicating factor in this is as you know the area north of Chinden is being studied as we speak and the results of that should be in by the end of the month and that might change this in a minor way. But, it would probably change the size of the lift station. So, the cost estimates I have, may not be - well, they don't account for that area north of Chinden. But, I can answer any questions you might have. Bird: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Bird. Bird: Brad, is this line still going to need the lift station at Quenzer's property? Watson: Councilman Bird, yes it will. This was originally designated as the area that would contain the large regional station and it is just south of where this is being shown. We will scoot it up a little bit. This is Quenzer's property here. This is the lift station. Originally it was the large 10 to 11 thousand gallons per minute station. As you are well aware, the major Black Cat Lift Station is now down south of Cherry Lane. This would probably still be what I would term a medium sized station in the 2 thousand gallon per minute range and it would pump all the way back to the wastewater plant. Bird: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Bird. Bird: Brad, if we go across Meridian or Chinden, how much - when JUB did the overall thing here what six years ago when they did an overall study? This was part of that overall study as I recall. Watson: Yes. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 7,2004 Page30f17 Bird: I forgot to bring my book today, but what would it entail larger sewer lines or we usually put enough sewer line in to handle any access that would come from there, don't we? I mean we are not right on the minimum inches of sewer line when we do put an end. Watson: Correct. Councilman Bird the impact at the area north of Chinden might have on this system is that it could conceivably drive the depth of this trunk into Black Cat Road somewhat deeper. Also, slightly upsize the size of this lift station and also the size of the pressure sewer coming back here. But, again, that was one of three options that JUB was going to look at. That may not be the most cost effective. Bird: Another follow up. Nary: Certainly. Bird: Thank you Mr. President. Brad, if we were to start on the engineering and stuff at this point what are we looking at in a timeline of - and with the lift station and everything, how long would that take to get this project under and finished up? Watson: Councilman Bird, I could give you a typical wishy-washy answer, but I will try. Well, first of all there are no funds in the current budget or the FY 05 budget unless we divert it away from the Black Cat project. Usually, design is the easier part of a sewer project. It's the easement acquisition portion. Although, a lot of this would appear to be in the right of way. As an example, the Black Cat Trunk was initiated, I think between 12 and 18 months ago. We are prepared to bid out two major portions of that here in the next month to month and one half, with about a year to 14 or 15 months construction timeline. Bird: Brad refresh my memory also. I know that all but about 100 feet or so of between Ten Mile and Black Cat will flow naturally flow through the Black Cat. How much between McDermott and Black Cat will flow back towards Black Cat or is there any, I can't remember? Watson: Councilman Bird from our updated master plan it appears 800 feet on the west side of McDermott or Black Cat, I'm sorry, could flow back to this. Bird: Thank you. I think that's alii have questions for now, Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Wardle. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 7, 2004 Page 4 of 17 Wardle: Brad, just a quick question. You'd mentioned that this wasn't in the year for fiscal year 2005. Have we had any thought as to how far down the road we are looking? Was it '06 or --? Watson: Councilman Wardle, no we have not traditionally programmed trunk lines to be built in any specific year. All the trunk lines have been very development driven or at the direction of Council where they wanted to see growth. In fact, the facility plan is going through DEQ right now. They have wanted us to designate a year for all the remainder of the trunks throughout the impact area. I have dug my heels in it and I said no we can't do that because once I put a date next to a trunk, then there is potentially a false expectation on the part of the development community when that service would be available; whereas, the way we do it now it gives you the flexibility and the ability to direct growth where you want it. Rountree: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Brad, if this were the desire of the Council to move on this particular trunk line, what - not bumping anything, when could it be programmed? Watson: Councilman Rountree if you directed us to, without moving funds in '05, we would be able to propose as it as an enhancement next summer for the '06 budget. If you did want us to re-designate some funds in '05 then we would simply have to go through the RFP process this fall and select a consulting engineer and it would probably get kicked off January or February. Rountree: Follow up. Would that just be for the preliminary engineering? Watson: Councilman Rountree, I believe this is not quite the full preliminary engineering we have now, but I would anticipate it being full designed and easement acquisition. Rountree: So, on that timeline when would you anticipate a trunk being established? Watson: Councilman Rountree if this was - I will just give a for instance if this was initiated in January, typically the design, assuming easements are somewhat attainable and can be completed in 12 