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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004 11-09 PreCITY OF MERIDIAN PRE -COUNCIL MEETING AGENDA Tuesday, November 9, 2004 at 6:00 p.m. City Council Chambers 1. Roll -call Attendance: X Shaun Wardle X Christine Donnell X Charlie Rountree X_ Keith Bird X Mayor Tammy de Weerd 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Approve 3. Discussion of TVTV Treasure Valley Public Access Television: Presented (*25 minutes) 4. Discussion of North Meridian Area Plan: Discussed 6. Discussion of Storm Water Drainage Ponds: Discussed 6. Discussion of EMS District: Presented i Discussed *Approximate allowable time set for agenda item may change depending on discussion. Please use the designated minutes as a guideline only. Meridian City Pre -Council Agenda — November 0, 2004 Pagel of 1 AN materialsp„es entad at public meetings shale become Property of the City of Meridian. The Meridian City Pre -Council meeting was called to order at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, November 9, 2004 by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Christine Donnell, Shaun Wardle and Charlie Rountree. Others Present: Brad Watson, Kenny Bowers, Anna Canning, Bill Johnson, Rich Green, Bill Musser and Will Berg. Item 1. Roll -call Attendance: X Christine Donnell X Keith Bird X Shaun Wardle X Charlie Rountree X Mayor Tammy de Weerd Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Bird: If no changes, 1 would entertain a motion to accept the agenda as published. Rountree: So moved. Wardle: Second. Bird: IVs been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as published. All in favor say aye. ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. Item 3. Discussion of TVTV Treasure Valley Public Access Television: Bird: Mr. Nary do you want to introduce the TVTV? Nary: Thank you Mr. President, members of the Council. This item on your agenda, Mayor De Weerd and myself had met with the folks with Treasure Valley Television about a month ago to discuss a proposal that they have put together on some possibilities that they think would be very valuable to the city and there are some costs to them. Some of them are related to the franchise agreement that we have with Cable One. But, we asked them to come tonight to do the full presentation for you. With that, I will let them take it from there. Chris: The full presentation starts with about a five-minute video if you will indulge — Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 9, 2004 Page 2 of 21 Bird: Would you mind introducing yourself, ma'am? Chris: I am Teri Chris. I am Station Manager of Public Access Television, Channel 11 in Boise. This is Gail Dyer; she is the Executive Director of our board. We put together a small presentation. We are carried on Cable One, Channel 11, so if you are not a cable subscriber you don't receive this programming, but we are carried through 65,000 homes through the Treasure Valley. (Presentation displayed). Chris: Well, that's a little bit — some of a sampling of our public access station and as you probably heard the City Council in Boise is a little overwhelmed at the response that they have gotten from coming on air. This is something we would like to bring to the City of Meridian too. There is a lot of reasons to bring your City Council meeting to air besides a vanity or something, but it does interest people. You will be — I know the City here and anyone who is on Public Access, first of all they are a little bit shocked at the number of people that watch it and second of all City Council is really shocked how many people stay and listen to what is going on because — you know, the City Council meetings, I think the last one was a really hot contested meeting that went until 1:15 in the morning and you would not believe the calls we had for copies of that tape because there were so many people that were down there from the City of Boise having testimony and they wanted to either see their dad on tape or hear what their testimony was and see how it turned out. There is a lot of interest in the City Council meeting and I know there is in Meridian, too. But, not everybody gets up and drives down for the meeting, sometimes they just want to sit at home and tune on to 11 and see what is going on. So, what I put in front of you was a little proposal of what we put together when we met with your Mayor and Bob was that what we are looking to start at if this is something that you are interested in — a basic proposal is we are looking to take about three percent of the franchise fee, which is about $5,000 and what this would enable us to do is to just bring one camera down here to start the City Council meeting. This is how we started Boise's meeting, just with a single camera shoot. It would capture the whole meetings and then we would have to replay, air that on Thursdays. Your meetings are Tuesday nights, it would take a day to turn it over and we would re - air that on Thursday nights at 7:00 and we provide you with a VHS copy of the tape so that you would have it. Its pretty basic. It's pretty simple and for $5,000 we could cover the equipment and the person to come down here and do it. We could start that as early as January, but what we foresee for the City of Meridian as well as other cities in the Treasure Valley is that the cities start using our station in the way that public access should be used; and that is to use us in a wider variety for other community events you have going on. To do this we are looking at a $65,000 start up fee for the next fiscal year. This is a start up fee that comes out of Cable One. It has to be negotiated by the city and for the City of Boise they negotiated $250,000 start up. This is, however, high it's always Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 9, 2004 Page 3of21 negotiation wherever you start. The Cable will bid you down. This will start your City Council, your public access and basically what it will purchase is a remote van to come out here on Tuesday nights and shoot your City Council meeting. This would be a two -camera switch shoot. It would take you away from the one camera panning back and forth. It would be a switch shoot. It would be professionally done every Tuesday nights and the van also could be used to shoot other events throughout the city. Boise decided to take about $55,000 and put remote cameras into their City Council, which may or may not be something that you wanted to do. The one thing this City Council has to do is negotiate fiber optics to the City Hall and the Mayor was saying that this is a hall that might be moving in the near future and that you are outgrowing your facility and want to move it. So, I don't consider at this point negotiating the fiber optics to this point — to this building