HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-07-11Meridian City Council Workshop July 11, 2017
A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 3:00 p.m., Tuesday,
July 11, 2017, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Joe Borton, Ty Palmer,
Luke Cavener and Anne Little Roberts.
Members Absent: Genesis Milam.
Others Present: Bill Nary, C.Jay Coles, Warren Stewart, Jeff Lavey, Mark
Niemeyer, Charlie Butterfield, Jaycee Holman, Dale Bolthouse, Steve Siddoway
and Dean Willis.
Item 1: Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X__ Anne Little Roberts X _ _Joe Borton
X__ Ty Palmer X__ Keith Bird
______Genesis Milam __X__ Lucas Cavener
__X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
De Weerd: I will go ahead and start tonight's meeting by first welcoming all of
you in the Council chambers. Thank you for joining us. For the record it is
Tuesday, July 11th. It's 3:00 p.m. 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: Item No. 3 is adoption of the agenda.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I think under Department Reports, 7-I has been added and that's amended
to the agenda. Fire Department presentation on rural district hiring offer. Item J
needs to be added. That's Police budget amendment for a leadership film series
not to exceed 22,500 and with that I move we approve the amended agenda.
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July 11, 2017
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Borton: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as amended. All
those in favor say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Item 4: Consent Agenda
A. Approve Minutes of June 27, 2017 City Council Regular
Meeting
B. Approve Minutes of July 5, 2017 City Council Regular
Meeting
C. Final Order for Irvine No. 3 (H-2017-0078) by Kent Brown
Located Southeast Corner of W. Chinden Boulevard & N.
Ten Mile Road
D. Final Order for Howry Lane Subdivision No. 2 (H-2017-
0081) by M3 Acquisitions, LLC Located 5220 S. Howry
Lane
E. Final Order for Gramercy Heights Subdivision No. 2 (H-
2017-0080) by Gramercy, LLC Located South of E.
Overland Road and West of S. Eagle Road on E. Griffon
Street
F. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Preakness
Subdivision (H-2017-0057) by Schultz Development
Located 1155 W. Victory Road
G. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Bannock Ridge
(H-2017-0050) by Two C Development, LLC Located
2940, 3101 & 3155 S. Mesa Way
H. Professional Services Agreement with Erin Barrows for
Kylie Barrows (a minor) for Traffic Box Community Art
Project for an amount Not to Exceed $50
I. Professional Service Agreement with Carrie Shipley for
Reyna Shipley (a minor) for Traffic Box Community Art
Project for an amount not to exceed $50
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July 11, 2017
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J. In Accordance with the Interagency Agreement
Previously Approved by City Council, Approve the Not-
To-Exceed Amount of $131,236.46 to pay Ada County
Highway District (ACHD) for City Sewer Improvements
Constructed by Alta Incorporated at West 1st Street,
Broadway Ave to Pine Ave.
K. Approval of Award of Bid and Agreement to Asphalt
Driveways & Patching for the FIVE MILE PATHWAY
SEGMENT H2 CONSTRUCTION project for a Not-To-
Exceed amount of $124,788.00.
L. Approval for Finance to Pay Vendor Payments of
$762,729.50
De Weerd: Item 4 is the Consent Agenda.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we approve the Consent Agenda as printed 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, absent; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
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. Valley Regional Transit Annual Report
De Weerd: So, we will move into Item 6 -A, which is a community presentation
from VRT.
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July 11, 2017
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Fairless: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. I brought a team
with me today, so I will introduce them and give you a little overview of what they
are going to share with you. Thank you again for the opportunity to present our
annual report. We are pretty excited to share about the reports we are
presenting. We have been doing a lot of work with our Valley Connect 2.0, our
plan update, and have learned a lot about the region and a lot about how -- the
status of our existing services where we can make some improvements and also
learned a lot in this last year about the City of Meridian and your needs and I
know, you know, we recently reviewed your -- a public survey that was done
recently and have tried to incorporate those comments into some of our
presentation today as well. So, Steve is going to present to you the overview of
the plan update and some of the work we did on a peer study and, then, Todd is
here to respond to any additional questions you might have that came out of your
discussion on harvest transit. I know you're getting ready to adopt your budget
and wanted to make sure that all your questions are answered before you began
deliberating on that process. So, with that I will sit down and bring Steven up.
Thank you.
De Weerd: Good afternoon, Stephen.
Hunt: Good afternoon. Thanks for the opportunity to be here. My name is
Stephen Hunt and I have been working with Valley Regional Transit for about two
or three months. I am glad to be working here. I actually started with Valley
Regional Transit some 12 or 13 years ago and went to grad school -- grew up
here, went to Meridian High School, and went to grad school in Chicago and
came back to the northwest working in King County Metro, that's in Seattle, for
the last nine years and I'm excited to be now here back in the Treasure Va lley
working on transit issues.
De Weerd: Welcome home.
Hunt: Thank you. And I'm very glad to be talking as well about the future of
transit in the Treasure Valley and so we will talk about that today before you get
into the Q and A on specialized tra nsportation. So, the -- what I'm going to try
and work through fairly quickly is an overview of existing conditions looking at a
peer comparison and, then, what we have been doing with Valley Connect and
how we would like to see transit grow in the Treasure Valley, but specifically how
it could help serve the community of Meridian. So, today I'm sure you're aware
that Meridian is served by three different intercounty transit routes. They connect
Nampa to Boise. And the trend, unfortunately, of the inter county ridership that's
been following gas prices, which have been falling and that's -- that is -- as gas
prices get cheaper it gets cheaper to do longer distance commutes, so we have
seen a decline in ridership from Nampa into Boise and Meridian on the inter -
county routes as a whole. So, when we look specifically at transit services in
Meridian we -- it's not surprising to see that similar decline in ridership over the
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last several years. We -- but when we compare -- when we break out the routes
you see that route 40 and 42, those are the two routes that in 2016 served the
City of Meridian, carried the lion's share of the intercounty service as it connects
again to CWI in Nampa. It serves a business park there just south of -- of -- just
south of I-84 in Meridian and on into Boise State and downtown Boise, as well as
the Town Square Mall. So, even though they carry the largest number of -- of
people, I just want to point out one other thing in terms of our existing conditions
and that is when we look at the productivity that is the number reporting, we see
that the Meridian services just fall in line with the other intercounty services, route
40 being the more productive of the two services and in 2014 -- or -- yeah. 2014.
About 15 -- 14 rides per hour and that's -- that's been on a steady decline since
then. Route 42, which is a more local route that comes into downtown -- or not in
downtown Meridian, but services the WinCo area and that business park just
north of us -- excuse me -- south of us. It is less productive and we can talk a
little bit about why when we look into the future. So, that's not such a rosy picture
when you think about transit in the -- in the City of Meridian, but that's where we
are starting from. The other thing, you know that I want to call out is the City of
Meridian has completed a community survey for 2017 and as we were looking
through that there were a couple of points that related to public transportation
that I wanted to mention and that is that as related to the other 30 -- I think there
were 39 different satisfaction measures that we -- that were looked at in that -- in
that community survey, public transportation was one of the four that was kind of
below the regional and national averages for the City of Meridian. Satisfaction
with public transportation. And that's important to know that it's not just the
national, but also regional averages. Also of the four highest priority measures
that were identified in that -- in that survey, transportation, education, growth and
development jobs -- economic development and pathways, public transportation
has a direct impact on four of those five. Transportation, obviously, growth and
development, jobs and education, and it extends the -- the importance of
pedestrian and bicycle pathways. It also -- communities can also leverage
investments in transit to -- to build some of those pedestrian bike pathways. In
other words, there is direct linkages between a lot of those priorities that were
identified in the survey and what public transportation can do -- can do. We also
-- it was interesting to note that there was -- that a majority of Meridian residents
supported the idea of increasing funding for public transportation. So, that's all
positive and why we are excited about talking about where transit can go in the
future, not just for the City of Meridian, but all across the Treasure Valley. So,
what Valley Connect is doing is it looks at Communities In Motion, which is the
regional -- the regional plan that's developed by COMPASS and we look out of
where the region is going both in terms of development, as well as priorities for
transportation and we asked ourselves where should transit be if we were to be
on -- on track with the vision that's in -- in Communities In Motion and so that's
where we started. What this map represents here is an example of the type of
network that could be in place if we had the resources -- if Valley Regional
Transit had the resources to serve the amount to -- provide the amount of public
transportation that is called for in -- in Communities In Motion and so what I'm
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going to spend the rest of the presentation doing is talking about what that
network looks like and the advantage or the values that can bring to the City of
Meridian. But one more bit of a -- kind of peer context, when we look at where
Valley Regional Transit is and compare it to several of the peers across the
northwest and in -- actually, not just the northwest, but also in four different states
and when we look at the amount of resources that are spent on -- on operations
per capita, the biggest thing that stands out is how -- how little we in the Treasure
Valley spend on a per capita basis for public transportation operations and so
compared -- we spend about 27 dollars -- 28 dollars a year on public
transportation operations per capita and when we compare that to places like
Spokane, Reno, Tucson and Madison, they on average spend in the order of 140
dollars per capita. So, when we look at just that difference, it's easy to
understand how they are able to provide higher levels of service and have a
much broader reach of their transit network. So, this next slide looks to the
number of hours in those -- in those peer cities and where we have just over
120,000 annual service hours, that's just a representation of the amount of
service that's out there every day, many of our peers have almost five times that,
which, again, is simply a reflection of the amount of investment they are putting
into the service and so if we were to have a similar base we could have a system
of about 500,000 hours, which is what that -- the original network math
represented, what could you do with about 500,000 hours spread across the
county and some high level estimates of potentially as many as 12 million annual
boardings, which is -- we have just at 1.2 today. So, about a ten-fold increase in
the number of boarding, so -- and that is interesting because what we find is
when you -- it's not a linear relationship between the amount -- and amount that
you invest in transit and the return on investment and that's because particularly
when you're starting in as low base as we have in the Treasure Valley, when you
have service that comes every 30 minutes to every hour it's simply not as
attractive to people to make many of their transportation decisions on. However,
what this chart is showing is as you look at our peers who invest higher -- higher
amounts of operating per capita and you compare that to the boardings per hour
or the productivity -- so, this is how many people are getting on the bus per hour
-- you can see that there is a relationship between more service and not just
more riders, but more riders per hour; right? So, in other words, as you -- once
you are able to push beyond just the threshold of 30 minute service, you can
start to realize even more boardings per hour than -- than what we have today,
which is how you can increase -- how you can get a ten-fold increase in ridership
with only maybe five times increase -- increase in the amount of the -- in the
amount of resources, which is important when we think about how do we -- how
do we think about scaling public transportation to meet the travel demands that
we in the Treasure Valley face. The other thing that's interesting about that is
when you look at the cost, then, for boarding. So, if you -- if there is some cost
effectiveness, there is an inverse relationship there. The more people you can --
as you increase productivity, your cost per provider will -- decreases, because
you're able to spread those costs over more riders and so when -- what we find is
that as we are interested in achieving higher levels of efficiency, there are times
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when it makes sense to increase the amount of investment and that's simply so
you can get service that is as attractive enough to people that they can begin to
make their daily decisions on where and when transit comes. And so that's what
we are trying to illustrate with the Valley Connect program and it allows us to
really make Meridian become a central hub for the Treasure Valley in
transportation as it relates -- specifically as it relates to transit. So, what I wanted
to do now is walk through a little bit that network and show the ways that transit
could have many of the -- of the destinations that are important to Meridian to the
broader community. So, starting with connections to Boise. So, today as we
described, all of the services that connect Meridian to downtown Boise or Nampa
are along the I-84 corridor. There is -- there is no transit service to developments
along Eagle -- at least very far north of I-84 and there is no transit service to The
Village. This -- we would propose to extend service from the Town Square Mall
out -- out Emerald and Pine to Eagle coming around and, then, serving -- serving
The Village. So, what this does is it creates east-west connection between
Meridian and Boise, connecting the two major malls and providing many
opportunities for people to travel between -- between those locations and the one
thing that's hard to show on a map is levels of service. So, we are not just talking
about this connection, but we are talking about how often is that connection
available to people and so the red lines here, these are services that come every
15 minutes or more throughout the day. So, this is -- this is more than anything --
it's similar to levels of service around State Street in the peak period, but it's even
more than that. And so these are opportunities where people can simply get out
and ride -- ride the -- the bus to get where they need to go, whether that’s to
Scentsy Commons there at Eagle and Pine or to -- to The Village or any of the
development along -- along that corridor. Other extensions would be out Ust ick.
So, connecting -- connecting Meridian and Boise via -- again, starting at The
Village, running out Ustick, and, then, going downtown through town actually
over to Broadway, so you end up connecting a whole lot of these -- these types
of destinations. The west side of Boise -- the west bench of Boise connected into
-- into Meridian. The Village there it becomes potentially a hub for -- for transit
where people can come to, both for the -- the amenities and services that are at
The Village, but also to connect to other parts of the region and, then, extending
the Overland route down Overland all the way to Eagle and, then, up to -- up to
the Village. So, the other thing that's really important that we have been working
with Caleb and others as we put this network together is to think about how --
how does the placement of these routes support or not the development that's
envisioned by the City of Meridian and so that's really the key part that we are
interested in working with the city on is to say where are the corridors where you
see development, how can we try and connect those with high levels of service
so you can take advantage of transit service and help address the transportation
issues that a lot of the community is interested in res olving. So, these are all
services oriented towards the east and Boise. If we look at other ways that we
can connect to Canyon county -- again, kind of using The Village as an anchor or
hub, head out -- this is Cherry Lane out to CWI in Nampa, which becomes
another hub on that side connecting to other parts of Nampa, but also the
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intercounty services. So, this connects downtown Meridian -- west Meridian to
the education services at CWI directly and also open up service along Chinden,
again using CWI as an anchor, but serving north Meridian and into -- into Boise
along -- along the Chinden Boulevard. So, these -- the green lines here are
express services, so these would be intended to be making longer distance trips,
connecting people to jobs and -- throughout the day, but really trying to make
similar types of trips as what we see on the intercounty services today.
