HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-08-08Meridian City Council Workshop August 8, 2017.
A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 3:00 p.m., Tuesday, August
8, 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, Bruce Chatterton, Caleb Hood, Warren Stewart,
Jamie Leslie, Dave Jones, Jaycee Holman, Bruce Freckleton, Mike Barton, Brent
Bjornson 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: Well, welcome to our City Council meeting. We appreciate that all of you are
here to join us. For the record it is Tuesday, August 8th. My husband's birthday. I know
it. Thank you. I will let him know that. It's 3:00 o'clock. We will start with roll call
attendance, Mr. Clerk.
Item 2: Pledge of Allegiance
De Weerd: Thank you. Item 2 is the Pledge of Allegiance. If you will all rise and join us
in the pledge to our flag.
(Pledge of Allegiance recited.)
De Weerd: I think we need to have our school age kids come and teach us the pace of
the Pledge of Allegiance, so we all participate as one voice, so -- if you have never been
at a school during the Pledge of Allegiance, you really need to. It's awesome. It gives
you goosebumps.
Item 3: Adoption of the Agenda
De Weerd: Okay. Item 3, adoption of the agenda.
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Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: On the agenda the -- Item 4-Q, the resolution number is 17-2022 and with that
everything else is as printed. I move we adopt the agenda as printed.
Borton: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as printed. All those in
favor say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Item 4: Consent Agenda
A. Approve Minutes of June 19, 2017 City Council Budget
Workshop
B. Approve Minutes of July 18, 2017 City Council Regular Meeting
C. Approve Minutes of July 25, 2017 City Council Regular Meeting
D. Tumble Creek No. 6 Pedestrian Pathway Easement
E. Tumble Creek No. 5 Pedestrian Pathway Easement
F. Golden Grove Subdivision Water Main Easement
G. Final Order for Howry Lane Subdivision No. 3 (H-2017-0086) by
M3 Acquisitions, LLC Located 5220 S. Howry Lane
H. Final Order for Paramount Director Subdivision No. 1 (H-2017-
0090) by Brighton Investments, LLC Located Southwest
Corner of N. Meridian Road and W. Chinden Boulevard
I. Final Order for Brinegar Prairie No. 2 (H-2017-0094) by
Challenger Development, LLC Located 2220 N. Ten Mile Road
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J. Final Order for Whiteacre Subdivision No. 3 (H-2017-0092) by
Whiteacre Development Corp Located West Side of N.
Meridian Road, Between W. Ashton Drive and W. Lava Falls
Drive
K. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, Decision and Order for
Healthy Living Subdivision (H-2017-0076) by The Boise Family
YMCA Located 5175 S. Howry Lane
L. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, Decision and Order for
Healthy Living Condominiums (H-2017-0075) by The Boise
Family YMCA Located 5175 S. Howry Lane
M. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, Decisions and Order for
Stor-It Self Storage (H-2017-0071) by Stor-It Self Storage, LLP
Located 3735 N. Ten Mile Road
N. REVISED Development Agreement for Caven Ridge Estates
East (H-2017-0020) with New Cavanaugh, LLC located south of
E. Victory Road and east of S. Meridian Road, in the northwest
1/4 of Section 30, Township 3 North, Range 1 East
O. Joint and Mutual Release between Ada County Highway
District and the City of Meridian Regarding the CVAH, Inc.
Bankruptcy Matter
P. Interagency Governmental Agreement between City of
Meridian and Western Ada Recreation District for Waiver of
Costs and Fees
Q. Resolution No. 17-2022: A RESOLUTION APPROVING
SUBMISSION AND ADOPTION OF THE COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT FIVE YEAR CONSOLIDATED
PLAN (2017-2021) AND ITS INCLUDED PROGRAM YEAR 2017
ANNUAL ACTION PLAN TO THE UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT;
AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND CITY CLERK TO EXECUTE
AND ATTEST THE SAME ON BEHALF OF THE CITY OF
MERIDIAN; AND PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE.
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R. Community Match Agreement No. 2 with Idaho College of
Osteopathic Medicine
S. Professional Services Agreement with Troy Sloan on behalf of
Teagan Sloan For Artwork For Traffic Box Art Project for an
amount not to exceed $50
T. Award of Bid and Approval of Agreement to Tonka Water for
the “WELL 22 WATER TREATMENT FILTER EQUIPMENT”
project for a Not-To-Exceed amount of $390,200.00.
U. Approval of Task Order 10044.N CH2M Hill Engineers, Inc. for
the “WRRF HEADWORKS CAPACITY EXPANSION – PROCESS
CONTROL SOFTWARE” project for a Not-To-Exceed amount of
$201,223.00.
V. AP Invoices Paid August 2, 2017 - $553,700.53
W. AP Invoices for Payment - $696,800.71
De Weerd: Item 4 is our Consent Agenda.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: As stated earlier, Item 4-Q the resolution number is 17-2022. With that I move we
approve the Consent Agenda as published. Mayor to sign and the Clerk to attest.
Bird: 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.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
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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. Short Term Rental Discussion
De Weerd: So, we will move into Item 6-A and I will turn this over to Mr. Nary.
Nary: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. This is to update you on the
question regarding short-term rentals we had at your workshop in November. C.Jay is
just going to get the presentation pulled up here. There we go. So, to bring everyone
else up to speed, in case they weren't, listening to this issue back in November, we had
some citizens express concerns about short-term rentals being used in our community
and we are trying to identify what the issues were, the problems and concerns. You had
some of the citizens speak to you and some of them are here again today. There is also
some folks here that we have spoken to since November that actually have short-term
rentals and are property owners who do use their property in that fashion and they may
also wish to address you on that subject, too. So, we had an internal work team made
up of people from both my office, the Clerk's office, Code Enforcement, Planning, Building
and the Mayor's office to discuss this and try to identify issues. We did know after
November that the legislature may be addressing this issue and so we did monitor that
as well and when we met as a work team and trying to discern were there issues related
to code enforcement or complaints in regards to this type of practice , we couldn't -- we
couldn't discover any. I mean there, obviously, are issues that occur in neighborhoods
related to noise and parking and other things, but not things specifically related to the use
of their property in this fashion. There we go. So, again, we met with some folks -- I met
with Mr. Spiwak, who is here today. He is with the Idaho Homeowners Association. I
contacted our municipal attorneys list service, so we have 200 plus cities in the state, give
or take. All of them have city attorneys. Many attorneys cover multiple cities and I asked
them, you know, what experience they had in their communities and which places
regulated short-term rentals and which didn't. They also monitor House Bill 216 and we
will talk a little bit more about that. And, then, we did contact the folks that are here today,
just to let them know we would be discussing this again. Okay. This doesn't work. There
we go. Thank you. So, basically, a short-term rental, it's a residence offered for rent for
a fee for less than 30 days and it can be any type of residence. So, single family,
apartment unit, condos, coops, time shares, owner-occupied or not. They vary all across
the country and all across the state. Some are literally a shed in their backyard. There
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are some we found for the eclipse day, that they are renting a space in their field for
thousands of dollars in some areas. So, it really varies greatly around the state. Here is
some of the online platforms that exist. There are probably more. These are what I could
find with just a Google search. Airbnb and VRBO are the most common from talking to
folks. The people that use them -- there is a zillion of them in different forms all around
the country and many of them also have multiple listings. So, they may list their home on
two or three or four or five of these platforms all at the same time. So, House Bill 216,
which was passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, it's called the Short-term
Rental and Vacation Rental Act. It creates a new chapter in the tax code. It becomes
effective in January. In my opinion the primary focus of what the co de change was for
was to assure and create a mechanism to make sure both the users of short-term rentals
and the -- are paying the sales tax, if there is sales tax required and also paying whatever
room tax -- if there is an auditorium district or some other type of hotel dist rict to make
sure there is a method to collect the tax and a method for the cities to create a tool to
collect those taxes that they are entitled to. So, here is what the legislative intent was
that's listed in the act. So, it's to promote citizen access to short-term rentals, promote
property owners access to platforms to offer short-term rentals. Preserve property rights
to determine the use of their own property. Limit local government authority to prohibit or
regulate, except to say for our public health and welfare and we will talk a little bit more
about that in detail and that's, again, to enhance local tax revenue. So, it was clear the
legislature's intent was to make sure people could do this. It didn't prohibit cities from
regulating them, they just prohibited cities from prohibiting them. So, you cannot prohibit
them in our entire community, you have to allow it somewhere and, then, they put in some
fuzzy language, as the legislature sometimes does that I don't know what it means and I
think a court will have to tell us what that means at some point . So, here is what's required
if you want to use a short term rental platform is you must register with the State Tax
Commission collecting -- collect and remit the state taxes that are required, whether it's
travel, convention, sales tax and, then, send those to the state and to the cities that will,
then, contract with the State Tax Commission to make sure they collect those taxes. So,
here is what the city's authority is. We may tax short-term rental operators. So, a bed
tax. We cannot regulate the platforms. So, we have no ability to regulate airbnb or VRBO
and how they do business. We don't have any authority to do that. We could implement
reasonable regulations that say safeguard the public health, safety, and general welfare.
That's the general empowerment of cities, it has that ability, so, that's nothing new. It's
not very clear what that's supposed to mean here and they added a new term that says
protect the integrity of residential neighborhoods that has no definition in the code
anywhere. So, I don't know what their intention is and I forsee in other places where
regulation is going to be occurring or is occurring that you will probably have some
litigation over those terms and whether or not they are either too limiting -- or too free in
allowing them. That's probably something that the court is going to tell us what that means
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at some point. We may not regulate the platform, as I said, so we can't do anything to
the platform, the airbnbs and such. We can enact or enforce -- we cannot enact or enforce
any ordinance with the express or practical effect of prohibiting short-term rentals. I have
no idea what practical effect means. The term has no definition in the code anywhere. I
don't know if that means practical effect on one person or a practical effect in the
community at large. So, if you limit it by area and you don't live within that area and you,
then, can rent your house out, because you live outside of that area, does that have the
practical effect to you? Absolutely. So, does that violate the statute -- I don't know. So,
they classify short-term rentals as a commercial use -- shall be classified -- the
classification we have to treat it is that it is a residential use. So, the concern you heard
previously, if we can classify these as hotels or commercial properties, we cannot do that
any longer. The code is very specific that we have to treat it as a residence. So, we
cannot treat it like a hotel. So, here is the concerns that we have had expressed to us a
number of times and this is I think the question that's probably in your mind , as well as
the folks that are here in the audience. Here is what their concerns are. There is potential
loss to that neighborhood feel. Again, any types of neighborhoods where there is a more
transient population you're going to have that. The loss of neighborly relationships and
neighborhood identity. Those are -- those are things that, again, has some wording in
this code, but it's not very clear what they are trying to protect when they have stronger
language that says we can't regulate them in certain ways. Short-term renters will
potentially not respect the CC&Rs or the amenities in a subdivision. Again, the transient
nature of these, as well as the transit nature of the patrons, you don't know really who
they are and, of course, there is always potential -- there is always the potential parking
issues that can occur when you don't have that same investment in th e neighborhood.
So, these are the cities that are currently contemplating or regulating. Coeur d'Alene is
the only one I know of that's responded to my two different e-mail requests -- is
contemplating that and they are looking at a zone method and we will talk about that in a
second. But Sandpoint, Kellogg, Rexburg, and McCall. So, those are the only cities that
have responded that do have some limitations on short -term rentals, but ironically
Rexburg has suspended them for the month of August as they are in the path of the
eclipse, so they decided to let everybody rent their houses out if they want to. So, they
actually suspended it for a month. So, we look at methods and how people do this and
how would we regulate it if we wanted to regulate that . So, some cities it's a permit
system. So, you, essentially, register with the city that I'm going to use my residence in
this fashion and get a permit. Then that creates a registry system, so I guess that would
be another tool that people could find out where they are, but that's one method. So, you
can, then, create standards for that own contact information and insurance requirements,
whatever you want to require, if you want to do that. But it has to be, again, for
safeguarding the public health and welfare or protecting the integrity of the neighborhood.
So, the method of permitting and registering is probably the least intrusive method . It's
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the enforcement and the time it takes to maintain all that data is going to be done where
-- at the clerk's office or the planning department or where ever that's going to be, it's just
something to maintain that information, trying to figure out a permitting system or a way
to capture all that data and store it somewhere for retrieval would be part of the
discussion. We looked for an online search. Every day it's different. So, it totally
depends. I looked last weekend -- I looked -- when I put this together about a week and
a half ago I looked for the weekend prior to this and there were none on VRBO. Now, I
don't know if that means they were all rented. I don't know if it's 500 or a hundred. So,
we took a time in the future. So, we looked at these ones on this Christmas weekend of
this year and as of last week when we put this together there were 15 available on Airbnb,
seven on VRBO, seven on home away -- you can see all the numbers down to a big
house that had zero. So, be a 33,000 rental -- or residential and commercial properties
in Meridian under our water and sewer billing system that we know of. Most of those are
residential. I couldn't tell you the exact breakdown between how much of that is
residential, but it's certainly a significant portion of that 33,000 is residential properties.
And this is what we found for Christmas weekend. Again, I don't know if we put one out
from a year from now that somebody hasn't decided to rent theirs out yet or they are
already rented. I don't know. But we just tried to pick some random weekend and we
figured Christmas would be a good time to see what's available three and four months
out and that's the number we came up with. Our recommendations. We think we'd like
to see the landscape of this a little bit more. It's still a pretty new area in Idaho. There is
not a lot of litigation in Idaho. This statute is brand new. It doesn't even go into effect
until January, so we will probably see some litigation over that time period. We are
certainly going to stay in contact with the folks that we already know of and if other people
want to contact me so they can be on our mailing list so I can make sure they know when
we are going to talk about this again, we can do that. We can have some outreach
meetings if you would like us to do that. Definitely we -- we are pretty in tune with other
cities in the state, at least at the legal level, so we are -- and we have conferences twice
a year with the city attorneys, so this is certainly a subject of interest around the country,
as well as other city attorneys in the state. So, we are going to probably still talk about
this for a while on how it's impacting communities. As you notice in those communities,
most of those that you can kind of guess why McCall does this and why Coeur d'Alene is
considering doing this and why Rexburg has a large student population and a lot of people
coming and going for activities and events in that area, plus they are also close to
Yellowstone. So, you can kind of see that. We are not seeing the same thing here, you
know, and, again, it just may not have come to our attention yet or it may not have been
reported to us. What we are hearing from folks that do provide these types of properties
for rent is the types of customers are getting -- are people who are coming here for family
reunions and people that are coming here for holidays and weddings and class reunions
and soccer tournaments and baseball tournaments and things. It's not -- the experience
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of the few we have talked to that it's folks that are coming here for some sort of destination
vacation travel experience, but mostly to come for family or relocating to the area. That's
another common theme we have heard is that people that relocate sometimes use this
tool to find a temporary living space to , then, find a more permanent living space when
they have a job to relocate to or a family reason to relocate. So, that's what we are
hearing and, again, we don't have a lot of data yet in most of our information . We see
police department and code enforcement are no different than other neighborhood types
of issues in regards to noise and parking and things like that. So, is there any questions
and, again, there is some folks here in the audience that are probably interested and I
can answer whatever -- yeah.
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Bird: I don't at this time.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: One, Bill. You identified like five municipalities that are contemplating some
form of regulation. Is the vast majority of other municipalities kind of in the same boat ,
that is Meridian is just kind of taking an arm's length approach and waiting to see what
happens before they contemplate doing anything, if anything?
Nary: Yeah. Madam Mayor, Members of Council, Council Member Cavener, that's --
that's exactly the response I get. They are not really sure. It hasn't been an impact to
them. Like I said, Coeur d'Alene is the only one contemplating -- all of these four have
had regulations in place for a number of years and McCall was one of the more recent
ones and -- because they were finding some housing shortages in that community. So,
that's why they went to this system. Kellogg is about four years old. Rexburg is a couple
years old. Sandpoint -- I think the city attorney there said it was there when he got there
and he's been there about eight years, so -- I asked if any of them were thinking of
changing anything based on the statute and they felt that the ir ordinance setup was not
in conflict with the state code, so they didn't anticipate changing it. Coeur d'Alene is
expecting -- they are going to use a zone method and I don't remember the exact amount
-- I think it's two miles. So, they decided, since they have a major feature there with the
lake, that they would allow you to rent your residence out if you live within a certain
mileage -- and I think it's two miles of the lake. Now, if I live two miles and one foot away
from that lake and I want to rent my house out I can't. I don't know what that's going to
do. I don't know if that's going to be -- cause -- because all of these other places don't
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prohibit it, they just have permitting systems and identification systems to determine
where they are.
De Weerd: Any other questions from Council? Are some of the issues, Bill, that the cities
are facing not answered through the various local ordinances? You cited noise as -- as
one of the issues. So, was it something that's outside of the regular noise ordinance?
Nary: Madam Mayor, yes. So, I asked Coeur d'Alene, since they are going through the
process now, what prompted that and I think the dialogue from Randy Smith , their chief
deputy, told me was similar to the dialogue that's been here, because it had just neighbor
concerns. Rexburg same thing. They had neighbor concerns and this was their way of
addressing it and I read some news articles on it there and, again, they -- they didn't feel
that they had adequate other tools in their existing code, so identifying where these were
was critically important. But in Rexburg it was very heated and it sounds like it was a very
heated discussion with people, again, that were for it, as well as against it, and so they
kind of tried to figure out the middle ground . But they -- it really wasn't based on a lot of
noise, it really was this community feel that they had concerns with and so that's what
Coeur d'Alene decided, but that -- that's the direction they are going based on the impact
from the community that's coming to their elected officials. Like I said, I think that footage
distance thing -- it might fit in the code. I think you're going to have problems being able
to identify that in most cities, because you don't have an identifying feature specifically to
use. So, I don't know how you would distinguish one neighborhood from another as a
reason that you would allow it in this area, but not this area. That would be a little tougher
I think in a more generalized city environment. Thank you.
De Weerd: I know you -- noted that there are people in the audience that are interested
in this topic. Is -- is there anyone who wants to make a comment? Yes, sir.
Spiwak: Madam Mayor and Council folks -- Council persons. My name --
De Weerd: You already know what I’m going to ask.
Spiwak: My name is Randy Spiwak. I live at 1458 East Loyalty Street in Meridian. That's
Heritage Commons Homeowners Association on Locust Grove between Ustick and
McMillan. I got involved in this as I had been serving since 2012 on our HOA board and
the subject had come up not only from our community, but from other communities that
have contacted us at HOA boards. We realize how many HOA boards were struggling
across the state -- there is 2,944 of us that comprise about 331,000 potential voters out
of only 700 and some odd thousand voters statewide. More -- a greater percentage in
Meridian, because we are a large, large bedroom community, probably the largest in the
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state. We do have almost 500 HOAs in this city. So, it's an important factor, 47,700
estimated voters in Meridian living in an HOA. So, it may be -- whether it's important to
have short-term rentals or not, it is on the minds of some of the folks that live in those
communities. Well, we looked at -- if this wasn't a City Council problem, this was -- this
wasn't even a House Bill 216 problem, because that -- that's some taxation rules and
gave you some authority, did away a lot of city and county authority. It was House Bill
511 the year before that wiped out homeowners associations ability to govern their own
communities. That's why HOAs exist in this state. There is legislation that already affects
511. Not 216. There are three court cases of -- first one that was settled it was out of a
Donnelly case, completely overturned the plaintiff's request for relief and the HOA was
upheld on all counts and, basically, the judge in his right and his judgment stated that the
law, 511, was not only unenforceable, it's unconstitutional. So, that's being spread around
the courts across the state. It's going to be interesting to see how long 511 lasts and what
effect it will have. If you look back at the history it was taking away -- it was trying to
protect the property rights of the people who decided they wanted to rent their homes on
a short- term basis, but it quickly forgot the 99 percent of the population their property
rights, who have to live next to a home that -- that has these. In many cases they may
be fine. Nice families come in and use the house. But what happens when it's not? Our
problem with -- in HOAs is that we have all -- virtually almost no way to govern it or no
way to respond to it. We have to depend on either the city or the county and many of
your rights have been taken away, so we are fighting the legislative part of it to see if we
can correct that. All we are asking is that the city stand tall with homeowners and
homeowner associations, because they are the predominance of your voters. They place
you in office and when one goes bad it's not fun. We were -- before we were asked to --
by you to come up with some evidential information, so you could see what people are
dealing with. We didn't spend time looking for all the good things, we wanted you to find
out what it could be like if you have a home that is adjacent to a short -term rental home
that's rented out one or two nights -- maybe twice, three times a week and what that could
mean to a neighborhood. The strength of this community is its population and its
neighborhoods. If you see the really strong neighborhoods and where support comes,
volunteerism, it comes from those with strong neighborhoods and in most cases strong
HOAs. Two years ago our board of our small HOA, only 290 homes, we thought we had
our act together with having an HOA where it's not a four letter word at Heritage Common.
People actually like it. It's why our homes are selling for more than Paramount, more than
nice communities and newer communities around us, because when you ask a buyer
they say, well, they could have bought the same home there, but I couldn't buy this
community. So, we started offering, without cost, volunteered assistance to other HOA
boards that were struggling, had a problem here or there or were trying to be created and
I formed a nonprofit corporation IDHOA for Idaho HOA and all across the state -- we have
a website and we are networking HOAs to help each other out to do a good job in serving
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the people that they are elected to serve , the homeowners in their neighborhoods, and
that's growing. It's actually -- it's taking a retiree and make him a full-time worker again
and this says a lot for volunteering. But it has a positive response in that people are
starting to share good information. They, too, are coming up with some of the same
situations that pop up and it's not every time a house is rented a short term, it's -- one
good one can sure spoil 20 -- or one bad one can really spoil 20 good ones when you
have something that really happens that affects your family and you're ready to sell and
get out because of it and that's what we don't want to happen. Will be glad to assist Bill
over this next period of time as he's looking into it. One of the folks who is going to speak
is going to give each of you actual written letters from people who have had bad
experiences because of not being able to regulate it and not be ing able to follow up. I
strongly encourage you to look at any ordinance that will help our police and fire
department capture information on what that home is being used for . I just finished the
Mayor's academy and -- public service academy and I actually graduated and really
realized now how -- how -- what a fine -- both a fire and police department we have. There
is none that are close in this state and I have a lot of respect for them, but when we
chatted with some of the officers who were training us, they know little about the
occupants of a home, other than the listed owner of the facility. So, it's going to be hard
for Bill to gather data if you don't know who is in the house. So, if there is an ordinance
where they have to be registered and you start having continual problems at a location,
you might know that it's owned -- that it's a short-term rental or at least it could be, because
it was listed that way. That will be helpful. That's what McCall is looking at. They want
to be able to identify. And that resort community. You can just imagine the volume there.