right here would be feasible for you. You should wait to wherever you are going to move it to and have it moved — it can be expensive. That is something the city has to negotiate with Cable too. This would allow us to hook up to the fiber optics with the van and go live with your City Council meeting. We would need the $65,000 for the van. You would have to negotiate a franchise fee — the fiber optics — negotiate 10 percent of your franchise fee, which would be the $65,000 and you would have to bring the fiber optics in here --what else? Right now the current cable subscribers pay a dime per subscriber. I don't know if they do that in the City of Meridian, but in Boise, everyone who subscribes to cable pays a dime. This is a fee that we are trying to bring up to 30 cents and it was a fee that we would want the City of Meridian as. This covers our capital cost. It would come to $21,000 for the first year. This would up the van from the City Council shoot to your high school football shoots. High school football takes a lot more camera equipment, a lot more cable and a lot more equipment to a nice job with that and that we would need that $21,000 to bring that van up to football shoots, but then we would like to take a football of the week, brought to you by the City of Meridian and TVTV and broadcast that on Channel 11. We have done that with the Boise School District. They paid us last year to do it, we'd like to do it for the City of Meridian, but we would like the cost to be covered by the City of Meridian and we had a wonderful response from the parents of the high school kids. They wanted dubs of the tape. They had wonderful stories. One woman wanted a dub of the tape and I didn't have it done it time and she broke into tears about it, which I thought was odd and overwhelming and she said, you don't understand my ex-husband is in Coeur d'Alene and he is dying of cancer and without that tape he doesn't see his son play football. I was overwhelmed. I didn't know, but it does touch the public and if we are out there shooting the football games, if we are shooting city events the people in Meridian see where their money is going and I think that it's appreciated when they see that this football game or this city advantage was brought to them by the City of Meridian and the schools don't have to pay for it out of their own very limited budget. So, we have the 30 cents that would be an ongoing fee, 30 cents of subscriber and that would be $21,000 a year coming to the station to cover capital, upkeep on the van and upkeep of the facility itself. Our facility is located on 6225 W. Overland. It's a communion media center and Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November e, 2004 Page 4 of 21 even now anyone from Meridian can come down there and for $40 a year they can get a half an hour airtime and make their own television. We have a full- fledged studio, three editing bays and field cameras that we train people to use and the people of Meridian can go out and use this facility. Obviously this facility is not (inaudible) sustaining at $40 a year. k's the view of the board and the people that run this station that public access has to be cheap to the people at all times. They have to have access to the airwaves or for us there is no democracy, but it's not public access if we charge what it would cost. So, we need the cities in the Treasure Valley to help support this like they would support a library, so the people here in Meridian can come out there and use that. What else we are going to ask from the City of Meridian is 10 percent ongoing of your franchise fee. This is operating expense for us. It comes to $15,000 and this would hire an employee part time for us to one come out and shoot the football games, come out and do the City Council games and also help us out at the facility. So, that is our general proposal for this right now. But, are there any questions I could answer? Bird: Council any questions? Rountree: Mr. President. Bird: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: You indicated there are currently 65,000 cable subscribers — Chris: That's throughout the Treasure Valley. Rountree: How many in Meridian, do you know? Chris: I think its 7,000 — a little over 7,000 is what Meridian has through Cable One. Rountree: Thank you. Bird: Any other questions? If not, I have got a question for her. You say football games — are you involved with the Channel 17 that does already telecast our football games and stuff like that? Chris: That's Cable One this year. They bid that out to the school. It's the school district of Boise that's paying for that this year. I am not sure what their deal is. They negotiated with Cable One for that I am not sure if it will happen again if Cable One can't tum it into a profit. They might do it, just as outreach, but if it doesn't — if it's not a profitable venture for them 1 am not sure that they will do it again, but we did it the year before for the Boise School District. They did it this year. Meridian city Pre -council Meeting November 9, 2004 Page 5 of 21 Bird: Thank you. Donnell: Mr. President. Bird: Ms. Donnell. Donnell: A couple of questions. First of all this is start up fees that you talked about, but there is ongoing expense and that will be ongoing expense to the city. Chris: The ongoing expense to the city would be ten percent of the franchise fee. Donnell: So, when that grows that also grows? Chris: Yes. Donnell: I also noticed in a letter that you have sent previously that there wouldn't be a need to determine where the — and I don't know much about fiber optics, but the city hall would have to be wired, Is that what you were talking about —? Chris: To go live. You have to have the fiber optic wiring. The City of Boise it was fairly dose to them and they brought it into their city hall and there is two reasons for you to — first you have to find out the closest fiber optic is and second I know you are thinking about moving and that would be too expensive if you are going to move it. It's also something you could plan on if you are building a new city hall, you could plan on adding the — bringing the fiber optics in as part of the expense and maybe at that time adding your own remote system in and it ran about $55,000 for Boise and that included the fiber optic. But, I did talk to Linda Roach who is Executive Director at Cable One in Boise and she said it all depends on how far away it is and what the cost would be for the City of Meridian. Donnell: Mr. President, follow up? Bird: Ms. Donnell. Donnell: Am I to understand this right. You are not a part of Cable One? You are separate from Cable One? Chris: Yeah, we are non-profit television station; we are ran by a board of about 11 people right now and we have actually only one full time employee and two part times and volunteers that keep the station running. Donnell: And so your non-profit status is that — that allows you to write for grants? Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 9, 2004 Page 6 of 21 Chris: We do write for grants. We haven't had a lot of successful grant writing. We have had a few successes and we hope to find more equipment grants, but there are a Jot of good causes out there besides freedom of speech and so we are up against those same type grant writings. Donnell: So, did you say there were 11 staff members? Chris: No, there is only one full time and two part times. Equivalent of two staff members at the station right now. We come on air at 5:00 every night. We run our first straight programming through till eleven. Then we bring in — we have a city bulletin board we run where we have community events, things like that. We bring in satellite programming the arch channels things like that through the night and its seven the next morning we rerun everything that ran the night before so everything gets aired twice. Donnell: Another question Mr. President. Bird: Go ahead Ms. Donnell. Donnell: By the time I say that, I almost forget what my question is. I am so used to just blurting it out. Have you done any kind of survey to find out actually what your viewer -ship is or whatever that word is? Chris: Well, we are trying to work something out with Cable One right now to mail out our survey in their envelopes, which they are willing to do if we get — to pay for one, we just don't have that kind of income. Most stations do surveys to sell commercials, which we do not do. We are nonprofit, noncommercial; no one can sell anything on the station. But, it would be nice to have numbers and if we can find a nice inexpensive way to do that, definitely we are trying to that and we are trying to work out something this fall with Cable One, so they will mail them and people mail back to us. Nary: Mr. President. Bird: Mr. Nary. Nary: Just to give the Council, Mayor a little more information. 1 did talk to the Finance Department about what the franchise fees that we currently collect have been on the Cable One contract and last year it was approximately $81,000. So, just so you know what that number was and to at least echo some of the comments that were on the screen, I know in Boise they have had a significant number of folks respond that they have watched this program and do try to keep up. Now of course part of that is because it's live, I mean that certainly helps that, but I would concur with what was said in that that there was quite a bit of viewer -ship that they do have from Cable. Meridian city Pre -Council Meeting November 9, 2004 Page 7 of 21 Chris: I will agree, the City of Boise was I would say a tad reluctant. They didn't want to be on television. What if they said something inappropriate, but it was a producer at our station, just an independent Boise resident who wanted to go down and shoot the City Council meeting and he started doing it and that's totally his right and privilege and then he would use his airtime to air it and the city started getting such a huge response at that point they agreed to spend $55,000 to put in camera equipment to get a little nicer look on their shoots because just one camera aired two days later, every Thursday night, they just started getting major response that they thought it was worth paying for. So, I know they couldn't be more pleased and neither could we. It's part of our mission statement — we are public access right now, but really we want to be PEG, which is public, educational and government. One of the things we want the City of Meridian to do is ask cable for a second channel for us to operate and that would also separate our government shows from our public shows as you can guess our public shows are just anyone who comes off in training, it can be anything they have to say so long as they are not breaking the law that they say, but there are also sometimes lower quality productions, things like this and the government, I know, would just be a huge help for the government to — even though we would be from the same station, have a separate channel for them. It separates them from the public and gives them a little more leeway so they are not tied into everybody's public opinion. So, that is one of the things we are extremely and in the end we want three channels. One for public, one for education and one for government. That is our dream for the Treasure Valley and we want to service the City of Meridian, Caldwell, Nampa and we want to be the Treasure Valley's station and use to our fullest potential. At this point we are only three years old and I don't think people have even come close to tapping the potential of the station. It all takes money, but it can definitely be used a lot better than it is now. Wardle: Mr. President. Bird: Mr. Wardle. Wardle: If an option to go live were in place, how would you decide which of the City Council meetings were to be live? Chris: Well, first of all we loved to have a second channel and then we wouldn't have to, but eventually it's going to have to be first come, first served. But, that's what we hope to, you know, not have to say that just yet and we would love to do three channels, three live. Is it the whole Treasure Valley that does Tuesday night? Am I close in assuming that the City Council meetings are Tuesdays? De Weerd: Mondays and Tuesdays. Chris: Okay, well that might help us with some right there and spread that out a little bit more. Meridian City Pre-Councl Meeting November 9, 2004 Page 8 of 21 Bird: Any other questions? Madame Mayor? De Weerd: No, Mr. President. I guess we have heard on what they would like from us, but I would like you to expend a little bit more on your vision on the education component and how you see that best utilized, in particular, if you go valley wide. Chris: if we go valley wide, I know that a lot of public access stations have a lot more educational program and they bring in satellites and this way a school or a teacher could program through a satellite through us, a specific program that she wants her kids to see in class. She can call us. We can rearrange it, set it up and then Tuesday at 10:00 this program is going to air in her classroom, she just has to tum to Channel 11 and she can view it. Things like this and the footballs games, things like this to reach out through the community with educational sports, kids programming, this is what the education view I see is the schools viewing this a lot better. I would love to have the morning menus on there, the kids' — this is what's going in our school. I would love to see a little 15, 20 -minute show from each school. They have these little radio — most of them are closed circuit with little cameras and they already do a little