De Weerd: And that would be how frequent?
Hunt: So --
De Weerd: The green line is --
Hunt: Right. I think we -- here we are talking about every 30 minutes.
De Weerd: And, you know, Chinden -- driving Chinden is not express.
Hunt: It is. You're right. And so that's one thing that -- that we are also looking
at with the Valley Connect program is to identify not only where the service
makes sense, but what kind of capital improvements we need to be looking at to
keep buses from being stuck in the same kind of traffic. I mean so long as we
are on the same road you're going to have some of that conflict, but there are
things that you can do to help it move through a particular intersection or to help
-- help jump past some of the -- the worst parts of congestion along -- along any
given corridor and so once we started looking at where we -- where we want to
focus our efforts we can start having those conversations. Where does it make
sense for us to be prioritizing transit movements? Where does it make sense for
us to -- and, then, coming back to the development side, how do we ensure that
all of those -- the transit investments, the capital investments, and the
development all support one another. Oops. Excuse me. We would continue to
serve the I-84 corridor. This is very similar to the route 40 today serving CWI.
This would be coming every 15 minutes, because we know it's a high demand
corridor today and will continue to be in the future . Getting off a Ten Mile and
staying on Overland all the way through Eagle and so this provides an
opportunity to -- to along the way between Nampa and Boise serve a developing
area of Meridian, whether that's Silverstone or all the development along -- along
Overland making connections -- there are apartments that are going there next to
Roaring Springs, as well as there next to -- to Mountain View High School. So,
how can we create opportunities for those developments that are there already to
be on the way to connect either to the facilities in downtown Boise -- services in
downtown Boise, whether that's Boise State for the jobs that are there, as well as
the -- the educational opportunities at CWI. Today our services express line why
they all go into downtown, we have -- there have been lots of calls for service out
to Micron and we would be interested in providing that kind of service and what --
the role that really plays actually in this kind of scenario is it becomes a
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crossroads for people, whether they are headed to downtown or headed out to
Micron, they make that decision before they get on I-84 there at Eagle and so
you have those Eagle -- excuse me -- Meridian is well placed, because it has the
opportunity to take advantage of both those directions. It also is on the axis
north-south and so when we talk about -- when we have been out talking to the
city of Kuna and their -- meeting their needs, their needs run really quickly into
the needs of Meridian once they connect to services there at I-84, if they were
to continue, which we propose that they do, into downtown Meridian, that starts
to fulfill some of the -- some of the local Meridian circulation needs. So,
connecting Kuna, again meeting up with the transit hub at The Village, also, then,
serving the -- the apartments and other development that parallel to Eagle. So,
this would be using Records and Alley, so that you are able to serve those higher
-- higher density developments, making connection to east-west services there
on Chinden. I hope that you're also seeing as we go through all this is that each
one of these routes become a piece in a broader network that work together and
so you have both east-west service and north-south service and they are
intended to work together. They are intended to help people make both of those
types of movements. Connections into Eagle. So, this would be down Linder,
serving high school and, then, downtown Meridian on into Town Square Mall
after serving The Village. So, another thing that we are interested in doing is
how do we improve transaction access actually to -- to the high schools, which
provides an opportunity for families to have teenage -- not students, their
children, how do they get themselves to -- to and from their -- from school. So,
this would connect both Eagle High School, Meridian High School, downtown,
and to the other opportunities at The Village and Town Square Mall. We also are
looking at ways to extend into south Meridian where there isn't -- doing a north-
south connection down Locust Grove and out to the development -- the Hillsdale
develop potentially -- because we know that Meridian is developing out that way,
how do we make sure that those -- that those services get connected with transit
and so there are opportunities to do that as we grow the -- the service network
and we are excited about supporting each community as they try and develop
with appropriate transit service and, again, more kind of local connections within
Meridian, connecting them north-south along Meridian out to Chinden, where
they can either move -- travel east or west. So, I hope that gives you kind of an
understanding of what's possible. The thing that's exciting to me about making
presentations like this is we hear a lot of the time wouldn't it be great if we had a
service that did X or Y and what we -- what I wanted to share with you is those
things are all doable, they are all possible to do right here and the only -- going
all the way back to that -- the original peer comparison thing that -- the most
significant thing that keeps us back from doing that is simply the amount that we
invest in -- in our public transportation service compared to our peers with -- with
comparable amount of resource or investment we can have the types of
connections that people are asking for. We can help address the transportation
needs that are on everybody's mind and support the development that -- that we
all are trying to encourage into the Treasure Valley and -- and cultivate. So, the
last slide that I want -- that we had up here is simply to talk about where the
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focus of Valley Connect will be and it is largely a fixed route focus. Kind of fixed
route first, simply because when we look at the cost effectiveness of what a fixed
route can do over other alternative types of transportation, by and large fixed
route service is -- is far more cost effective. That's not to say there is no role for
specialized transportation, we know that they provide an important niche market
and we will continue to -- to do that, but when we think about where -- where can
we -- what kinds of transportation services will fulfill or support the other types of
needs that our -- that the community is talking about where they -- addressing
transportation needs, supporting development, those we see being folded into
developing a robust fixed route network. So, where we are is -- we are soliciting
feedback on both the network and the Valley Connect plan generally and we
have been working with Technical Resource Group and Caleb sits on that
representing the City of Meridian and we have been -- he has been providing a
lot of good feedback about -- about where the city is developing and how we can
maximize that network to support that development . So, we will continue to
refine the suite of transportation options that are available to the City of Meridian,
as well as look for opportunities to -- to develop some support across the many
cities that we serve. So, as you saw, most of those lines didn't stay within the
City of Meridian, so it becomes an interest in how do we talk about -- about these
services to the city of Eagle, the city of Kuna, to Boise and together we -- we can
solve the -- the transportation issues that we face. And that's what I had. If you
have any questions about where we are headed on -- with the fixed route side.
After that we will invite Todd to come up and talk about specialized service .
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Stephen, in your pricing and probably the one that got me was
comparing with Tucson --
Hunt: Yeah.
Little Roberts: Does that include the infrastructure that's already e xisting?
Because like Tucson has got the metro. Is the pricing in that with such a big
difference?
Hunt: So, the -- the costs were just the operational costs. So, the capital costs
we didn't compare. So, it was just how much are they investing year in and year
out in the operational costs for delivering the service. So, it's -- it would include --
well, actually, on that one it was just -- it was just the bus. So, it didn't -- it did not
include the operating costs for -- for their light rail.
Little Roberts: Thank you.
De Weerd: Other questions? Okay.
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Hunt: Appreciate it.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Hunt: Todd.
Morrison: Thank you, Stephen. Thank you for having me here. My name is
Todd Morrison, I'm the community programs manager at Valley Regional Transit.
I was invited to a budget workshop last month to provide an overview on our
specialized transportation and I kind of wanted to allow an opportunity for me to
come back and answer any more questions fo r you guys and so I have a
relatively short presentation, talking about our specialized transportation
programs that consist of harvest transit, which operates solely in the community
of Meridian and, then, we also have the support ValleyRide service, which
supports Meridian residents for traveling outside of the -- the service area of
Harvest Transit. So, a quick overview of Harvest Transit. It's a free
transportation service. It's designed to address the needs of seniors and persons
with disabilities. It is a public transportation service, so it's not a taxi, but it's kind
of -- we try to market it as a -- as a shared ride system. It incorporates
wheelchair accessible vans and it operates really just in the -- in the heat of the
day from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., which was a result of some outreach we did with
Meridian residents -- Meridian seniors indicating the times that they would -- they
would prefer to have this service. So, here is an overview of the -- the ridership
on a per month basis. The program kicked off in December. Our new vehicles
arrived in March and you can start seeing some of those up ticks in ridership right
around March. In May we consolidated -- we made some tweaks to the service
area. We initially had two service areas and we consolidated into one, so if
you're wanting to travel anywhere within the Meridian community you don't have
to make any transfers along those vehicles and, then, there is some additional
items we are looking forward in the future in terms of the operational aspects in
continuing to improve our -- and build on our relationship with Harvest Church
and allow them to take even more responsibilities of the operations and all of us
just kind of take a step back and solely serve in an administrative capacity. So,
there is an overview of the ridership. We don't have June's ridership quite yet,
but our overall goal is to receive about -- is to provide about 550 rides per month.
As you can see here we are not quite reaching that goal, however, the trends are
looking encouraging. So, I think that this is probably the most important slide that
I wanted to provide is -- and, hopefully, this provides a little bit more of a clean
breakdown in terms of the requests for this year as it compares with years
previous and, then, how it's split out between the multiple types of specialized
transportation services and one thing I'd like to note is for the third item down , the
dial a ride service, those -- how I would like to see this -- or what I would propose
to the city is those funds for 2017 -- and we were allowed to -- or those are
invoiced to the City of Meridian on a per use basis and so half way through the
year we expanded 8,000 dollars of that. So, our propose is for -- in the FY-18 we
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would look -- we could kind of cap that at 16,000 and, then, we would just simply
invoice on however many rides are provided. If the rides weren't provided we
wouldn't be providing -- we wouldn't be submitting the invoice and so, hopefully,
that provides a little bit more clarification in terms of -- of the specialized
transportation context for -- for the City of Meridian. And then, in addition to that,
there is also an additional grant that we are seeking from Idaho Power for 10,000
dollars to support Harvest Transit. The status of that is unknown and we aren't
necessarily expecting a result on that for a couple of months, as we have seen
with some of the other foundations, that could be a lot longer process and so we
would be requesting the full 69,000 dollars to support Harvest Transit. And with
that I guess I would stand for any questions.
De Weerd: Thank you, Todd. Council, any questions?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Todd, can you share with us the unique riders of ValleyRide and
maybe also the unique riders for Harvest Transit. I know you presented to the
trans -- Todd presented to the transportation commission last week and shared
some information that I thought was valuable, but in light of I think some of the
success with ValleyRide, I'm curious how many unique riders that we have on
that system as well.
Morrison: Sure. So, for the ValleyRide service and that -- and the data for that
was collected from October through March -- we had 88 unique riders utilize that
system and for Harvest Transit, which was from Oct -- or, excuse me, from
December through May, we had 114 rider -- unique riders utilize that system.
And so I guess we didn't necessarily go through and do a more in -depth analysis,
if there was overlap between the two, if the people that were using the
ValleyRide were also using the Harvest Transit, but that's -- that provides an
overview of the -- the individuals served.
Cavener: Thanks, Todd.
De Weerd: Okay. Anything further? Thank you, Todd.
Morrison: Thank you.
Fairless: So, do you have any general budget questions that I could answer or
any other questions? If not, we would be happy to get out of your hair and let
you get on with your business.
De Weerd: Okay. Anything further from Council?
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Bird: I have none.
De Weerd: Okay. All right.
Fairless: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you, Stephen. Thank you, Todd.
B. Compensation Committee Recommendations
De Weerd: Okay. Item 6-B is -- I think that Mr. Nary is kicking this off.
Nary: Yes, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, under city code each
election cycle, every two years, we form a committee of citizens, members of our
commission, former council members, to discuss the compensation for both
Mayor and City Council going into the election cycle for the next two years. This
is the seventh time we have had a citizens' committee of various folks. This year
Marie Sorres and I partnered to put this together and to get the group together
and to have the discussion and get the data that they would need to have the
discussion. Members of the committee were former Council Member Rountree,
David Ballard, who is here today from the Meridian Transportation C ommission,
Gretchen Caserotti, who is a member of the Meridian Arts Commission, Clint
Shifflett is a member -- a community business -- one of our community business
leaders. Marty Schindler from the Downtown Business Association was also a
part of that. And, then, of course, Crystal and I were there as staff to help gather
the information. So, the committee has finished their work. It has a
recommendation for you. It's in your packet and Gretchen is here to present the
committee's recommendation to you.
De Weerd: Good afternoon.
Caserotti: Good afternoon. Thank you for having me.
De Weerd: Thank you. If you will, please, state your name and address for the
record.
Caserotti: Thank you. I will. I'm Gretchen Caserotti. And my address is what
you said?
De Weerd: Yes.
Caserotti: 3725 North Rugby Drive.
De Weerd: You could have given your other address. Thank you.
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Caserotti: Yes. I work at Meridian Library District and I serve on the Meridian
Arts Commission and participated in the citizens compensation committee this
year and was honored to have been asked to participate. I always learn so much
in my partnership and working with you all in my own work and so I appreciate
having an opportunity to -- to continue to learn and to contribute some thoughts
in this process. So, as -- as Bill mentioned, we had met as a group a couple of
times. We had a number of questions. We asked for and Crystal and Bill
provided a lot of information for us, a variety of differe nt reports, and, really, we
tried to work toward determining what the criteria was we were really evaluating.
Were we looking backwards at a performance evaluation or forward to whether
or not it was a straight compensation for the positions based on -- on the duties
and we looked at the criteria of the size of the city, the subsequent amount of
time and complexity of the work being performed , the size of the staff being
managed directly by the Mayor, peer comparisons, both in and out of the state,
as well as the history of the salaries since 2000 here and I will also make a note
that a point of discussion at the meetings was also public perceptions of -- of
public official salaries. That was certainly a consideration that we discussed.
And we considered the -- as I mentioned those -- any increases, whether or not
they were sort of retrospective or looking forward to ensure that the positions
themselves are attractive for highly qualified candidates in the future and , then,
the final piece was how that fits into the overall budget. And as such, once we
went through those -- and they are outlined a little more in detail in the report
provided to you, the committee unanimously agreed to the following
recommendation. That the Mayor and City Council compensation for salaries be
increased up to three percent for the next two years. Increasing the Mayor's
salary to 93,683 in 2018 and 96,496 in 2019, being based on the three percent
presently being used by the city in the salary schedules in the budget . Increasing
the Council salaries at three percent to 10,300 in 2018 and 10,609 in 2019, with
the Council president salary being noted at 11,330 in 2018 and 11,670 in 2019.