I used to rent my cabin out short term and I quit because of problems. It was the same
thing and I didn't want my neighbors to have to deal with my tenants, so I quit. That was
back in 2011. Well, we are more than happy to assist the Council in information and we
will keep on it. We really appreciate everything the city was done to make Meridian what
it is. There is not a finer city around and we don't have a finer police and fir e department
anywhere and I will still -- I volunteer with the fire department -- at least I could do a ride
along when station three will let me. They are good folks there and they become good
friends with our neighborhood, because we are side by side. But thank you very much.
De Weerd: Thank you. Others wishing to comment? Yes, ma'am. Uh-huh. If you have
handouts if you can get it to our clerk. Thank you so much for joining us. If you will,
please, state your name and address.
Redd: Louise Redd. 2343 East Sidewinder Drive, Meridian, Idaho. 83646.
De Weerd: Thank you very much.
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Redd: Thank you all. There are some people that can't be here, because they have to
work, and some others -- some other emergencies, otherwise there would be a few more
people here being able with their information. I have it and what I'm going to say is to the
Mayor and the members of the City Council, I would like to say thank you for providing
the leadership to guide Meridian in being a wonderful place for the residents to work and
live. We, the residence of Meridian, continue to request your leadership and wisdom in
ensuring that our great neighborhoods in Meridian remain so. A wonderful place to raise
your family with caring neighbors. A neighborhood is where we get not only to know our
neighbors saying hi each day, but also feel safe enough to exchange the keys to your
home, your castle, you're going to give your keys to a neighbor when you're going on
vacation to come inside, flush the toilets, make sure there is no leaking water from the
refrigerator ice machine or whatever. On July 5th, here is a perfect example, and there
is more -- I'm not going to read all of them, I'm just going to name the people and, then,
you can read them when you get your handouts. A daughter put out a help request on
NextDoor neighbor that her father had been in a terrible motorcycle accident, broken
back, broken ribs, and a broken leg. Her parents' home has three high steps, seven and
3/8ths inches higher than -- they are almost the highest you can have not being legal.
Which guy weighs 225 pounds, six foot something. The insurance company was trying
to go -- pass on whether he could stay in the hospital any longer, so she needed
something for her -- her father. She needed a ramp built. He needed -- and this is on the
weekend. She needed a ramp built. She needed to have a wheelchair, because they
may release her father on Monday. One neighbor responded. One neighbor built an
eight foot wooden ramp in six hours and delivered it and attached it to her cement steps
for her husband. He did this and did not charge her for the materials or the labor. That's
a neighbor. Just this past winter with all the snowstorms that we all know about and how
neighbors pitched in to help each other remove the snow from their sidewalks, from their
driveways, and help cars that were in the neighborhood stuck and move them. One of
our neighbors was so happy with tears when arriving home after a long day of working to
find that she didn't have to shovel the four inches of snow that had accumulated during
the day while she was at work. One of the neighbors had cleared off her driveway and
her sidewalk. This is why we picked to live in a neighborhood that's a residential
neighborhood. In a residential neighborhood we feel safe knowing who our neighbors
are and the residents will give a helping hand to their resident neighbors. The list will
include -- Alecia Cabella posted on NextDoor Neighbor with all the replies that you will
see -- there is a picture and all the wonderful replies from the neighbors wanting to help
and giving suggestions to help. The next one you will see when you get your handout
will be a posting on Facebook showing her dad, the husband, in the hospital with a sign
that says lemonade. Some of the kids in the neighborhood made a sign, was selling
lemonade to help raise money for this family. That is a neighborhood. That is what
neighbors do for neighbors. There will be a thank you note from both of them. Then
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you're going to have a letter from Iva and Roger De Val, who lives in Settlers Bridge on
Sidewinder how they are thankful to be retired now and they take vacations and it's so
comfortable that they can give a neighbor their keys to go into their house, check on it,
so while they are vacation they don't worry about anything. That's a neighborhood. There
is another person wrote one that you can read. I won't go into it. And, then, another one
from Ozzie and Kathy Smith. She goes in about the neighborhood and the neighbors and
depending on and having stable neighborhoods with neighbors that you know. And, then,
there is another letter that another person signed and she talks about it and she talks
about not being negative, but they are thinking of selling, because we have four vacation
rentals in our neighborhood. And the last one I think is the most important letter of all.
She wanted me -- she wanted me to read it, but I'm not going to, I'm going to let you guys
read it on your own time, because I don't want to take up a lot more time of yours. This
is a person who has two vacation rentals on each side of her and the only thing -- I want
to read one sentence and that's it and, then, you can -- she was upstairs in her daughter's
room, looked out the window, downstairs she observed a man with the window open
doing something disgusting that her daughter should never see. Thank you and, City
Clerk, you may pass out the handouts now. Thank you so much for your time and making
Meridian a great place where neighbors get to know neighbors and help neighbors in the
community of Meridian. Thank you so much.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Ma'am, if I could ask you a question. Before you run away. If you don't mind.
My question for you is -- having, I guess, a history lesson with the legislature, what they
have done and what we can and can't regulate with regard to short-term rentals, what
would you have us do?
Redd: That's up to you guys. You guys have the power. Just look at what a
neighborhood is, what he -- what Mr. Nary mentioned, the integrity of the neighborhood.
The integrity. What is a neighborhood. What is the integrity of a neighborhood.
Neighbors knowing each other. Stable neighborhoods. Not in and out. I don't know the
answer. That's why we are here to just show what a positive neighborhood can be and
we want to continue with a positive type living or -- I don't know. That's -- you guys are
the ones that can maybe help us. That's all we are asking for.
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Palmer: Madam Mayor? Then, ma'am, I would encourage you to -- as you know, we
are not going to make a decision on what to do today, I would -- you know, maybe take
that question to mind and think of maybe some ideas that you can send back to us,
because we certainly can't ban them where are latitude with which we -- what we can do
is extremely small and so I'm at a complete loss as to what we could do and so I would
encourage you to take some time and think -- you know, having some in your
neighborhood. I don't know if there is any in mine. I'm trying to look it up. But I don't
know what we can do. So, please, try to think of something and let us know what you
think.
Redd: Oh, definitely.
Palmer: Maintain the integrity of your neighborhood.
Redd: Any of those could have a minimum of three days ten different groups of people
in and out. But the positive, what neighbors do for neighbors, the integrity of the
neighborhood, the characteristics of the neighborhood, that's what we talked about and
that's the information that I'm passing out to you is showing how having neighbors and if
you didn't have long-term -- I'm not getting into that, but how could you ask somebody
who is only there for three days to watch your house. Thank you so much.
De Weerd: Thank you. Yes, ma'am. In the very back. No. That would be you. Thank
you for joining us.
Koester: Hi. My name is Joann Koester and my VRBO that I own is at 1738 East Territory
in Meridian and I have only owned it for a little over a year and a half and so I had thought
that there would be damage in the home, just assuming that when people would come in
things would get damaged, that would be the reality. But the truth of the matter is -- and
this is what I want people to really understand -- is that during this year and ten months
that I have had it we have had one glass broken. That's it. We had nothing stolen. We
have had nothing damaged. We haven't had towels destroyed. Nothing. We attract a
much higher level of clientele than you would at a motel I think. They come in for
weddings, they come in for graduation, they come in for a family reunion. It's families
usually that come in, because we have a three bedroom unit and so they take care of the
unit as if it is their own home and so we have had -- I was there two weeks ago cleaning
and the neighbor from across the street came over and introduced herself to me . She
said I haven't introduced myself before, but I know that you're the owner. So, she
recognizes my car, because it's there on a regular basis. So, she came over and
introduced me and she said I want you to know that my neighbors next door, their
grandparents came and they stayed at your rental, because they were having her
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wedding and they could stay there and they really appreciated that , because they could
walk across the street to where their family lived and they could be part of the gathering ,
but they could stay separately. So, we are a part of the community. That's what people
-- people can see where the rental is. My neighbors on both sides know that it's a rental.
They have helped out when we didn't live here, before we moved here. They would pull
our trash cans in for us, so that we wouldn't get a citation from the HOA, because we are
concerned about our property. We are probably more concerned as a short-term rental
about our property and how it looks than a long-term rental, because I want the property
owner to give me a five star review, I'm going to make sure that my grass is just so. I'm
going to make sure that my shrubs look good. I'm going to make sure that nothing looks
out of order, so when they pull up they get a wow response. I'm totally on top of it and I
think other VRBO owners are also. So, part of the community is offering a place for
people who live within that community to have their relatives come and stay close. We
have had people come in who have gone through a divorce. One party has moved away,
so now they stay at our VRBO and the other party still lives in the area . So, that's their
community. They knew exactly where we were. They lived half a mile before from where
we live. So, it is part of the community. To say that we are not part of the community
isn't accurate. Yes, people turn over, they don't stay long term. That's the whole point.
But the fact is they don't damage things. We haven't had any complaints of noise in the
short amount of time -- granted, it's not quite two years yet, and we haven't had any
complaints of noise. We have had no complaints of parking, because they use the
garage. They come in with a car, they use our garage, we have the remote there and
that's part of the service is they get to use the remote coming and going, so they are
parking there just like if you were parking in your own garage. So, I think it's really
important to recognize that we are a part of the community. We do support the community
by having the VRBO in the area, so that other people can actually come in and have
family time.
De Weerd: Thank you. Appreciate you joining us. Yes, sir. Good afternoon. If you will,
please, state your name and address for the record.
Pollard: Garrett Pollard. 1944 East Mountainman Drive.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Pollard: And I guess what I have to say is I guess I'm one of those neighbors that was
out shoveling the driveways and cleaning out the iced over gutters at my VRBO. I live
about -- maybe eight or ten doors down from it and today we have a guest that's leaving
that's been there for just over a month and he called me -- or, actually, a couple weeks
ago he had me over and his wife had just gotten done baking plum pie that was in the
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oven and she said I went down and knocked on your neighbor's door, because she had
a plum tree and we talked and she gave me all these plums. So, that's a perfect example
of people that are coming and staying in these homes that are becoming part of the
community. I sold over one million dollars in real estate -- that's my profession -- this year
from people that wanted to come and stay in my property to get to know what the
subdivisions are like and what the communities are like. There is no other way you can
do that except to stay there. The other point I want to make is I have got a two year old
daughter and I have got a ten month old daughter. If things like Ms. Redd are happening,
the police need to be called and we need to go and investigate it and take care of it, not
make accusations without being able to back them up . I'm not saying it did or didn't
happen, but I would not want my daughter to see that either. Nobody's perfect. So, I
think that those things need to be addressed and substantiated a little bit better, so that
we know that if we are going to make regulations or whatever you guys decide to do, it's
based on facts and not emotions. The other issue I wanted to talk about is, you know,
the HOAs not having control. What has happened in my subdivision is -- I bought the
home in August. For months on end I tried to get a copy of our subdivision pool rules
from our HOA board and the HOA pool keeper. It took me months. Kept getting passed
around, passed around, couldn't get it. They would not activate my key. Asking me to
jump through all these hoops. It's -- a month ago I finally got my key turned on to the pool
that I paid for and, then, I follow the CC&Rs that are required of me. Every guest that
comes and stays at our place, before they can use our pool -- part of our rental agreement
is they sign a pool rule sheet, so they are very aware of the rules. If they go and they are
breaking the rules, then, people just need to speak up within the subdivision and ask him
to, please, follow the rules. So, we as owners have done everything that we can to keep
the integrity of the property up and I think that out of the four plus years that they have
been in our subdivision nobody knew that they even were there until maybe a year ago
and I think overall we are dealing with less than a dozen of these properties in our entire
city at this point it sounds like. I just don't see any need for any regulation. There has
been nothing that has happened that's -- that's been -- that would warrant any sort of
regulation and so that's really all I had today, unless you had some questions.
De Weerd: Thank you so much.
Pollard: You're welcome.
De Weerd: Good afternoon.
Birchfield: Good afternoon. Darrell Birchfield. 4690 Mendelson -- North Mendelson
Avenue, Meridian. Interesting listening to some of the comments that have been made,
especially when somebody mentions, well, there is 320,000 voters. Of course, that's
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supposed to get your attention, but we are talking about what's -- what's important for
Meridian. What your -- what your concerns are. I'm going to address a couple of issues
that were brought up during this previous speaking. First of all, the people -- the
accusation was made -- or the point was made that there are -- that the people that are
coming to these VRBOs are unknown. Well, typically -- and I have owned long-term
rentals and now I own short-term rentals. Long-term rentals, yeah, the neighborhood has
no more information about the people moving in there th an they would a short-term rental.
But here is the difference. With VRBO we have -- we have the ability to rate the tenants
that -- that rent our places and there is a five star rating system and you can rate them on
cleanliness, just multiple different divisions and those get posted so that each subsequent
owner as they try to rent from has access to that information. So, much more than you
would see in a typical long-term situation. You can see the ratings of that particular
individual. So, that puts us far ahead of the -- of the -- of the game than long-term rentals.
So, that -- so, that is, actually, incorrect that we don't have any information about these
people. So, that's number one. We have the ability to rate and report on the tenants. As
far as the HOAs, they don't have a responsibility to vet -- or it's not incumbent upon them
to -- to vet our potential tenants, whether it be long term or short term. That's not their
business. It's our property. We want -- but it's -- what's good for the neighborhood is
good for us. We want good people. And so this harkens back to my first point is that we
have the ability to find out information about these folks before they ever come . When
they are making an enquiry to rent a place, we have information on them from previous
-- previous owners. I thought this is particularly interesting, because the point was made
that because of particular actions of an individual that the values for a particular
subdivision were higher than other subdivisions. I'm a realtor. My wife is a realtor. We
have been realtors since 1994. We have sold a lot of property.
De Weerd: Darrell, I'm going to have to ask you to summarize.
Birchfield: Okay. All right. Well, it's -- well, first of all, it's just -- as a realtor that's incorrect.
The property values are not higher in Heritage Commons than they are in Paramount. I
own four -- I own several properties in Settlers Bridge. Sheriffs have lived directly across
from these properties. Never had a complaint about -- or being reported to the city --
De Weerd: Okay. Well, I'm going to have to cut you off.
Birchfield: Okay. Like just -- they talk about being a neighborhood. They are talking
about people taking care of other neighbors. Well, once she mentioned about -- about
taking care of neighbors as far as the snow and stuff like that, that was me. I bought a
snow plow -- or a snow blower. I did all -- I did everybody's, because it was so much
easier for me to go through and do these things. So, yes, I am a proponent of a strong
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neighborhood and I am willing to put myself in the position of taking care of my neighbors
and I have been doing that forever.
De Weerd: I -- I have to stop you now. Council, any questions?
Bird: I have none.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Birchfield: Okay.
De Weerd: And, then, sir, we will get to you in the back. Good afternoon.
McKnight: Good afternoon, Mayor, Council. My name is Deborah McKnight. 3578 East
Congressional Drive. Crossroads Subdivision. I'm on the HOA board. And I'm here
strictly fact gathering. I see both sides. I see the value of having good, permanent
neighbors and I see the value of having a progressive and aggressive economy, which is
what I can see that these short-term rentals could be. My question is for the Council and
Mayor. If there is a way to collect data that should there be problems is there a way to
identify if it's a rental, if it's a homeowner that's having the issues. If there is five or police
being called to those particular properties? If that data can be collected and, then, we
could use that in the next six months or a year, whenever our next opportunity is to discuss
this, to see if there is issues, that's my question is if that can be collected -- I don't even
know if it's legal, but could it be -- that question be asked when a police officer is called
to a property, are you a renter, are you here vacationing or if there is a problem could
they ask that. That's what I would like to know as a board member for my community and
as a property owner here in Meridian. Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you. The gentleman in the blue shirt. Sir. You will need to state your
name in front of the mic.
Beckman: Oh. Okay. My name is Pete Beckman. I live at 2132 East Swiftwater in
Settlers Bridge.
De Weerd: Thank you, Pete.
Beckman: I'm retired Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department after 30 years. The
situation you're looking at right here is in its infancy. When I was on metro we were at
the Ph.D. stage. The problems that we had with the short-term ownerships were meth
labs, brothels, pedophile clusters -- you name it. When you look at something like this
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-- we are in a great time. This is a boom up here, so things are pretty even. The bust will
come and that's when people will come in and take advantage of this , unless you do
something to set it up so that you know who is where and what they are doing and what
the background is. If you don't do it, it's going to go in the toilet. I have been there and
I've seen it. Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you, Pete. Any other comment? As was noted that there is no decision
being made or sought this evening or this afternoon, but we appreciate the dialogue and
some of the points that have been made this evening to -- to again continue the discussion
and I know that Mr. Nary has access to some people who have given this some thought
and have experience and can provide comments and I know, Mr. Nary, there was a
question asked and maybe you can address that .
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of Council. So, the question was whether we could
discern the status of the person that's in the home. I know the police officers -- and
Lieutenant can correct me -- they do always ask. I mean do you live here. I don't know
that we have a law enforcement reason to ask are you a renter versus a property owner.
We just simply ask if they live there. But we certainly look into that. Again, it's a little bit
more complicated than just asking the question. Certainly they do want to determine what
your reason for being here and so I know they do regularly ask that . I don't know that
there is a place to capture that information, but we can look into that and discuss with the
police if there is a way to do that. We, essentially, do track things we do get through code
enforcement and if we get complaints and the complaints are neighbors saying this house
is being used as a vacation rental, so we do have some information that way.
De Weerd: Yes. In the very back. You could bring your child up. That's all right.
Smith: He's content. I leave him there. My name Marissa Smith. I live in Settlers Bridge
on Mountain Man. 2008 East Mountain Man Drive.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Smith: I'm just a mom. I have no official anything, except a degree in music, which isn't
useful for this. My few thoughts on this are as a mom I -- I have a seven year old boy
who does not understand the difference between a nice person and a friend. He doesn't
get it. I have tried. Maybe as he gets older he will understand it, maybe he won't. There
is a young man who is 17 years old who lives about four houses down who I know is a
nice person. I have met his mother. But my seven year old thinks this is his best friend.
I think that we with younger children -- it takes me a long time to be able to allow my child
to ride his bike down the street. I grew up in southern California where you could not trust
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your neighbors generally speaking. I grew up in Orange county where there were decent
neighborhoods and I lived in a pretty good one and still I wasn't allowed behind the block,
because my parents didn't know who those people were. I wanted my son -- when I
chose Settlers Bridge -- when I chose Meridian, Idaho, over where my family lives in
Wisconsin, I chose Meridian, Idaho, because of the fact that I would be much more likely
to get to know my neighbors and have a real community in my neighborhood . My son
has become best friends with the kid across the street, who is here for exactly two years,
because his dad has a contract with HP and they will be moving back to Japan. I have
met the parents. He's now allowed to play with them. But it took us a year to get there.
There is a concern of mine having a little boy who doesn't understand the idea of a
stranger, when it's hard enough to get to know my neighbors in years. If my neighbor
changes every 30 days or less how in the world can I ever let him just go outside and
play. It's -- I don't know how to address that. I know we have registered sex offenders in
our neighborhood already. I know they are there. But at least I know where they are.
The vacation rentals or the short-term rentals or whatever you want to call it, I don't know
who those people are. I don't even have a hint. I don't even know that that house is a
vacation house, because it isn't obvious anywhere. So, trying to be a mother to protect
my child, I can't even find the information to know whether he can go knock on that door
to see if there is a kid to play. I don't need somebody to be told what they can and cannot
do with their property, if someone moves in next door to me I can look them up on a
registry and at least see if they are a bad guy. If someone rents the house next door to
me, which they can't at the moment, because those people next to me are either a long
time rental or someone who owns their home, I have no way to know if this person is
actually a decent person or not and I have no way to research it. So, my option is to not
be involved in my community. My option is to not let my child go out and ride his bike
unless I can stand there and watch him every minute that he's out there and that's a
concern. I have nieces that are 14 who want to go to the pool by themselves. Well, not
only do I not know if people -- people are going to have their guests, but at least the
person in the community is there. When we have a renter come in who is here for four
days, they are not connected to anybody probably. So, I can't -- my nieces can't go to
the pool alone, because they are only 14 and they are beautiful and they are sweet and
we don't know who these renter people are that will show up and I think if we as a
community at least need to have acce ss to information about these extra people who
come into our neighborhood and that's really what I'm looking for. I didn't move into
Settlers Bridge to move in next to a motel, I moved in to be next to real people that I could
make friends with for a lifetime.
De Weerd: Thank you for your comments. Okay. Council, this was a follow-up report to
you. Our staff is recommending to continue to work with the concerned parties, the
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property owners. Any comments or direction that you would like to share with staff at this
point?
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Yeah. I think that -- I mean I think it's worthy to keep an eye -- I mean most of
what I hear is that there is people in my neighborhood we don't know and understanding
that can be concerning, until we have a few -- or several examples of issues that have
come about because of it, I don't know that we are really in a position to figure out what
to do, what action to take, and I guess just by way of some information , in between
comments I was going through various ones in Meridian and an interesting aspect of the
VRBO, a Airbnb business, is that it's not always the entire property that you are renting.
The first seven -- it took the eighth one to pull up to find one that you could rent the whole
place. The first seven I just randomly opened all are one or two bedrooms of the house
where the owner still lives there, they just have spare bedrooms that they just rent out
and so that's -- I don't know how many of the 20 to 25 that we have in Meridian are --
that's the only people that's there is the renter, but how many are the property owners
there and they are just renting out a room for however long. So, that's something to keep
in mind as we go through this, that, one, we have got to have some examples of actual
incidents happening where it wouldn't have happened if it was just owner occupied or
long term renters and how many of these -- less than a handful are ones where the only
people in the house are the renter.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I appreciate Council Member Palmer's comments. However, I -- I'm not one
that wants to sit and wait for something to happen for us to , then, respond. I appreciate
the testimony from everybody here on this issue, a lot more than I -- I think any of us
actually anticipated. I think that it's a tough position for us to be in, because I'm a firm
believer in property owners rights and buy your home and you want to be able to use your
property as you see fit. I tend more often to agree with that. We have a great benefit,
though, here in Meridian and that's with these strong homeowners associations where
neighbors are looking out for neighbors. I think that's really, really important. We are not
in a position, obviously, today to do anything and so, yes, if we are looking for comments
from Council is for -- for legal and staff just to keep I guess doing what they are doing and
as we see other best practices, not just here in Idaho, but across the country emerge,
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when it warrants bring this back to us, invite the stakeholders, and see if we can find a
solution that supports property owners rights, but at the same time gives comfort to those
that live in our neighborhoods.