T.V. show at most high schools, this is what's going on, this is our bulletin board, this is what's on lunch. I would love to take that to air too. De Weerd: Follow up, Mr. President. Bird: Go ahead, Mayor. De Weerd: You had also mentioned training that you could do cross training. Chris: This would be a great governmental use. I was thinking that 1 know a city down in Santa Rosa and there Fire Department uses their public access and a group of men came down and tried to use the equipment, which may sound over their head, but its not. They loved it. They all trained to run the equipment and camera and like a couple times a month they'll come into their station, they will do a training live and all the other stations just have to tune into that channel and watch the training. This was a huge expense saver for the Fire Department because usually they have to go around from station to station and repeat the training for every man at every station. This way they only did one training, everyone watched on television, the training was done and she just thought it was a great way use of our public access channel. So, that was another one. Bird: Any more Mayor? Council what is your pleasure? I think we need to think on this and do some checking myself before I am ready to even think about it real serious. How about the rest of you? Rountree: I'd be there. Meridian city Pre -council Meeting November 9, 2004 Page 9 of 21 Bird: Well, thank you very much for coming. We will get back to you. Chris: Thank you. Maybe we could bring a camera down a couple times and shoot it and you could see how much feedback you get. Item 4. Discussion of North Meridian Area Plan: Canning: I have forgotten to do one thing, sorry. I have a slide coming up that has some of these talking points, but I will go ahead and start. We did meet with ACHD staff regarding the open end condition in the North Meridian area stating that if such time as there was a condition put on the North Meridian area plan that those developments that were in that area would comply with that. There has been discussion, as you know back and forth as to what that may mean. At the last joint meeting you had with ACHD staff started to come up with a couple ideas of what maybe we could do regarding intersections and right of way (inaudible) and working within the capital improvement projects, so we did get together with ACHD staff and what we decided was kind of two things. One would be that the capital improvement plan will begin updating at about one year and that isn't a one-year process, so its a three-year cycle. We have kind of been in a dead year for the last year and then they will start up again and have one in a couple of years. But, in that capital improvement plan, we should get better demographics, reflecting what's going on in the Meridian area, particularly the north Meridian area. That's been a lot of the issue is that COMPASS projections just miss the mark on what was going to happen in that north Meridian area. Then once we get the better demographics that means they can funnel more funding to that area. One of the things that is going to be different in this new capital improvement plan is that they will put in intersections, not just roadways, but actually the intersection analysis and by improving the intersections, they are not going to — its going to put off the need for the additional lanes on the roadways, so there is going to be two things. There is intersection analysis as well as roadway analysis. That should enable a lot more projects in kind of a better ranking of those projects based on need because they are separated rather than being put together. So, that should be another way that we could get to some of these intersection improvements that are needed in our North Meridian area. Then regarding right of way, by putting the intersections in as a separate item, if they get those intersection improvements done it pushes off the, as I said before, pushes off the need for additional lanes, which means less right of way, which means they are requiring less right of way over time, so it does seem to be kind of a win, win doing it that way. Also, we talked about putting sidewalks in easements, not in the right of way. As you know, we require for the residential subdivisions on the arterials, we do require a detached sidewalk and sometimes it meanders in and out of the right of way; a lot of times it's not in the right of way at all. What ACHD would like to do is just require those to be an easements, since we do have the large landscape buffers and that also minimizes some of the need — the money they have to spend to acquire right of way and as a side line to that, it's not directly related, but we have Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 9, 2004 Page 10 of 21 also discussed as part of the code revisions that right now that five feet of pathway you have — it doesn't count in your landscape buffer, so like if your landscape buffer, your street buffer is 25 feet, right now it means that really you have to do 25 feet plus the 5 foot for the sidewalk, so it's 30 feet from the edge of right of way to the fence line, basically. One of the things that we did talk about was for that any street buffer that was larger than 10 feet we kind of waived that requirement that that be an additional five feet. So, that's kind of a win, win also. ACHD isn't having to expend as much money, we get our detached sidewalks, the developers are giving up less land. They get to call it theirs instead of right of ways, so that was another win, win. The last one that may need a little further refinement as time goes on, but we did ask that during the development review process if ACHD could give us a little better ideas of how those intersections relate just to the improvements that we are asking for in the City of Meridian. Right now they have got a list of 100 intersections throughout the county that they look at and those are all ranked. So, the Meridian ones might be 7, 49, 56, 99 you know there is a long list for the county as a whole and we said well what if you were able to tell us okay of all the Meridian intersections that we know you are interested in, this pops up as number two. This is an important one for the City of Meridian, now it might be 49 on their list, but at least going into the Council hearing, you all will know that this is an important intersection for you and that may influence what you want to do during a request for annexation during a development agreement. Maybe there are things we can negotiate as far as those intersections improvements. If you all know how that intersection relates to the ones that we are looking at for the City of Meridian as a whole. Then they would also give you an idea of whether that intersection warrants signalization. So, there