And we recommend that all elected officials continue to receive the same
benefits that they currently receive. The committee recognizes and is thankful for
all of the hard work and dedication that the Mayor and the current City Council
performs presently. We know serving in your roles means long days, challenging
issues and sometimes really tough decisions, but we see you all serving our
citizens selflessly. The committee well knows you aren't doing this for the
compensation and we know you may not apply our recommendations, but this
recommendation provides us an opportunity to say than k you for your service
and for doing such an excellent job in leading the city to be such a successful
and healthy community. I would be happy to answer any questions that you
might have.
De Weerd: Thank you, Gretchen. Council, any questions for Gretchen or the
other committee members?
Bird: I have none, Mayor.
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Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Not a question, but thank you and Clint, everyone else on the
committee. I have served on this committee previously in between Council
sessions, so I know it's a lot of effort and research you do to -- to provide some
feedback for us to consider. So, I appreciate and thank you for the time doing
so.
De Weerd: Any other comments, questions? I appreciate having the -- the
ordinance that does suggest that we have a citizens committee look at this and I
know that Crystal probably brought this to the committee, is I do think there is
another component to it and sitting down with the Mayor to talk performance and
I would love to get that feedback and if you can add that as an element that
would be awesome.
Caserotti: We -- we looked at the city survey, which I think speaks to a great
deal of how we were considering your performance, as well as looking at
retention rates and the FTE and looking at the organization charts and the
complexity of the staff that you are managing and those were certainly some
things that we did discuss. I don't know if that's something -- if anyone has
anything to add to that. I think it was a challenge to be playing both roles as an
administrator in my own work, separating people from positions and we tried to
sort of do both in this exercise, which was really hard to do , because if you're
doing a performance evaluation it's about the person, b ut if it's about the
positions, you really have to separate yourself for that and we had a healthy
discussion about what does this look like in the future and wanting to maintain a
salary that would be competitive for 2019, but also wanting to recognize what a
terrific job everyone thinks that you do and how hard we see you working and not
-- I don't remember who said it, but the bar is very high , so -- with all the work
that you do and how present and transparent and committed you really are. If it
was just on straight percentages we would love to give you more.
De Weerd: No. And that's certainly not what I was asking. But I -- if the
committee would be willing to meet one more time and sit down and have a
discussion, I would really appreciate that. We will volunteer Marty, since he's not
here.
De Weerd: Okay.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
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Cavener: Gretchen, thanks for serving on this committee. I think from -- just
speaking as one council member, this whole process is kind of -- messy is not
the right word. It's hard for us to say, yes, we should -- we should support giving
ourselves a raise. I'm hoping that maybe going through this process, was there a
rubric or best practices that you saw in other municipalities that we should look to
implement as part of future vision casting? Is there a place that gets this process
right? Are we the place that's getting it right? I mean that's the feedback that I'm
hoping to hear from you.
Caserotti: Well, Crystal may be able to speak a little more to process, since she
did the -- the communication with the other cities and other HR -- so, I'm sure she
would have more to add on that. We did -- I think the -- from where I stand, the
piece that we discussed was there had -- we do see that there should be a
balance between putting in something that's more structured and really
evaluating current situations, because you can put in a structure or criteria or a
rubric, but say the market changes and, then, you don't have that ability, and,
then, you could put -- you might find yourself in a situation where it is out of
whack with what your actual conditions are in your community, because you're
kind of locked into a process -- if I'm summarizing this adequately. I think that the
sentiment was if we can articulate what the criteria is , that can be passed on to
the next committee, because we did consider current market conditions. We
looked at tax levies. We looked at -- in terms of how this fits into the overall
budget and things like that and the challenge was with other cities is -- they are
all very different, because you might have a city manager, not a mayor, and you
might -- you know, the peer cities in the region that we looked at from the
western states are not all structured the same and so when you look at that in the
table of comparison, it was really hard to identify patterns or any consistency in
that way. Do you have anything to add to that?
Ritchie: Madam Mayor, Members of Council, Gretchen actually articulated that
very well. In our efforts to gather information from the different Idaho locations,
as well as what she mentioned, the western states, when we contacted those
individual agencies to get back to whether or not they have a standard practice or
guidelines or a rubric, they don't. They do a lot of what we do in gathering a lot of
local information, gathering population, gathering the complexity of the work,
taking into consideration the direction that the cities are headed. So, not every
individual agency had -- or state had a specific best practice and that's the
challenge that we have when we focus on utilizing this every two years as a
process to come up with a solid fair marketable recommendation. So, we have
tended to continue the best practices that we have established here in Meridian,
gather that information as Gretchen mentioned, maintaining the historical
information, discussing with the committee members that differ over the next
cycle -- two year cycle and come forward with what we feel is the -- or they feel is
the best recommendation for Meridian.
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De Weerd: Any follow-up? Okay. Thank you. And thank you for the group's
efforts and if you're open to having a sit down, I would love to -- to just sit down
and chat. Okay.
Ritchie: I see nodding of heads, so we will get that coordinated.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you, Gretchen.
Caserotti: Thank you.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I think this is very good compensation. I think it's something that is
deserving of you people and while -- it's hard to compare other cities, because no
two cities have the same -- some have library districts, some have roads, you
know, some don't have fire departments, some don't have police departments.
So, if we need a motion to go forward with this, I would be glad to make a motion
that we accept the recommendation of the compensation committee for the next
two years.
De Weerd: Okay. I have a motion. And do I have a second?
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: Okay. Discussion.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I appreciate the great work of this committee and I'm certainly
supportive of the recommended increase for the Mayor based on the committee's
recommendation. As I -- as I mentioned earlier, I just -- none of us got into this
for the money and I think that, you know, if I -- if I do the math right I make about
85 cents to a dollar an hour. It doesn't cover the gas for me to get to and from
meetings. I know in the past other wise council members have brought up the
idea of, boy, if we increased the compensation perhaps that would attract more
people. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't. I think our Council is -- is stellar and
is well representative of our community and, again, none of us hopped into it for
the compensation. So, I struggle with being supportive of an increase in
compensation for the Council. While I appreciate the recommendation and the
vote of confidence from the committee, we as a Council are always sticklers for
the budget and we look at every dollar as important and while the monetary
amount is not significant to me, I think for me, at least, it's -- it's a commitment to
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our taxpayers that every dollar is important and that it doesn't change our lives
and if we can return a few bucks back that's something I'm more supportive of , at
least from the Council perspective.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: While I agree with much of what Councilman Cavener said, I also
would like to put my faith in the committee and I think they understand the
amount of work that we do and not that I feel that we are necessarily deserving of
a raise, I think we need in this case look past us and the position and it may or
may not, but I think that those are all things that this committee took into account
and I'm not in a situation where I can go over every detail that they did , but I trust
them and would like to support their decision or their recommendation.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Madam Mayor, I echo Councilman Cavener with regard to Council pay.
When it comes to the increase for the Mayor, having nothing to do with yourself,
with the position itself, I feel that the job may be commensurate with a higher
pay, maybe even six figures, but the position is one of public service and at its
current pay level is more than sufficient to sustain any size family and live
comfortably here in Meridian and be able to perform that service position.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: I -- with regards to the compensation for the role of mayor, I do agree
with -- with Councilman Palmer that it is appropriate. I think the committee has
provided valuable information and to check on it every two years is appropriate.
But in reference to the duties of the position and not the person , because people
come and go from these seats, but the role remains the same and we are not like
a private business where there is an opportunity for future employees in these
roles to start out at a -- perhaps a different salary that might be commensurate
with different experience levels. So, I'm comfortable with the Mayor's salary as it
is. With regards to the council's compensation, it's sort of a mixed bag for me,
because I wouldn't change the salary. I think the increase in compensation has
been provided. There is -- the total cost of compensation for an employee,
wages is one part of that and there is medical benefits that are provided as well
and there is increased cost that the city absorbs on behalf of the employees,
including the Council for things such as insurance that effectively are a raise in
compensation to the council members. They just receive it in the form of
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continued benefits at a higher cost that the city is absorbing. So, I'm comfortable
keeping all the compensation the same . I think the fact that the city has
absorbed increased costs -- nonlabor costs for the Council and Mayor is
appropriate enough at the time.
De Weerd: Okay.
Borton: And, Madam Mayor, I agree with Councilman Cavener, there is -- to
compensate the position for the work and time would be a much greater
discussion. It would be a much more drastic increase and that's nowhere near
the type of individual that the city I think needs to run for the money . It's never
going to be a job on Council. The Mayor's office -- the role of the executive is
much different and I could see merit in changing that as well and increasing it,
but for Council this has got to be pure community service, with some recognition
for the time away from family and from your business, but your heart has to be on
Council for a service purpose.
De Weerd: Okay. Well, Mr. Clerk, I think we have a motion. Will you call roll.
Roll call: Bird, yea; Borton, nay; Milam, absent; Cavener, nay; Palmer, nay; Little
Roberts, nay.
De Weerd: Okay. Well, the motion failed.
MOTION FAILED: ONE AYE. FOUR NAYS. ONE ABSENT.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I have sat in the same seat as these other Councilmen many a time on
compensation, you know, we -- you don't -- but, you know, you -- you spend --
you spend your time away and I realize the benefits we receive is very, very good
and I think this will probably, if you look back, be the first time I have ever voted
for a raise for the Council, so I don't see any problem with it being defeated. But
I do agree that the Mayor -- definitely that position needs to be raised. So,
somebody else can make a motion.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Maybe, then, to simplify it, instead of us trying to do both in one motion
six different ways, we separate them out, if that's appropriate. Madam Mayor, I
move we maintain the Mayor's salary at what it is until the next review.
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De Weerd: Okay. I have a motion. Do I have a second?
Borton: Second.
De Weerd: Okay. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion?
Bird: Call for the question.
De Weerd: Mr. Clerk.
Roll call: Bird, nay; Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, nay; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts, nay.
MOTION FAILED: TWO AYES. THREE NAYS. ONE ABSENT.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: We are going to be here all day. We have a long day ahead of us. I
make a motion that we accept the committee's recommendation for the Mayor's
salary, with the recommended percentage amount, but do not accept the
recommendation from the committee for Council compensation at this time.
De Weerd: Okay. I have a motion.
Bird: Second.
De Weerd: And a second. Any discussion? Mr. Clerk.
Coles: Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Borton: I guess Madam Mayor --
De Weerd: Oh. Mr. Borton.
Borton: And I appreciate what you're trying to do, but it's -- it blends two things,
so in support of the Mayor's increase, but rejecting the Council's itself -- we will
see where this goes. I -- I don't support the Council increase, so if I note -- vote
no on the motion I'm voting no on rejecting the Cou ncil increase as well, which is
something I support. So, I appreciate you're trying to speed it up.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
Borton: Linking it kind of complicates it.
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Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Okay. Mr. Bird.
Bird: No. That -- the motion was that we accept the Mayor's compensation.
Borton: Right.
Bird: But we don't take any compensation for the City Council.
Borton: Correct. And I support --
Bird: So, you support the Mayor getting raised, but not the Council.
De Weerd: No. He -- the opposite. He's supports the Council --
Bird: Well, I know how he supports it. But I mean that's what the motion says.
Cavener: Madam Mayor? Mr. Borton, you're welcome to make a substitute
motion if you -- if you would like.
Borton: Okay. If I may. Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: I move that we keep the City Council compensation as is and not accept
the recommendation of the committee as to Council compensation.
Bird: Second.
Borton: And, Madam Mayor, for discussion on the motion, one of the reasons
why a lot of people serve up here, Keith, is because people like you who make
people fall in love with this community and service and you're the king behind
that, so --
Bird: Thank you very much. Appreciate that. But there has been a lot of us.
De Weerd: Okay. So, the substitute motion is to maintain the Council salary as
is, declining the increase as recommended by the committee. Is that essentially
what you said? Okay. Did I have a second to the substitute?
Bird: I seconded it.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Mr. Clerk.
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Roll call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: With regard to the position of Mayor, focusing on the duties of the
position itself and not focusing on the person in the seat or the specific
performance, because I don't think we have a matrix to objectively tie
compensation to performance yet. Maybe that's a future discussion. But in light
of that I would move that we maintain the existing compensation for the Mayor
and the role of the executive and not accept the recommendations of the
committee at this time.
Palmer: Second.
De Weerd: Okay. I have a motion in a second. Any discussion? Mr. Clerk.
Roll call: Bird, nay; Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: Okay. The motion passes.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. ONE NAY. ONE ABSENT.
C. Journey of Heroes Public Art Installation Update
De Weerd: Thank you for your service. Item 6-C is Journey of Heroes, the
public art installation update. And is Hillary -- oh, there is Hillary.
Bodnar: Okay. Spooky. I don't know. Okay. Look quickly, because it might
disappear. You will see what other pictures I have on file. C.Jay right now is
passing out the same thing. So, if it continues to rotate through these you're still
supported with the images being used . Madam Mayor, Members of the Council,
I'm before you today -- this is actually a nice rotation -- to just give you an update
on the trail markers that will be -- the trail marker images that will be installed in
the Journey of Heroes in the public installation at Heroes Park. The committee
that decided on how these trail markers would be selected consisted of three
Meridian Arts Commissioners and, then, the Parks Committee from the Meridian
Parks and Recreation Commission. We decided that heroes were to be selected
by local schools, so I reached out to local schools -- first near the park and, then,
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also other schools for recommendations. Nine schools were contacted and we
got five to participate in hero nominations. We asked the schools for a primary
hero nomination and a secondary hero nomination in case their original hero was
already selected or in case that we couldn't get permission from that hero or their
family for image use. With that being said, all of the primary recommendations
that were received were not duplicates, so the committee members decided to
proceed with contacting the individuals that were recommended for heroes and
work on getting artist permissions. At this point we have all the permissions in
place and Ken McCall, the artist, has worked to obtain those permissions and
worked to put together what images would be used. I can go through them really
quickly the schools and, then, the heroes that they recommended. Rocky
Mountain High School is one mile from the park and they nominated Alex Fox.
He is this bottom person here with his son in the stroller and his recommendation
form is actually here now. He donated his kidney to a special needs teenager.