De Weerd: It's definitely a discussion that's going on across the nation and we can learn
from what others do on both sides of the -- the discussion. If there is anyone out here
that joined us today that would like to be kept informed that would like to join the list, make
sure -- I don't know. Do we have a sign-up sheet back there? Okay. To reach out to
either my office or to Mr. Nary, our city attorney, and let him know that you have an interest
in -- in following that. Yes, ma'am. You bet. You can turn the sheet over on the back or
if there is a blank side on there and you can sign it up and we can get it to Mr. Clerk. So,
thank you for joining us this afternoon. I know that this is during a work day. This was
set on our workshop agenda and perhaps when we do another follow up we will make
sure it's in the evening, so that there are those that can join us that might not be able to
during the day. So, thank you for joining us. We appreciate that.
B. Dairy Days After Action Report
De Weerd: Item 6-B is our Dairy Days after action report. I will -- I'm assuming that Mr.
Clerk is going to provide the comments. And, see, Bruce, here you thought you had a
great audience for your update. Geez.
Coles: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. In your packet -- I did bring
it up on the screen, but there is a memo -- after action memo written to you, provided by
Nancy Radford from our office. I'm not going to read that memo to you, just go over a
few of the highlights. We do have Brandon Fraser here I believe still -- yes -- with the
Meridian Police Department, if there is any questions public safety wise he was the
incident commander for the Dairy Days Parade, so if you have any public safety questions
for police he can answer those parade wise. But it was a successful event this year, as
it always is. The Dairy Days Parade, of course, was the biggest crowd draw at an
estimated 35,000 people at the parade this year. I think last year's estimation was at
30,000. So, an increase of about 5,000 people this year. Now, on July 10th city staff did
meet with the Dairy Board to talk about successes, challenges, and suggestions for the
coming year. A few of the highlights from that would be that, one, the art show, which
was in its second year and this year was the first year that we asked the artists that would
be participating to provide a 20 dollar entrance fee to help cover the cost for tents. The
artists were overall pleased with the art show and wanted to continue with that next year.
We did have -- again, the Dairy Board was very pleased with -- with attendance, with what
took place there. We did have some suggestions -- again, public safety wise at the
parade, the suggestion of a crowd manager for the coming years was put forth by city
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staff and a willingness to discuss what that meant and what that means with the Dairy
Board, if they were so interested in that. Something that did happen, however, was --
that was reported, ACHD and parks reported that Specialty Construction did not clean up
their barricades or cones for eight days after the parade, so some better coordination
needs to happen there with Specialty Construction on clean up after the event is done.
One of the -- I don't want to call it a concern, but something that we do need t o ask for
from Council today is -- if you recall at the May 23rd meeting the Dairy Board came before
you and asked for a cost share for Specialty Construction. Council did approve a not to
exceed amount of 4,600 dollars for a cost share for Specialty Construction. The total bill
came to $4,806.25. So, $206.25 over what was approved. The police department had
already paid that invoice, so Council does have a few options. That money has been
budgeted. I have spoken with Todd in Finance and budgetary wise we are okay. A
budget amendment is not required. Now, Council can choose to absorb that extra
$206.25, simply today by -- by choosing to do that or Council can send the Dairy Board
an invoice for the $206.25. But one way or another the city needs to be made whole with
that additional cost over and above what Council did approve. Again, with that -- that's
really the -- the highlights that I wanted to go over with you as far as the clerk's office
acting as a coordinating team and issuing the -- the temporary use permit for that event.
Again, if you have any specific questions public safety wise, Brandon Fra sier is here for
that. Otherwise, I will stand for questions, but would ask for direction from Council on
what to do to make the city whole for that extra $206.25.
De Weerd: Thank you, C.Jay.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Just one quick question. We did not charge for artists last year. We did
this year. Did you see a change in numbers regarding charging versus not charging?
Clerk: We really didn't see an overall change in -- in numbers, more or less. It really was
fairly consistent.
Little Roberts: Great. Thank you.
De Weerd: Other questions?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I may have some questions for Brandon on public safety here in a moment, but
particular to the information you shared with us, C.Jay, if I remember correctly when the
Dairy Board was in front of us they had received a quote for Specialty Construction. I
recognize that you're not the Dairy Board, you're bringing this information, but it just -- I'm
just curious to find out why it cost more than what was quoted . Did it have something to
do with maybe them thinking that we need the equipment for eight days longer than we
did?
Coles: Sure. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Cavener, we did
invite the Dairy Board or Hans with the Dairy Board. I don't --
Bird: He's not here.
Coles: Okay. He's not here. You do have in your packet copies of the invoices there.
There was an overcharge of -- I believe it was 450 dollars I think relative to that, which
they actually refunded back to the city. The quote that was presented to Council back in
May, if I remember correctly, wasn't the exact quote. That was -- it was an old bid and
they had -- prior to that May 23rd meeting had a -- had another meeting with Specialty or
communications with Specialty and had not yet received a new bid, but they knew at that
point that it would be around 200 dollars or so over the bid that they had received that
was in your packet that particular day, which was around 4,500 dollars or so, if I -- if I
remember correctly. So, they did know that there would be extra cones needed at that
time and I believe it was Council's decision that day to -- to bill around the 4,600 dollar
mark and, then, come back with the details of if it was above that what those details were ,
which is included, I believe, in the invoice in your packet. If that answers your question.
Cavener: It does. Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you, C.Jay.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: And the minutes of that meeting are conveniently below the invoices and it looks
like the conversation was around a quote of 4,338 and they anticipated another couple
hundred over that and so the motion was made at 4,600 to cover the potential of the extra
200 dollars beyond what they actually anticipated. So, now apparently it's over 400 more
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than they anticipated. So, we built in extra to cover the possibility of that extra couple
hundred.
De Weerd: Okay. I just want to say this -- this year we didn't get the phone calls that we
got the year before, so I want to thank the team for looking at the extra details and -- and
-- and they might have had to use additional barricades to -- I saw great signage along
that area that people had been parking in the past where moving cars were going . It
wasn't part of the parade, it was part of people trying to get through. It was great -- the
signage was excellent. So, I think we got one comment and that was very significant and
a change to the positive over the year before, so thanks to all of t hose that were involved
in the planning and executing on the plan, I think it was a great job and there was a lot of
activities going on. So, it was a favorite event and a signature event for our community,
so thank you for the role our staff played in that.
Coles: Madam Mayor, if I may. I know Nancy is here. I want to take --
De Weerd: I was eyeballing her.
Coles: Yes. To thank her. She really spearheads the staff efforts from the clerk's office
and from the city staff in terms of coordinating with the Dairy Board and making sure they
have what they need to pull off a successful event within the city. So, really, Nancy is --
is the one that spearheads all of that. So, kudos to her.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: I have got a question. Looking at the report here, number four says the Dairy
Board and staff suggested that the next year code enforcement or patrol hand out
citations to the shopping cart vendors that are in the parade route without consent of the
Dairy Board. How does that work? Is it illegal for them to be there selling stuff?
Nary: Madam Mayor, I can answer that. So, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, we
did talk about that. So, anybody selling things like in a cart, it doesn't matter whether it's
a parade or today on Main Street, it requires a permit. None of those people get permits.
They show up, they are here, and they are gone. So, what we suggested is that as part
of our action plan for next year, essentially, have the Dairy Board make it clear they are
the vendor of that street for the day. So, that they -- they have the ability to say you need
to go register with them and with the city, so we know who you are, because, again, they
are in the way, sometimes they are in the road, they can be dangerous. Sometimes they
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cause people to get into the road to go buy something and , then, they can set some
parameters around that and if they don't -- they did that in Boise a number of times for
parades and having some code enforcement out t here really put a damper on that type
of activity, so that it didn't cause more disruption and take away from the event itself.
Palmer: Madam Mayor? So, then, following up to that, is there -- well, I was giving out
stuff, but there is lots of other organizations that are there giving out water bottles, giving
out other kinds of stuff that have nothing to do with the parade. Are those actions
appropriate or is it just if they are selling stuff?
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, yes, it's selling. It's the selling activity.
So, the giving stuff away, that's not the issue, it's the selling and, again, you could put
some parameters around it when you're doing your permitting system, so that, you know,
maybe they could do that on the sidewa lk and so they are not in the roadway and those
kind of things versus the parade participants, which are -- it's completely different.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Councilman Palmer, the ones that we are talking about is those that -- that are in
-- that around and hang in there and -- they are the ones that cause half the security
problems, because kids are coming out around them and everything else and they are
-- they are very rude, so I don’t see any need of them being there. Something like what
you were doing I don't see where that hurts anything.
De Weerd: So, our clerk is seeking your direction on the -- the overage and the invoice.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Given the safety and everything seems to be ramping up every year, if
they needed extra barricades and the amount of economic development that 35 ,000
people bring into our downtown, I would like to make a motion that we absorb it, the extra
$206.25.
De Weerd: Okay. I have a motion. Do I have a second?
Borton: Second.
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De Weerd: Okay. Discussion?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I am -- I am supportive I think of -- of the motion. I believe that if the Dairy
Board would have been in front of us and said can we make it for 500 dollars more, we
would have -- we would have went along with that. So, it's -- the issue is not with the
money, I think it's just the issue of -- and I know that we have got a Council Member here
who wears a few hats, but the next time the Dairy Board is front of us he won't be wearing
that hat and so it would be great if the Dairy Board could truth some of their numbers
before they come back to us next year would be my only ask.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I think if you look at the minutes I tried to get it to 5,000, but the Dairy Show Board
didn't think that was needed, so I'm going to stay out of it.
De Weerd: Okay. Mr. Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll call: Bird, abstain; Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: Okay. The motion passes. Thank you.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. ONE ABSENT. ONE ABSTAIN.
Item 7: Department Reports
A. Community Development Annual Department Report
De Weerd: Okay. Item 7 under Department Reports. We have our Community
Development Department report. This is kind of Bruce's Swan Song. So, thank you for
being here.
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Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Council Members, welcome to the very last edition of stump
the chump. I'll be your chump for this afternoon. All joking aside, I have -- this is the
finest community I have ever had the honor to live and work in and I just have just undying
respect for the leadership up here, for the staff, the amazing team that we have and I just
want to thank you now, if I don't get the opportunity to later, for this -- this opportunity that
you have given me.
De Weerd: Thank you, Bruce.
Chatterton: Very quickly, what I want to do is go through a little bit about our team and
how we approach things. A few staffing changes. Talk about the real estate development
market in Meridian, which is really in some ways at record levels. We are, then, going to
talk about some updates and special projects for both planning and the development
services divisions within Community Development. And we are going to talk about the
year in review for economic development. Brenda is going to come up and talk
specifically about the health science technology initiative and she has a video that I think
you will be interested in as well along that line . Then review some of the strategic plan
objectives that have -- that are at a high priority. I wasn't prepared to discuss them all,
because, of course, you will be getting a complete run through in October of those. And,
then, finally, as always, your thoughts and direction. I would be happy to take those at
any point. So, we have three divisions within Community Development. It really was
designed for the purpose of being able to bring an integrated approach to how we
approach permitting and economic development. So, if you look at a -- at a broad outline
of the development process, you will see that all the way from business recruitment to
trying to retain those businesses where the different divisions are involved all the way
through and so this really gives the Mayor and Council that span of control over the
permitting system. Some of our staffing changes. You all have had a chance to meet
Chris Pope, our new CDBG administrator. We are really glad and blessed to have him.
He really has brought a whole additional level of professionalism to -- to our CDBG
program.
De Weerd: I didn't know Chris had a serious side until I saw this picture.
Chatterton: Yeah. He doesn't look very happy to have his picture taken.
De Weerd: There you go. Okay. Now I get it.
Chatterton: Some folks that you might not have met. Amanda McNutt is -- since the last
time we presented to you is a development analyst one, that's an area that really is being
stress tested by the number of applications we get in for -- for subdivision plats and so
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she is a very important member of that team. And Kristal Soland, who is a development
permit tech one, proud to say we stole her from Boise and she came in not only trained
as a permit tech, but fully certified as a permit tech. Another great addition. Let's talk
about a few special projects. You all have heard from Brian and Caleb about the comp
plan designation effort for -- and really looking at those comp plan designations for
Overland, Eagle, and I-84. As you know, we engaged property owners there. We did not
find consensus. So, at this point we are not recommending any change there. But I think
that was a worthwhile effort. If the property owners had wanted to go one way or the
other, than, perhaps we could have -- could have reevaluated those, but that doesn't
mean that that won't happen in the future. We have prepared a downtown sidewalk
inventory and prioritization. That helps both MDC and now in partnership with our CDBG
program to know where to put those dollars for sidewalk improvements. We also
published the 2017 land use report. That's a -- that's a great report that really lays out
the -- the numbers of our real estate market and where we currently are. We had students
come in from Heritage Middle School for the future city program. Staff worked with them
to look at their -- basically they were being planners for -- for at least a portion of that
project and it was -- it was really very rewarding for everyone. Happy to receive AIC's
award for the Idaho Avenue Placemaking Project. And upcoming soon will be a change
to the Intermountain Gas property, which is out in our extreme northwest of the property.
That -- that natural gas storage facility needs to be protected from rooftops. So, more to
come on that. Our recommendation will be to -- to put in a land use designation, which
at least protects that property from encroachment. Under transportation. I can't say
enough about the work that Caleb does for us in coordinating with all these agencies. We
-- as everybody knows, we don't control our roads, but having that positive relationship
with ACHD -- we know that not every city has a positive relationship with ACHD, with ITD,
with VRT, with COMPASS. It means that we are able to influence and coordinate to --
and really influence events to the better of our populous. So, all of those programs are
-- are very, very important. I continue to be impressed with our Transportation
Commission. What a great body of volunteers, knowledgeable, who actually just get out
there and solve problems. With Caleb heading up the 2026 task force we are able to get
not only agency coordination, but public input as well. So, this is -- this is a good program.
It's very important. Sometimes it feels mundane, but it's very, very important for us to
stay engaged. The CDBG program. These are -- I mean, seriously, who could disagree
with these projects. I mean the food bank, with the Boys & Girls Club. Sidewalk.
Sometimes CDBG programs can be very, very difficult to administer and HUD doesn't
always make it easy. But we are really glad to have -- you know, to have Chris here to
help us with that. To have the Finance Department and Legal to help us with those
aspects. You know, as much sometimes as we kind of cuss under our breath about the
federal requirements, some good things happen with that money. You have a poster, 11
by 17. Should be at your desk there. That looks like this page. Two sided. It's got some
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great facts from the existing conditions report, which we also handed out at the beginning.
Really proud of this document. It reads really well. The purpose of it is to lay out existing
conditions, those facts, and so that we don't have to burden the -- the Comprehensive
Plan with -- with facts. You have an appendix, an addendum, where you can look it up,
but this forms the basis for those goals, objectives, and policies within the -- within the
Comprehensive Plan, so -- I mean it's fascinating to look at any of these to see our median
age is 34.6 years, that we on the average since 2010 to today have added around 3,200
people a year. It really is fascinating. And every time I point it out to folks, there is I think
a new appreciation for that. It makes some really good reading if you -- you know, folks
really want to know our community. Well, the development market. Wow, I can't begin.
There are big projects like ICOM, the Y, Bish's RV and many, many smaller commercial
properties that I'm just -- really just flashing these here. Just another reminder of how
busy we are and how desirable Meridian is both as a place to live and to -- to start or
expand a business. For single family residential, we increased our -- we thought we were
at a -- at a big high last year, but we did almost 1,400 homes this year. The values of
single family that were built -- or permitted during this past year are up. Multi-family, that's
also a big jump, and if you look at the multi-family that -- it's almost double what it was
before. Commercial. Wow. New commercial buildings are up from 63 to 87 this year in
terms of permits. That new commercial value is -- has, again, more than doubled what it
was last year. Square footage is up again more than double. We have had more tenant
improvements, but the overall tenant improvement value it stays pretty well flat, as well
as the commercial square footage. Still very, very busy. A lot of this information we have
in -- right now over 12 billion dollars in assessed value in the City of Meridian and if you
can imagine -- if that's the assessed value, can you imagine what the fair market value
would be of those same properties. It -- it really boggles my mind. I always like to flash
this table, because it is another measure of how busy we are. If you -- you know, we are
up around 2.5 million dollars and that compares favorably with our highest revenue in
2006. We are not exactly there, 2006, but we have -- we are proud to have been able to
make those -- that contribution to the -- to the General Fund above and beyond our -- our
budget. The building section. We talked about some of the planning projects. With --
building permit fees haven't changed since 2007. So, we have been working with Finance
to bring forward a consolidated fee schedule. These are not major changes to the city.
A few will go up a little bit and a few will go down. But that will be coming forward. Finance
will be cueing that up shortly. And later this same meeting Brent Bjornson, our building
official, is going to talk about a -- a service enhancement. It's really a change to our
agreement with one of our consultants to allow Brent and Sam to do over-the-counter
permits for small projects, like sheds, decks, patio covers and carports. So, we are very
excited to be able to roll that out and take that back from our consultants, because we
can -- we can do it quickly. Economic development. It's been really, really an amazing
year. You know, the ICOM, that's been a real game changer for us and we are able to
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build around ICOM as a -- as a resource and, then, of course, Paylocity, just another
addition to our -- our Ten Mile Urban Renewal District in the Ten Mile -- the development
that is happening at Ten Mile. Ten Mile really is a very critical -- it really shows the wisdom
of Mayor and Council in creating the urban renewal district, setting the table so that the
private sector come in and -- and build and produce jobs. I think -- I think again and again
it's -- it's going to be producing benefits for us. Three thousand eight hundred and twenty-
five new jobs in 2016. That is significant, because previous years we have been maybe
a thousand, maybe 1,500. That's a big jump. I think it over -- underscores that we are
not just -- when we say that we are not a suburb, when we say we are not a bedroom
community, promoting family wage jobs in Meridian helps to make sure that aspiration is
the case and it brings us back into balance. A hundred and eight new businesses. Also
a significant number. I don't know that we have had over -- over a hundred in a year and
we have had a lot of -- of job growth in healthcare, finance, and insurance, professional-
technical. No surprise. Construction. Six point one percent increase in individual wages
is also a very significant number and I think it really shows that we are headed the right
direction. Office vacancy rates are at 4.2 percent. That's the lowest level we have ever
recorded in Meridian and so I think, again, it underscores efforts like what we have done
in Ten Mile. We can't have the big wins from business recruitment or business expansion
if we don't have space for them and also industrial vacancy rates are the lowest -- at the
lowest in almost a decade. So, we have to continue to protect I think our industrial land
and find new ways to bring in more office. Some of the stats from Brenda's activities.
She had 166 one-on-one business assistance meetings, 31 business retention meetings,
38 out of state site visits. That was not Brenda going out of state, that's folks coming to
us. Forty-nine organizational partner meetings and a lot of -- and a lot of work online
through social media in terms of posting marketing opportunities. So, Brenda is going to
come up and talk about the health science technology initiative and I think she's got up a
video she's going to cue up as well.
Sherwood: Hello. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, it's been a while since I have
been up here, but I wanted to come up and talk to you about an initiative that we have
been working as a partnership with the Chamber of Commerce and primarily because it
reflects my budget this year. I have had several of you ask me about why those numbers
are lower for some of our partner organizational sponsorships and so -- and it's not -- we
started looking at the return on investment and it's not necessarily their kind of -- it's not
necessarily their performance that we were basing that on, what it is is when we talk about
business attraction, post Chobani, the majority of the leads that do come in through the
Department of Commerce, through BVEP, are oftentimes manufacturing and, of course,
food processing. So, because our area, the prices of the land have gone up significantly,
it's hard for us to compete. So, an opportunity arose and I wanted to tell you a little bit
about some of the activities that we have been doing. Anne Little Roberts with her other
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hat as president or Council Woman Anne Little Roberts, at the Chamber called me and
said that she had an opportunity to tap in to some funding through the Southwest Idaho
Tourism Association. It was a 50,000 dollar grant and the purpose behind this grant was
basically to promote tourism. Now, we have great destinations for tourism. Obviously,
we have the water park, The Village. However, when people talk about tourism they may
not necessarily think about Meridian, even though we are the center of the valley and it's
a great place to stay. So, Anne came up with -- and should I be calling you Council
Woman Little Roberts? In her other hat. Anne called me and she said, you know, this is
an opportunity for us with ICOM and the Idaho State University Anatomy and Physiology
Lab for us to really tap into economic development, really focus our target. So, of course,
you know, if you know me personally you know I love to repurpose. Repurposing this
grant was definitely a great idea. So, we were awarded the 50,000 dollars. I put in this
up here, because it wasn't just the chamber and I was working on this project, there were
a lot of businesses involved and so how we kind of kicked this off was eight months --
almost a year ago, really, at this point, the Mayor and I started -- you know our business
retention and expansion program is very strong and so we started meeting with those
companies that are in the health science and technology industry to kind of look at what
could we do with this 50,000 dollars. You know, how would it benefit you. So, these
companies -- you know, I just wanted to point them out, because they have been
tremendous partners and as we talk about ICOM I think that's one of the things to note is
that they are truly a community partner. Just getting involved, sending out the information
that we are marketing, but also just, you know, telling we will sponsor whatever you need.
So, we have a real gem there. But all of these companies have been fantastic. So, what
did we do? We looked at putting together this familiarization trip. This is very common
in economic development. To bring companies in from out of state and to basically pay
for their plane ticket, pay for their hotel, and pay for all their meals while they are in town.
The targets that we went after were the medical device companies, a lot of the Northwest
Hospital Association, medical trade organizations and, naturally, our site selectors. And,
basically, the idea was to create out of state partnerships with ISU Anatomy and
Physiology Lab. So, going back to this grant being tourism, keep in mind it wasn't really
about relocating businesses into Meridian, it's about bringing companies in and out,
staying at our hotels, eating at our restaurants. So, what we wanted were either
companies like the medical device companies that could come in, use the anatomy lab to
do training. There is a portion of that anatomy lab that's bio skills and so that was basically
put together -- also funded by the legislature, so that we could increase the skills of our
doctors. Some of the accomplished tasks to date. We actually have a couple more
months left and I will talk a little bit about some of those things that we are going to do,
but I think the Mayor and I in our one and one meetings with partner -- with our local
partners and our companies were phenomenal. We were able to put together some
information about, you know, what are the companies, the distribution, suppliers that are
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not located here in Meridian or in the valley. I also worked with Beth Geagan that we
brought on board from Shift Strategies to also sort of look at how could we start targeting
some of these companies. What are those opportunities. So, the one-on-one
partnerships were definitely beneficial. I will tell you that ICOM through this effort --
actually, most of their equipment is coming from a couple of our local companies . They
have been all about let's purchase through local. So, those introductions bringing people
together has facilitated everyone working together and -- and just knowing what goods
and services are out there. We developed a list of assets and needs. One of the things
that we will be releasing this next month is new marketing material, but also with a map
of all the companies that are located in the health , science, technology corridor and, you
know, basically what they do. We also did engage a lot of the companies to do out-of-
state conference calls, so that the companies that we were targeting to bring in that, that
they were actually a part of this process. And as I mentioned, new marketing materials
coming in, so one of the things you saw during some of the accomplishments of the year,
we have been using Facebook and we have also been using off sites. I called Anne the
first moment that we sent something out via LinkedIn and on the first day our marketing
campaign reached over 4,000 people . So, we are -- right now with some of that money
going to be putting together a promotional campaign through LinkedIn. So, it'll be a new
-- new asset for us. Five new site selectors came in. Many of those f rom the east coast
that are in cities where health and science is at the forefront. So, they actually rep those
companies in health and science, so we had five come in. I will tell you, though, we
expected to pay for everything, as I told you about at the beginning and because I was
kind of initiating this and I'm with the government , it was a conflict of interest. So, they
paid for themselves. So, it was a win-win for all of us. So, one of the things that we found
out when these site selectors came in is they said to us -- they said, you know what,
Brenda -- and I will tell you, when it comes to marketing, you want to talk about a huge
marketing hurdle, I was bringing out this campaign at the same time that ICOM with doing
their groundbreaking and all the video of that groundbreaking was going viral and,
basically, everyone got on stage and said we are 50th in healthcare in the United States.