are many of them on our list that don't meet the warrants for a signal and so they would give us that information as well during the development review process. This would require some cumulative analysis on their parts, so I think that that's the part that maybe we need to work on refining, but they seemed willing to start looking at that and address those issues. So, that's what staff has come up with. 1 can answer questions and also Gary Inselman from ACHD and he can fill in any blanks I may have left or answer any additional questions. Bird: Thanks Anna. Any questions for Anna or Gary? De Weerd: Mr. President. Bird: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess my concern continues to be in the timeframe and we are talking two years. There is a lot of building permits. I went to an economic forecast this morning and all the activities going on in North Meridian area and could be built out in two years. We will still need intersection improvements. I don't know. I guess I'd almost like to see us go to the developers. I know ACHD has their hands tied with how they have to plan with their capital improvement and their 20 -year work plan. But, how we can find maybe out of the box Meridian City Pro-Counch Meeting November 9, 2004 Page 11 of 21 solutions with the development community to get those intersection improvements more timely than they are even listed on rank and file order in the list. You know, 49 on a rural intersection that's been slammed with 200 new homes, just doesn't give it a whole lot of priority and a long list of it. Then in this North Meridian area was supposed to be more specific in looking at the area and not as it fits in the county, but as it fits in that area. Canning: Madame Mayor, President Bird and that's what the last item was trying to get at. We recognized that the City of Meridian has a lot more flexibility than ACHD does. I mean, ACHD really — the only way that they can work is through the capital improvement plan. That was the hope on the development review stuff is that would be immediate. That would be information that they could start giving right away, not right of way. That would be our opportunity to say okay we know this is an issue; here is the problem, when those developers come that want to do projects that are going to use those intersections then we have that tool to negotiate something to work out of the box to use that or leverage that however we might. Not to say we couldn't do other things. De Weerd: So, how would that work with our open condition? Canning: Madame Mayor as far as I — to my knowledge that open condition there is nothing we can do with it. De Weerd: Well then let's get it off of there. Canning: Okay. Bird: Council any other questions? Rountree: Well, I would just reflect the same concerns, Mr. President, that the Mayor did in terms of times. De Weerd: Mr. President. Bird: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess just one last thing I would ask that our attorney look at it and see if there is anything we can do. When we went into those conditions, it was with the anticipation that something would happen with at least the intersection improvements. I think that was the expectation that we even communicated out to the development community and before we just totally delete this — because I mean if there is nothing we can do with it we need to get it out of there. But, I would like a black and white answer on this. Can we do something? Because that was certainly the intention during — when we placed those findings on there that we would have something in form of how we can get a better flow of traffic in that area of town that 1 would just like to make sure that legally before we delete Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 8, 2004 Page 12 of 21 this condition that there's no hope talking to the original developers direction they are coming from too. to put something in there. Maybe its even who were working with us to find out the Bird: l agree with you Madame Mayor. I am sure the attorney can do that. I thought that's what we had the North Meridian Plan for and the developers did buy in with it and I thought so did ACRD, but evidently we get different views from every different person. We have got to be consistent. I feel that if we are not consistent we are in trouble and I think we are in trouble. Because I am like you and Charlie I think it's going to develop and pass us by. Any other questions or statements, Council? Thanks Anna, very much. Canning: Can I add one statement to the last discussion? Bird: Yes, go ahead. Canning: If — and I have to admit that most of the advice regarding the open end condition has come from ACRD, since they are the road people, so if the city attorney has some ideas, it's not that planning staff is trying to dodge work, I just am not aware of anything that could be done. Bird: Thank you, Anna. We are not in anyway implying that. Item S. Discussion of Storm Water Drainage Ponds: Canning: At the same meeting we also had a good discussion on storm water drainage, although I think there is some issues that we need guidance from the City Council on as well as we probably need to have it discussed during a joint meeting, but I am going to throw these up here for your consideration at this time. There were two things that we need. One would be kind of an understanding of what we are getting as far as what kind of landscape plan and then tied to that would be the maintenance. So, the first thing is that we need to know what we are approving and then we'd go ahead and maintain it. What we have been — we being planning staff have been advocating stone water drainages and that they do comply with the street buffer requirements, meaning that they provide the full width of the street buffer in the area, the one tree per 35 feet and then some sort of low maintenance ground cover. Now it doesn't have to be a sod, it could be a fescue or it could be shrubs, but some sort of ground cover that would eventually be easy for the Parks Department to maintain as — I'll get to that in a little bit. Then internally, some sort of vegetation. ACRD is by and large been proposing dry land grasses, which most of the year they look like weeds, but it would be low maintenance. It is vegetation that is holding that dirt in place. Then the one tree per 8,000 square feet, which is our standard landscaping requirements for subdivision open space or residential open space. Then to adhere to the other storm water drainage (inaudible) standards, which are the slopes primarily, the use of rocks, things like that. Now, if they were to meet those standards, staff Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 9, 2004 Page 13 of 21 feels that you wouldn't need to do a land use buffer around them. But, if they are not meeting those