months. The hesitation on all of this is that the wastewater plant is not at capacity, but with 200 buildings permit plus a month we are going to begin to bump up against that fairly soon and the phase one project at the wastewater plant has an estimated 12 to 18 months of design and at least a similar timeline for construction. So, I feel like I am starting to have to be very careful about how many building permits we're issuing over the next three to four years. Currently, the wastewater plant has a maximum month Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 7,2004 Page50f17 average flow of, I think in August it was about 4.5 million gallons per month. What we believe the capacity to be is about 5.5 million gallons per month. We usually don't peak until September. Bird: Mr. President. Nary: Brad, your time, that includes the lift station also, now that we don't have to put a big two-story lift station in? Would that include the lift station being in and going back to the plant? Watson: Councilman Bird, I believe so. Again, the technical design is not that difficult. It's finding the spot to put it in negotiated the easements for the pressure sewer throughout that undeveloped property with Mr. Quenzer and possibly Mr. Frank Johnson, who owns the other piece right now, but I understand that might be up for sale. Those are traditionally the roadblocks to getting that built. But, I am sorry - yes, 12 months would be sufficient if everything else was in place to design both the trunk and the lift station. Bird: Thank you, Brad. Rountree: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Seems like there is two things that you need. One you need some direction on whether or not the Council wants to see this particular trunk line added to the capital development program and two we need additional capacity in the plant either concurrently or before we look at either expanding existing trunk lines, or adding additional trunk lines. Is that correct? Watson: I think that is correct, yes. Rountree: Okay, so any advanced planning on whatever trunk line it would be would be in advance - could be an advance of the expansion of the plant, but really couldn't come on line until after our plant has expanded, which is what a couple of years away? Watson: Councilman Rountree I believe that - not the best timeline, but not the worst case, but we are probably looking at 2 y" years and that in area to get the additional capacity on the most critical components at the wastewater plant. Now, I am not saying - I guess this is more of a policy decision. If this was approved and it was completed faster, that's not going to suddenly bump us up over our capacity, but everyone needs to be aware that if we get to that point, then the whole city is affected by lam not going to say the "m" word, but by some sort of slowdown. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 7, 2004 Page 6 of 17 De Weerd: Mr. President. Nary: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess where I - where are you at with the number of permits? I guess we have a number of applications out there and we know they are not going to be developed. We know they are not going to be developed over night, but how many more homes can you add and where does it become a critical factor? If we maintain the current growth - I guess we need to look at some scenarios too of how growth is occurring, how we are projecting it and if we can accommodate it. We can have multiple applications out of approved developments, it's the number of building permits is the critical point here. Is that correct? Watson: Madame Mayor I guess the critical point is when people move into the houses and I don't know how to track that yet, but- De Weerd: I guess based on building permits? Watson: That's the best I have is based on building permits and it sure seems like, right now, the correlation between building permits and the number of approved applications is a fairly high correlation, the volume of permits and the volume of applications are both at a all time highs. If the Council would like I can go back and put together some data and maybe some graphs that maybe show some intersections of where I would project that capacity to be exceeded based on building permit projections. I didn't show up with that tonight because I didn't know where this discussion was going to go. I showed up with costs and a map, so I can do that if you would like. Rountree: I think that would be very helpful. It would probably be helpful in identifying the timing of the planning for additional trunk lines into the community, but it would be very helpful to see if we are reaching critical mass in terms of commercial and residential hookups in a capacity at the facility, even though we have got a major construction project next fiscal year at the plant. As you indicated, it's going to be several years before that's complete and in operation. De Weerd: Mr. President. Nary: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess it would be good now to start being a little bit more in tune to where we are at in that process. If this were developer driven, would be still having this same conversation or not? So, at what point do we feel that we are beyond where we should be and I guess we need to see what our options are and who is to say that we are going stay on the same growth trance that we are on right now or if it slows down. Where those points meet is what I am Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 7, 2004 Page 7 of 17 concerned at is it about the same time we'll be adding that additional capacity or not. Are we going to be short or is - I guess I just need more information. Wardle: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Wardle. Wardle: I would also agree and I appreciate Brad not moving too far forward until the Council had an opportunity to look at whether this was an issue we would look at. My personal opinion, it certainly is something that will affect the overall health of the city. I would like to see some realistic expectations as far as when the plant can be on line, when some of these improvements can be on line and I know, Brad, that you are just kind of ball parking now, but if we could resume this discussion when we have that information it would be helpful for me. Nary: Brad how long do you think it will take to gather that information? Two weeks? Watson: Mr. President the month of September we are meeting with Carollo to find the précised scope of this design project, which includes the phasing and schedules. I don't anticipate - well, we do have a workshop early next week or early the following week, but in the next couple of weeks, three to four weeks from now we will probably be sufficient. Nary: Before we move on, Mr. Turnbull, Mr. Varriale, do you have any comment or anything? Obviously, we need a little bit more information before we go forward, but we are looking at probably a month before we would revisit this discussion. But, I didn't know if you had anything else you wanted to tell us before we do that. Turnbull: No, I think that's appropriate. I would just add to what Brad said I think we have a much easier project here than some that have been involved with because we do have Mr. Quenzer agreeable to the lift station location and pressure line. I think the Quenzers may have had some conversations with the Johnson property, too and I think there are a couple of alternatives there. Brad might know more about that than I do, but seems to me at the most we are talking about one easement that needs to be obtained, so the rest of it would be in right of way and should be fairly simple from that perspective. I think I have also indicated or mentioned before that I am a firm believer that that area - I don't own any property north of Chinden, but I am a firm believer that that area everything west of Linder should be within the Meridian City impact area. I think it just makes sense and I think I have mentioned that for several reasons, number one you have property owners out there that want to be in the impact area and number two the people that live out there in the future are going to fill much more connected to Meridian than they are to Star or Eagle just because the geographical boundary of that fence. So, this trunk line also helps to Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 7.2004 Page80f17 establish the service ability of that area for Meridian City and I think it is a great benefit to the city and the public at large. So, we are comfortable with the fact that you need to get more information understanding that the study with JUB is going to be completed within the next few weeks anyway and that will give you some further information there as well. But, as I mentioned before I actually came to the city three years ago when some people out there were talking about forming their own sewer district and I said I don't want to go that way, I want to be serviced by the City of Meridian and be annexed into the City of Meridian. At the time Mayor Corrie was mayor, he asked what kind of timeframe we are looking at and I said about two years and that was three years ago. We have been patient. I really haven't brought it up with the Council before because we haven't been ready to go before now, but like I said, Mr. Varriale and I we have commenced our planning. We actually submitted an application for that area. I think that this kind of a project could be done a lot quicker than actually some of the ones - and a lot simpler and maybe more cost effective than some of the other ones have been done because we have very few easements to obtain and the parties, at least the major parties agreeable to granting those easements. We would look forward to continuing this conversation when you get more information that you are requesting. Thank you. Nary: Brad, October 5th, is that adequate? Watson: I believe that will work, Mr. President. Nary: If Council is agreeable we will just reschedule this discussion for our October 5th Pre-Council meeting and get some more information. Item 4. Discussion of Rate Adjustment by SSC: Sedlecek: Mr. President, members of the Council I believe in your packet you have a memo from Sanitary Services regarding an annual rate adjustment, which is part of our contract language. The rate adjustment is tied to the consumer price index and I am sure you have all read it in detail and have questions. I am going to go through the memo quickly. Basically, the CPI year over year is 2.4 percent increase and we don't take the full CPI because some of the parts of CPI are not relevant to our business so we reduced that value by 10 percent, which gives us a 2.16 percent rate adjustment. Then we also excluded landfilling fees, which are part of everyone's payments that they make to the city. Obviously the rates at the landfill are not changing so we are not going to change that portion. We are only changing the portion that affects our cost. If you look on the second page of the (inaudible) of the memo on table one it shows percentages by system. Basically, we are going to change the residential rate by 1 percent, which is 10 cents per month and the other basically between 1.2 and 1.8 is the range of changes. We do have a new rate structure attached to the memo. Commercial rates are going to go up about $3 a month on average. Residential rates are going to go up 10 cents as I said. The rental on a toter cart will go up 3