The teenager's mom reached out kind of looking for a match for her daughter and
Ken's -- or Alex's son also suffers from a disability, so he knew what kind of
impact that would make and he didn't know the woman who reached out on
Facebook and he is in Rocky Mountain High School eyes a hero. And he lives in
Star, but he is -- our requirements for the hero recommendation were that they
are local to Idaho and that they are real. So, we didn't want fictional characters
and that's a pretty good example in my opinion as well as what a hero is. If you
remember part of the journey of heroes art installation I think was also to
encourage people to think about what it means to be a hero . So, there is a
variety of heroes referenced here. Paramount Elementary School is two miles
from the park and they nominated Dean Brigham, who is their current principal,
and he is retiring this year. So, that was an honor that their school wanted to
bestow on Dean Brigham. Dean Brigham was also my principle at Chaparral
Elementary School, so that was pretty cool to see. The next recommendation is
from Heritage Middle School and they are 2.5 miles away from the park and they
nominate Gregory Pappy Boyington. Oh, so Dean is on the left and Gregory
Boyington is on the right-hand side and he was a pilot in World War II. I believe
he was also in a popular sitcom or the focus based on -- in a popular sitcom Baa
Baa Black Sheep and he's from Coeur d'Alene. Pioneer Elementary is an arts
based school. They are five miles from the park and they nominated Kristin
Armstrong and you guys know Kristin Armstrong is in that picture. Chief Joseph
Elementary School is an art based school and they nominated -- oh, they are 5.5
miles from the park and they nominated Chief Joseph. Other schools contacted
include Willow Creek Elementary School, Hunter Elementary School, Christine
Donnell --
De Weerd: Donnell.
Bodnar: And, then, Renaissance High School. And those schools either
declined to participate or did not respond to my incessant e-mails and calls. This
is really just to show you guys you had been selected and the process that we
used to get to that point and to remind you that those are for the trail markers
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around the park. The primary installation impact that was also handed out to you
guys, those images remain the same from the original proposal that was brought
before you. So, that includes Sacagawea, police officers, doctors, an astronaut,
a firefighter, veterans, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., Albert Einstein,
Amelia Earhart and Louis and Clark. We just wanted to provide an update. If
you have any questions for me or for Ken, the artist, he's in -- he's in the --
De Weerd: Well, this is very nice, Hillary. Council, any questions?
Bird: I have none, Mayor. Just very nice.
De Weerd: No questions. Thank you very much. And thank you. This is going
to be an awesome project. Look forward to seeing it. Oh. I knew I heard that
somewhere. Steve.
Siddoway: I just wanted to quickly go on the record and just say we are excited
to welcome this art project into the park. It's been great to see the Arts
Commission and the Parks and Recreation Commission come together in these
joint meetings to manage this process with Hillary's excellent leadership. The
materials I see have been ordered, fabrication underway. It will be kind of a fall
installation later this year and we look forward to having it in -- in Heroes Park.
So, thank you.
Item 7: Department Reports
A. Meridian Arts Commission: Budget Amendment for
Dairy Days Art Show, Traffic Box Wraps, and Meridian
Art Week Not to Exceed $8,280
De Weerd: Thank you. Okay. Item 7-A is also under the arts commission, so
Hillary, you should have been stayed up there.
Bodnar: This is a budget amendment that requires for spending authority for
revenues received by the Meridian Arts Commission. We are requesting -- the
actual budget amendment amount shows 8,000 dollar -- 8,280 dollars, but that
zeroes out because those are revenues received -- or promised in an agreement
or with another sponsorship form that we already have in place. The intention of
the use of those funds is to go towards covering expenses from the Dairy Days
Art Show, MDC's traffic box wraps, which is an agreement that we have had in
place for a long time for 5,000, dollars. Those agreements we -- you might have
been seeing them on your agenda and Consent Agenda, so those are getting
underway and we will be getting the art work and wrapping those shortly and,
then, there was the other request is going toward Art Week to help grow that
program. And happy to stand for any questions.
De Weerd: Okay. Counsel, any questions?
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Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Hillary, I assume the art show was a big success?
Bodnar: The Dairy Days Art Show?
Cavener: It looked like there was a ton of people, so I assume that the revenues
coming in are a result of that being a successful endeavor?
Bodnar: The revenues coming in are from sponsorships and from applications
for the booth fees.
Cavener: Okay.
Bodnar: We haven't currently asked the artists to provide any donations for
percentage of sales, although that's something that we have discussed and could
-- could ask for as the program continues to grow. But there was definitely a lot
more attendance this year. I think the artists got really good exposure. We
heard some of the artists that were there the year before that had made a lot of
sales. They didn't make a ton of sales, but -- well, a few of them didn't make a
ton of sales this year, but they talked to a lot of people and made a lot of good
contacts, so they were still really happy with the show and overall I think the
increased attendance from having this be the second year of the Dairy Days Art
Show, it was really good and a lot of the artists were happy to be a part of it and I
was really happy with how it all turned out. No travesties, so that's always good.
De Weerd: Do we have any comment? Anything further? Okay.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Seeing how Genesis isn't here, I will take the -- I move that we approve the
budget amendment for the Meridian Arts Commission for the amount not to
exceed 8,280 dollars.
Cavener: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 7 -A. Any discussion
from Council? Mr. Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts, yea.
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De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Bodnar: Thank you.
B. Public Works: Public Works Week Recap and Donation
to the Meridian Food Bank
De Weerd: Item 7-B is under our Public Works Department.
Deardorff: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I'm up here to give you a
recap of Public Works Week and to let you know how it went. As you know our
2017 --
De Weerd: Susie, you want to pull that a little bit closer.
Deardorff: As you know our 2017 national theme was Public Works Connects
Us. We appreciate Council's support and participation both this year and in
years previous. Everyone contributes to Public Works Week in Public Works.
The staff -- this series of events doesn't happen by itself, it requires the efforts of
many staff members to plan and all staff members help execute it. This series of
events is free to the public. It's designed to educate the community about the
things that Public Works Week does. This is our 9th annual Public Works Week
and our staff has it down to a science. This year we had 13 Public Works
partners who contributed financially. We had 19 Public Works partners who
participated in some of the events and we had 25 organizations that contributed
prizes or in kind donations. This resulted in 9,359 dollars in donations to help
cover the cost of hosting Public Works Week. We also plan annually for these
events using our Public Works advertising promotion and public education
budget. This year's budget was 5,000 dollars. That represents 1/10000ths of
Public Works' fiscal year '17 budget. This is our single largest outreach of
educational event series and it gives us a huge bang for our buck. Again, the
community response is outstanding. They love learning about what we do and
the pride that we take in our city. So, the Poop Scoot. We had a new starting
location that was well received. The participants also liked having guides
throughout the race. As you can see we had at least six dogs join us in the race
this year. In addition to our furry friends, we had 115 peop le register. Seventy
for the 5K and 45 for the 3K. For the food bank we raised 268 pounds of food
and an additional $23.90 was collected at the registration for the food bank. That
beat 2016 where we only collected 223 pounds of food. Some of our racer s
return year after year and we have proof. We have got the T -shirts from the past.
In our Go With The Flow tour the bus was full. A hundred percent of the people
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who returned the survey said the tour was excellent. We had an updated route
this year. We included the always popular Meridian Water Tower. We had a
new state of the art water treatment facility at Well 27. They visited the upgraded
South Black Cat lift station. And we finished at the ever expanding wastewater
resource recovery facility. And as you can see, this behind-the-scenes look at
the city's infrastructure is always well received by the attendees and earns the
highest praise for the city and the staff. There is no stopping the Expo. In spite
of the weather and despite the rain, our cornerstone event in the City Hall Plaza
went quite well. We had 15 partners and consultants who participated in the
Expo, in addition to the Public Works divisions. That's the largest number so far.
The vendors commented that was a well run event and everyone was highly
engaged. They were busy. We can tell, because over 700 hotdogs were served
and there was lots of popcorn. There is something for everyone at the Expo. We
have fun educational activities, opportunities for adults and kids as well. The top
attractions this year. The big trucks, the wastewater displays, the environmental
display, the water displays and, of course, the Home Depot bird houses. Now, in
case you missed anything, again this year we have a video thanks to Kaycee
Emery, our city communications manager and her intern Alex. Oops. Let's go
back. You want to see the video.
(Video played.)
De Weerd: Nice job.
Deardorff: Thank you.
Bird: Very nice.
Deardorff: So, while the public -- the primary benefits of Public Works Week are
public education, team building and relationship building, as you can see Public
Works connects us to the general public through Public Works Week. In
addition, our sponsor donations benefit our community. Thanks to those sponsor
donations we are also able to show support for local community needs. For the
Parks Care To Share scholarship program we have $507.88. For the community
recycling fund we have $761.82. And for the Meridian Food Bank -- before I
announce the number I 'd like to invite the Mayor, Dale Bolthouse and Dan Clark
to join us for a presentation. For the Meridian Food Bank we have $2,539.40.
Bolthouse: Mayor, don't run off. We have got a little something special for you.
Thank you, Dan. We just really appreciate the Council and Mayor's support of
Public Works Week and we notice the Mayor wasn't able to join us at the fun run
this year, but we have an official personally made replica of this year's trophy for
the Mayor in hopes that she will display it with ho nor in her office upstairs, along
with the many other treasured momentos of her -- of her tenure, so we have this
year -- if you haven't seen it, this was this year's Poop Scoot run trophy, hand
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manufactured by our wastewater treatment folks with scrap metal and so we
wanted to present that to you. It is a running emoji --
De Weerd: Is this what you call the runs?
Bolthouse: The runs. And so we wanted to give you this as an honorary -- this is
the first year of this type trophy, so congratulations and we know that it will find a
treasured location upstairs in the Mayor's office. So, thanks for your support.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Deardorff: And with that I will stand for any questions.
Bird: Susie?
Deardorff: Councilman Bird.
Bird: Thank you and all the staff for making us elected officials look good. We
appreciate it.
Deardorff: Thank you.
Bird: That was a wonderful week. Your day out here was fantastic. We just
can't thank you enough for what you do every day. Thank you.
Deardorff: Thank you.
De Weerd: Yes. Thank you. It's -- I, actually, started listening tours yesterday
and got a comment and had an opportunity to -- to chat about it and every year I
think we get feedback from the public that was involved in one of the events or
another and always hear glowing reports and certainly they see what we see
often is the pride that is taken in the facilities and -- and the -- the way they can
serve the city. So, thank you for, again, putting that human face on your
activities. I will still maintain that we love -- no news is good news in Public
Works, so thank you so much.
Deardorff: Thank you.
C. Fire: Budget Amendment for Mold Remediation at Fire
Stations Not to Exceed $69,432
De Weerd: Okay. Item 7-C is under our Fire Department. Hi, Charlie.
Butterfield: Madam Mayor, City Council --
De Weerd: Hi, Max.
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Butterfield: Good afternoon. We are asking for a budget amendment in relation
to the Fire Department to address some mold issues that we discovered. Back in
May I discovered -- well, I was contacted by a captain at our Fire Station No. 5,
he had some concern over some possible mold underneath some rubber mats in
the workout room. I went and investigated and upon investigation it looked like
he was correct, there was some mold underneath those mats. I contacted Max
and his team to actually go do some testing. Some testing was performed and
the testing did result in their being mold underneath the mats in the workout room
at that particular station. Being concerned about the other stations also having
similar setups with rubber mats on the floors in their workout rooms, subsequent
testing was done in those stations and also discovered mold. At that time I kind
of turned it over to Max and let him and his team look into cost associated with
remediating that problem and, then, also addressing that this not o ccur in the
future. So, I will let you take it from there.
Jensen: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. So, the Fire
Department found the mold issue out there on one of the fire stations, like he
said, and the building maintenance staff was contacted there to come out and do
an investigation out there. So, we came out there, we took a look at the one fire
station and, sure enough, there was mold. So, we also contacted a mold
investigation specialist and drove around to all the other fire stations as well, just
to make sure if this was like an isolated area or if it was happening throughout all
the fire stations. Every fire station in the exercise room does have mold
underneath the mats there, so it's a consistent issue. So, after we foun d that out
we -- we had the mold investigation specialist take samples. Those lab results
did come back as positive for mold. So, every room was sealed up to prevent
the -- the cross-contamination and at that point we -- we contacted vendors there
to get values and prices for the remediation work and to address the issue that
was happening there at every station. So, on board we got a mold -- the mold
investigation specialist for additional testing and investigations, the mold
remediation work, which would be the room cleaning. Removing the carpets and
also the equipment, because the equipment has to be sterilized as well. The
mold remediation work for the HVAC and duct work is -- pores may be in duct
work also, so they need to be cleaned out. The RTU at the roof top units need to
be cleaned out as well, just to make sure we are not spreading that throughout
the building. Then on top of that we need to go back and apply sealant on the
concrete floor to make sure that the floor is not going to be wicking anymore
moisture from the ground and creating the mold. So, we have got to agitate the
top of the concrete floor and, then, add two layers of sealants also to -- to make
sure that no more moisture comes up through the floor. And, then, on top of that
to reinstall the -- the mats for the rooms.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
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Bird: Max, we had -- what we had was the concrete floor; right?
Jensen: Right.
Bird: Then did we have a rug on it?
Jensen: Yes.
Bird: Or did we just have the mats?
Jensen: There were both conditions there.
Bird: And were the mats ventilated or were they solid mats?
Jensen: Solid mats.
Bird: It is just contained to what -- to the workout room and it could be -- well, it
could get in the ducts and stuff, but -- which we hope hasn't.
Jensen: Correct. So, that's part of the investigation work. He was going to go
through and make sure that it's -- it's nowhere else in the facility. But the only
concrete floor in each of these facilities is only at the exercise room. Everywhere
else it's crawl space. So, we don't have the issue anywhere else. It's isolated to
the exercise rooms.
Bird: It's just between the body heat and the mat and everything -- and concrete
down there, just made moisture underneath.