So, imagine me pushing this out. So, we definitely had to cue up some of our marketing.
But one of the things that the site selectors said was you might be 50th, but there is some
hidden assets and the Mayor says that every time. It's why we go on our business
retention meetings. There are so many hidden assets that we need to get out there. So,
a lot of that money is going to be utilized for some marketing campaigns , but one of the
things that we put together was a health science and technology video. Some of the
company's, the leaders here in Meridian, and what some of those assets are. Now, we
just got this back yesterday. So, no one has seen it. I will tell you it's -- it's actually for
companies that are interested in relocating here. So, it's about ten min utes, but I just -- I
want you to get a feel for it, because we really had a lot of energy from the companies
that worked with us. I also want to say that this video was made by Travis Schwartz.
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Travis Schwartz is actually located in our New Ventures Lab. I always like to give little
kudos to our -- our New Ventures -- New Ventures Lab. So, if you don't mind -- and,
Mayor, I will let you -- if you want to cut it off before the end -- everyone starts glazing
over just do one of those. So, go ahead, C.Ja y.
(Video played.)
Sherwood: There it is. Now, that is all the footage that we took and, actually, everyone
was so excited to be a part of this. So, it's kind of long. What we are going to do now is
cut it down into little teasers that we can throw out on Facebook and LinkedIn and, you
know, send this out. Did you enjoy our video?
De Weerd: It was long.
Sherwood: It was long. It's very long. And, like I said, we didn't want to cut too much of
it and I also want to recognize Beth Geagan, her creative productivity, like producing this,
but also Idaho Power gave us a grant towards this as well. So, we found some good
funding for it.
De Weerd: Well, I think there are a lot of good messages in --
Sherwood: There really are. And so when we start cutting this up it will be fantastic. And
as we move forward we are looking at doing another video with some of the money. We
are kind of -- we are going to be partnering with BVEP to look at more work force, so that
we can represent Meridian workforce in the BVEP videos as well. So, we still have some
money to spend and so we are actually -- we are really -- we are being very strategic
about our marketing and bringing in people for the health, science, technology corridor,
but also for the tourism as well. So, thank you.
De Weerd: Any questions for Brenda?
Sherwood: Questions right now?
Cavener: Madam Mayor, not a question, just a comment.
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I loved the video. I thought it was great. I thought that it does a good job of
selling our story to places outside our borders. I think your strategic approach to cut it up
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and use it as teasers to get people to want to, you know, watch the whole thing is really,
really smart. So, I thought it was a really, really well-produced project. Well done.
Sherwood: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, and Councilman Cavener, I just want
to say thank you. That means a lot. I know with your production background -- I always
brought him in to take a look at our videos. So, I really appreciate that. Any other
questions?
Cavener: Can you get us a copy?
Sherwood: Yes.
Chatterton: By having seen that video it makes me want to reconsider my decision. Oh,
my goodness, let's --
De Weerd: I guess you would have to buy your house back.
Chatterton: Or something.
De Weerd: Unpack your RV.
Chatterton: I could live in the van down by the -- we don't have a river.
Cavener: Don't have a river. A little bit.
Chatterton: All right. Just a few key objectives that all have high priorities. It's always
good to cross one off. So, when we talk about creating an urban renewal district, we --
we know that's done and we are -- we are seeing some of the fruits of that very wise
decision. I think it comes back to this idea that if you want to do economic development
you have to develop in order to get the economic benefits and this is a great example. It
started in 2007 with a specific area plan. Nothing happened for the longest time and,
then, we just had the planets in alignment with being able to create this district and being
-- having an urban renewal agency to administer it and, then, having perhaps the most
important tenants and -- and a couple of developers that were willing to do it. Growth
goals. We are going to be talking about this during the September workshop. Caleb is
going to be queuing up for that and Caleb and I are going to putting our heads together
in the meantime. This idea of do we want and need to have growth goals and do we need
and want to have a consultant involved with that . The idea came up of possibly moving
-- the update of our Comprehensive Plan up a year or two and perhaps doing both things
at the same time. Area of city Impact. We have been doing a lot of work on this
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coordination with -- with our neighboring cities. We have been monitoring closely the
state legislature. I think there are some great opportunities for reform around the area of
city impact provision within state code, so we definitely want to keep on top of that. We
have a wonderful -- what I will call a mature relationship with Boise and we would love
our relationship with every city to be at that level wh ere when there is a need to adjust
the area of city impact we can talk to them about that and there can be give and take.
We have given a little bit to them, they have given a little bit to us. Always with the needs
of the community in mind first and foremost and in particular property owners being able
to develop in the best environment that -- that works for them and so, you know, I think
that -- that healthy fence creates healthy neighbors. We -- we aspire to have that
relationship with all of our neighboring cities . Brenda talked a lot about that, the need to
develop tools to attract and retain jobs. You all approved the creation of the community
match closing fund, which has been used for -- for Paylocity and for ICOM as well. It's
great to have that available. We mentioned establishing the urban renewal district and
we also talked earlier about off sites and Facebook and having that interactive online
resources, so that we can market available sites and developing partnerships to cultivate
diverse businesses and jobs we have been talking to many of those diverse interests
about -- around the Fields District, the Growing Together roundtable. We have got a
presentation on that coming up and we are really happy that the Chamber has joined us
in the overall effort to have an economic development ready team, able to come in and
assist with -- with recruitment opportunities and Brenda, of course, talked about the
health, science, technology effort. Promoting job growth by attracting businesses and
target markets. ICOM. The whole health industry cluster is key there and continuing to
build and sell around ICOM. The Fields District is another example that we will talk about
in just a minute. Brenda has been partnering with some of our local businesses, including
PKG to market and the grant opportunities that we have been doing a partnership with
the Chamber of Commerce. Thoughts and d irection on any of what you have heard?
Happy to -- to hear or answer questions on any of this.
De Weerd: Thank you, Bruce. Council, any questions?
Bird: Good report.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: No questions, but job well done. I mean it's been absolutely amazing
hearing the -- the community say what a great team you have, what a great job they do
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and I think it shows in the direction that we have taken and the amazing customer service
that our people get when they come in and you will be hugely missed.
Chatterton: Thank you.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Bruce, you obviously set your successor up for success. I'm curious with you
heading out, what's your -- what's your biggest concern for our community moving forward
that we as Council need to be aware of and that you would want the person that fills your
shoes to be aware of?
Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Council Member Cavener, I would say more than anything
it's not taking what we get, we have had -- we have really been blessed in Meridian by
virtue of our location at the centroid of the population of Treasure Valley and by how well
we are served by the transportation network. So, a lot has simply fallen in our laps.
Windfall if you will. I think maybe we need to be better gardeners and orchard keepers
and perhaps guide the direction not only of economic development, but of land use
planning as well. Just my opinion.
Cavener: Thanks, Bruce. I appreciate that.
De Weerd: Okay. Any other comments or questions? Thank you so much.
B. Growing Together/Fields District Update
Chatterton: Can you cue up Growing Together Fields District on there, Caleb.
De Weerd: Transitioning in to 7-B.
Chatterton: Madam Mayor and Council Members, at the budget workshop last month
there were a lot of questions. It wasn't really perhaps the venue to fully talk about the
subject. What we wanted to do was answer your questions and maybe give you an
overdue update on what's been going on with the Fields District and also the Growing
Together Roundtable, which is kind of our outward-facing initiative around the Fields
District. So, what I'd like to do is I guess very quickly talk about what we mean by the
Fields District. This history, what we have learned through research and discussions.
Where we are now. Why we decided to cue up the roundtable, which we call Growing
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Together. The partners that we have acquired and in that conversation Beth Geagan with
Shift Strategies is going to help me with that part of that. She -- Beth has long experience
with business, with strategic planning, and has helped local governments, businesses,
and nonprofits pull together projects. So, she's really an expert at project development
and that's really been her role on this project. Some next steps should you agree with
what you hear and also I'm sure you have been waiting to hear, the total cost to date and
some ideas on budget going forward. Again, if you agree with the direction. So, what is
the Fields District? Fields District really is a concept around where land use, economic
diversification, economic development and ag bioscience in the economy, where those
come together and I will explain a little bit more in just a second. It is a place, depending
on how you look at it, four to six square miles at our extreme northwest. We are really
working to promote alternative uses in this area . This is not about ag land preservation.
Sorry for the -- the bad metaphor, but the cows had left the barn on that one in Meridian.
There really is not opportunities should we desire to save large amounts of farmland in
Meridian right now, by virtue of the ownership patterns. What we are talking about here
is economic development around some of these technology and economic development
ideas. So, what we learned. There have been two reports produced. First back in 2007
and 2009 there was the Fields Innovation District White Paper. This white paper really
laid out the idea -- the framework. That's the question. What, if anything, does agriculture
mean to -- to Meridian. The emphasis was on research and the research park model.
One of the things we found, though, is that we don't have great research infrastructure in
-- at least in this part of the state and so we felt that we needed to -- I'm going to put some
bonds on this framework. We needed to go a little bit different direction. So, in 2013 and
2014 we brought in Pegasus. Consulting firm out of Austin, Texas. So, what they did is
they -- we said -- we challenged them, they said is there -- you know, please, if this is not
a valid concept tell us so. So, what they did is they did a detailed study of our local
economy. They found that ag is a significant driver and could be in the future with the
right decisions. They came up with targeted industries -- and I will go through these in
just a second. And, then, three potential catalyst projects that could move a concept like
this forward. So, just flashing that again. Our challenge to the consultants was to see if
there was a desire there for land use leading to diversification and ag bio science. Could
those things come together to the benefit of our local community. So, they found that in
terms of our largest industries in the area, ag products and related things like processed
food and a portion of things like distribution services -- food services, those make up
roughly 20 percent of our local economy. So, there is -- it's a significant part of -- of our
local economy even now. They basically looked at all the possible industries in the sector
and they found that several of them met the test for having a lot of opportunity that is
helping create jobs and -- and promoting entrepreneurship and they can also take place
within urban areas. So, I will talk about what those are in a second. They also found that
even though we don't have a great research infrastructure, we do have a significant
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education and workforce development program or series of programs from CWI, ISU,
Boise's Venture College -- Boise State's Venture College and the U of I, the food
technology center. So, there is some underpinnings around workforce development that
could be crucial. They felt -- and not a surprise to anyone in this room that Meridian was
well positioned in terms of the -- our -- the way we certify the transportation network with
improving potential such as rail with Highway 16 could be a real game changer for this
entire area. Highway 16 will change the land uses in the vicinity of the Fields District.
The question for all of us is what do we want it to be. What they did is they took those
target industries and they subjected them to a set of criteria, a set of tests. Did they --
could they provide substantial regional employment. Were they good performers. Were
they industry targets as designated by the state. What's the projected growth of those
and were wages high and out of that came the final set of target industries and here they
are. And I won't go into detail about a lot of these, but ag tech, scientific research and
development, management, scientific and technical consulting services, boiler, tank, and
shipping container manufacturing. It's funny, because apparently one of the biggest
reasons that folks -- that individuals take on welding schools -- welding skills and learn to
be welders is because of ag water tanks and other related things to ag. So, it's part of
the supply chain. I wasn't aware of that before this study. Grocery and related product
wholesalers. Medical and diagnostic labs. Outpatient care centers and other hospitals.
So, there is also a tie in with the human health industry cluster that Brenda was talking
about before. They also took a look at how these various industries stack up in terms of
do they generate property tax, sales tax. Are they major job creators. Innovation and
entrepreneurship. And from that they came up with several catalyst projects. And now
these have changed somewhat. I'm not going to go through exactly what Pegasus
promoted, because as we work with the roundtable these have changed somewhat.
There are still basically the same kinds of things, but I'm going to let Beth go through what
those catalyst projects are. So, why don't we cue up the Growing Together Roundtable.
We realized -- and Pegasus recommended that a lot of work needed to be done around
bringing folks together around these ideas. They did a lot of networking when they were
here, but we realized that at the local level we needed -- rather than bringing folks in from
Texas or where ever, that we needed to do that work of working with stakeholders and
seeing if we could -- if this idea would -- would be compelling to others, if I would catch
fire. We needed to acquire partners, because we are certainly not going to be doing any
of these projects on our own and ideally we would be using institutional or corporate
money to do them anyway. We realized we needed to coordinate the jurisdictions and
engage with the city of Nampa and with Canyon county and with Ada county. And we
also realized -- realized that we needed to identify various funding sources. That's why
the roundtable. We will let Beth talk a little bit about where we are right now and where
we are going.
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Geagan: Thanks, Bruce. Madam Mayor, Council Members. Thanks for the opportunity
to provide a status update. Mayor, I do need to let you know that Bruce just told me right
before he came up that he is actually buying his house back, but he's going to create a
short-term rental. I just leaned over to Brenda and said do they have a sense of humor.
So, as Bruce mentioned, we began a series of roundtables. We started those last fall
and on your screen you have a list of the community stakeholders who are p resently
engaged in those roundtables. The first order of business, which took a couple of
sessions for us to narrow in on, was to really define what our purpose and strategy for the
sessions would be and our focus is on economic development as it relates to agriculture
and, then, where the -- where we are growing together in Ada and Canyon counties and
you will note that as Bruce has been talking about this afternoon , our focus is to start in
the Fields District and, then, expand Growing Together, taking the lessons learned
potentially to other areas that Caleb is looking at. Our strategy is to convene and make
some recommendations around economic development opportunities and to develop
land use policies. In April after our April session the Mayor suggested that we form three
subcommittees and really dive into some of our projects in a little bit more detail, which
we have done from May through August. This use is already being done as you well
know through updates with Caleb's group in community engagement. So, our focus has
really been -- and Caleb has been involved from the beginning and he attends our
meetings and provides updates whenever we meet. But our focus has really been on the
ag experience piece and, then, working with Brenda to identify the partners and sponsors
who would be involved in the projects that we develop who are potential for us to assist
with funding and I will talk a little bit more about that in just a moment. So, essentially,
here is our progress to date. You will know that the lot -- notice that the last four bullets
are italicized and I'm going to provide just a little bit more of an update on those four items
for you. So, we got the group up to date with what Bruce just shared with you. We looked
at that historical perspective and we spent a lot of time looking at models and assessing
where are we currently, how do we move forward. So, you just saw this slide from Bruce.
Historically what the projects that Pegasus recommended were and these are the three
projects that we are looking at right now. I believe you were provided an update maybe
a couple of months ago on the concept of an innovation and learning farm. We are talking
about the components of a learning center and, then, also looking at an ag tech
accelerator. So, I will tell you a little bit more about each of these projects. So, the
innovation learning farm is a partnership between the Ada County Soil and Water District,
the Natural -- that NRCS, so, it's Natural Resources Conservation Service. The University
of Idaho and, then, the statewide on Soil and Water Conservation District. So, essentially,
there is four goals that they have to educate farmers on in the soil and water conservation
practices to create an area that has some rangeland and a natural habitat in partnership
with U of I to begin a farmer training program and a farm incubator and, then, ultimately,
once that's all developed, to, then, have community and education available to help
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people understand farming practices. Our progress today, as I have already mentioned
the partners, I'm actually meeting tomorrow with the Soil and W ater Conservation District
and NRCS to talk about their commitment to funding. They have funded other types of
projects like this around the country. They are funded by the USDA and there are a
number of successful models out there on demonstration farms. We are helping with the
development of a business plan, securing their partner funding and identifying 40 to 50
acres for the farm in the Fields District area ideally as a starting place. Ag tech accelerator
came about in conversation about how to stimulate economic development and growth
of companies. Just to clarify, an accelerator is a little bit different from an incubator, so
Brenda already mentioned New Ventures Lab, which you're intimately acquainted with.
Small Business Development Center has an accelerator in Nampa . Usually what an
accelerator does that's different from what an incubator does is really about the funding,
it's about having corporate sponsorship and funding and also many of them have investor
models where they have venture capital as well. So, we looked at some models actually
just this past week that were ag tech focused and U.S. based. There were various virtual
models and on-site models. Primarily, though, it's the funding mechanism. Our take
aways from those conversations are that there are none in the Pacific Northwest.
University partnership is critical, as is corporate sponsorship. Venture capital is desired,
but not required necessarily and the idea would be that you would start with one to two
businesses a year in the first year and, then, gradually grow capacity over time. Again,
there is four successful models that we have looked at in Iowa and North Carolina and
California. Finally, the catalyst project of the learning center. This is one that we were
talking about as we develop the components of the first two that I shared with you,
primarily because we want to provide what the farm would need in terms of a lab for soil
and water conservation testing. They do use other facilities throughout the valley for that
currently. It could potentially have space for ag tech companies, exhibit space,
conference space, classrooms, et cetera. Again, a couple of models. One fairly nearby
in Boardman, Oregon, and, then, another one in California. Okay. So, that's a quick
overview on the projects. Now I would like to t alk about -- a little bit about the industry
sponsors and potential partners. So, Tracy Hitchcock, who is the executive director of
Create Common Good is also the chair of Boise Chambers food and ag industry board.
Mayor and Bruce attend those meetings. They are quarterly. It started last fall and so
we -- Bruce and I talked with Tracy about what would be the best way for us to engage
industry partners and she said you should do a presentation to the food and ag board.
So, we are slated to present a presentation very similar to what you're seeing today to
the food and ag board at the end of September, with a specific goal of identifying those
partners and sponsors after they understand what we are trying to accomplish, but also
with the ag accelerator in mind to really look at what's it going to take for the industries to
get invested. What do they need, where are their gaps, and what would they be willing
to invest in in terms of start-up development. So, that will be our goal. There is a lot of
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words on here just to tell you that this is what the purpose of the board is . They brought
a broad spectrum of partners together to review what's happening in the food and ag
industry and to make recommendations for policy, et cetera, to the chamber. So, this is
just a slide on who all is involved in the effort. So, that will be our starting point. Brenda
is also compiling a list of other sponsors and partners that we can potentially work with .
All right. So, the last piece is the ag focus development, which you saw also in the
Pegasus slide and we are just beginning to look at not the land use designation s, which
you know that Caleb has been working on and he's been considering what are the
outcomes of these potential projects, but also successful models that incorporate any
small farm ag with residential and commercial development and how we can develop
those recommendations. So, one model we are looking at is in south Livermore county.
They were -- I mean Valley. They were experiencing significant growth and they wanted
to protect their agricultural heritage. They are the wine industry. So, their viticulture
history was very important to them. They developed a specific area plan. It was actually
developed in 1997. It was revised in 2004. So, it's about 20 years old now and it was for
1,891 acres. It's just one example. You can see some of the specific designations here
in terms of what they did for residential development and commercial development. They
definitely increased open space and looke d at how they can peacefully coexist with the
farming community. All right. So, what's ahead. We have some planning around ag
focus development. I have already told you about the presentation. Partners and sponsor
one-on-one meetings once those are identified. The catalyst projects need a little bit
more work putting the meat on the bones of the planning process. We would like to do a
site visit to some of those successful models that we have shown to you today and, then,
ultimately, obviously, for the Fields District you would develop a specific area plan. So,
what are our next steps? Our next steps are your approval of the budget for the coming
year, making sure we are in sync with Bruce's departure and who is going to pick up the
pieces in terms of responsibility and, then, continuing to implement those planning tasks.
I'm going to turn it back over to Bruce unless you have any questions for me to talk about
the cost to date and the budget.
De Weerd: Any questions from Council at this point?
Cavener: Madam Mayor, I do.
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Beth, can you go back to maybe some of the slides on the -- the three projects
that you spoke about?
Geagan: Which ones? I'm sorry.
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Cavener: I guess -- and maybe you don't need to go back. I just -- I didn't see any private
business being a part of that. It sounds like that your hope is to solicit private investment,
but there is not necessarily anybody involved from the private industry right now.
Geagan: Let me ask Brenda to -- have we identified anyone in your group from the private
industry sector yet and have we started to pull those names together?
De Weerd: You can't speak from --
Sherwood: Madam Mayor and Members of the Council, Councilman Cavener, we --
actually, we have had those conversations at this point . We haven't put specific
companies up there, because they haven't approved, but we are having those
conversations with a variety of industry experts.
Cavener: Madam Mayor, follow up if I may. And maybe this goes into Bruce's next part,
but those projects that are proposed, what's -- what's a ballpark cost for any one of those?
Geagan: I think that's a great question for Bruce. Thank you so much.
Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Council Member Cavener, I would have to refer to the
Pegasus report, because for each of the examples they showed for similar catalyst
projects they also had the -- they also had the total project cost for each of those . So, if
it's okay I'd like to get that report to you and maybe point out where those are. I mean we
are -- you know, we are talking about millions of dollars here and that's not even
necessarily ballpark. One example we have been talking about -- there is a young man
who is sort of a venture capitalist, has been working with us by the name of Jeff Ahlers.
He also is coming out New Ventures Lab, but he has done a lot of work with funding ag
technology and uses around ag. He's done some research for us and one accelerator
-- I cannot remember the name of it in Iowa -- actually has corporate sponsorship across
the board. They really built that and they actually -- I'm not saying that we could achieve
this level here, folks like Monsanto and Lamb Weston are actually -- if you qualify to be in
their accelerator you are actually -- part of that deal is that you're given 500,000 dollars
in seed funding. So, we are looking very seriously at those. We realize the City of
Meridian is not going to be funding -- at least not very much of a project like that, so --
Cavener: Thanks, Bruce.