standards and they are more of a constructed facility whether it's a lot of concrete and if it looks like an industrial facility then we probably need to have some sort of land use buffer, which would be more like the street buffer requirements where we have got some screening and things like that. So, that's the planning staffs suggestion is to what these plans should look like, that's what we have been advocating. The one that is going in on Locust Grove and Franklin would meet these standards. The one that went in on Overland and Meridian is not meeting these standards, so there is the kind of the difference in what they look like and actually Steve Siddoway met with ACHD earlier today to talk about the one on Meridian and Overland and you will probably be hearing about that I think. I don't think ACHD left very happy, but that's staffs ideas on those and this has been talked about. I think this is probably the first time it's been written down for ACHD to see and then regarding the maintenance, if we agreed to the plan, the Parks Director has said he would be happy to send someone out there to maintain and all he asks is that City Council remember that during budget time and that's the discussions we have had now, so its just to date that would be it. It does represent the more of these that we take on for maintenance; it does represent an obligation by the city or by the Parks Department on behalf of the city to maintain these. I think ACHD indicated that they don't anticipate a lot of I think it was just one more regional facility such as the one that is going in at Locust Grove and Franklin. The smaller ones would probably be just within the subdivisions and maintained by those homeowners. Bird: Council any questions for Anna? Rountree: Mr. President I have a couple. Bird: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Just to get a sense of fairness here. When the City of Meridian develops a parcel, say one of our Parks doing up paying impact fee? Canning: You mean to ACHD? Rountree: Yes. Canning: The Parks Director is indicating that we do. Rountree: That confirms what I thought. I know of only one entity in the State of Idaho that is exempt with complying with zoning and/or ordinances of local entity and its not ACHD, so I guess if they are developing these facilities in the City of Meridian, they are not exempt from our landscape requirements, nor am I of the opinion they are exempt from maintaining and operating those facilities. Particularly in light of Meridian having (inaudible) other half of the fairness pay impact fees when we are developing our own property another governmental Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 9, 2004 Page 14 of 21 entity in this particular area. So, the comments I have seen from ACHD in writing that why are we paying the — why isn't the City of Meridian overjoyed to take these things on? I think they need to take a look at themseives and I guess that's my opinion on this particular matter. I don't see any room for negotiation at this point. I think that if they need drainage facilities, that's part of the road — their roads have to meet their standards and I think they also have to meet the community standards and as such they need to bear those costs. We are having to meet their standards with our facilities. We are having to pay impact fees as well. So, I guess when you balance it all, I think — I mean I understand their budgetary plate, but Meridian's not overrun with buckets of money either. I agree maybe we ought to sit down and talk about it, but when we got a level playing field then I am going to be more willing to listen to it. Having said that — Bird: I couldn't have said it better, Charlie. I agree word for word and I think it is time that we do sit down and they are going to charge us impact fees — I don't know why we jump so fast to take on the maintenance stuff. You know good and well that some of these means hiring new people, having other equipment. We pay our share of impact fee to them when we develop a park and I am like Charlie, I think we need — that's something that really needs to be talked out between the two entities. Any other? De Weerd: Mr. President. Bird: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess I appreciate staff trying to find a good middle ground here. The areas that we are talking about are highly visible and they are in entry corridors and they leave a lasting impression, in my opinion and on our city not necessarily it is not signed that this is an ACHD facility that looks really bad. I do understand your concern. I share that myself because come budget time I know what the request will be. So, maybe and we did ask that these two items that we had a chance to discuss it here before — (Tape turned over) De Weerd: — in a joint session with ACRD, but perhaps something that Doug can also do in between this time and when we get together in a joint session is come up with what that maintenance would cost. Maybe even find an agreement between the city and ACHD because they are not maintainers of landscaping and I don't think they necessarily need to enter into that business. But, if we can offer it at a reasonable cost that we can also recognize that this is a visual anesthetic that we would like that would be an amenity to our community, I think it's something that we can also come back with to them with. Rountree: Mr. President. Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 9, 2004 Page 15 of 21 Bird: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: You know I think if we are asking more in lines of amenities than we have a responsibility to look at taking on what ACHD would not normally take on and in terms of long-term maintenance I haven't seen a willingness, but I would hope there is a willingness that we could work out maintenance arrangements, but on a lump sum basis, not on a it's on (inaudible) a dying kind of a basis and I think that way our tax payers are getting a fair deal spread around. Wardle: Mr. President. Bird: Mr. Wardle. Wardle: I would agree with Councilman Rountree's earlier statements as well as his last statements in the fact that right now regardless of the cost to maintain these facilities, I am not willing to step out and say let's do it regardless of whatever the cost is. For me its more of a taxation issue for the citizens and I agree that we make everyone else in the community follow standards and the Highway District makes us follow their standards when we develop our property, so I am not sure that we should jump out and take this on without further review. Rountree: Mr. President. Bird: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I have a question for Doug. Are other cities — or Gary or whatever, are other cities in ACHD's area of influence being asked or being required to