Jensen: Correct. Also part of that also has to deal with a vapor barrier, a poly --
underneath that concrete slab when it was constructed would also eliminate this
-- eliminate the issue and stop that moisture before it actually came through the
concrete floor, so -- of course, it's more expensive to treat it after it's -- at this
point.
De Weerd: So, Max, aren't those -- those mat pieces? I know when we went
through on our tour one of the pieces was out with the mold specialist looking in it
and -- and so those are pieces, not one solid mat.
Jensen: Right. They are finger jointed together.
De Weerd: Right. And he -- he also said, you know, part of the cause could be
how you clean it with the mopping and the water seeping down and -- so, it can't
create the kind of mold they apparently have with moisture out of the concrete.
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Jensen: Right. My -- I contacted a -- our tech also for investigation work also to
double check my thoughts as well. His suggestions were the same as mine, is --
as far as the vapor barrier --
De Weerd: Is to seal the --
Jensen: -- should have probably been placed underneath that concrete. I don't
believe that the mopping operations from the vendor -- from the janitorial vendor
is actually creating the issue.
De Weerd: Okay. Other questions from Council?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Maybe this is a question for Charlie. It sounds like it's a pretty
extensive process. What's this going to do to disrupt operations at each of these
stations while this mitigation is going on?
Butterfield: Madam Council -- Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, it is in the
workout room, so I think that during the hours that they would be doing the
mitigation process that daily operations shouldn't be affected in any form or
fashion. They currently have taken all of the workout equipment out of those
rooms that have been affected. The workout equipment was treated and
cleaned, if you will, to make sure there were no mold spores on that and, then,
was moved out into apparatus bays. So, the crews have still actually been able
to perform their workouts and still maintain, you know, that area of readiness for
-- for their daily activities. So, I don't -- I really don't see this process as it moves
forward having any effect on operational readiness or operational efficiency.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Maybe one more question, then, for -- for Max. As someone who
recently went through a mold issue in my home I learned very quickly that
different mold investigation specialists vary in terms of quality and cost. Did we
get multiple bids to get this situation handled or are we relying on the response
from one vendor?
Jensen: Councilman Cavener, we did contact one vendor. We did want to take
care of this issue as soon as possible. We did contact a vendor there that we
had -- had them previously do work here at City Hall also, so we had that
relationship with them. So, to speed up the process we contacted that one
individual to come out and do that work for us.
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Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: And maybe things have changed with regard to mold. Is all mold bad
mold now or -- I mean you mentioned you found mold and, then, we hired
somebody to scientifically determine that it was, in fact, mold, but I kept waiting
for the word like toxic or something or is just all mold devastating to health and
has to be removed with very expensive means anymore?
Jensen: There are certain levels of mold, so from test results that he came back
with they are to that level where the restoration work needs to be done. There is
one fire station there that's in question, so we would like to go back and do some
more testing there as well to fully determine if -- if the restoration work does need
to be done there, but from the preliminary examples or the testing it's -- it's
borderline right now.
De Weerd: So, we didn't try and get additional pricing from others, so we didn't
get a second opinion. This has gone on long enough we -- we could have gone
to see if there was a second opinion and someone that took at look at what
remediation was necessary.
Jensen: Yes. Madam Mayor, we could have done that. At this point here this
was a health issue where we want to get it addressed as soon as possible and
move forward with -- with fixing the issue. So, these numbers are only a
budgetary number. It doesn't necessarily mean that we need to go with these
vendors, but it's -- it's a starting point, so that we can move forward with it.
De Weerd: So, this is, essentially, your worst case scenario?
Jensen: Correct.
Bird: Guarantee it will be that.
De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions from Council? Okay. Thank you.
Jensen: Thank you.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: As the fire liaison I did sign this budget amendment. The questions,
though, that I had had I still have. I wish we would have taken advantage from
the time that I signed this amendment to today to get us some additional quotes,
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but, you know, hearing that -- what I'm hoping is that after this passes that you
will work with multiple vendors to make sure that we are getting the most
accurate pricing before we move forward. With that said, I would move that we
approve the budget amendment for mold remediat ion for the fire stations for a
not to exceed amount of 69,432 dollars.
Bird: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Mr. Clerk, will you
call roll.
Roll call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, yea; Palmer, y ea; Little
Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
D. Police: West Ada School District Resource Officer
Agreement
De Weerd: Item 7-D is under our Police Department and I will turn this over t o
the chief.
Lavey: Madam Mayor and Council, thank you for the opportunity to speak today.
Over the last couple of weeks I have talked about the SRO contract and the SRO
contract for 2017-2018 is before us today. It's been signed by the school district
and I am requesting permission to have the Mayor sign it as well and the
highlights of changes is you will see a reduction from 10.5 SROs to the ten
SROS, removing the SRO that was assigned to the school district office in
partnership with ISU as I mentioned earlier in Council presentations and just for
the record the revenue that was generated by the SRO contract in 2016-2017
was 323,438 dollars and the contract in front of you for 2017-2018 revenue is at
423,516 dollars, which is an increase of just over 100,000 dollars. So, with that I
will stand for any questions.
Bird: Council, any questions for the chief?
Cavener: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Chief, I remember reading an article in one of the newspapers about
there being some concern within the school district and their contract with -- with
us. I assume all those issues were resolved and everybody was back on equal
footing and happy to move forward?
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Lavey: Yes, Councilman Bird, Councilman Cavener. The only issue was -- is
that the board of trustees had some questions of the school administration,
because they did not have the answers for that night, that's why they -- they
postponed it and, then, I personally met with both the superintendent and the
assistant superintendent and that's what they told to me and so I don't believe
there is any concerns. In fact, we got a hundred thousand dollar increase. So,
obviously, they budgeted appropriately and its much appreciated.
Bird: Thank you. Any other questions? If not, I would entertain a motion to
accept this budget amendment.
Borton: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Borton.
Borton: I move that we approve the West Ada School District resource officer
agreement.
Little Roberts: Second.
Bird: We have had a motion and a second. Any discussion? If not, Mr. Clerk.
Roll call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
E. Clerk's Office: Beer and Wine License Contingent
Approval for Hard Brock LLC dba Deja Brew Laugh a
Latte
Bird: Thank you, chief. Next item is Clerk's Office.
Nary: Mr. Bird, actually, I will go ahead and introduce that.
Bird: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Thank you. Mr. President, Members of the Council, the Idaho State Police
in issuing liquor licenses pursuant to the Idaho Code require that any
establishment that would like beer or wine or liquor licenses within 300 feet of a
church or a school needs specific approval from the governing board, which is
the City Council. They instituted a process a year ago that asked that they,
essentially, get a preliminary approval from the Council before they will process
the request for a beer, wine or liquor license. This Council in November
approved that for Frankie's Java that was in the location there, Generations
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Plaza. It's within 300 feet of the Harvest Church. Frankie's Java is now gone,
Deja Brew Laugh a Latte is in that space and would like to apply for a beer and
wine license and so the state police again notified them that they would need at
least contingent approval from this Council before they would process their beer
and wine license and so we are bringing that before you. If you approve it, as
you had previously, ideally I just send them a letter acknowledging that you have
reviewed it and you have tentatively approved it, but it would, then, come back to
you again for final approval -- or excuse me -- come back -- yeah, come back in
front of you for final approval after it's been processed by the state and the
county. Any questions?
Bird: Council, any questions? If not I would entertain a motion.
Borton: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Borton.
Borton: I move that we approve the contingent approval for the beer and wine
license for Hard Rock, LLC, Deja Brew Laugh a Latte.
Little Roberts: Second.
Bird: Okay. I have got a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none,
Mr. Clerk.
Roll call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
F. Mayor's Office and Legal: Proposed Policy for Use of
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Drones)
De Weerd: The next item, Item 7-F, is a policy for your consideration on the use
of drones. I don't know if -- Bill?
Nary: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. As pursuant to our
policy on how we establish policies for the city, these begin at the department
level, they have -- this particular policy has been taken to the directors for
comment and feedback and input and now it's, therefore, in front of you. We
have discussed this at length. Basically the purpose of this policy -- we wanted
to line up with using this new piece of equipment that's different for folks, we
wanted to make sure that we have a policy in place for the city employees to be
using this device. We haven't purchased it yet. That would match up with what
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the legal world allows at this time, which is very, very new. There will probably
be a lot of both -- Idaho legislature, as well as nationally, there will probably be
cases. We wanted to make sure in creating this policy that we had a starting
point for employees using this particular device on behalf of the city and, then, if
the public had a concern or a question we could, then, point back to the policy
and show that we had created these rules for our own employees to follow in
relation to using this device. Right now there is only one person in the city that
would be authorized under this currently, because she has an FFA license. The
whole intent here, really, is, again, put these rules in place, then, make the
purchase afterwards, if that's satisfactory. The only thing that's changed from the
one in your packet is Item 2 says employees must obtain a remote pilot
certification from the FAA prior to operating a drone. The feedback we received
was it sounded as if that applied to everything and , of course, this is the policy,
so it doesn't apply to anybody but ourselves. But we changed the language to
include operating a city- owned or approved use drone. So, that way it's clear.
Again, these are only for city equipment. If you look down in the same policies in
your packet, number seven says employees may not use personally owned
drones for the city's purpose, but we specifically request that we specifically
approve it. Now, again, that doesn't mean if somebody -- a person in the public
gets footage or material that we cou ld use that could comply with our policy and
how it could be used under the code, that we couldn't accept it. Because they
didn't operate it for us, they didn't -- they didn't use it at our -- at our request. But
we wanted to make sure that if there was a need some time, maybe an
emergency or something else, but -- anyway, it's been vetted through the
directors. We think it's -- we think it's sound. We think it matches up with the
Idaho Code currently. Mrs. Kane for my office has done extensive research,
probably knows more about drones than she ever thought she would need to or
want to, but I think it's ready to move forward. If you're comfortable with it, if
there is concerns or questions and things that -- for the purpose of today. If it's
okay, once we get to final form, then, we will bring it back in a resolution form so
that it can be approved and added to our handbook.
De Weerd: Thank you, Bill. Any questions for Mr. Nary?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I only have one question I think and it's item number six and it's the
line employees may use drone collected information for only a specifically
authorized purpose. I own a drone. I have got my little drone card with the FAA.
I've used it to shoot some amazing footage of our great state . I'm supportive of
drones. But I also recognize the public's concern about them and if I were a
citizen and I was reading specifically authorized purpose, I would want to know
what that means. If you can give some clarity on that piece.
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Nary: Well, again, part of that's -- you know, there is still a development --
Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Cavener. Part of it is
still in the development of what specific uses we could do. There are -- there are
police issues that are completely separate from this and that's not what this is
meant to address. There will be, obviously, some guidelines on how or when we
are going to use it, since currently we only have one person that can use that.
Would part of your concern be that the term a drone may mean more than that,
like the number two that we changed it? Would you prefer me to insert that
wording as well? And, again, authorized use -- it's going to be, again, that the
city can define as to what our purposes are and that's part and parcel part of the
process of development. I mean overall it's going to be used for promoting the
city, marketing city, using it to show activities and things like that. But those
haven't been defined and we didn't really want to insert those types of things,
because, obviously, those change over time or the methods of how it's used over
time change. So, I think those are things that, you know, if there is a concern or
a desire we can certainly bring it back as a workshop discussion item , how is that
working, what have you been using it for, what's the idea behind it, those kinds of
things, as we get that kind of more established. Right now we want to get the
rules in place up front on how it can be used and what's the authority or
authorization process to use that and, then, we will get to the finer details of the
specific terms or the specific uses per department. Most departments aren't
going to use it. I can guarantee we will never fly a drone for the legal
department. Can't think of any reason we would ever do that. But it's a fair
question. I think we definitely have to be able to respond to that to the public as
well.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I just to try and answer Mr. Nary's question, I think that my -- my only
change -- or I guess request is that we are -- we are identifying what the specific
use is and, you know, I heard you talk about community events, marketing
activities. I know that our public information officer I think is the one that has this
-- this license and I think those are great and I can -- I can completely understand
the apprehension of specifically listing things that are in here and that -- only that
that may change. Being aware I think of the public's concern, rightly or wrongly,
about unmanned vehicles with cameras in them, that we should be identifying
what the city's intention is outside of law enforcement what are you is going to
be.
De Weerd: Any other questions or comments? I think we did look at other drone
policies to -- to get a better idea of what to consider in this. Any comments on
that?
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Simison: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council -- and I apologize, Kaycee was
-- had to go home sick today, so she couldn't be here for this presentation. But,
yes, there has been a lot of work done and, in fact, the National League of Cities
has some cities that they even reference other people too when looking at what
type of information is out there. So, there have been preliminary discussions with
departments about what that would look like. Some of the departments at this
point in time don't -- I will use fire is an example. You know, there are ways of
fire departments using drones, but at this time our fire department doesn't see a
use for those -- for the drones, depending on what type of drone is purchased.
You know, they have different camera capabilities, which could lead to other
opportunities, but those would be -- things that would be -- continue to work with
the departments on from that perspective, but your primary have been talked
about marketing, maybe some things with the community development, they
might go out and do some site inspections using drones or same with Public
Works could be doing some of that for some of their purposes, if they have to do
a map. A variety of uses I think from the standpoint of really maybe -- maybe get
to some of these issues on the issue of events, you know, if you're adding an
event and you're flying high enough to not be personally identifiable , which is
really, you know, the Idaho State Code issue from that standpoint. Of course, if
you're in -- you can't be over someone else's backyard and doing stuff from that
standpoint. I don't even think the police will allow that to occur from that
standpoint. So, most of the things are pretty excluded under state law from what
you can do from that standpoint.