Chatterton: Any other questions until I get into the cost to date. Phase one of Pegasus'
report where they looked at the state of our local economy around ag and ag technology
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was 55,000 dollars. They saw that there were -- that some of these ideas from the original
white paper might gain traction and so during phase two, which cost 74,500 dollars, they
came up with the targeted industries in that analysis. They engaged with a lot of
stakeholders around the -- around both valleys, in and out of Meridian, and they came up
with a -- they defined those catalyst projects. So, that total for phase one and phase two
was 129,500 dollars and that was between 2013 and 2014. Since that time we have cued
up the roundtable and we have spent to date on the roundtable just a little bit over 15,000
dollars. We felt that it didn't make sense to bring in consultants from outside when we
have talented, knowledgeable folks like Beth with Shift Strategies to help cue that up and,
frankly, we could do a lot of the work ourselves. For the community development budget
we do have 20,000 dollars earmarked for the Fields District and, then, in Caleb's budget
for planning there is land use planning for the specific area planner -- we are actually
calling it the focus area I think for land use and the outreach around that, that's an
additional 25,000 dollars. We had 10,000 dollars that was removed from the Community
Development's budget for professional services. I think we had that in mind to be using
on this project. In my mind if this is something that you want to continue down the path
of, we don't -- we don't really have enough money to continue at this point. So, I guess the
question is I would love to have a dialogue. I would love to -- you know, if there are
additional questions. Is this -- is this a direction you would like us to continue down
perhaps we would be, then, looking at a budget amendment or -- I really don't know what
the total options are. So, I'm just -- just open to those -- those ideas and your direction.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Bruce, maybe a couple additional questions about dollars spent. It looks like
on the previous slide you identified some expenditures in 2013 and 2014. Earlier when
you were giving us the history it looks like there was a first report maybe established in
2007. Do we know the cost associated essentially I guess between 2006 and 2013?
Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Council Member Cavener, no, I don't know what the cost
would have been around that white paper. That was actually before there was a
Community Development Department.
Cavener: Right.
Chatterton: I know that Brenda when she came on board the white paper was already
there and it needed to be up -- it was a little out of date and so she updated some of the
numbers, but no new research was done.
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De Weerd: And we had a master's program at NNU that did a lot of work on that and we
had a steering committee consisting of Agri Beef, Monsanto, INL, Simplot, Sorrento Lac
-- whatever. Lactalis. And a couple of other industry leaders. So, it was -- it was pretty
broad in its -- its outreach.
Cavener: Madam Mayor. Then maybe a question for you or Bruce. So, then, that first
expense it looks like in 2013 is the first time we have allocated budget dollars to something
related to the Fields District?
Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, that's the first that I am aware of.
Cavener: Great. Thank you.
De Weerd: Well, Bruce, I guess that 55,000, was that for the -- for just the Fields or --
Pegasus did the downtown, they did other --
Chatterton: Yes, Mayor. They did two other projects for us. They did an overall city ED
plan, which we are really using every day here. It helps to inform Brenda's efforts. And
they also worked on a number of catalyst projects, a project development plan for -- at
the time we, along with our chamber steering committee and MDC were very much
focused on the idea of a hotel conference center and a performing arts center in the
downtown. So, they did some work around that. These numbers, though, are separate
from that. We did get a bit of a price on the economic development plan, because they
had already done -- one of the reasons that we asked them to do that was because they
-- we had already -- they had already collected much of the data.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Bruce, earlier you mentioned Intermountain Gas and their property out
there. What are their thoughts on all of this?
Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Council Member Little Roberts, they very much want to
protect their investment in the area and protect the public from their -- their investment.
There is a -- there is a -- certainty a safety risk there. We are going to be engaging with
them about the idea of other uses with -- within -- near or adjacent to their -- their holdings
there. It's not uncommon to see low population uses, like some of the things we are
talking about. Essentially commercial uses that -- near airports, near ports, near other
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areas where there -- you know, there could be -- could be a hazardous situation. What
you really want to do is prevent rooftops from coming in around that area and if you do
have to have a few rooftops it should be very low density.
Little Roberts: Thank you.
Chatterton: So, we are hoping that we could, you know, perhaps Intermountain Gas could
be a partner on this project and perhaps we could have some co-location going on.
De Weerd: So, as you have been kind of the lead on this, what are you recommending
to Council?
Chatterton: Well, for starters, we were counting on having 30,000 dollars in professional
service budget -- I'm sorry, let me get to that slide. Under the 1900 Community
Development Professional Services Budget. That at least would allow us to continue the
roundtable. If we do that and there is a need for additional funding -- and I don't know
exactly what that would be for. I think what we can do for this -- with 30,000 dollars is
continue the roundtable, engage with the food and ag industry board over in Boise and
acquire partners. We also would like to do a project development plan for the innovation
farm that -- that Beth mentioned, with the hope that that could be a foundational point for
-- for the Fields District. We also need to continue down this path of seeing if we could
find sponsors for -- and the right model for an ag accelerator.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor. Bruce, Beth talked about the learning farm with the SW DC
and potential funding. Is that initial funding, ongoing funding, what do they cover in a
situation like that?
Chatterton: Perhaps Beth knows better than I, but I know that they do cover project
development and ongoing as well, I believe. Is that correct, Beth?
Geagan: I will have a little more clarification after my meeting in the morning , because
I'm looking to get at least an agreement with them . So, we could be more clear with you
about what exactly they have funded in the past and what their budget would be. But my
understanding is initiation and, then, the Ada County Soil and Water District would have
funding for the ongoing operations, as well as the University of Idaho.
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Little Roberts: Thank you.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Bruce, can you talk to us a little bit -- one of the points that you had in your
earlier slide was that you were asking if the Fields District concept is compelling to others.
Who are the others and have we found it to be compelling for them?
Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Council Member Cavener, others include folks like the food
and ag industry board members that we have attending the roundtable meeting. The
chairman of the group Tracy Hitchcock, former Simplot food scientist, one of their global
leaders. Folks with the Ada County Soil and Water District. The -- oh, my goodness,
some of the other folks that -- that this has kind of caught fire with. The Nampa chamber,
Debbie Kling is very enthusiastic about this, especially about perhaps some of the uses
related to this could -- could happen, you know, ag experience over in -- in Canyon county.
And I think more than anything, Council Member Cavener, we want to see what happens
when we get addressed and present to -- in September to the food and ag industry board
and -- because their -- my feeling is that they are short of a policy board, but they want to
do a project and perhaps we could, either as a group or individually with some of the --
especially the big corporations that are involved with that -- with that group, perhaps we
could acquire some important funding partners. So, I don't know entirely the answer to
who would catch fire or who it would be compelling to. We do have folks that are very
interested in this.
De Weerd: You have a lot of engagement from the tech center, CWI, Food Services of
America and I know that Mike is there with two hats, both as the chamber former president
-- joined as the president, but has continued his involvement and I know that's because
Tracy and him are also part of the -- the Boise group as well and are a great bridge
between that. But with Jeff and -- and the small industry that -- that he represents you
have had a number of people coming in and out and I don't know all of them, but I
apparently know more than you do. I think you have had a good representation and
interest from the larger ones, like Intermountain Gas as well.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
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Borton: To give I guess some answers to the question from my perspective on -- on
where we go and to what extent. There is -- I'm the fiscal skeptic I guess or I'm being a
bit dense. I don't know if the answers are available today, but I don't necessarily
understand the business model behind the end product and when the word successful is
used I don't equate that with fiscally independent. It sounds like there is either
government and/or corporate continued supplemental funding for the unknown project to
be sustainable or venture capital funding and I can't get my head around how any of that
makes sense and if the government entity in these other communities isn't an ongoing
investor or funder of something like that, I would -- I want to get my head around the AC
funding and how they get a return or even corporate funding. But I understand the interest
and I understand if I'm anywhere in the food services industry and the concept is exciting
and great, but someone is going to have to actually build it and do it and take the risk and
that's what I don't get. So, I like it, too. I think it's a great idea, but when it -- when it
requires the city to fund even the -- the study portion of it with taxpayer dollars going a lot
of different directions, that's where I get -- I get a little skeptical and in the budget hearing
I made some comments and have some initial preference that I think the city wide
Comprehensive Plan process is so critical that if some additional funds were necessary
to accelerate that, which would include this portion as well, and maybe have a specific
area component to it, that seemed to make more sense. If it was more tangible and I
could see the value to the community as a whole . So, I struggle with -- and it's just kind
of the blunt direction, I struggle with even spending 45,000 further without understanding
the back end business model on how it makes sense , all right, and if it could be built
privately oftentimes it would be built privately and private developers and venture
capitalists who have formed together and we talked about I think Arizona's Agritopia
concept, which isn't necessarily what we are proposing, but that's what gives me some
fiscal skepticism on continuing to spend money in this manner, as opposed to other
planning matters. I remember the Fields District report I thought was fascinating, but one
of the things that I recall correctly was particularly interesting is the geographic scope of
it and it addressed these needs and opportunities in the Boise-Nampa -- and I think one
of your earlier slides referenced it -- the Boise-Nampa regional area and one of the
questions -- and you -- I don't know if you and I even talked about it at one point, but I
thought it was interesting, a lot of the conclusions weren't that of a particular project or
focus area was -- it spoke as though it was relevant and it was a potential for this area,
as opposed to Meridian specific and that within the confines of our city there was that
unique opportunity and it made sense on a broader scale, because Nampa has some
unique ag opportunities and Boise and the region as a whole might benefit from this type
of project, but City of Meridian funding it, for within the city seemed to be more narrowly
focused. So, that's some of the background as to why I was a bit skeptical on expending
additional funds on studies and plan, which are wonderfully well intended, but I'm hesitant
to go forward -- and there may be some great research out there and -- and pro forma
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from some prior VC work that shows how this pencils with those private dollars and how
it's funded, but doesn't make fiscal sense yet. So, that's the reason I brought that up to
the budget hearing.
Chatterton: Madam Mayor, if I may. Council Member Borton, you made a lot of really
compelling points there. I'm trying to remember my training from high school debate club
where you actually remember every point that you want to respond to . There was so
much -- so much there. Although, of course, I'm not debating you. On the issue of
funding, I know that some of these centers -- these similar uses around the country have
been cued up with local government funding for -- I don't -- I don't know if -- there have
been development dollars for certain -- certainly the studying part of it has been part of it.
I do know that there are many of them that receive no -- no public money whatsoever.
So, we certainly would not -- you know, any more than we want a performing arts center
down the street that required city subsidy, we would not want something even on a bigger
scale requiring General Fund dollars from the City of Meridian. So, many of these -- these
-- these -- these uses exist and I'm really kind of at the limits of my knowledge as to how
exactly those -- those models work, but we do know that corporations -- many of them
quite large -- and venture capitalists are -- are involved with the funding and running of --
of those centers. In my mind it comes down to is there enough here -- you know, we did
spend almost 130,000 dollars on this study several years ago -- is there enough there to
continue to spend smaller amounts of money to leverage what we learn ed and see if we
can acquire partners. Is -- is that of value to the City Council?
De Weerd: But I think the broader question is, Bruce -- and it -- it is why the Council had
funded it to the level they did is you have a four square mile that was identified of interest
by the Council at the time that we need to bring jobs closer to wher e people live and in
Communities In Motion there was a desire for less dense areas and so that's where the
original white paper that showed where agriculture and technology collided is -- was the
opportunity to look at creating a plan around an industry cluster that was not only identified
in that white paper, it was supported and maybe even driven by a statewide plan building
on the assets of the -- of the state of Idaho and what -- what Idaho's expertise is and what
the various -- I mean U of I and BSU were both involved in that white paper and, then,
you developed much of the -- the identity and -- and that sort of thing. So, with the
extension of Highway 16 and a freeway -- expressway opportunity to express way to I-
84, to the rail corridor, major transportation infrastructure there, that it created a unique
opportunity that is unparalleled in much of the Pacific Northwest. We had a need for an
area specific plan. We wanted to look at industry and what kind of land use supported
that, so -- not what would we want it to be, but what would be the highest and best use
for our community with those assets and you need to have someone that is a convener
-- a connector and that was the city and while we are in our historical growth mode you
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don't have the staffing assets to -- to continue to pull all that information together. What
I would hope from you, Bruce, is by this 20,000 -- and I know what the 25,000 with the
specific land use would be, because that's a huge public outreach, but what is the
deliverable? What do you get with 20,000 dollars as the deliverable? What is the end
that you want? It's not these different projects that should be driven by the private sector
or the Soil and Water Conservation League, because that is their project, that's just more
of a keep them in the communication queue, it's what do we want as a deliverable for that
money and, then, work our plan back from there and that's what I haven't heard.
Chatterton: Well, Madam Mayor, it would be -- you have heard the overall vision. The
idea would be a project development plan to achieve that vision with -- and, hopefully,
acquiring partners -- funding partners along the way. A development partner.
De Weerd: That's fair. But I mean time is of the essence in this four square miles. There
is development pressures. There is property owners who are saying what is the highest
and best use of our property and what is the vision for that area and that is what the city
has to answer and we have a closing window of time in order to do so.
Borton: Madam Mayr?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Is it somewhat analogous to the land use planning process that we went through
to lay the framework for what we anticipated to see at Ten Mile? Obviously, totally
different uses, but the concept was through that process with all the stakeholders the
groundwork was laid to display how we intended it to be developed. How that happened
was done with private dollars and the market timing is what it is. Is the concept the same
here that it would somewhat of a specific area plan that laid out with input from all these
stakeholders how this could be developed , but a specific project within it -- we wouldn't
necessarily eat or drive.
Chatterton: Madam Mayor and Councilman Borton, that -- I think you have said that very
well. I agree completely that that's the approach. As you say, they are very different
projects, but the idea that the role of local government as it was with Ten Mile was to cue
up that focus area, that -- that specific area plan, set things up so that then -- I liken it to
setting the table by the public sector, so that the private sector can you come sit down
and dine and actually bring -- bring the meal to fruition. So, I -- very different projects,
but, yes, I think that is the hope.
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Borton: Madam Mayor. And I think what might have confused me is that you used the
word project and plan somewhat interchangeably, but if it were a project I think of the
finite thing could be built, which it doesn't sound like that's -- you mean more the plan
maybe.
Catterton: Yes, that's a little -- we need -- we need to -- and I think our role is more around
the planning, as it was with Ten Mile, frankly --
Borton: Right.
Chatterton: -- because we certainly couldn't get -- it wasn't our idea for Brighton
Corporation to come in and do specifically three corporate headquarters. So, we have
created the environment --
De Weerd: Yes, it was. Sorry.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Madam Mayor. Bruce, quickly with Ten Mile, for example, from when the
process was started to look at it did we have private sector buy-in?
Chatterton: Madam Mayor, Council Member Palmer, it took a while -- it took to -- I guess
the gestation period of that baby was a while. So, the specific -- specific area plan for
Ten Mile was completed in 2007. I think there was actually maybe two years of
preparatory work before that actually happened. I wasn't here at the time of course. And,
then, frankly, things languished for a while until the opportunity arose. We knew what
uses in a broad brush we wanted in that area. We knew that we didn't want it to be like
any other interchange. The same way, perhaps, you could say that we don't want to
Fields District to be like any other part of -- of Meridian, that it would be unique. And so
it -- you know, that did take a while to come to fruition there from probably I would
imagined 2005 all the way to the -- to the present day.
Borton: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Borton.
Borton: To that point I -- I was on Council then and one of the things that was done really
well by the city staff was keeping the input of private development early on in those
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charrettes and help navigate what may and may not be successful, having them at the
table was a pivotal role. The market caused a great lag and it being able to be done, but
it sounds like the concept would be the same here if you were to have those private
developers and perhaps ag end users involved in -- whether it's a charrette or however
it's done -- help create --
Chatterton: Mr. President, Council Member Borton, that certainly is the intent, yes.
Bird: Any other questions?
Palmer: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Mr. President. Bruce, have we ever considered -- especially with the plans for
16 -- to look at the Fields area as a similar development as we are getting at Ten Mile, as
opposed to only, you know, ag based plans or whatever?
Chatterton: Mr. President, Council Member Palmer, no. Sixteen will be a game changer,
but currently the land uses in and around 16 are quite low density. They really reflect the
need to do the -- a specific area plan-like process, because the designations we have out
there are simply almost like holding zones. Lower density. Still in the county. So, I would
think that the effect of all influencers on that area should be taken into account . I think
that's what you're saying.
Bird: Anything else, Council?
Cavener: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I will just share some of my comments about this whole project as a whole.
And, Bruce, my frustration is not in the work that you or your staff have done. I think my
frustration more builds from -- I think we see this a lot across the country, government
comes up with their ideas and wants the private sector to always pay for it and I think it
was a great idea that the private sector is going to be the leader on this and so I struggle
with the amount of funds that we have spent trying to convene and bring people together
to fund what we think are our ideas, as opposed to facilitating the relationship that we
have built very successfully between Bruce, Brenda, and the Mayor. We know if Simplot
wanted to do something over there that we are going to work with them to make that
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successful. We are not going to say no. Likewise, it's challenging when we say here is
our idea, Simplot, now you go fund it. Boy, I think it's pretty quick that they may say no.
So, I think that, Bruce, you and I want to get to the same place. I just don't like that it's
always government saying here is our idea, now, private sector, you go pay for it.
Certainly developing the land use around that is our role and -- and I'm supportive of being
focused on that. I just -- without having something tangible that this is what we are
building towards, you know, the projects that we share are great projects, things that I
would love to have in Meridian. I think they are great talking points for things that we are
trying to build in our city. It's just I see the hundred and some thousand dollars that we
have spent and I can't say with confidence here is -- here is what we have got for that or
we are any closer to achieving some of the things that have been identified. So, I'm -- I'm
more supportive of letting this project rest and focus more of the land use. Again, I don't
know how the rest of you feel. I just -- I think it's important -- Bruce, you tell me you bring
great information, that you at least know where we stand when this meeting is over.
Palmer: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Mr. President. As the Mayor pointed out, we have got a timing issue. That that
land is being scooped up -- whether it's in there or in a hurry, I'm not sure, but by
developers looking at residential. So, while that four miles or whatever area may be
shrinking as to what invest -- people who have put money into the -- the process have
envisioned for it, I think -- and it may not be as simple as I'm about to make it sound, but
I think we have gone as far as the ag idea may go. If -- if we had complete buy-in by
Council I think that we would need to hit it hard and fast right now to make it happen, but
from what I see is there is not the private sector buy-in that's necessary to make it viable.
So, whether we have conversations with the Brightons, the Gardners of the world to see,
hey, we are going to have 16 over here, shall we be looking at doing something like Ten
Mile over there? Should we not? Should we let -- let it go as it's planned now and have
a whole bunch of subdivisions and quick access to freeways? What is the private sector's
interest in our future land use planning there? It doesn't look like ag is the interest from
the private sector. So, I am echoing Councilman Cavener. I think we looked and we
need to move on.
Bird: Any other thoughts, Council?
Borton: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Borton.
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Borton: I -- the clarification that come -- I support the planning process, as opposed to
driving a specific project to -- I think we owe it to the citizens now and future to plan the
area. I don't know a reason that it wouldn't be done in conjunction with city wise
Comprehensive Plan. That is probably a conversation f or another day why that might be
split out. But if it can be done as a specific area component of city wide Comprehensive
Plan update, there is a reason to not do it that way. Perhaps those could overlap and
through that planning process you have the private input to steer what could be there,
what is and isn't viable and, then, when that gets done private industry would -- would
necessarily dictate. But the alternative when I do -- wouldn't want to have is its existing
-- I don't know what the future land use map shows for that area, but -- but I wouldn't want
to be misleading and miss an opportunity to inform current and land owners of what that
area may -- might become. The intent is it's not just, you know, continual residential
neighborhoods. It might be something more unique. I mean start planning it now and get
their input now. I like that planning part of it, so long as we are not trying to focus on a
specific project that would exist within that area. If that makes sense. I don't know -- I
don't know if that's -- if doing that -- doing them together is possible or not, but perhaps
there is some economies that may be possible.
Bird: Any other questions?
Little Roberts: Mr. President?
Bird: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Bruce, I definitely think our focus needs to be on the planning portion.
Completely agree with what's been said. I would -- I think the projects are amazing and
I hope that we have some private sector that comes in and sees the vision and says I
want to do this, let's go. But, in the meantime, I think as the city being responsible, I think
we need to focus on what we do and that's the planning portion and I am real anxious to
hear what Intermountain Gas says. Maybe they will be our -- our teammate and come in
with something fabulous. But I think -- I feel like we are getting -- we are the cart that
might be getting ahead of the horse and we need to know who the horse is.
Bird: Very well spoken. Any other comments? Thank you very much, Bruce. I love your
presentation. All of it. We are going to miss you.
Chatterton: Ditto. Thank you for the direction and for the dialogue.
C. Quarterly Finance Department Update
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Bird: Okay. Next item. Todd, have you got something for the financial? We are not
going to The Village, are we?
Lavoie: Mr. President, Members of the Council, good to see you guys. It's been a few
weeks. Tonight we are going to present to you our quarterly update for August. This is
the fourth update that we have given to you in our new quarterly program. So, again,
appreciate the time. I'll try to make this as quick and painless for you as possible. Now
what we will do is we are going to give you a year-to-date update on where we are at with
the financials for fiscal year 2017. I can tell you that if there were any real heavy issues I
would have been here way before today. So, with that you can rest assured that your
financials are in good shape. I'm going to quickly go over them and let you know that
where we are at right now we are looking good. So, we are going to go over the General
Fund first, revenues, expenditures, then, we will touch onto the Enterprise Fund, revenues
and expenditures as well. And just to give you an update, this data is based on ten
months of actual financials as we recorded them so far. So, with that we will start off of
the General Fund revenue figures. In overall the General Fund is in good shape. We are
at 106 percent for year to date. That's a great thing. Property taxes are fully collected,
so we should end up with our property taxes about 102 percent at the end of the year,
but I can guarantee you that from a budgetary and actual standpoint you will meet your
hundred percent budget number of 43 million at a minimum . We will probably end up
more around the 47, 48 million as we get the final two months of data in there. Again, we
do have two line items that are not currently over a hundred percent, which is -- which is
fine. We should be right about 83 percent. Again, we are at ten percent -- or I mean ten
months in. The inter-governmental and the franchise fees, you know, we still have two
more months of revenue to come in and we project those to be right at that hundred
percent mark, which is awesome. You will see two numbers at the very bottom at 136
percent and 161 percent those are good things. The licenses and permits and the
charges for services, those are all based on growth. Those are the decisions we make
as a city to promote and approve development. As more permits are approved your
license and permits go up accordingly. What this tells you is the growth is higher than
what we are projecting. Again, we will continue to tweak our annual projections every
year based on growth, but that's why those numbers are coming in a little bit higher than
what we expect them to be. It's just those are growth dominated revenue sources. So,
that's the revenue. Again, good shape for the General Fund. We will end up the year at
a hundred percent or more. That's a good thing. Again, this is a quick slide just to show
you that property taxes are still the majority revenue source for the city at over a little bit
-- at about -- at about 62 percent. Right now we want to always consider the property
taxes as -- or I guess a delicate revenue source. We need to make sure we take care of
that property tax revenue, since it's the majority of the General Fund. So, with that we
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will look at the expenditures for the General Fund. Again, ten months of data to date.