maintain drainage facilities. Strong: Mr. President, Councilman Rountree I am not sure of that, but I do know that the City of Boise maintains landscape quarters along the connector and areas like that and you will see their parked trucks (inaudible) maintain — so some kind of an agreement in place with the City of Boise to maintain those areas. As a point of clarification I thought this is a very good discussion because what's in front of us is we received an agreement from ACHD that for our review and the decision to sign it to maintain these drainage areas, there is no signature on an agreement yet, so this very timely discussion and 1 think it's a decision that both the city and ACHD wants to make so we know how to go forward. Both sides of the discussion has been presented very well and there is benefits both ways. The impact of the maintenance would fall upon our department, so we look at it as something that we can do, but it would probably impact operating dollars, at least minimally; with a seasonal worker or someone that would have to go out and maintain the area on occasion. Bird: Thank you. Mayor, you will see before we meet with them that we will have some kind of an idea from the Park's Department on cost? Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 9, 2004 Page 16 of 21 De Weerd: Yes, Mr. President. Doug, if you could pull together some estimates of what it would cost staff time, so when we have this discussion with the Commission, we have those numbers in front of us. And, if maybe during staff presentation of this, if you can tell us if you have similar agreements, Gary, with other municipalities similar to that we would appreciate that information as well. Okay? Bird: Thank you. Okay, any others on this? Mr. Clerk? Berg: Mr. President just to remind you that meeting is one week from tonight. It will start at 5:30 here at our Council Chambers. Bird: Thank you Mr. Clerk. Item 6. Discussion of EMS District: De Weerd: Mr. President I guess — Kenny did you want to introduce this? Do you want me to just go ahead and introduce Don? Bowers: That would be fine. De Weerd: Mr. President Don Alloway is with us tonight he is the chair of the blue ribbon EMS task force that the commission had put together and he and Kenny and I met last week to discuss the petition that is out there regarding EMS District that i think we briefly discussed prior to this meeting and I appreciated many of the comments that Mr. Alloway had shared with us and some of his concerns in the 12 recommendations that the task force brought and just wanted to provide a little bit more information about the dissolving of the district and recreating it and some of those items. Mow did I do Don? Alloway: Thank you Madame Mayor, Mr. President, Council members. My name is Don Alloway and I did serve as the chair to the Ada County Blue Ribbon Task Force on emergency medical services. There were ten of us that served some seven months and attended 54 hours of meetings, took public testimony for eight hours. My personal library is over 2,000 pages of testimony and materials and throughout this period of time, our initial charge was to review the provision for emergency medical services in Ada County and the only guidelines that we had was that we were not invited to bring forth any recommendation that would create a system that would give (inaudible) service to the citizens of Ada County and the second charge was that we were not to bring forth any recommendations that would create a system that would put the service providers in more harm than they already were in and these are fair sideboards to put on a task force. As a result of hours of studying consideration we came up with 17 recommendations and presented them to the County Commissioners on May 27, 2004. In the final report that looked like this, one of those recommendations the task force was Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 9, 2004 Page 18 of 21 need an ambulance service, so the petition is a correct thing to do and I urge you to show up at the hearing on December 7"' and support it. What I am also going to do at that hearing is urge that the County Commission do something other than they have indicated they are thinking of doing. They talked to the media yesterday in connection with the petition that I presented and indicated that they might have to raise taxes to the full .4 mil levee. Right now the levee is at .1227 mils, which in round dollars gives tax revenues for ambulance service of about 2 'A million dollars. If we set a levee at .2 mils in round numbers that will give us $4 million or a $1.5 million more than we have, I think that is more than adequate to do what we need. If we set it at 4 mils that gives revenues $8 million. $5.5 million more than they currently have to offset a short fall of a $1.4 million and to do whatever else they wish to do and one of the problems that personally I saw and this is my personal opinion, I believe there is a lot of competition between firefighters and paramedics over the provision of medical services. I think there is territories that are being staked out and are trying to be protective and at the time that we produced our final report, each of the task force members had the opportunity to add comments to the 17 recommendations. Many of us did. If anybody had a comment, it got attached verbatim to the report and they are all in the report and it was my comment that I believe that Ada County EMS had a minimum of $600,000 in waste in their existing budget. Since that time, Ada County EMS has brought forth an emergency medical services coverage enhancement plan that was disclosed to the Mayor's at a meeting with the Mayor's and the County Commissioners last month that I attended and briefed them on the EMS and that particular enhancement program creates five additional ambulances with single paramedic. The program says that they are transport capable ambulances. The program doesn't indicate that they have been given orders not to transport and that they are simply another unit responding. That program costs about $1.25 million in salaries alone every year and doesn't transport one more patient to the hospital. I plan to go to the public hearing on December 7t" and I plan to encourage the Commission to dissolve the ambulance taxing district and to create a new one and to create it with a level that is adequate for the funding of the ambulance district and I personally believe that that level is around .2 mils and I also plan to encourage the County Commissioners to fully implement all 15 of those recommendations. One of the big cost savings recommendations that we made was to utilize our existing resources in the community. The biggest of those resources are our firefighters and the fire halls and equipment and your chief as did every