Nary: Madam Mayor? I could also add -- I mean there is a real flux in the law,
because this is a new thing and so, again, it's not that I -- I don't want to answer
Councilman Cavener's question, I don't know specifically what we would use it
for in -- on a very particular basis. But look at the example of the video you
watched today of the plaza event for Public Works Week. That was taken with a
camera. Nothing in the code prevents that. You can stand in front of somebody
to take their picture in a public place. You could stand on the roof of this building
and take a picture with a camera, no rules apply to that at all. If that camera was
attached to a drone, rules apply. So, we have to kind of navigate through that to
make sure we are -- we are meeting the code requirements, like Robert just said,
as well as assuring the public, again, we are not using this device for things that
would give them a discomfort, even if legally allowed. And so we do want to
make sure that we are very clear on internally what the purpose of these are, but
understand this very weird situation that the code hasn't really caught up to the
technology or this type of equipment yet and we are still trying to evolve through
that, but yet we still see the value this can add to the city.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
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Cavener: I -- I really applaud that we are doing this. I think this is something
that's really unique for Meridian. I think that it will allow us to better tell our story
in a local and national level. Likewise, I'm just fairly aware that the public has
some general apprehension about government entities using unmanned air
vehicles to take photos and if we can't say what our specific use is going to be to
the public, that -- I know that our intentions are well and I know what the intention
of Kaycee is to use this for, because I know Kaycee and we have heard the
conversations. But John or Jane Q Meridian citizen who is going to read about
this or hear about this in the news is going to say what's the City of Meridian
doing with a drone and we don't have necessarily a specific use that we were
talking about and if I was a citizen that would cause me concern.
De Weerd: I think the -- that very question is the reason that the policy is in front
of you today. When a neighboring city got theirs -- and many of the agencies we
have talked to, they haven't had a policy in place and we thought that this would
give some additional comfort, instead of in saying that it was well thought out and
-- and that is it's -- it's good -- it shows a responsibility to them.
Simison: And, Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, I think at this point in time
marketing -- marketing is the primary -- primary -- primary purpose. Taking video
of events, you know, because, you know, aerial -- aerial footage is something a
lot of people are using and marketing type of stuff and that is what we are doing .
We will be -- we already have someone under -- from the Mayor's office who is
taking video professionally for us outside of this, but this will allow us to do that
instead of hiring outside people to do the marketing purposes. It requires you to
have engagement with these people that you're shooting over other people's
property already and that's something we do from that standpoint . There are a
lot of rules and regulations from the FAA and everybody else about what you can
and can't do. But marketing is the primary purpose at this point time, because
the Mayor's office is the only one doing this. As other departments determine
whether or not they want to have a staff member trained, take the test to do this,
they will have to help determine exactly what that would be for at that point in
time. They may be able to come to Kaycee in the meantime and asked for
something, but for a specific -- outside the marketing purposes, I think those are
-- those will be conversations that will be held as time allows.
De Weerd: And those will be director level conversations.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Then I would own -- I guess I would suggest that we change --
specifically authorized to marketing purpose would be my only requested
change.
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Simison: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, my only comment back from
that perspective is if it's the intent of the Council that every time a department
wants to use it for any specific purpose beyond that, this comes back to Council,
that's -- in the ordinance that has a high cost to make th ose changes. I don't
know if it's necessary from the standpoint -- what if it is not just for marketing,
what if Steve wants to fly it up on the property, the 77 acres, is that required to
come back to Council to change the ordinance to allow him to go ou t, fly on the
city-owned property.
Cavener: Madam Mayor, I guess I would respond that it's -- what I heard today is
that marketing is the need and I have also heard that this is a policy that's
developing because it's new technology. Perhaps by the time that there is an
additional use that the city have that policy actually would be more thought out
and those questions answered and that be brought back to Council.
Nary: Madam Mayor? Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, so I guess the
only thing I would suggest -- if you recall we created the policy for social media
and I would liken this to a very similar thing. Social media was fai rly new. How it
was being used by government was fairly new. So, we created a policy that said
if you want to use social media for the city here is how you do it. Which is kind of
what this policy is. We didn't say in that policy we are going to use Twitter or we
are going to use Myspace or any of -- AOL or anything, because we didn't know
what we would be doing. We knew that we would develop that as -- as part of --
as our business of what we need to do, but we didn't put it in the policy for a
specific reason. That was the reason we didn't put it into this policy. We did the
same thing with police with body worn cameras. We created a policy on how it's
used, but when we turn it off, when we turn it on, where you point it, where do we
share it, how do we do that, all of that is procedural isn't in policy. So, that was
our reasoning was that we will develop those things. At the moment it is
marketing. It's the primary purpose of what -- the reason the conversation we are
having. If you want us to bring it back every time that's fine. It's -- it can get
clunky and -- but if that's your desire that's certainly your call. But that's the
reason is many of those procedures are going to be done internally. There is
certainly nothing to hide and we are certainly going to be come and talk about it if
you want to talk about it, but you add it into the policy you're going to -- you may
end up changing the policy a number of times for every iteration that people
come up with.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I -- outside of the Police Department I can't think of anything the city would
want to use a drone for that wasn't marketing. You go down and go over to the
77 acre park, that’s for marketing. I just -- I just don't see why that -- outside of
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the police department -- and they have their own rules and stuff like that, so I
don't see anything wrong with the way it's written myself.
Simison: Madam Mayor, Councilman Bird, Council, just from that standpoint,
one of the things we went through the process is a drone with the cameras they
have, they can go up and th ey can show you the water content of a park. They
can show you -- so, there are other uses that you could see. Again, talking about
the Fire Department, larger cities are using drones to go out and -- they pre-
deploy it ahead of the trucks to position at the location of the fire, so that the
people that are driving there are gathering information. We are not there yet.
Technology is not there. Idaho is not there. So, just so you know, these are the
types of advanced uses that some cities can use in th e future, where, obviously,
our fire department doesn’t see a use right now as time intensive and financial --
you know, this technology, there is a lot of other things. We just want to make
you aware there are future uses that we will likely see coming f orward that we
are not even thinking about today.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: And I think, Robert, that's -- when something like that -- as they develop
and get more used in other things, that's when you come back. But right now we
are using it for marketing only, outside of what the police might use it for.
Simison: If and when they decide to use it.
De Weerd: Any other comments or questions from Council?
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: In regard to parks -- hate to put Steve on the spot, but can you
think of anything that's -- my first thought is when you were checking for water
damage was the flood with the most northern prope rty.
Siddoway: Mapping would be maybe the 77 type use that Robert was
mentioning, if we wanted to fly over a park property that we owned to do some
mapping work. Mapping -- marketing certainly is the primary one, thinking
specifically at events. The idea of the -- the moisture content, things like that, is
-- is the technology is out there. I'm not sure if it would come specifically with the
drone that would be purchased, but I know those capabilities are out there.
Those are the kinds of things that I would see us using it for. So, marketing,
mapping, moisture.
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Little Roberts: Thank you, Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Madam Mayor? I would say come back with a list of things that you
think that you might, in the relatively ne ar future, want to us it for and, then, we
just put it in so we can -- if anything else comes up come back. That way you
have got a pretty good list going. So, if somebody asks you -- asks us why we
are using drones say here is our policy. Here is the allowed uses. If we think of
something else we might change it.
De Weerd: Okay. Well, you do have a policy in front of you and I guess the
recommended language could come back next week and -- and have a follow-up
discussion. Anything further from Council? Okay.
Simison: Thank you.
G. Mayor's Office and Legal: Ordinance No. 17-1738
Amending Title 1, Chapter 6, Section 4, Meridian City
Code Amending Administrative Assistant Title and
Position to Executive Assistant Title and Position
De Weerd: Thank you. Okay. 7-G is under the Mayor's office. Council, I think
last fall we came in front of you to change this , because we anticipated a change
in the labor laws that would impact this position. Much of this is -- is kind of
putting it back together again, because those labor laws did not -- were not
enacted, fortunately, so this is -- this is cleaning that up and I don't know if Mr.
Nary has anything to add.
Nary: Just a little bit. I guess I -- the disadvantage sometimes being here forever
is I was involved with the original implementation of this ordinance back in 2004.
So, really now all we have done is change slightly some of the language based
on the title of the position, the duties that have been reestablished in a different
form, and so we -- and, then, aligned it with the current practice of the city that
didn't really exist in the same way in 2004. So, we are going to talk about how
the compensation program is now included in here, because we already have a
generalized compensation program where we didn't have that such in 2004. So,
the intent was really to just align the -- the current title and duty of this position,
which originally was the only position in the Mayor's office back in 2004, to now
line up with the one position that's performing this particular function and, then,
being consistent with the rest of our code . So, any other questions I'm happy to
answer, but that's really it. It's really a cleanup ordinance in my opinion, so --
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Question for Mr. Nary. Is the -- is the authority piece for the City
Council -- it looks like to be stricken out. Was that added a few months ago and
now we are now taking it back out? Is that --
Nary: Yeah. Councilman Cavener, that was -- basically the strikeouts are what
was in the original ordinance that I don't think has been adjusted significantly
since 2004, but that particular one back in 2004, again, we had kind of a little bit
different scenario, so that's why it's written that way. And, again, we have
changed a lot of things and duties and responsibilities over the last 12 years ,
so --
Cavener: Follow up, then, Madam Mayor. Were the strikeouts, then, stricken out
in 2004 or those are proposed strikeouts before us today?
Nary: Those are proposed strikeouts today based on what the current ordinance
says.
De Weerd: Okay. Are there other questions?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: One more then. Just some clarity from either you, Madam Mayor or
Mr. Nary about why we are striking out those particular pieces if they weren't part
of the -- the previous ordinance six months ago.
Nary: This is the current ordinance that's in our code. The current ordinance
says City Council -- and when we talked about it a few months ago , what we
were concerned with is the position based on the FLSA regulations would have a
different reporting structure and whether -- a different -- a different method of
basically being an hourly versus a salaried employee. This was written the way it
was in 2004 to meet the FLSA requirements then. There was a discussion that
those were going to change and, then, we, therefore, need to change this. This
position no longer has to be appointed , which is what it was to, have that status
of being a salary employee. So, we are making this the same footing as other
employees, but this particular one only has to report to the Mayor to meet the
FLSA requirements today to be a salaried employee. It doesn't have to be
appointed. So, that's the reason for the change.
De Weerd: Any other questions? Does Council want to take action on this today
or think about it? What's your pleasure?
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Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: It would be my preference to have it come back next week with all the --
approve it wrote up right, doesn't have all those scratches -- the scratches and
stuff in it.
Nary: Mr. Bird, it has to have it. It's required by the code.
Bird: Uh?
Nary: It's required by the code. The code changes.
Bird: You're right. We can enact on it, then, today if we want to. The rest of you
can -- Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: For the new Council people that weren't here in 2004, the reason the -- with
the approval of City Council and also with the consent of the City Council it was
put in was because we never had an -- an administrative assistant before and we
didn't want stuff happening that we didn't like. It -- it has worked out and that
person should be -- their salary and stuff should be set like everybody else's. So,
I don't see -- personally I -- I have no problem with it going out and I was
probably one of the biggest ones that wanted it in. Madam M ayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: With that I move we approve the change to the amending of Title 1,
Chapter 6, Section 4 of the Meridian City Code.
Borton: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Mr. Clerk.
Roll call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
H. Continued from July 5, 2017: Resolution No. 17-2018:
Adopting the Amended City of Meridian Strategic Plan
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2016-2020
De Weerd: Item 7-H is continued from July 5th, Resolution 17 -2018. So,
Council, any further questions or discussion on this item?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: If there is no discussion, I move we adopt the amended City of
Meridian Strategic Plan 2016-2020.
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adopt Resolution 17 -2018. Is there
any discussion? Mr. Clerk.
Roll call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. Thank you, Council.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
I. Amended onto Agenda: Fire Department: Fire
Department Presentation on Rural District Hiring Offer
De Weerd: Amended onto the agenda is Item 7-I under a Fire Department and I
will turn this over to Mr. Niemeyer. Chief Niemeyer. Sorry.
Niemeyer: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, good evening. This is a
follow up from a previous discussions regarding Station 6, the timing of the
staffing of and as you know the offer from the rural district -- you have two
documents in front of you. One is a multi-page document with a date of June 6th
in the upper left-hand corner. This document was presented to Council, to the
Mayor, during our joint meeting with the Rural Fire District commissioners and
the City Council and the Mayor to discuss the timing and also to discuss an offer
by the Rural District to pay for approximately 13 and a half months' worth of
salary for the firefighters needed to hire for Station 6. Now, we also did a follow-
up discussion at the first budget hearing about three weeks ago, if I remember
correctly. After that discussion the request was made of me to bring back in
writing the formal offer for further discussion and, then, decision. At that time
during that budget hearing we talked about timelines and the importance or
significance of certain timelines. The timelines to get the folks in the academy if
the decision is made to accept the rural offer is August 21st, meaning that's when
the academy starts. This Friday job offers are being made by the partners that
participated in the joint testing process and that will be participating in the joint
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academy. The reason this Friday is important -- there is a few reasons that I do
want to cover. It takes about 30 to 45 days to get new firefighters on board and
prior to the academy starting. The components of that include the fit-for-duty
exam that they have to go down and meet with Dr. Hilvers, who is our contracted
physician, to get their fit-for-duty exam completed. There is a criminal
background check process that's required by the CDMS Bureau. That's done
through ISP. That is taking right now anywhere from 30 to 45 days to complete,
because of backlog. In addition to that, we have the EMS state licensure
reciprocity that needs to be started, so that these folks can be licensed in the -- in
the EMS world. And, then, it takes about six to eight weeks to fit and, then, get
into turnouts for those firefighters that are going into the academy. So, I did want
to brief you on that as far as timelines, why is this Friday -- or next Friday
important as far as trying to come up with a decision. That's the reason why the
onboarding needs to take place prior to them starting the academy. Now, the
other thing that -- I think Todd is here. Good. There is certainly a timeline for
Todd in a decision because a budget amendment would have to be done -- it's
essentially for this year, a zero cost amendment. The city is basically saying we
are willing to expend the funds from August 21st to September 30th and we are
also willing to receive the funds from the rural district in the same amount. So,
there is a budget amendment process that it needs to take place and certainly
the expert is here to answer any questions on that . With that in front of you, the
district board met last night. Councilman Cavener was present as the
department liaison. You have in front of you the written offer pursuant to that
request at the budget meeting, that the district is offering to pay for the cost both
personnel benefits and start-up operational costs for the 12 firefighters in an
amount not to exceed 1.5 million dollars that would begin on August 21st, 2017,
and end on September 30th, 2018. So, with that I would stand for any questions.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Mark, we hired these -- get these guys starting the academy the 21st.