Right now the General Fund expenditures for personnel we are currently sitting at about
77 percent. Right now our goal is kind of a straight line. It's 83. So, we are a little bit
below it, which is fine. We know we have vacancies and that's accepted. Our goal is to
be right about 97 percent for the end of the year. As long as we have our new hires for
our summer programs and the station number six goes online as anticipated, we should
see the 97 percent hit at that time. Right now the budgets in there for Station Six, but we
have no expenditures. So, it looks a little bit low at the moment, but as long as everything
goes forward we should see the 97 percent hits for the personal expenses for the General
Fund and that's about average for the General Fund, which is a good thing. Then we will
talk about -- we can talk about operating. Operating is sitting at about 68 percent. Again,
as I mentioned, 83 is kind of the benchmark we are looking for. That number. You will
see some expenditures come up over the next two months, especially in the parks
division, with the majority of their expenditures in the summer months, in the warmer
months. Their number is a little low right now, but they should get closer to that hundred
percent by the end of the fiscal year, which is a great thing. Community Development is
right on par right where we need them to be. So, again, I think at the end of the day, end
of the fiscal year your operating expenses will show up in a reasonable number. Capital.
This number doesn't look as great and we are at 24 percent of budget. A majority -- or a
major reason for that is Station No. 6. We just put the budget in a couple weeks ago. So,
we haven't had a chance to expend those dollars. So, that's going to drive our execution
rate per se down. So, if we took out fire, the next biggest -- or next lowest number would
be the parks and, again, just like Enterprise Fund, parks spends most of their dollars in
the warmer months. So, we are, you know, in the high production construction phase
right now. So, we will see a lot larger bills come in. So, that number should shoot up
pretty quickly between now and the end of the fiscal year, but I will remind you that any
projects that are not -- that are not completed in fiscal year 2017 we will c arry them into
2018 and the departments will expend the budgets accordingly. This slide kind of shows
you a general review of revenues and expenditures, you know, as I stated General Fund
is looking great. The revenue is above the budget. Awesome -- awesome position to be
in as a city. Expenditures are coming in a little bit lower in budget. Again, another
fantastic position to be in. At the end of the fiscal year I believe the General Fund will be
in a great standing position and we actually maybe to add a few dollars to the fund balance
if trends continue. So, again, just wanted to reiterate to you that the General Fund is in
good shape. If it hadn't been I would have been here way before today. But just want to
let you know the General Fund is looking good as of today. So, with that we will jump into
the Enterprise Fund. We are going to follow the pattern. We will start off with the
revenues in the Enterprise Fund. Right now they are at 95 percent, which is phenomenal.
Again, our goal is to be at 83. We are doing great. I think a great reason for this is our
assessment revenue. As I spoke about in the General Fund, growth is driving a lot of
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these numbers and if you look at the assessment revenues , they are well above the 83
percent where we expect them to be. So, they are going to finish way above a hundred
percent for the fiscal year and that is a direct relation to the decisions we make as a city
to approve, develop plans, plats and growth. The lowest number on here is water sales
and we are comfortable with that. As -- like the Parks Department, summertime is their
time. Water sales -- summertime. It's cyclical. It's -- we will generate a majority of our
revenues in the hotter months and that's what we are in. So, we will see those revenues
spike -- well, not spike, but continue to grow for the last two months and that number at
the end of the fiscal year we believe will be right at a hundred percent or just a little bit
above. So, we are very comfortable with that 71 percent. It might not look great right
now, but at the end of the fiscal year we feel very confident that the water sales will meet
our budget and at the end of the day Enterprise Fund revenues will be solid. But, again,
another great thing for the city to be in. Just want to give a quick slide review of -- this is
the revenue funds for the Enterprise Fund. Just want to remind you that sales of water
revenues and sewer sales, that's a majority of the revenue sources, and just like the
property taxes, we want to make sure we take care of those revenue sources correctly.
In November you will have the Enterprise Fund here talking to you about rates and the
models. So, they will be informing you what decisions we need to make, so that we are
putting the city in a good position for today and tomorrow for providing the services that
our citizens need. Jumping straight into expenses. Again, personnel we are at sitting at
73 percent. You have heard the 83 percent number for ten months. We have had some
vacancies as you know in the Enterprise Fund, so this number will end up a little bit lower
than we expect for fiscal year '17. We are filling those vacancies quickly, but this number
will come in a little bit lower than 91 percent is what we are projecting, but that's primarily
due to vacancies in fiscal year 2018. As long as those vacancies are reduced and the
staff are filled, that number will be closer 94 percent -- 94 percent next year we feel.
Operating expense is sitting at 58 percent. Again for this one you will see that Public
Works is sitting at 36 percent. This is primarily -- primarily due to a handful of projects
that are in process right now and we will see the invoices coming in over the next two
months. That's going to help that number get closer to a hundred percent for the end of
the fiscal year and for the water we have a few projects out there as well that's going to
come in in the last two months of the fiscal year to get those operating numbers closer to
the hundred percent. So, at the end of the fiscal year we believe the operating expense
should be strong and should be right where we want it to be. And, then, last, but not least
is capital for the Enterprise Fund. Again, nothing -- not a great looking number at 27, but
rest assured over the next many months that number will be different. You are quite
aware of a treatment plant improvement project that you're aware of, so the Enterprise
Fund is working very quickly on that project. Over the next many months this budget will
be spent and some. So, just because it looks -- doesn't look like it's being spent now, I
guarantee the Enterprise Fund is working hard on that project and over the next many
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months that number will be closer to a hundred percent or more. Again, just like the Parks
Department, the Enterprise Fund relies on the warmer months for construction, so we are
starting to see more and more of their invoices coming in today and tomorrow. So, that
number should -- will definitely increase over the next many months . So, again, general
overview, again, of the Enterprise Fund. Revenues are pretty close to the hundred
percent mark already, which is awesome. Again, the budget -- the actual real budget
doesn't look great on this slide, but I guarantee you over the next many months we will
expand those budgetary dollars in a timely fashion for you . And with that I would stand
for any questions. Again, my next quarterly update will be in November and that
presentation will be an information based presentation on property tax levy rate
information. So, with that I would stand for any questions that you might have.
Bird: Council, any questions? Todd, fantastic, again, as usual.
Lavoie: Appreciate your time.
D. First Amendment to the Building Plans Examiner Contract
Bird: Appreciate it. Thank you. Brent, I think you're next up.
Bjornson: It looks like Parks is on there.
Bird: Quarterly -- no. First amendment to building plan examiners contract.
Bjornson: Already. Mr. President, Members of Council, really, what we got -- as you're
aware, the building department has professional service agreements -- specifically I want
to talk about those with the division -- division of building safety. We have got a plans
examiner contract and inspection contract with the division of building safety, mechanical,
and also electrical. What this amendment is discussing is the plans examiner contract
and what it does, effectively, is it allows staff to approve small residential remodels,
alterations, patio covers, sheds over the counter on the spot. We have had a different
group of people, homeowners into their eighties, drawn -- giving us drawings on eight and
a half by eleven, different forms of media. It's challenging for them. We want to help
them reduce the resubmittal process, reduce the electronic part of that process for those
applications that we deem necessary to provide that extra assistance and extra customer
care. So, effectively, what this is all about is taking that piece of that residential plan
review, very small piece on those additions, alterations, remodels and allowing us to do
that in house, which we are certified to do and approve it on the spot while the customer
waits. It only enhances the communication. It eliminates resubmittals. It saves
everybody time. It's going to save our staffs a little bit of time in those areas. It's going
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to save our consultants time and so we just think it's win -win and it's all about better
service and how can we help the customer more. So, with your approval today and the
Mayor's signature -- and, really, this moves forward and we can -- we can begin
immediately. I would be willing to stand for questions or anything you might have.
Bird: Any questions, Council? I have got one, Brent. Are we going to be able to do this
with the existing staff or are we going to have to hire somebody?
Bird: Mr. President, Members of the Council, Mr. Bird, we will be able to do this with
existing staff, only because it is very specific as being necessary to help those special
cases. We are not going to do this across the board for all these types of applications
under the miscellaneous residential, but just in those special cases. So, although it is
going to create some more work, it's also going to save us work in those areas. So, to
answer your question, no, not at this time. Maybe so we can come back you at a different
time and show you the benefits of what we are doing, we can talk about increasing staff
at that time and what it means to the department and how we are able to perform.
Bird: I think -- reading over this I think this is fantastic. Bruce, you and Brent have done
a great job. This is something that I think is a win-win for the city, really, I do and I'm so
glad you can do it with the existing staff. Like Brent said, they might have to come back
later, but I think this is something that we have needed for quite a while. Great job. I
appreciate it. Any other questions, Council?
Bjornson: I have one last thing to add.
Bird: Okay, Brent.
Bjornson: Sorry if I'm out of turn there. Mr. President, Members of Council, I can't
understate the importance of this approval and the signature and what it means to our
department and the customer service. I think, Mr. Bird, you understand, everybody else
does, and it's been a long time coming. It's a small step in the right direction and it really
allows us to -- to maneuver and to provide that service that's just a -- again, it's baby steps
and I'm appreciative of it and I think it's going to be win-win for everybody.
Bird: Council, I need a motion if you so feel it.
Borton: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Borton.
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Borton: I move that we approve the first amendment to the building plans examiner
contract as presented.
Little Roberts: Second.
Bird: Okay. We got 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. Letter to ACHD Regarding Initial Draft of the 2018-2022
Integrated Five Year Work Plan
Bird: Thank you, guys. E. Letter to ACHD. We had a letter here. Caleb, are you going
to discuss this or -- what do you need? Do you need approval of it tonight?
Hood: Real quickly, Mr. President. Yes. It doesn’t have to be tonight. We have until
August 21st, but I wanted to get a draft in front of you, if there are any changes. I did e-
mail it to you earlier today. Again, this is a follow up to our -- to your meeting where we
talked all things transportation on July 19th I believe the date was. You directed me to
go to the transportation commission. They had a meeting yesterday af ternoon. Based
on those discussions I have drafted a letter that you see in front of you. Just want to
highlight two things that they brought up or we discussed anyways. One was priority
corridors and I put a map on -- on your screens right now. We did not talk about that the
first time that I was here, again, roughly three weeks ago talking with you about all things
transportation and the integrated five year work plan. That was one thing that the
transportation commission liked the idea of asking ACHD to designate Locust Grove from
Victory to Ustick as a priority and what that essentially means is ACHD gives it bonus
points if you're one of these corridors and their cost benefit ratio, they say, hey, we are
working four corridors, it's not just a one-off project over there on the intersection, each
problem here for a mile segment, it's we are going to complete this corridor, because it
serves a specific purpose in the region. So, they thought asking ACHD to designate
Locust Grove, again, from Victory to Ustick as a -- a priority corridor would be appropriate.
The other thing in the letter that they didn't necessarily chime in on, but I am
recommending that the city comment on is ACHD's economic development program. In
the letter two projects are called out in there. The Pine Avenue project between Locust
Grove and Meridian and the East 3rd Street extension, which has been in the city plans
for a long time to eventually get done. Without a program like economic development
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those projects are never going to score high enough to really count at ACHD. They are
about moving cars -- as many cars as possible. These are smaller roadways, not a lot of
real capacity improvements, but they are of benefit to our community overall. So, Mr.
President, that's, essentially, what the letter says and, again, if there are any changes I
take those comments, but also just to point out, I did put the Mayor's signature on there.
I looked at -- the couple -- last year's letter and it's just in the Mayor's signature. If you all
want to sign it that's one thing. I could change it, but, again, looking for your blessing or
other comments tonight.
Bird: Council, any comments?
Borton: Mr. President, just --
Bird: Mr. Borton.
Borton: -- just one. Caleb, I appreciate the remarks on the ED addition. The last -- the
ask was a -- second to the last paragraph you said allocate some funds, that customary
should -- should we give some ballpark look would be helpful or leave it as is?
Hood: Mr. President, Councilman Borton, your call on that. I left it a little more vague.
It's -- it's a pretty small percentage and I don't disagree with how they do things generally,
but to have some set aside for these one-off projects and communities, again, if you want
to request half of one percent of their budget be set aside for economic development,
they don't have -- for some programs they say it's a five year rolling average, we are going
to do five percent every year, you know, on average. Some years it's seven percent,
some years it's three, but overall average it averages out. This program there is no real
policy that they have established this way. It's sort of a case-by-case basis. They look
at it, they go, uh, you make a pretty good case for it and we are going to do that project
here. We don't get one every year -- not in -- you know, there is no community that gets
-- so, again, if you want to get into their business and budget and stuff we could , but I just
-- don’t kill it. We will let you determine how much, but leave something there.
Borton: Okay. Thanks, Caleb.
Bird: Any other questions for Caleb?
Cavener: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Cavener.
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Cavener: No -- no question. I agree with the -- the particular piece about the ED element
for Pine. I don't have any problem making a motion that we approve the -- the letter for
the 2018-2022 integrated five year work plan and have the Mayor sign and send it to
ACHD. I don't see any reason why we need to wait.
Bird: Got a second?
Borton: Second.
Little Roberts: Second.
Palmer: Second.
Bird: Okay. Got a motion and a second. Any discussion? We got a lot of seconds. Any
discussion? Hearing none, Mr. Clerk.
Roll call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little Roberts,
yea.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Cavener: Mr. President? Caleb, happy birthday.
F. Parks & Recreation Department: Proposed Update to Parks
Code provisions on use of remote-controlled objects in parks,
including drones
Bird: Thank you. Mr. Barton. Brent tried to put you ahead of him, so I should have went
ahead and let him do that.
Barton: Yeah. We could have maybe traded places. I don't know. Probably not. Mr.
President, Members of Council, we are bringing to you a proposed ordinance update.
This is a draft and we will just talk about it briefly. What we would like to do is if it's okay
-- we are not asking for approval tonight or this afternoon . If it's okay with you we will
bring it back next week on Consent with a -- as a resolution for approval. Basically, what
it does is it updates our -- our current ordinance that deals with remote control objects. It
used to be that remote control objects were model airplanes, rockets, RC cars and,
basically, what it says is that when other -- you can operate them in a park, but when
there is people in the park you can't operate them around others and it's worked really
well. So, it's allowed a lot of flexibility and, you know, if nobody's out at Settlers Park and
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-- you can operate a model airplane. That's fine. But when there is sports going on and
the playground is full, you can't buzz people and -- and it's worked out really well. But
since drones are becoming more and more popular, we thought we would -- we would
update this to include drones and, basically, what we are proposing -- the language we
are proposing and the changes, except by written order of the director, or during a special
event or outdoor market, no person shall operate a remote control toy, vehicle, other
object at that time and place or in manner that harms, presents a risk of harm to persons,
animal, or property. So, if you want to operate a drone -- you can't do it when other people
are present, but you can do it when people are present if you want to take video of a
special event or a -- even something at a -- if you have a TUP or you can get director
approval. So, if you have a family reunion and you have a drone and you want to fly it
over and get some video, you can, but get a direct -- get the director's approval. We are
trying to keep it so there is not drones invading privacy and buzzing other people and two
at a time and they could crash and so -- that's some of the thought behind this. With that
I will stand for questions.
Bird: Any questions, Council?
Cavener: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: So, as I read this I mean that's even -- if my ten year old takes his remote
control car and there is a community event going on, he's not allowed to have it there?
Barton: And, Mr. President, Councilman Cavener, not -- and never was.
Cavener: He isn't allowed to bring a remote control car to park if there is an event going
on.
Barton: No, because it says when other people are present. As it's written now that's
where -- that's the way it is.
Cavener: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I don't know how the rest of the Council f eels, I'm not supportive of this change.
The parks belong to our -- our citizens and I struggle with -- that we are making this even
more challenging for people to go out and enjoy whatever they want to enjoy in our parks.
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People take kites to parks. People take all sorts of things to enjoy our parks and if we are
telling the public they can't bring something they would want to use to enjoy our park
because there is an event going on, I -- it's just not something I can support.
Palmer: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: I echo that and add I'd rather pull out the sentence that exists . I had no idea. I
mean I think there is more risk to the toy than there is to people when it comes to remote
control ground vehicles.
Barton: Mr. President and Councilman Cavener, I -- I think what -- what the intention was
that if there is an event or somebody's reserved the park or a sporting event, PAL, flag
football, Meridian Youth Baseball, that there are times when it's appropriate to bring
remote control objects to a park and there are times when it's not and, like I said in the
past, it's worked really well that way, but I'm just -- just inherently -- because I get the
phone calls, we have very few and it -- the ordinance as it's written has -- it's worked well.
I mean it's served our people that have park reservations and, then, also when it's
appropriate to bring your remote controlled object to the park when nobody is around, it's
worked for those people as well.
Bird: Mike, I have got -- I have got one concern, because I think -- I think one of the most
dangerous thing I see in the parks are these -- what do you call them the kids ride on?
Skateboards. I mean I have seen people get hit with them and really hurt. Do we -- we
do control them?
Barton: Mr. President, no, sir.
Bird: We -- we don’t have any ordinance stopping them from doing those things.
Barton: We don't.
Bird: I -- while I think -- I think that drones and stuff -- I don't know whether it's for safety
or for people worrying about getting photographed when they shouldn't be, but that's
another deal. I -- I have to agree with Councilman Cavener that I can't support this and
unless we -- unless we are going to put everything that's dangerous in there.
Cavener: Mr. President? And, Mike, I think it's well intended and I see what you are
trying to accomplish there. I just think that you -- someone who has been to every type
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of PAL sport, we have had our games interrupted by kites, baseballs, babies running in
the middle of the field. I have never been to a game where something has been
interrupted by a drone or an RC car. I see that you're trying to get ahead of this, I just --
parks are a place for people to enjoy the outdoors.
Bird: Any other comment, Council?
Little Roberts: Mr. President?
Bird: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: I guess I can kind of see the point, Mike, with kind of a privacy issue and
I don't know that they complained or not, but we did see it one day in Storey Park where
someone was operating a drone and was kind of buzzing somebody that was a picnic
that wasn't -- and we just, you know, kind of said would you mind keeping -- staying over
here. Is there anything else that we have set up city wide regarding drones yet? I think
are we --
Bird: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, Council Member Little Roberts , no, we
don't have any particular regulations. The FAA regulates it to some degree some of it. I
think it -- maybe to echo Mike's concern, so right now they are not allowed when there is
an event. We have had requests for -- like large scale events like the Easter egg hunt,
for the church to -- to use a drone to film the event for them. So, the thinking was that for
those types of events that would be part of the TUP process, so they would be the only
one, because we are trying to avoid having 30 of them, because there is 15,000 people
in the park, having 30 of them flying all over the place, because they see one. So, that
was kind of the thinking of why putting it in the TUP process to allow it for certain types of
events, in general they are not allowed when there is people there, so right now no one
can do it in the park when there is a large scale event. So, really this was to simply allow
it for certain types as they went through the approval process.
Bird: Thank you.
Little Roberts: Mr. President, follow up.
Bird: Yes.
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Little Roberts: So, I guess I misunderstood regarding -- this would allow a drone for the
person who has filled out -- requested, rather than right now it's just nothing? Okay.
Thank you. So, I guess I support being able to have a drone to film things. Because right
now no one can.
Cavener: Mr. President. And I guess I just would go back to what Council Member
Palmer said. I think that, if anything, our code is too restrictive and there is elements that
need to be repealed. Again, we don't -- let's go back to a kite. A kite is something that
goes in the air. In March lots of people take their kites into a park. We are not banning
kites. We are not concerned about if there is 15 people flying kites. In fact, we have kite
flying festivals in Meridian. So, why we are saying one is okay and another is not? To
me it just seems unnecessary and overbearing and I would be supportive of actually
repealing some of the code, if anything.
Bird: Mike, as I understand now -- maybe I misunderstood, but is this -- if this amendment
to the ordinance isn't changed, drones will -- can be used out there anytime? All this stuff
can.
Barton: Mr. President, they can only be used -- right now they can be used when nobody
is present. They can only be used by a specific director's order, which -- which a TUP is.
So, they -- they can be allowed right now when nobody is present. We are just trying to
allow them when people are present. And -- but, Mr. President, Councilman Cavener, I
think where this ordinance came -- how it came about is that some of the motorized
remote -- remote control objects are not quite as passive as a kite or a baseball and that
they can be annoying to some people. I'm not saying everybody, but it --
Cavener: True.
Barton: -- somehow it came about. It's been in existence for a long time and I think when
you're launching a rocket in a park that you probably -- it's a little different than -- than a
kite or a -- or a baby running out on a field. That's just my editorial.
Cavener: Mr. President? And, Mike, I don't think you're wrong. I think that's a baby --
people are going to pay attention to a baby running on the field. You know, a rocket goes
in the air it comes down, a kite is up in the air for 45 minutes to an hour. I think it's just a
matter of perspective. So, at this point I guess I -- I need some direction from you as the
President or -- or legal about a motion --
Bird: We need a motion.
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Cavener: -- needing to be made.
Bird: Need a motion up or down.
Cavener: So, I don't know if there is any other discussion. I don't want to cut off --
Bird: Is there any other discussion? Okay.
Cavener: So, I guess, Mr. President, my motion would maybe be two-fold. One is to
deny the Parks and Recreation's proposed code provision changes as written and, then,
second, to bring this particular piece of code back for further discussion, because, again,
I don't know where the rest of Council sits -- on my feelings about repealing more of this,
but -- so, I guess my motion would be to -- to deny the proposal and have staff bring back
the full code for further discussion at a later meeting.
Bird: And that's your motion?
Cavener: That's my motion.
Palmer: Second.
Bird: Okay. Motion and second? Any discussion?
Little Roberts: Mr. President?
Bird: Mrs. --
Little Roberts: Mike, how quickly could you bring something back regarding this whole
-- the whole concept of like apparently motorized things -- small things in the park?
Barton: Mr. President, Councilman Roberts, we can -- we can come back at the next
workshop or anytime that it's -- I mean we can have this discussion anytime.
Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council?
Bird: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Thank you. I think you want to have at least one more meeting with the parks
commission and have this discussion relayed back to them and get their feedback. So, I
don't recall if they have one in August or there is a --
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Bird: Yeah, they go in --
Barton: So, we have our parks tours in September, so it would be October.
Nary: Okay.
Barton: So, that's -- that's a great idea. We can bring it back to them and have more
discussion.
Borton: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Borton.