other chief in Ada County offered their facilities for use by Ada County EMS, sometimes without cost, sometimes with minimal cost and so far a lot of that has been rejected. A good example, Kuna Fire Department operates an ambulance. They are not allowed to transport patients without an Ada County paramedic. Ada County has a full time, 24-hour paramedic and a chase car, a Chevy Suburban that follows the ambulance down the road. If the patient needs transporting the paramedic rides in the ambulance and the firemen, if they only need one technician in the back of the ambulance the firemen drives the chase car back. The cost of that to Ada County EMS is about a quarter of a million dollars per year. They have four Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 9, 2004 Page 19 of 21 employees that they have to hire to staff it 24 hours a day, plus benefits, plus the cost of the Chevy Suburban and operating it to with no purpose other than to follow the ambulance. I talked to the chief of Kuna Fire Protection District and he said that they would be more than happy to train paramedics and place them in their ambulance if they could get 90 percent of the tax revenues that come from their district to help support them, something between $70,000 and $90,000. So, instead of spending a quarter of a million dollars that they could spend $70,000 or $90,000 by sharing their revenues and allowing the Fire Department to participate. This is an example of the type of utilization of resources that we need to do and I am hear today to enlist your help in showing up at the public hearing on December 7'N and acting publicly and privately to our County Commission, urging them to go ahead and adopt an ambulance taxing district with an appropriate levee, but make it appropriate and not the maximum and conditioning that with their adhering to the recommendations of the task force, all of which I believe have real value to the emergency medical care of all of the citizens of Ada County including those of Meridian. I would be happy to answer any questions that anyone might have. Bird: Council, Mayor any questions? De Weerd: Mr. President. Bird: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: In discussing with Mr. Alloway, 1 guess I did not realize that our co - location of an ambulance would be a non -transport situation and rather than find creative ways to improve the situation it does get a paramedic onto the scene, but it still is a terrible duplication of service to our tax payer in that we now send one fire truck and two ambulances to the same scene and still would take one of our firefighters out of service to help with that. So, I do know we will need to talk further before we enter into the agreement on the co -location so we all understand what service we will be providing our citizens and making sure that we are improving it and leveraging our tax payer dollar rather than multiplying it. Bird: Madame Mayor I agree with you and we meant with them over at the fire station, nothing was said that that wasn't going to be a transport ambulance and you not only tie up one fireman, you tie up the whole crew because they go in to picking up — have to go pick the fireman up. So, I hope everybody can make it out the 7th and listen. I was fortunate enough to sit on two or three of the task force meetings and they did a great job and got to go over the results and they — out of consideration a lot of work went into that and there is a lot of good ideas that need to be implemented. Alloway: Mr. President, Madame Mayor if I could respond to that, too. To simply get a paramedic on the scene faster, you could train your firefighters for probably $45,000 a year in additional salary to get the paramedic there earlier there than Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 9, 2004 Page 20 of 21 the ambulance could come. It costs a quarter of a million dollars to staff a single paramedic ambulance, plus the cost of the equipment and state law prohibits transport of patients without a paramedic or an EMT in the back with the patient. So, a single person ambulance could not by statute be a transport vehicle. So, there are ways to do it. Having said that, I would certainly hope the Fire Department is not forced or does not take the stand to act independently. At several of our recommendations are recommended and integrated system where we utilize all of our resources, but operate under a unified medical directorship and with unified or common standing orders in single training program because the doctors emergency rooms stressed that if they knew exactly what's going to happen to the patient before the patient gets to the emergency room, they could be better prepared to save lives. Rountree: Mr. President. Bird: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I just wanted to express my appreciation for all the work you and your Blue Ribbon Committee did. With what I have read and what you have presented tonight you are asking the right questions and bringing forth the right recommendations and I know how tough it is to sit through that many hours of meetings and that many hours of hearings and then have to digest it all and come up with some reason, but great job and I hope as you have directed us that Ada County Commissioners can review that information and come to a reasoned decision before they impose a 30 percent increase in taxes to the tax payers without particular good direction at this point from at least what I have heard from the media. De Weerd: Mr. President. Bird: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess what I would like to do is perhaps work with out attorney and draft a letter of response from our city regarding the proposal and the petition in particular and voice some of that in writing prior to the hearing and would certainly appreciate any of the Council members that could join me at that hearing to provide testimony. That's not on a Council day is it? Donnell: It is. De Weerd: Well, I guess our letter would have to suffice it as well as our staff there. Bird: ON no. That's the one we are not going to have Meridian City Pre -Council Meeting November 9, 2004 Page 21 of 21 De Weerd: Oh, that's right. Well, I won't be there. I would appreciate if any of you could attend then. We will work on drafting a letter for all of the signatures of our elected officials. Bird: Thank you. Any more Council? If not, I would entertain a motion to adjourn as our agenda is finished. Donnell: So moved. Rountree: Second. Bird: It's been moved and seconded to adjourn. All in favor say aye. ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:15 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: /l , 231 o 4� T MM ER DATE APPROVED 1101,1, of 2� OR4 ATTESTED. � A SEAL - WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., C— K ��