When will they be done and ready to go online?
Niemeyer: So, the academy, Councilman Bird, is running four months and, then,
they have a three month FTO period, it's called field training officer, where they
finish out the task book to confirm the academy competencies and so you're
looking at about seven months and, then, there -- they are online available to
cover shifts.
Bird: Okay. Station 6, which I agree we need, when is the planned start and
finish of it?
Niemeyer: That is tentative, but I can give you general. We would like to see
completion in the fall of 2018. The first step is to get the architectural design
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work done. We are working with Keith Watts on the RFQ for that. I just attended
a meeting prior to this council meeting with Public Works. They are looking, as
you know, at a well modification in Bear Creek Park. So, there was a meeting
talking about design, et cetera, of what's going on there. We are going to have
the architect work up two different designs. One in the location on the corner of
Bear Creek and one in the current location of the grass lot. I think I just
answered a question. That's good. So, that we can, then, take that out to the
community and get them involved as well. We did present to the Parks and Rec
Commission, they are definitely in favor of what we are proposing. We have
been working very closely with Parks. So, the next step in that is to get the
architectural design work done. Somebody asked me today when would you like
that done and I said yesterday. We wa nt to get that done as quickly as we can
so we can move forward.
Bird: So, Mark, what you're telling me is we will probably have an extra 12
firefighters for five stations for about five months?
Niemeyer: Correct. Five to six months. Yes, sir.
Bird: I won't be here, but I hope you don't have any overtime. That's one way to
solve the --
Niemeyer: I hope I don't either.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Question for -- for Mr. Lavoie. The letter we received from the fire
district indicates that the funds are being offered I guess to the city and the word
-- the quote is in the effort to build and staff Fire Station 6 by fall of 2018. And
maybe this is a question for legal, I'm not quite sure. So, I have been very vocal
in my support of Station 6, but that's, obviously, a discussion that needs to go
through our budget hearing and the budget process and my -- my concern is by
accepting this with the languages -- the money is being made for us to build and
staff Station 6, that we have yet to agree to do as part of the budget process --
are we -- are we out of bounds in moving forward. That's is my only concern is
are we not acting appropriately.
Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, the budget process does allow
you to perform this request through the budget amendment process and that's
the avenue that we have taken. We will go through the formal budget process,
which occurs in the month of August, which is our official amendment and final
announcement to the citizens for the fiscal year 2017 budget . So, you are
following the processes that are allowed to you as a city and a council.
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Cavener: Great.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Todd, am I not right, fiscal year '18 Station 6, nor the manning of Station 6,
will cost the city nothing. So, it will not even be in our budget.
Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Bird, from a budgetary standpoint we must
budget dollars -- we must appropriate funds for the right and ability for the city to
make payroll, to make expenses --
Bird: I understand that.
Lavoie: -- so, we do have an appropriation policy we must follow.
Bird: But it don't come out of our taxpayer dollars for '18, it's being paid by the
Rural Fire District, the whole -- the building and the employees.
Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Bird, the payments will come from the city to
make payments to the -- to the officers that we have.
De Weerd: It will be money in, money out.
Bird: Money in, money out.
Lavoie: You will be receiving a reimbursement from the rural district to reimburse
it, but the city will be obligated to make the payments and facility --
Bird: Yes, but the rural -- it's no different than it is now. The rural pays us and,
then, we pay. We pay and, then, they pay us.
Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Bird, yes. That is a net back to zero.
Bird: Okay.
Niemeyer: Councilman Bird, I can add onto that. You have been a part of those
rural district budgets for quite a while. They went into their budget process last
night and certainly Councilman Cavener can chime in, he was there, they have
articulated a special line in their budget for th is agreement as far as wages in
addition to the 11 percent they will be contributing to the city under the joint
powers agreement, if you will, or the agreement with the district. Just a note on
the funding for this station, Councilman Bird, the city has been collecting impact
fees that are eligible for the station cost. So, the impact fee, as well as the fire
engines that go into it, the personnel costs will be paid for by the district in the
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first 13 and a half months.
Bird: And we will pay back fee on the station costs. We will pay for it like we
have on the rest. Paying back for the station cost.
Niemeyer: In this particular case the city won't be reimbursing the district for the
station cost. The city will actually be paying right out of th eir impact fees for the
cost of the station. When we built Station 5 and Station 4, we didn't have that
mechanism in the city to collect impact fees and, then, pay for the first station
build.
Bird: But that still comes out of our budget -- out of ours.
Niemeyer: Of the impact fee balance, yes, sir.
Bird: And, chief, don't go to the Finance Department to print your papers
anymore.
Niemeyer: Todd is having an influence on --
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: You need a different font. Do we need to get you a software update?
Mr. Borton.
Borton: Madam Mayor. Todd, do we -- does the July 19th budget need to
include the expenditure of the impact fees for construction in the next fiscal year?
Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, the budget amendment for the 19th
must address the compensation, the wages, the benefits as described in the
contract that we make. Now, whether or not we want to construct and start and
design of the building in fiscal '17, the answer would be yes to your question. If
the answer is, no, not until fiscal '18, you can do a budget amendment in '18 or
we can add an enhancement item to your process next week, but it's all going to
be based on when do you want to start spending your first dollar for the design
and construction of Station No. 6. So, that's a decision we will have to decide on
and we can get that added to next week's agenda accordingly.
Borton: Madam Mayor? Chief, is it your recommendation that the construction
process start immediately?
Niemeyer: It would be my recommendation that the design process get started
immediately. We are going to have some leg work to do on the -- with the
community out there. We always hold public hearings and, then, go out and do
the -- I'm not using the right word -- town halls or come and visit and take a look
and give us your input and feedback. Certainly the -- sorry. The design process
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in '17 absolutely.
Borton: And, Madam Mayor, by design process meaning the expenditure of
funds in this fiscal year?
Niemeyer: Correct. Using impact fees.
Borton: That would come back -- that would be adjusted for July 19th?
Niemeyer: Yes.
Borton: The second question is the -- capturing the labor costs in year two after
the 12 firefighters are added, is incorporated into your CFP; is that correct? Your
consolidated financial plan accounts for that?
Lavoie: I'm sorry, Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, can you repeat that again?
Borton: The increased cost -- and this is the -- the challenge that we have is
once the first year is covered and you have got 1.4 million and change to capture
in subsequent years, absent a great tool like a consolidated financial plan, that
might be a challenge to -- to anticipate. But it's incorporated in your plan I think.
Lavoie: Madam Mayor -- sorry. Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, the --
Station 6 was planned and programmed into the CFP for the City of Meridian.
Borton: And, Madam Mayor, in the year two it's appropriately slotted. If 2018
fiscal year is year one where rural is paying, 2019 your CFP accounts for
capturing those costs?
De Weerd: Yes.
Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, yes, we have -- the full expenditure
is occurring for the city to start in 2019.
Borton: Awesome. Thank you.
De Weerd: Any other questions from Council?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: If you should -- I guess I need some clarification. The action we need
take -- we need to accept the offer formally from the rural fire?
Nary: Yes, sir.
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Cavener: Madam Mayor. Then I move that we accept the offer from the
Meridian Rule Fire Protection District for amount of 1.5 million dollars for the
startup and operational costs for up to 12 firefighters to begin on August 21st,
2017.
Borton: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. Any discussion?
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Also in that motion does it not conclude on September 30th, 2018?
Cavener: Madam Mayor. Correct. I agree. From August 21st, 2017, to
September 30th, 2018.
Bird: Thank you.
De Weerd: Second agrees?
Borton: Yes.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Cavener: Just -- just a comment. I think it's important we put on the record how
much we appreciate the rural coming to us with this offer. I think it allows us to
accomplish a much needed upgrade in south Meridian. So, thanks to them.
De Weerd: And that will be relayed.
Niemeyer: Madam Mayor. Councilman Cavener, I will certainly re lay that and I
think they -- they equally appreciate that partnership that they have had with the
city. This station is not only going to serve the City of Meridian residents, but the
residents in the rural district south of I-84. So, I know their appreciation is -- is
definitely back.
De Weerd: Council. I think it would be appropriate to -- we will draft a letter for
your signatures next week accepting their offer and expressing our thanks. Mr.
Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll call: Bird, nay; Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
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Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: Okay. The majority has it. Thank you.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. ONE NAY. ONE ABSENT.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Chief, to your earlier -- or your earlier comments about getting the
design going this fiscal year and it might show up on July 19 th as a -- I don't
know if we are able to come up with a -- none of us have built -- other than
Councilman Bird and the Mayor -- have been involved in the construction of the
new stations, so kind of rolling out that plan and understanding the timeline, I
don't know if July 19th is too soon, but --
Niemeyer: We will get to work tomorrow morning. As you know, this will be the
first fire station built under my watch as well. So, luckily, there are people in the
city that have been a part of this in the past that can help walk us through it and
we will do the right thing and learn together and get that hopefully by the 19th.
Borton: Okay.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
Niemeyer: Absolutely,
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Mark, I would advise that you guys sit down and get all the plans of the
existing five and look through and see what's -- talk to your captains and your
guys and see what works and what don't.
Niemeyer: Absolutely.
Bird: We had the help of Nampa when we built the first one over there, so --
Niemeyer: Yeah. We will definitely have the guys involved. They live in those
24 hours a day, so their input is very valuable.
Bird: Yeah. They need to have some input.
Niemeyer: Absolutely.
J. Amended onto Agenda: Police: Budget Amendment for
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Thought Leadership Film Series Not to Exceed $22,500
De Weerd: Thank you. Item 7-J is under our Police Department. And, Council,
we apologize for the late addition of this. This just is a -- a recent opportunity that
we felt needed a budget amendment because of the deadlines. Chief.
Lavey: Madam Mayor -- Madam Mayor, Council, thank you for your time today. I
thought it was just so we could keep up with the Fire Department and have a
budget amendment that was added at the last moment as well.
De Weerd: That's one thing you don't need to compete for.
Lavey: Yeah. So, Madam Mayor and Council, I apologize for coming in front of
you today for this. As you know in the past I have always come in front of you
with a net neutral budget amendment and today, just the elephant in the room
answered right away, I'm asking for 22,500 dollars, not to exceed amount. But
let me explain why I'm here today. On July 7th, which was just last Thursday, we
were offered an opportunity to showcase the Meridian Police Department, as well
as the City of Meridian. We were approached by an International Broadcasting
Company that partnerships with the International Chiefs of Police Association.
They are in their ninth year of -- of a partnership and they produce what they call
as iacp.net and what they do is they do short films that highlight different areas of
police departments and innovation and the great things that they do. Oftentimes
it's federal agencies and very large police departments. We have been invited to
participate, because we attracted their attention based upon us being a values
based organization, our positive culture, our youth intersection, our youth
programs, our community support and relations and our recruit and retention and
that in itself is quite the honor and they want to offer us a slot. There are 16
slots. Eight of them are going to the federal government , eight of them are going
local law enforcement agencies and so I need an answer right away whether this
would be something that we would be interested in or not. We fully believe that it
is important to us. It would be nice to do. We would have full copyright
ownership of all of the data that is produced, all the raw material, all of the final
footage, full say on what it says and full change rights and this was brought in
front of both the Mayor and our communications manager Kaycee Emery to see
what she thought of the process and she said that it's a really good deal. But it is
-- it is a cost. Now, what do we get with that cost? That will cover everything.
That will cover all the filming. That will cover all of the editing. That will cover all
of the executive producer time. It will cover all the equipment purchased. They
will film on site here in Meridian, so it will be our community that's highlighted.
They will film various stakeholders in the community. They will film various
stakeholders within the Police Department and they will produce a short film.
Now, that short film will be ours. We own it. We can do whatever we want with
it. We can highlight it on any social media that we have forever, including the
raw data as well. But what they will also do with it is highlight it at the
international conference that will be held in Philadelphia this year in October.
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Page 54 of 63
They show it on all the movie screens within the conference. They show it in
every hotel TV in every hotel room of conference attendees. Last year's
conference attracted about 17,500 people across the globe. They will also
publish it on the IACP government network for at least a year afterwards. So, it's
quite the exposure highlighting our community and our department. We consider
it to be an honor. Of course there is the cost and that cost is 22,500 dollars. So,
I can answer any questions that you have at this time, b ut that's pretty much it in
a nutshell.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: I guess, chief, the one thing that was key is that we will be looking for
officers and using this as a recruitment tool is -- is a nice addition. Having the
exposure at that level and being able to recruit for our -- our police openings as
retirements happen, as position become open is something that you just can't
pay for, so that was part of the discussion as well.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Chief, do we own the film?
Lavey: Yes, sir. We will own the copyright. We can do whatever we want with it
for as long as --
Bird: I missed it if you said it. I'm sorry. I think it's a great plan.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Chief, what is the short film? I guess I'm --
Lavey: So, Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, it is going to be various
interviews and various filming of -- of department members and community
members, highlighting those areas that we talked about. Why does our value
based organization work. Why do we have a positive culture in the police
department and why do people want to come work here. Why are we successful
in our recruiting and retention and highlighting our youth interaction that we do,
our SROs, the good work that they do in the schools. It's really just to showcase
us as a model organization.
De Weerd: It's five minutes.
Lavey: It's five minutes. Yeah. If that was part of your question. It's -- the end
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product will be five minutes.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Is there an example from another municipality that we could see?
Lavey: Absolutely. I have -- and what I will do is I will turn over the proposal to
the city clerk who can send it out to Council members that has some links. That's
-- I would suggest that you look at the links and look at the quality of work that
they do produce. They do some amazing things. So, I will get that out to you as
soon as I'm done presenting.
De Weerd: The chief and his team have not only seen it when they have been at
the conference, but they went on and took a look at the links that they had
provided and so has Kaycee. Any other questions from Council?
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Seeing how Genesis isn't here and no more questions, move we approve
the budget amendment for the leadership film series not to exceed 22,500
dollars.