Borton: I see where this is going. I'm -- the way it's written allows what otherwise is not
allowed under narrower circumstances. So, for maybe the same reason that we are all
discussing them -- opposed to the motion, I would support this language which actually
opens up some limited use in the park that doesn't exist today, but also the second prong
of that is rework this to what might become a wholesale removal of some of those
restrictions or at least that discussion. Digging a little deeper to see, but in the short term
this provision actually allows something that you couldn't otherwise do and if our ultimate
goal is to allow it supporting this actually nudges it along in that direction , so -- we are
kind of tied to a knot, so --
Bird: Yeah. It's --
Cavener: I think we trying to -- we get to the same place eventually.
Palmer: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: And if we were to do that, I mean, then, we got to -- it's got to come back as an
ordinance; right? For approval again later and, then, we got to pay the code company to
put it in our code for possibly taking it out later. I like that idea, but --
Borton: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Borton.
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Borton: Nothing would happen tonight necessarily; right? If there was any direction it
would be at best something directing it to be brought back next week or --
Barton: That's correct. As a resolution.
Borton: Is there a cost to that?
Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, I mean there is a small cost to Sterling to
change the code. This minor change it's pretty minimal, so it's not really that significant.
If later on the idea is to, then, excise some other things out or allow them, you know,
either way I mean I guess -- the cost is pretty insignificant. I don't know if C.Jay has a
better sense on the cost, but it's pretty small.
Coles: Mr. President?
Bird: Yes.
Coles: I don't have the exact numbers in terms of what it would cost to change the code
and, then, rechange the code again, but I think Mr. Nary is -- it is correct that -- that the
number is fairly nominal in terms of this particular code change.
Bird: Council, I think the biggest thing we want is to have t his reworked to what we think
should be in there. So, Mr. Nary, tell me if I'm wrong, that is the direction we can actually
get Mike with not even enact upon this amendment to the ordinance, can't we?
Nary: Mr. President, I guess I'm not clear what your question is.
Bird: We don't have to -- up or down on the ordinance. We can just tell Mike to take it
back to the Parks and Rec, redo it, bring it back with what he thinks we would accept.
Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, I think that is what your motion is what I
wrote down, I think it is that.
Bird: No. Our motion is to deny this ordinance.
Nary: Oh, I apologize. Right. It was to deny. But, yes, you could just direct --
Bird: We could just direct to forget about this ordinance tonight.
Nary: Yes, you could.
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Cavener: Mr. President, if the second would agree I would be happy to either withdraw
or revise my motion.
Bird: You want to withdraw?
Cavener: That's the same thing.
Bird: And, then, we want to remake it?
Cavener: Sure. Mr. President, then, I would make a motion that we send this back to the
Parks and Rec Commission and ask staff to relay the comments that -- that he heard from
the Council tonight conveying that at least some members of the Council are open to a
less restrictive ordinance to RC and motorized vehicles in our parks.
Palmer: Second.
Bird: Okay. Any discussion? We got a motion and a second. 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.
G. Legal Department: Meridian Standard Operating Policy,
Number 3.5, Travel and Expense Reimbursement
Bird: Thank you, guys. Thanks, Mike. Legal Department. Mr. Nary.
Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, this is my challenge to our other directors,
this is the shortest slide presentation I think you can humanly have, so I have a title slide
and we will talk about some city policy changes. We have gone through the processes
-- this came up at the directors meeting a number of months ago in looking at our travel
policy and some of it was somewhat out of date. As I note here first, we first implemented
this policy in 2007 and it took us a number of months to synthesize best practice, process,
procedure how we would do this, how we handle it, so it's been about ten years since we
revisited it and, of course, many things in traveling for business have changed, including
IRS regulations. So, that was the need to update it. So, what we did is started with the
people who book travel for departments for trainings and conferences and things like that
and we included Finance in that discussion as well, because they are the ones that
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process all of the paper and making sure that our current practices -- because what had
happened is we weren't -- we weren't non-compliant with our -- with our policy, it's just
our policy didn't speak to certain things and so they have to figure out how to make the
most sense of that in trying to make sure it was paid for correctly or invoice d properly and
those type of things. So, basically, we started really from scratch on how are we doing it
now and what has changed. One of the bigger changes is we now have a different format
in our policy handbook that as our newer policies are being developed we have separated
policy from the procedure, so that way the policy is what would always come in front of
you and, of course, initially the procedure will as well, that's why it's here, but as procedure
needs to change it can change internally without having to go through the same level of
process to do that, because sometimes, again, it's really changing forms and changing
formats and things like that. So, we separated them into the two. Okay. IRS regulations
have changed slightly and probably the most significant one was in travel by vehicle. So,
in the past when we implemented this, the IRS regulations said very specifically if you
use a personal vehicle to travel for business you only can get reimbursed if there is no
vehicle available and, therefore, the rate was fairly high. It's like right now -- now it's about
55 cents a mile. Well, that's a significant factor in the cost of travel on whether or not the
city can -- can pay for that. You know, if you have three or four people going in one
vehicle that's a little different, but if it's one person sometimes that exceeds the cost of
plane travel. Now, the regulations allow that you can take a personal vehicle , you don't
have to -- you don't have to assert that no vehicle is available to you , but if you take a
personal vehicle and one was available to you, the rate is different. So, if you choose to
take it, the rate is smaller and it's about 20 cents a mile. So -- so, they have -- I think the
IRS has tried to come up with something that was rationally related, so that if you wanted
to do that -- and sometimes people want to do it, because they may extend their trip, they
may go to a conference and extend their trip on their own and so they want to take their
own vehicle and they don't want to deal with rental cars or deal with other travel
arrangements and so sometimes that makes sense and we can factor that into the cost
and whether or not that's something we can do. So, that was one problem -- the biggest
change on the IRS side. A couple little things have come up in the interim over the ten
years that we have added into this and I don't -- I'm not asking you tonight for you to
approve this. It's lengthy, so I know you need some time to read it. I did put it in your
packets for you, but we have had things that have happened that we didn't anticipate.
Trip delays. That wasn't something we thought of ten years ago. That happens much
more frequently now, so we have to deal with per diems and secondary hotels that you
didn't anticipate and now you're stuck in the city for a day or two that you weren't originally
even supposed to be there for more than an hour or two . So, we have to deal with that.
We have travel paid by outside vendors and that doesn't happen very often , but
occasionally it does make sense. We put in there a very -- and I underlined it, not just
because it's new, I underlined it to make emphasis in this, that we want the Legal
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Department to review that. We want to make sure it's not going to violate any state code,
want to make sure it's not going to violate anything from the city side. We have done that
in relation to a few departments who have come back to ask, you know, this is what's
being done and we evaluate, you know, should we pay for it, should the vendor pay for it,
does it make sense, this is something that they are using to -- to lure our business or
some other reason. Sometimes it makes sense because the only way you can go to
certain types of activities or events is if they pay for it. They won't let you pay for it and
you can't go to it otherwise. So, sometimes it makes sense, because we may not be in a
contractual relationship and we still have the independent ability to choose somebody
else, but we never get to go. That happens a lot in the IT world. So, where there is no
other way to go to this opportunity without them paying for it. They just won't let you do
it. Travel authorization forms is kind of a routine thing. It really is -- a lot of that with
Finance and just making sure we get all the right boxes and all the right receipting and
invoicing and things like that. So, it was adding a little bit to that. Again, the city credit
card isn't used very great -- isn't used greatly, but it is used occasionally for travel and,
again, it's all receipt driven and trying to make sure that we have the right receipts for
accountability and transparency. We changed some of the deadlines, because we have
found over the ten years we were -- we didn't need it 30 days in advance, we -- the way
the old policy read it almost presumed you made all of the travel arrangements, then, you
got it approved and, then, went back to make all the arrangements. Well, that doesn't
make any sense and nobody ever did that. Everybody got approval to go and, then, made
all the arrangements. So, we have tried to change that to make it a little bit cleaner. We
did leave in one. It probably looks like an anomaly, but we have had occasions where
people still use a landline phone when they travel if one exists and had occasion last year
a city employee traveled, doesn't own a cell phone, didn't want a cell phone, is perfectly
comfortable using a landline and so we wanted to make sure, again, it's business related
and those types of things. The per diem, we looked at other different ways and we had
issues that have come up occasionally over tipping. So, one of the things this group
talked about is we know -- we understand in some service industries it is a standard
custom and it doesn't seem reasonable to say because this is a government trip and we
wouldn't provide at least some minimal amount of a tip to make it reasonable, because,
again, the server is losing out, not -- I mean -- and nobody else. But it's hard to put a
number on it. So, we didn't -- it doesn't apply to meals, because meals are covered by
per diem, but it would apply to transportation, because sometimes, depending on the
method of transportation and that's a discussion between the director and -- and the
employee that's traveling on how do I do this, how do I deal with it. We had one example
that we looked at where Finance was concerned, because the percent of the tips that the
person was doing on this travel seemed large, but the amounts were very minimal. I
mean they went on a transportation -- I can't remember if it was a cab or a shuttle and the
ride was $8.50 and they gave them ten dollars. So, it seems large, but I can understand
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-- and we have all been there where you're just in travel and getting back 50 cents seems
like a lot of effort for not much. So, we wanted to put that -- basically a lot of that financial
decisions in the directors' responsibility. They are responsible for their travel budgets,
they are responsible for their training budgets, they are responsible for all the money that
gets spent. They have to sign all the forms for it. So, we wanted to make sure that's --
that's really where the accountability belongs and they need to have that conversation
when people travel, here is how you do it. Again, it doesn't apply to meals, because
meals are already covered. You get a per diem, however you want to spend that you can
spend it. We did get a specific request if the per diem was to be -- could be returned,
because we didn't actually have anything in the policy that allows for returning the per
diem, so if the employee wants to, but the IRS is very clear -- and I checked this with
Todd, we can't make them return it. So, once you give them per diem it is theirs to use
for the trip and you can use it for anything that the per diem -- that isn't a reimbursable
expense, but we can't require they return it. So, the IRS is very particular about that. But
if the employee wants to they certainly can. The reimbursable expenses, again, we had
a lot of discussion, because things have changed over the years on how people go to and
get home and how they get to the airport and what's covered and what isn't covered . So,
we tried to address most of that. Again, most of it is around transportation. Getting to the
airport. For example, the IRS will allow you to take a cab from your work site to the airport
and that's a reimbursable expense. You cannot be reimbursed to drive your car to the
airport. If you drive from your house to the airport that's on you. If you drive your car from
work and we are already reimbursing your mileage, well, you can get the mileage from
your workplace to the airport. We can pay for parking, the long-term parking at the airport,
because, again, if you get back at midnight you don't necessarily have to get a cab or a
ride, you want to park your car there, again, that's a conversation with the director on the
cost and all of that, but that is reimbursable under the IRS regulations. Most everything
else is stuff that's been in there. Oh, baggage fees. So, there was -- there wasn't baggage
fees as prevalent ten years ago as they are now. So, we want to make sure it was clear
up to one -- up to one bag, but occasionally we will allow that, so sometimes, for example,
when our Fire or Police travel many times they have to take a uniform to go with them,
too. Sometimes they need more equipment or other items that they have to take , so if
that's necessary the director can approve that in addition, because that's not really, again,
their choice, they have to bring some of those things. There is non- reimbursable
expenses. We have spelled out some of those things. You will note there is a couple of
exceptions we talked about was like laundry services. So, occasionally, again, when the
Police travel or Fire and they have a uniform, they have to get it pressed or have it cleaned
when they get there early -- pressed probably. Wanted to make sure that was a
reimbursable -- some are reimbursable and some aren't. That one can be reimbursed.
We had one other thing come up. Some of our departments travel in groups and some
airlines don't charge baggage fees, but they have check-in fees that you can pay, so that
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you can all check in at the same time, because they have random seating in the -- in the
airplane. So, some of the departments asked would it be possible if you're not paying
any baggage fee and they have this check-in fee and you have a group traveling together,
can they use -- can they use that service of the airline and there was a lot of discussion
both ways on that, but, again, we are still looking at the most economical, practical way
and, again, I don't know how often that comes up, but most -- most of ours do travel and
from what I understand -- I don't do -- I don't travel very much -- is the check-in fees are
actually less than the baggage fees anyways, so I mean the cost is very minimal to the
city and we felt from a business standpoint it does make some sense if you have a group
traveling together that they would sit together, because they are going to discuss the trip
and discuss what's going on and those types of things. Again, everything else -- the
personal vehicles was slightly amended to match up with the current IRS. The other thing
we did put a little note in there that -- for the transportation services or non-cabs, like
Uber, we didn't want the city credit card being used for that method. That's why it's a
reimbursable expense, because you have to enter an account with a card attached to it
and we don't want the city credit card to be used for that -- that travel. So, that would be
something you could get reimbursed for, but you can't use the city card for. Let me see.
I think -- yeah. I guess the trip delays and travel paid by vendors. The travel paid by
vendors was -- I think on the legal side we really wanted to make clear, because we just
wanted -- we didn't want any question on how that was done or why that would be done
and, like I said, we started with the original intent of, well, we are just not going to allow it
and, then, as we talked through it we realized there is occasions where it makes sense
and it's not something that the city is -- the city is actually gaining an advantage by being
able to use that method and it isn't something that would impact the state code, it doesn't
violate anything, and, generally, it's not in a situation where we have had to come up -- or
that we were -- they were using that as a tool to get our business. It was used as a tool
to give us the information, so that, hopefully, we would use their business, but it wasn't a
requirement that we contract with them to do it. So, do you have any questions?
Bird: Any questions, Council?
Nary: That's it. Three slides.
Bird: Thanks, Bill. That was a nice -- nice report.
Cavener: Mr. President?
Bird: Yes, Mr. Cavener. I'm sorry.
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Cavener: That's all right. Question if I may. Bill, you touched earlier about a change in
policy versus procedure.
Nary: Uh-huh.
Cavener: Can you just share with us a little bit about what is a potential procedural
change that would occur that wouldn't necessarily come before us versus a policy
change?
Nary: What I would foresee, even though in the procedure it incorporated everything else,
but what I would see in my opinion -- the only thing that we would likely change is the
form. Which form do you fill out and when do you fill it out. Because right now even that
requires to go through the directors, to come to the Council and pass a resolution. Well,
that seems kind of silly. I don't see the likelihood of up and down different expenses or
this is now reimbursable, this isn't reimbursable, this is -- you know, per diem rules, for
example, are pretty specific --
Cavener: Right.
Nary: -- so there is -- if the IRS regulation changes, then, we would just change it,
because it's -- the rules are the rules and we just have to follow them. I don't see us
adding more things. I mean, again, it took us ten years to change it once, so I don't see
it changing greatly. Like I said, I think what -- what Finance is looking for was consistency
with the practice and most of the things, like I said, we change or things have just evolved.
Trip delays is a great example. It didn't happen much ten years ago. It seems to happen
a lot now. So, those were things that they just figured it out and did it and now I wouldn't
see things like spending and spending of money to be something that we would simply
just change it. Again, we wanted to make sure the director was responsible for it and it
was clear. Sometimes it was so awkward, because it said you have to submit it ten days
prior to -- to get a check that you got two days prior. Well, they don't really need it ten
days prior, they just need it about a week ahead, so those things we tried to put some
realistic times in there. Those kind of things -- if those change because they can do it in
three days, probably wouldn't be something we would run through an entire process to
go from seven days to five days or whatever. Those types of steps.
Cavener: Thanks.
Bird: Thank you. Any other questions for Bill? Thanks, Bill.
Nary: So, I will bring it back with a resolution on Consent.
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Bird: Thank you.
Nary: Thank you.
H. 2017 City Survey Follow -up
Bird: Mr. Simison.
Simison: Thank you, Council President, Members of the Council. I will first ask -- because
I know this meeting has gone late and I'm understanding people might have other
obligations. I did have a conversation with Council Woman Milam before she left on -- or
last week before she left saying if you're going to do this she hopes that no decisions are
made in her absence about the direction to or to not do anything on any of these items ,
so based upon the hour of the day and that request before I proceed, is this something
that you would like me to do today or would you like me to put this off to next Tuesday to
go through this? I'm happy to do it either way, but I want to respect her request and the
hour of the day.
Bird: What's your pleasure?
Borton: Do we have room on the agenda?
Bird: Pardon?
Borton: What does next week look like, Mr. President?
Bird: We could get him on next week.
Cavener: We are here, though. I mean -- we are here. It's 7:00 o'clock already.
Bird: Do you want to -- do you want to hear it now? She didn't want no decisions made.
Cavener: Well, she should be here then.
Bird: I don’t disagree.
Cavener: Sorry. I mean I don't know if we are going to make decisions.
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Bird: How about the rest of you? You want to hear it now? We are here. And, by the
way, we are going to -- we are going to delete the Executive Session, because the Mayor
didn't know what it was over and we had discussed having it next week when Joe and
Genesis and everybody could be here, so -- anyway.
Cavener: Let's do it.
Bird: So do it.
Cavener: We don't have an Exec. Let's do it.
Bird: Let's go, Robert.
Simison: Okay. Well -- and, honestly, this is a -- this is a conversation where I'm here
more to listen, so there will be -- that will be the focus. So, from that standpoint -- as
you're all aware of the city survey that was done and the findings were presented to you
all on June 13th from the company that did the survey, there were some questions in
there -- some policy-related questions, which we added at the request of Council on a
couple of them and a couple of them were just things that came up through the process.
So, I'm here to find out, based on those issues that were in the survey, if there is any
further direction on any of them that you would like us to pursue. I just have a couple of
things that I put down. I mean these are not meant to be -- there is a lot more options
than this, but, you know, from -- from the discussion on these items I'm happy to hear --
say no further action is requested, that you would like to form a focus group with citizens
to look at issues further, you'd like to schedule a public hearing to hear from the
community on that topic. We have an election in November. You can do an advisory
vote if there is something that's really pressing from the Council's perspective that you
want to hear further. So, with that I'm just going to turn the page and start with the first
question. So, this question was proposed if we should have an ordinance to make it
illegal within the City of Meridian to deny goods, services, housing or employment to
someone because he or she is gay, bisexual or transgendered. Forty-eight percent were
opposed. Thirty-nine percent were in favor. And 13 percent were not sure. With that is
there any further information or direction on this topic that the Council would like to
discuss?
Borton: Mr. President.
Bird: Mr. Borton.
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Borton: One of the -- the greatest mechanisms to gather information -- even better than
a city survey is -- you know, I'm undertaking and others are as well, is knocking on doors
and hitting every house around and these questions, among others, are part of the
conversation and the list that you shared with us that might come forward is something of
particular interest to me on these doorsteps and will be asked and discussed , so that's
another option as far as how the city may or may not respond to the -- the list that we are
going to go through. So, that's one of the fact gathering mechanisms I'm undergoing.
Cavener: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: As one who is also in a door-knocking mode, as it would be, this is a similar
question, along with some of the other ones that are here, that I asked four years ago and
heard a different response than was articulated in the survey. I also know that half of us
aren't out knocking doors and so I for one -- I think we talked about this when the results
came out, was surprised by the response here. Since then this Council has taken on
significant discussion about diversity within City Hall and without the City Hall, so, again,
I don't know how the rest of you feel, I'd be open to a public hearing on this issue. I know
that oftentimes people get a little apprehensive about inviting the public to come talk about
this issue. I, for one, think it's a great place for people whose maybe door I might knock
or might not knock and three of us are in here that might not be knocking doors this time
around, be a great opportunity to hear from the public.
Little Roberts: Mr. President?
Cavener: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: I agree as well that I would like to see us have either a town hall or a
hearing or something that we can hear more information on this . All of the response that
I have heard since the discussion has been -- I guess I missed the survey, because I
disagree with what -- and I have had -- not a ton, but probably eight or ten people reach
out to me and say, wow, I'm really disappointed that we are not standing up for, you know,
people's rights and so I think it would be definitely a benefit to have more input.
Bird: Any other comments? I don't want to weigh in.
Little Roberts: A town hall might be a good idea.
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Bird: You know, this is my take and Luke and I have discussed this. This is -- they are
already protected. The same as I am, you are, anybody else. Aren't they citizens just
like we are? You know? So, why -- why do they think they get special rights? That's
my --
Palmer: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: We have recently implemented a new opportunity for public testimony, three out
of four or five Tuesdays in a month and I think if people are contacting you saying, hey,
I'm -- I disagree with, you know, the results of the survey, I would say that bring them up,
let's hear what people have to say and, then, if we get enough interest in -- in maybe even
a code change, then, we would have a lot better idea, but no one is knocking down these
doors to have something change. The time is available.
Cavener: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I think the public forum is an opportunity for people to share ideas and things
that are going on in our community they want to bring to our attention, but it's never been
a place, really, specifically for us to discuss policy. In fact, we have called attention that
we don't want policy discussions to happen during that public forum. This could be a
potential policy change, one that would come with a public hearing, allow the public to
come, say their peace, supportive or against, and give us as Council members an
opportunity up or down to say we agree or disagree.
Bird: Well, Robert, you can talk to the Mayor see if she would like to have a town hall
meeting on this, so we can discuss it.
Cavener: Mr. President. Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt. I for one would not be supportive
of a town hall forum. As one who has attended a few of these town hall meetings, there
is typically lots of items that become part of the agenda and there is not I think a significant
amount of public participation. This is a policy decision. I think it needs to -- a public
hearing needs to be held in this building, in this room, where the public knows it's where
the City Council makes their decisions and not in a --
Bird: Do you want to have a public hearing?
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Cavener: I would.
Bird: Okay. I will discuss it with her.
Palmer: Mr. President?
Bird: Yes.
Palmer: I'm not opposed to that either. I think if we are going to have the discussion that
it needs to be here on a Tuesday with like nothing else on the agenda , because it will take
the whole night.
Bird: That's great. I don't disagree with you. No, I'd like -- I'd like it, but --
Cavener: Keith?
Bird: Yes.
Cavener: We can even ask the Mayor to schedule it in January.
Bird: That's just what I was just going to say. January would be a good day. And I would
be out there. Okay.
Simison: All right.
Bird: Go on, Robert.
Simison: Thank you. Yes.
Bird: We are going to be here all night.
Simison: Item two. So this is another question that was requested be put on by Council
and the question was under state law smoking is prohibited in restaurants and most work
places, but allowed in bars and small businesses with less than five employees. In
general would you favor or oppose a city ordinance prohibiting smoking within the City of
Meridian in all indoor public spaces, including bars and small businesses. Seventy
percent favored yes, 24 opposed, six percent not sure.
Bird: Any comments?
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Cavener: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: My comments follow from the previous slide. I think that this is something that
warrants a public hearing, an opportunity for Council to discuss, hear from the public. I
learned last week that we have a new cigar bar that's opening in downtown Meridian and
as part of the owners opening comments mentioned that he believes Meridian will have
a smoke-free ordinance in the relatively near future. Nevertheless, he's choosing to open
a business in Meridian. So, to me it seems like an opportune time for the Council to have
a public hearing on this issue. This is one that I have spent considerable time knocking
doors about four years ago and my response is that I received echo of what we saw here
in the survey.
Palmer: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: While I at this moment personally fall in the 24 percent there, I agree, I would
love to have a public hearing to know -- I want to be convinced that the health issue is
more important than the property rights issue.
Bird: Any other comments? I -- Mr. Palmer, I agree with you, I'm in the 24 percent,
because I hate telling businesses what they can do, because it's their -- it's their
pocketbook that's on the line. But nobody -- nobody hates having to go into smoking
places more than I do over the last 14 years. So, I -- but I would be in the 24 percent.
But I would like to hear people come out and do that, see what they say. Okay. Robert.
Simison: Council President, Council, may I make a suggestion on this one to a certain
extent, just because it would -- I think this one is a little different, because it does impact
a very -- probably a small number of businesses specifically, that maybe perhaps even
before a public hearing we look at working with the Chamber and doing a focus group
with those businesses and this is something -- because that's really -- I think we can
identify the five to ten businesses that this really would impact in Meridian. I don't know
your thoughts on that component, but rather than just hearing from them in a public
setting, getting their opinions before that public hearing might be of benefit.
Bird: It could be. That's a good idea.
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Simison: Thoughts? And I know that the Mayor has been doing some outreach with
some of the downtown business owners and just had -- in fact, I will share some news
that was -- apparently we shared is our understanding is New Frontier is going smoke-
free. So, maybe they are changing their own policies, these bars one at a time as they
see fit, but, you know, having a conversation with some of them may -- may lead to a
different dialogue in a public hearing from even the business owners perspectives . But
just a thought.
Bird: That's great. Great news.
Cavener: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I'm supportive of that. Giving the -- those that are -- could potentially be
required to comply to have an opportunity to be involved in that process. I think we would
want to afford that to any stakeholder group in Meridian. So, I'm supportive of that as a
first step.
Bird: We will take care of it. Thank you, Robert.
Simison: Thank you. So, the third item, Meridian continues to grow and there is often
been an indication that preserving farmland is important to the community. One way to
preserve farmland would be by enacting a levy to purchase farmland in order to preserve
it for agriculture purposes. In general would you be in support of a levy, similar to the
Boise Foothills Levy for this purpose. Fifty percent yes. Twenty percent no. Twenty-
three percent not sure. And if I could editorialize on this one just briefly, this is one of
those -- and I wasn't at the town hall that we did -- the Mayor talked about the listening
tour follow-up from that conversation. One of the things -- when we truthed this item to
some extent, what we heard from people was -- was really open space to a certain extent.
You know, that that's -- that from their standpoint they weren't necessarily in favor of
preserving ag land for farming purposes, but the preservation of the open space and they
used the word parks from that standpoint as some of their components to that component.
So, it was not the people that took the survey view this or you view that from this
perspective. I don't want to -- I think that there is some leeway from the way people
viewed the word farmland from this perspective. It wasn't necessarily meant growing of
crops here in the community, but leaving space open from that perspective.
Bird: Council, any discussion?
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Cavener: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I keep talking all night. A couple things that I think that is worth of consideration
and I will continue my comments. The numbers on this surprise me, but I think it's worth
of a public hearing to let the public come and say this is something they support. I
attended the first Growing Together meeting and there was a significant amount of
discussion about preserving farmland. It surprised me. I'm one that would fall right now
in the -- in the 27 percent range, but would be open to hear of ideas or proposals or
comments from our citizens on what they would like to see and maybe that comes from
a stakeholder group beforehand. I'm not opposed to that. On the flip side we heard from
our Community Development director that -- I think he said the cow was out of the barn
on this particular issue. Is it? Or is it in the area of the Fields District and there is
opportunity maybe south of the interstate? I don't know. I'm -- I'm supportive of continuing
conversation on this particular issue, even though it's not something that I'm today
necessarily in support of.
Bird: Any other discussion? My biggest concern is these people that voted yes, do they
understand that to purchase this farmland, you're competing against developers in the
price of it. Are they going to want to raise their taxes, you know, when -- when property
around there is -- again, is up over a hundred thousand an acre for farmland, are they
going to want to raise their taxes to purchase that? I don't know. You know, these surveys
are great, but they don't -- there is a lot of things they leave out.
Simison: Council President, Council, I would agree with you on that -- on this spare
component. You know, this is much like a lot of things where it's really not -- it's not
defined and -- and that's one of those things that -- it's been out there, I have talked -- I
have been one of the people talking about this issue for a long time. I mean it's not
defined. You could -- you could preserve, you know, just a strip along the -- in the south
region, you could pick one farm, preserve one farm, you know, it's not necessarily -- it's
-- it's not defined and people don't know, but to a certain extent the foothills levy, that's
what they did vote to do, you know, so from that perspective there is a voting process
when you get -- when you define what you truly want to do and what the value is, there is
a public vote on this very topic where, hopefully, people are educated to make that
decision at that point in time. So, whether or not this is a -- this would be something that
says there is enough interest that we should -- that staff should start exploring this in real
earnest to say, yes, this is what it would be or, you know, is it -- is it the community that
would do it or is it just a public hearing for people to say, well, I would like that, but I'm not
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going to pay for it, you know, because that wasn't -- there was not a dollar figure,
obviously, in the survey.
Palmer: Mr. President?
Bird: Go ahead.
Palmer: Mr. President and Council, I think we need to consider should we hold a public
hearing on this and 200 people show up saying, yes, do it and no one shows up saying
no. Is it still something we would seriously consider going through that whole process to,
then, put it on a ballot and do? If -- I wouldn't consider it. If you would consider it, then,
sure, let's have a public hearing, but if even in that extreme circumstance 200 people
show up saying let's do it, we wouldn't do it, let's not waste the time.
Bird: I think there isn't a one of us on here if -- like Boise, the foothills, you're not taking
away productive ground or anything. You're preserving a place that you can rec -- go out
and do your recreation. The price of it was little or nothing. I would be the first one down
there voting yes on something like that, but this is something -- we are talking about
something else.
Palmer: Mr. President?
Bird: Yeah, Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Well -- and on the topic itself, I mean I think it's devastating what the city is doing.
There -- you go down to Salt Lake and you look at the -- just immaculate, beautiful foothills
that they have there that have been developed into often residential properties and
creating a tax base, creating landscaping that wouldn't exist and, then, you look at ours
and we have got brown desert hills that burn every few years, locked down for some trails
and so I -- I'd hate to -- I mean I hate that we are doing it to hills, I can't imagine us doing
it to farmland that could produce places to live and work for our residents.
Bird: Mr. Palmer, you're probably not old enough to remember, but drive up 8th Street,
go up Bogus Basin Road and go around Cartwright Road and go to Quail Hollow and
places like that, I will tell you what, Boise has done an awful, awful good job of putting in
some nice developments in their foothills.
Palmer: Do more.
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Simison: And Council President, Council, you know, just, again, from my perspective I
think this is a policy discussion, just that there is -- there is nothing that says that the city
even has to pass a levy. You could take General Funds dollars tomorrow and go buy a
farmland if you thought it was valuable enough. I will be honest, you know, from the
Mayor's office perspective, growth is what we hear the most about. Eating up farmland
is what we hear the most about, whether or not that's -- there can be a policy decision --
the city has every right to buy a piece of ground and do whatever they want with it, as
much as a developer does and if you're willing to pay the same pri ce as a developer is
willing to pay to preserve that as you see fit. That is the city's policy direction to do that
for whatever purpose. A park. A fire station. A piece of ground that they just don't want
to see somebody else develop for whatever purp ose is there. So, it is a good policy
discussion. Whether or not people think it's valuable or not or we think we should have
any type -- that type of open space for a farm or otherwise, you know, to me this was a
-- because we hear all the time I want -- I'm tired of growth and I'm tired of seeing it. That's
the number one thing that we hear. Let's give the public an opportunity to at least weigh
in on that if they really want to put their money where their mouth has been and half the
community that took the survey said yes, compared to the comments that we have
received. Half of them said no or I don't know. So, you're really split on should we impact
growth and development in this fashion or not.
Palmer: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: And to that point, the private sector is welcome to buy land and not develop itself
as well. Is it the role of government to take -- say we had 51 percent or whatever it may
take in a levy situation to approve it, forcing the rest of the pie to ch ip in on their
preservation of -- or purposefully slowing growth. If somebody wants to buy a piece of
land because they are tired of people growing -- building next to them, they need to go
buy their own piece of land, put their house in the middle, and n ot let anyone develop
around them.
Cavener: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: We, as a community, buy land all the time for parks to create open space for
our community. We take land away from developers to develop homes, because we, as
a community, said that's important to us. What I'm seeing here is that this is an evolution
of what our community has said is important to them and while I'm not quite ready to put
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out a levy to buy farmland to preserve it, I'm not there yet. I am open to having the
conversation of -- and if 200 people show up and say, yes, we want to do this and we
would be willing to tax ourselves, whatever, to be able to do that, that's compelling to me.
I want to hear that, though. I don't want to make a unilateral decision without giving our
public the opportunity to come and articulate that to us specifically.
Palmer: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: The difference there is we can build whatever we want on those parks forever.
We have got a park down off Stoddard that we are going to put a fire station on. The
purpose of this would be to -- to make it so that land can't be developed. It would have
no other use other than farmland. We could put a farm in a park, but it preserves its ability
to be anything else at any point. We could sell one of the parks. We are not going to,
but we could. You're right. This is a whole different beast.
Bird: And let me assure you to my knowledge -- and I think I have been involved in every
purchase, we haven't even come close to paying for what they are getting -- I think 15 --
20 was the most and we got five back -- five kickback per acre, so 15 per acre, so --
anyway, we can certainly discuss it.
Palmer: Mr. President?
Bird: Yes.
Palmer: Public hearing it is.
Bird: Public hearing. We are going to have a public hearing.
Palmer: In January 2020.
Bird: Yep.
Cavener: No.
Simison: So, the next item. Question 26. In general would you favor or oppose allowing
residents of the city the ability to tax on a temporary sales tax, local option tax increase
to provide funding for identified infrastructure improvements in the community. So, this
one there were -- I left it in here, just because it was a policy ordinance -- or policy
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legislative type question. I don't know that there is really any action that's necessary to
be taken, but I didn't want to exclude it, since, again, it was something that was -- I worked
with one of the Council Members on to include in here, to at least have the conversation
here, if there is anything, and, you know, it's no secret for those of you that were at AIC
is the Mayor of Boise is -- is looking at trying to, again, do a statewide initiative on this
topic. So, whether or not there is something specific that we want to do or whether there
is something specific -- a conversation that the Council wants to have on this topic about
what they would or be willing -- would or would not be willing to support in an initiative
process that might be run by another community I felt it -- at least it's appropriate to put
in here and pause for steps, if any, if nothing, then, we will move onto the next one.
Bird: Any discussion?
Little Roberts: Mr. President?
Bird: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: I think just following what could happen at the legislative next session -- I
know there is plans on bringing it back around and I don't know if it's ever appropriate to
put in our voice at that point of support or whatever we would consider , but I would
definitely like to see us follow it and potentially have a discussion and -- and go from there.
I definitely think it's something that needs to be followed.
Bird: I would agree with you on that. Once the legislature makes -- we need to make
sure that they get their ducks in a row. Anything else, Robert?
Simison: Not on that one. I will move to the last one. It was kind of a two-parter. The
City of Meridian takes a position to save money for future improvements and not use
bonds for new facilities. If the city were to place a bond measure on the ballot for ten
million that could cost owners approximately 91 cents per month for a home with an
assessed value of 100,000 generally, would you support the bond for the following items.
Those items are on the screen. I'm not going to go through them and all their
percentages. But, I do want to move on to the second part of that question. So, which
two options would you be most willing to support and by percentage the number one
option was construction of Linder Road overpass, adding more bike lanes and pathways
was second, and providing more public transportation options was third. Again, I'm going
to take some liberty and speak to some feedback from the listening tour. We heard a
couple things as we -- from the few people that we talked to on this specific question and
I'm going to just talk about transportation in general. What we heard was north-south
connection points were important to the -- to the community. I think you heard that earlier
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from Caleb with the Locust Grove being designated as a priority corridor as an alternative
to Eagle. I think Linder is -- that's how people are viewing that as well, especially when
you look at the fact of how many schools run along Linder now, as well as the proximity
to the bus barn -- yeah, I'm a law person and I see the benefit even to the school district
alone to having an overpass that goes over that -- that location. But we -- but north-south
corridors is what we heard and having the overpass would make that. The other thing
was sidewalks. We always hear pathways, but we heard a lot about sidewalks that dead
end due to, you know, it's in the county and it hasn't been developed yet and you can't get
from point A to point B. So, in this -- in this conversation where -- again, there may not
be much of a conversation, if I was to make a recommendation to Council based on what
I heard, if I were to say let's go out and consider doing a bond for transportation related
improvements, it would be to find those sidewalk connections around the city that makes
sense to complete, because development may not be doing it in the near future and
looking at needed transportation improvements that we think are of value that ACHD may
not have on high priority or a special project. So, with that I will stand for any comments.
Bird: Robert, I have got a question on that. While I think Linder Road overpass is -- is a
major, major -- first thing to do, I'm not too sure that -- that we are the ones that should
be getting the bond. I think you go to -- I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I think you go -- you go to
ACHD and can they have bonds, too, Bill?
Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, I don't know that they have bonding
authority.
Bird: Okay. Well, then, that shoots me down the drain. But, you know, it's like Locust
Grove, we -- ITD, ACHD, and the city and we had -- we had saved up some money there
that -- to buy the right of way. We bought all the right of way, which come in about 500,000
less than what we thought it would. But I think this Linder Road overpass is something
that we need to get with the three entities and see if there isn't a way we can't work it out,
but we shouldn't be the leader, because we are not in the construction business. We
need to ask somebody like ITD or -- or ACHD to lead the project. Now, the bond could
-- you know, if we passed a bond I could go for it, but I don't think we can get -- I don't
think we can get it for ten million dollars for an overpass, we are going to have to have
some partners.
Palmer: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. --
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Palmer: As the youngest councilman and, hopefully, will be around longer than the rest
-- not that much younger, I guess, myself and my young kids, they are inheriting whatever
we do and so I think that we should continue to avoid debt like the plague . I -- I make a
living on debt. I do car loans at 30 percent interest. I spend a lot of time in car dealerships
where someone that might be there getting approval through different banks, will get 1.99,
2.99 and the dealer will say, oh, that's free money. There is no such thing as free money
no matter how good a rate you get on your bond. You're paying interest. I have no
opposition to us investing in part on projects that we want moved up the list, but I think
that needs to be done through spending less on other things and paying cash. Setting
the example for Congress and everyone else that just whips out the credit card while still
getting stuff done.
Bird: Mr. Palmer, I don't disagree with you one bit. I have never voted for a bond, nor
would I, but never bring one up. We haven't had to. But in the same token this project is
very worthy of getting done, you know. First thing you do is go to ACHD and ITD and sit
down and see if we can have a good conversation with them.
Borton: Mr. President?
Bird: Yes, Mr. Borton.
Borton: I don't support either of the last two considerations even to go forward. The levy
discussion I think his academic and I don't think it's supported by the community here and
I don't think this is the right question to ask either with regards to bonding and would n't
support any of this and I don't think the community would. I think if there is ever a question
to come forward, which is for a future conversation and it's equally academic is the
concept of bonding, when considered in relation to saving cash, is what you're purchasing
and if you're purchasing something that is specifically growth related and you bond for
something funds raised to pay for that is paid by the future growth and the future citizens
will pay off the bond for growth-related consideration, as opposed to saving cash and you
have got your current existing residents who are being deprived of something in lieu of
funding a capital project which benefits the future growth and sewer treatment expansions
are the most common around the country where that -- that difference is most clearly
displayed. So, if we save 50 million dollars in cash from our current existing residents to
fund something that is going to provide capacity to benefit all the future people, the
argument is made there is -- there is -- there is a rule for bonding and long-term finance
to have the future individuals who generate the need for the cost in the first place to pay
for it. That's not what any of this question is. That's an interesting question. I think it's
fascinating. But the question before us here I don't think is worthy going forward. Just
my -- my opinion, because I don’t think bonding is an appropriate use to do these. In
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particular for a roadway, for a construction project that another governmental entity has
responsibility to provide.
Palmer: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: And another argument for bonding would be that you're building something now
at a cost that even with the interest may -- it may be more expensive to do it later paying
cash. But, then, you start looking at issues like this freeway will need to be replaced
before the bond is paid off. So, there is certainly arguments for it, but -- but when you
pay cash you don't have to keep paying and so that's the greatest protection is that you
own it and you're done.
Simison: Council President, Council, again, I'm going to take a little bit of liberty -- I'm not
an elected official, but transportation whether you -- transportation growth is what -- and
schools, that's what the survey told you people in this -- in this city care about. Well, what
are you responsible for in those three items? Well, really, you could argue you're not
responsible for two of the three. But your -- the residents of the city that is what they care
about. Now, whether or not you thin k they are on par with public safety dollars, that you
should divert general fund dollars and put forth these type of things, to me that is a policy
question for you all. If you don't think ACHD is meeting the needs of the residents with
the infrastructure that is here, as elected officials what do you want to do about it and
maybe it is nothing from that perspective. So, when I look at this I don't think that the
residents of Meridian are begging for an overpass, but I think that they are saying -- there
is transportation issues that the city has and if our answer is going to be it isn't our -- that's
not our business, then, that's just going to continue to be the things that these surveys
tell you over and over, because that's what they have told us for the last three surveys
that transportation is a major issue for the residents of Meridian. So, from a policy
perspective that's all I would ask you to consider. Don't look at this necessarily as the
bond as a way to pay for it, but bonding is a way you could pay for something which you,
then, don't have to challenge your other services that you are required to pay for, because
I think that you have heard from Todd and I'm not here to ask you to take money from the
General Fund balance out of the CSP, which has its own challenges, to fund these other
types of things, but at least -- again, I got on my soap box a little bit more than I probably
should have right there, but just challenge you to think about those things. You're not
responsible for them, but your residents say they are the biggest issues. So, what makes
sense to do or not to do about them and I will leave it from that perspective.
Cavener: Mr. President?
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Bird: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: And maybe this is a question for the Council or for Robert about which of us
were able to attend the listening tour. I for one was surprised at how short of notice was
given to us, so I wasn't able to attend. I don't know if the rest of you were able to and
what some of those comments were about those issues. To me to your point specifically
is something I would love to have had the opportunity to engage in, but it wasn't feasible,
so I'm just curious for those here that were able to attend , if you could share some
perspective on that. To me that would be really enlightening.
Palmer: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: The one that I attended, absolutely, you know, transportation issues were
brought up and there was the usual response -- I mean I -- she's not here, but I will still
talk about what she said, it was go talk to the legislature. Get them to -- to do their
responsibility and, then, when there is concerns about schools it was -- that's a state
problem, which it is, you know, get them to fulfill their constitutional requirement to -- to
fund them adequately, but, then, it comes down to an opinion about whether the money
that's being provided is being spent properly. There are things that -- that we can -- I
mean the Locust Grove overpass would probably not be done today had the city not
stepped in and said, hey, let's help figure this out. And, again, I'm -- I'm all in favor of that,
us being a partner on -- on even if we have to chip in some money finding a way to -- to
get some of these things -- some of our priorities done, instead of just let's send another
letter, we will send another letter giving our input, that's great, that's what they are asking
for, but I think there is opportunity for us to partner better and that's what -- like you said
and what Robert was touching on is the quality of life issues, all of the things that we do
aren't the things they are complaining about. They love the parks. They love that their
toilets flush and their faucets turn on and we do a great job of that. But the other things
that they do complain about I think we can help just a little bit.
Bird: Anything else, Council? You got anything else, Robert?
Simison: Nope. That's it. I wasn't expecting that was going to get direction to approve
to start working on a bond, just for reflection.
Bird: Not as long as I sit here.
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Simison: But I did want to at least put that out there as a thought to -- how we deal with
transportation is on the minds of the public and specific projects -- pathways and even
public transportation, those are -- those are reoccurring themes that we hear.
Cavener: Mr. President?
Bird: Yeah, Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Yeah. I try really hard to not direct staff, but I will just pose a question or a
comment. It would be interesting to know if -- if the Council -- it sounds like the Council
is of the mind that we are not supportive of any bonding, so recognizing that that's the
case today, but there are at least some Council Members that are saying these are issues
that we want to partner on, what would that look like dollars wise if we weren't to go out
for a bond. Is it half a million dollars? Is it 15 million dollars? I mean I think those are
things to me that would be beneficial to at least let us know where are mark is and, you
know, Councilman Borton, you bring up some -- some valid points about diverting current
taxpayers' dollars for some infrastructure that would benefit a future member of our
community. I think when it comes to sidewalks -- I know when it comes to the Linder
Road overpass those are -- those are too pieces of infrastructure that would benefit our
current community today. We are not just Meridian that's on one side of the interstate,
we are a community on both sides and the fact that today we only have one freeway exit
that is solely in, you know, for a community of 100,000 people just astounds me. Eagle
Road we share with Boise. Ten Mile we share with Nampa. Canyon county.
Bird: Meridian you share with Kuna. We don't have our own.
Cavener: I'm supportive of looking up partnership dollars and recognizing that that comes
at a cost of something that we very well would need today, but the city is related to
pathways, sidewalks -- sidewalks are so key that we are a patchwork community. We
see it in our land use map that we talked about up and down about Swiss cheese. Well,
those Swiss cheese come with gaps in sidewalks for our pedestrians and our kids and I
think that we need to be allocating more funding for sidewalks and pathways as part of
our general budget. That's my feedback.
Bird: Thank you. Any other comments? Thank you, Robert.
Simison: Thank you.
Item 8: Future Meeting Topics
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Bird: Appreciate it. Sorry we kept you so late. Council, Future Meeting Topics. Got
anything? I got some upcoming events. Don't forget about CableOne Movie Night,
Friday, August 11th. Settlers. Concert on Broadway, Saturday, August 12th at 6:30. We
will be Erin and her Cello. And, then, at 7:00 will be the band. And, then, Meridian
Mondays, Deja Brew August 14th at 6:00 p.m. And anybody else got anything to say?
Item 9: Executive Session per Idaho State Code 74-206(1)(a): To consider
hiring a public officer, employee, staff member or individual agent,
wherein the respective qualities of individuals are to be evaluated in
order to fill a particular vacancy or need.
Bird: Okay. I would entertain a motion to remove Item No. 9 from the agenda.
Cavener: So moved
Borton: Second.
Bird: All in -- no. Yeah. We can do it all in favor. All in favor? Okay. Any opposed?
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Bird: I would entertain a motion to adjourn.
Cavener: So moved.
Little Roberts: Second.
Bird: All in favor?
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Bird: Sorry we stayed too late tonight.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:38 P.M.
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