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. Discussion?
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: No way without having a chance to learn more and look over examples
and see if -- what this is.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I have to -- have to agree. I mean this is a -- a last minute addition for
a five minute video that we have not been able to see examples. I'm not
opposed to it, but I'm not in favor of even voting on this today. If time is of the
essence and we need to make a decision now, then, my recommendation would
be that we don't do this right now. If we are able to have a week to review an
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example, continue this item to next week, that would be more my preference. I
don't know where the rest of the Council is.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Excuse me. Can we play one right now? If time is of the
essence.
Lavey: Madam Mayor and Council, actually, I have all night, s o we can do
whatever you all want. We can play it right now. I will tell you this is the time
length. I have a phone conference from London on Thursday at 8 :00 a.m. that I
have to give a -- we are good to go or we are not good to go. That's not to say
that we wouldn't be able to go back and change our mind in a week from now,
but that slot may be gone. So, we are having a phone conference on Thursday
with a direction that we would like to go.
De Weerd: And the other piece to that is as our Finance team is trying to wrap
up for publication the amended budget for this year, we have already exceeded
the deadline and so that is why we put them on the agenda today.
Bird: Call for the question.
De Weerd: Okay. Well, Mr. Bird has called for the question. Mr. Clerk, will you
call roll.
Roll call: Bird, yea; Borton, nay; Milam, absent; Cavener, nay; Palmer, nay; Little
Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: Okay.
MOTION FAILED: TWO AYES. THREE NAYS. ONE ABSENT.
Borton: Madam Mayor, it takes some time. I know it's -- it's presented on the 7th
and they expect you to answer in a matter of days with no background. That's
not fair to you either. It may be a wonderful opportunity, but -- but I think looking
at whatever you're providing, reviewing the links, I have never heard any
discussion about there being a need for this type of resource that we would
spend money on, to anybody, you know, making a 20,000 dollar informational
video, which may be very valuable, so -- that's why I'm hesitant to act so quick.
They give us, for whatever reason, five days to make a decision. If on your
conference call -- if this were to be tabled until next week and you are able to
represent that it's been presented to the officials and they will be deciding on the
18th and if they are too late, you're gone, then, too late. That's just not enough
time for me.
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Lavey: Madam Mayor and Council, I -- I just need to know if it was even a waste
of our time to -- to go forward, to know what to tell them on Thursday. So, if there
was going to be no -- if there is an absolutely no, then, on Thursday I need to say
we are out. Now, if I -- they understand budgeting and they --
Borton: Sure.
Lavey: -- I mean I have all sorts of -- I have an enhancement here as well. I
mean we can talk about funding however -- however we want to talk about
funding, it's just that it's something -- the project is going to be completed before
October, so it doesn’t make any sense to, then, pay for it in FY-18.
De Weerd: Because -- Todd, is it something -- can we take action on it next
week? Does that give you enough time to put your numbers together?
Lavoie: Madam Mayor, the answer is yes. Next week we can accept our very
last amendment, but we will be promoting to you the Fire Department
amendment for Station 6, so if we want --
De Weerd: Oh.
Lavoie -- one final place when we do have next week , but next Tuesday is the
final date that we can accept amendments , because the following week the city
does propose the final budget to the citizens for fiscal year '17.
De Weerd: So, chief, I heard interest that -- from Council that wants to see
products and -- and look at this a little bit further. So, perhaps you can share with
them that there was -- there was interest and they wanted to have a chance to
look at the videos and they will be voting on it next Tuesday.
Lavey: Madam Mayor and Council, that's what I thought I was going to do
anyways, because I was really quite amazed that it got put on the agenda today.
It was happening just a little too quickly for me as well and it required us to go
back and do a lot of paperwork. My thought was to make that proposal to
Council tonight to see if there was any interest, because if there wasn't, then, it's
a moot point, we just need to stop. If there was some sort of interest, then, I
would come back next week for the -- the formal budget -- or the amendment
was my plan, because Todd did tell me I have one more week, so --
De Weerd: He's being generous.
Lavey: What's that? Yeah. He's glaring at me over my shoulder. I can see that.
I guess I would suggest that the clerk send out those links to Council and have
them have an opportunity to review those and, then, I will just come back before
you next week. Plus that will give me a chance to meet with my liaison, because
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she is out of town and she has no clue that we are doing this either, so in
fairness to her that would be a good thing.
De Weerd: Okay.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Our very resourceful clerk has managed to pull up one, if we
would like to do it now.
De Weerd: Council? Yeah. Roll it, Mr. Clerk.
(Video played.)
De Weerd: Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Well, we will put this on the agenda next week
and give you all a chance to -- to look further into that, unless you have any
further questions at this point.
Lavey: Madam Mayor, I just have a comment, too, if -- if I may. I just want to
point out that it was by no means any error on -- on staff or clerk or anything
about the quickness of getting this on the agenda today. It was fueled by the
necessity of discussions that we had this morning. So, I just want to make sure
C.Jay didn't feel like he was pressured in any way. I did --
De Weerd: He was asked to put that on.
Lavey: I know. But I did send him an e-mail later going this is just so you are not
surprised when this gets submitted today. So, he -- I thought he had some
forewarning, but just for the record it wasn't anything he did. And, then, just to
highlight for Council some of the -- the topics that they are looking for this year
are community orientated policing -- because this was on -- on violent crimes.
Community orientated policing, officer safety and wellness, both physical and
mental, dedicated task forces, interagency collaborations, recruitment and
retention, crime prevention and community education engagement, school
violence and youth crime prevention, use of data, innovative technology and
reporting systems and community support and relations and so they are looking
for prestigious, top notch law enforcement agencies that could possibly enhance
any of those -- those areas and that's what we are looking forward to doing. And
I will come back next week, but I will stand for any questions that we have this
evening.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Thank you, chief. Yes, Mr. Cavener.
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Cavener: Chief, is the -- is the goal to have the video played at this conference
or is the goal to build a recruitment video? What's your priority?
Lavey: So, it's two fold, Madam Mayor and Councilman Cavener. I guess it's
two fold. My -- my first one is we have always had a vision to be an innovative
model agency. So, if we can put ourselves out there as an agency that people
could look at as a model to doing things right, then, internationally, nationally,
that exposure out there would benefit us. So, secondarily it would be recruiting.
But, frankly, it comes down to we are very proud of what we do and we want to
show it off. That's the bottom line.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: I'm curious the rest of Council's opinion on -- I mean if there is a majority
of us weren't impressed enough to want to move forward with it, then, we can
save some other people's time or if there is enough interest to hold off and
investigate it more or -- and look at it again next week.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: My one thought is, you know, the Police Department, when they recruit
don't have the luxury the fire does. I -- I have never known 400 and some police
recruits coming wanting to get hired like we have in the fire. Let's face the facts,
the police profession nowadays is a lot different than it was five years ago even.
Those kids are out there with a bullseye on their back half the time and even in
the little town of Meridian, Idaho. I think this is something that tells a story of
what -- how our Police Department has -- we became from one of turmoil and
stuff to probably the best one in the state of Idaho definitely. So, I -- I think
anytime you can sell something in the public safety and get k ids interested in it
for recruitment, I think it -- because the more people you can recruit, the better
you get to select good people. So, I -- I think it's well worth -- I mean we have
taken 22,000 to highlight something, you know, now and then, and I don't like
throwing money after something like -- isn't working, but I think -- I think this is
something that -- I'm very proud of what the chief and his staff have done. They
not only underdid -- under -- not only done it -- I will get my tongue right here in a
minute -- it was good, but they did it understaffed in their administration and I -- I
think that it's 22,500 well spent. That's my personal opinion.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
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Palmer: Madam Mayor, do we have the capability of performing -- or producing a
similar quality interview and B roll video, I assume with drone footage as well?
De Weerd: We have a communications person who is going on maternity leave
in two months, maybe less, and a number of other products. So, this -- she took
a look at this today and with the ownership of the raw product with the -- the
things that -- that the city is benefiting from it, she -- she thought it was a good
deal. And certainly next week she could share her perspective with you in
person. We hope. But -- so there is a benefit of another week. But I would
agree, if there is hesitancy from this Council, the chief needs to hear -- or hear
that as well, so he can also convey that in the conversation f or possible action
next week.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I guess for me what it -- what it boils down to is what's the cost to have
a video ran at this conference and what's the value to the city for doing that ? I
would just as soon spend the 22,500 dollars on something to support our officers
than a video. I think that Council Member Palmer's point -- we have a very
capable staff here, we also have significant amount of talent in this valley that
can produce something locally, as opposed to bringing somebody from sounds
like overseas to shoot what looks like a very traditional interview B roll video. So,
I don't know, chief, what the value is in having this played at the conference. I
would like to know more what that value is to you and your department. Maybe I
heard, but I wasn't aware that we have got a recruitment problem at the Police
Department. If we do I think that's something that's important to the Council
addresses as well. I just -- I wonder how many people who are at a conference
in Philadelphia seeing one of it sounds like 16 videos and, then, decides that they
are going to come to Meridian and work for us and what the cost of that is.
De Weerd: Well, I think some of that is the -- the honor or the prestige of being
selected to -- to do that and since I was at a mayor's meeting a couple months
ago, we had one community that's hiring 200 police officers. Right now there is a
lot of agencies that are hiring and to have that highlight and to have that prestige
and to have that exposure I think will only help our recruiting. It certainly won't
hurt it.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Where was the conference? Or where is the conference?
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De Weerd: In Philadelphia.
Palmer: I just think -- I mean honor and prestige is great and all, but does Joe
Schmo, citizen of Meridian taxpayer, think, man, I'm glad that there is a video
playing in a conference in Philadelphia that I got to help pay for today. I don't
think that's their big priority. And, again, the quality of the video -- I think we are
capable of producing that. If that's something that would be a great tool for us -- I
mean it looked great, HD and all that, but I think that we are capable of producing
a similar quality video and not having to pay that much for it. I just as soon not,
you know, waste his time having to -- to put together a plan for it and, then, have
us maybe shoot it down next week.
De Weerd: I think it would probably be good to hear from Kaycee about the
value of highlighting our -- our Police Department, marketing our community, and
-- and the value of the raw footage that she would be able to use in other regards
and it's impossible for probably myself or even the chief to speak on her behalf
and she certainly knows that part of it better than I do .
Lavey: Madam Mayor and Council, just to answer a couple more questions. It's
really two fold as far as whether we can produce the video or not and have the
staff time to do that is one thing and, then, you can't really quantify the value on
the other end of it, so you have to separate it out and so you can't pro duce a
video and say, hey, we got this video, would you play this at your conference.
That doesn't work that way. So, it's really priceless. You can't -- you can't put a
figure on that and now whether it's in Philadelphia this year , whether it's in San
Diego next year, it's an international conference, it's only held in four different
places across the United States and the reason why it's only held in four different
places is because there is only four places that can accommodate that crowd.
So, that's why it's in Philadelphia this year. It rotates every four years. It will be
in Philadelphia every four years. Next year I believe it's in the Orlando. So,
Philadelphia shouldn't be the -- the reason for that. The closest one would be
San Diego that we have access to. And, then, as far as a recruitment issue is
not specific to Meridian, but law enforcement has a recruiting issue. Based upon
the negativity in the national spotlight people are really questioning whether they
want to do this job or not and I cannot blame them based upon what they see
day in a day out. But something in Meridian is different. Something in Meridian
with our people and with our community and with our police officers are different
and we are successful and if we could showcase that, then, perhaps others
across the United States can be successful as well. I realize it’s a lot of money
and that’s why I wanted to come in front of you today, because if there is no
interest, then, I don't want to waste anybody's time going forward further and so
that's -- you know, I don't take any offense to any of the discussions that are
happening today. It's a candid conversation. Fully understand where we're
coming from. But you can't get it if you don't ask. So, that's why we are here.
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De Weerd: So, chief, we will put this on the agenda next week and hopefully
Kaycee can join us as well and if your team has any further information you could
provide that would be helpful.
Lavey: Madam Mayor, the -- oh, that one last thing I was going to say is it's -- the
company that we are dealing with -- my contact is in London, but it's based also
in Washington DC. So, it's not an international necessarily company. So, there
is contacts within the United States as well. I will speak to them on Thursday and
anything that they provide to me I will bring back to Council next week as well.
Thank you.
Item 8: Future Meeting Topics
De Weerd: Thank you. Okay. Item 8, Future Meeting Topics. There -- the first
Concert on Broadway is this Saturday. It's going to be a sizzler. Okay. It's going
to be hot. But, hopefully, you will come out for the opener. It starts at 6:30 and
at 7:00 Smooth Avenue Band will be playing. Certainly as usual we have the
CableOne Movie Night and the Youth Farmers Market and next Tuesday is the
budget workshop starting at 8:00 a.m. Wednesday, the 19th. Sorry. 19th. 8:00
a.m.
Bird: I was going to say, Tammy, that's not -- we don't want to be here from 8:00
to midnight.
Item 9: Executive Session per Idaho State Code 74-206(1)(e): To
consider preliminary negotiations involving matters of trade or
commerce in which the governing body is in competition with
governing bodies in other states or nations; and 74-206(1)(f):
To communicate with legal counsel for the public agency to
discuss the legal ramifications of and legal options for
pending litigation, or controversies not yet being litigated but
imminently likely to be litigated.
De Weerd: Oh, come on. You know you love it. Okay. So, last item on the
agenda is Executive Session. I would entertain a motion.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we go into Executive Session as Idaho State Code 74 -206(1)(e),
(1)(f).
Borton: Second.
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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, absent; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES, ONE ABSENT.
EXECUTIVE SESSION: (6:02 p.m. to 7:37 p.m.)
De Weerd: Okay. I would entertain a motion to come out of Executive Session.
Bird: So moved.
Cavener: Second.
De Weerd: All those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
De Weerd: For the record Councilman Borton did leave before the Executive
Session. Do I have a motion to adjourn?
De Weerd: So moved.
Cavener: Second.
De Weerd: All those in favor. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:37 P.M.
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