HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-02-12Meridian City Council Workshop February 12, 2019.
A Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 3:01 p.m., Tuesday,
February 12, 2019, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Members Present: Tammy De Weerd, Joe Borton, Luke Cavener, Ty Palmer, Genesis
Milam, Anne Little Roberts and Treg Bernt.
Also present: C.Jay Coles, Bill Nary, Caleb Hood, Warren Stewart, Jeff Lavey, Scott
Colaianni, Jamie Leslie, Joe Bongiorno, Hillary Blackstone, and Dean Willis.
Item 1: Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X__ Anne Little Roberts X _ _Joe Borton
X__ Ty Palmer X__ Treg Bernt
__X___Genesis Milam __X___Lucas Cavener
__X_ Mayor Tammy de Weerd
De Weerd: Thank you for joining us today and we always appreciate seeing our public
show up for our workshops, let alone our City Council meetings. So, thank you for joining
us. For the record it is Tuesday, February 12th. It's a minute after 3:00. We will start with
roll call attendance, Mr. Clerk.
Item 2: Pledge of Allegiance
De Weerd: Item No. 2 is the Pledge of Allegiance. If you all rise and join us in the Pledge
to our flag.
(Pledge of Allegiance recited.)
Item 3: Adoption of Agenda
De Weerd: Okay. Item No. 3 is adoption of the agenda.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: There are no changes to the agenda, so I would move we adopt it as published.
Cavener: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda. All those in favor say
aye. All ayes.
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MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 4: Proclamation for Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America
(FCCLA) Week
De Weerd: Item 4 -- and I apologize, I'm a little bit under the weather, so, Mr. Borton, our
Council President, is going to read the proclamation. If we can have our guests join us
at the podium.
Borton: Good afternoon. My name is Joe Borton, the Council President. It's my honor
to read this proclamation today. Whereas Family Career and Community Leaders of
America, FCCLA, helps youth assume their roles in society through family and consumer
sciences education in areas of personal growth, family life, vocational preparation, college
readiness, leadership and community involvement and whereas FCCLA extends
classroom learning through chapter projects that develop leadership and initiative and
helps young men and women, learn how to plan , make decisions and carry out and
evaluate programs of action as they work with other youth and adults in their school and
their community and whereas FCCLA offers members an opportunity to work together for
common purposes for the improvement of themselves, their families and their
communities and whereas the theme for the 2019 FCCLA week is Believe In Yourself, Be
Spirited, Be Confident, Be Prepared, Be A Friend, Be You in red and whereas Meridian
encourages the young men and women who are working to achieve knowledge and
experience that will help prepare them for future responsibilities as active and concerned
adult members of society, therefore, I, Joe Borton, on behalf of Mayor Tammy de Weerd
and our entire City Council, do hereby proclaim February 11th -- excuse me, February
11 th through 15th, 2019, as FCCLA week in the City of Meridian and we encourage all
citizens to acquaint themselves with the activities and values of Family Career and
Community Leaders of America, dated the 12th of February, 2019.
Harlow: Hi, my name is Carissa Harlow, I'm president of the FCCLA Meridian High
Chapter. This is Averie Ellis and Riley Conners and we are just -- Mailee Connors. And
we are just so excited to be here today. We want to thank Mayor de Weerd for letting us
be here and FCCLA is an organization for students ran by students, with a focus of family,
consumer sciences, where we serve the community and gain life skills and so it's super
important that we are here and celebrating FCCLA and spreading it to high school
students. So, thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you for joining us and certainly we have had exposure to FCCLA and
always a dynamic group and you can see they are full of energy and we appreciate you
joining us.
Item 5: Consent Agenda
A. Woodland Springs Partial Release of Water and Sewer
Easement
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B. Little Creek Subdivision No. 1 & 2 Pedestrian Pathway
Easement
C. Development Agreement for TM Crossing Expansion (H-2018-
0122) with SCS Brighton, LLC located on the East of S. Ten Mile
Rd. on the north side of 1-84, in the SW 1/4 of Section 14,
T.3N., R. 1 W. (Parcel #R7192800750)
D. AP Invoices for Payment - $525,105.83
De Weerd: Item No. 5 is our Consent Agenda.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener. Pinch hit for our president. I move we pass the -- I move we
approve the Consent Agenda as presented.
Milam: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda. If there is no
discussion or questions, Mr. Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll call: Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea; Little Roberts, yea; Bernt,
yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 6: Items Moved From the Consent Agenda
De Weerd: There were no items move from the Consent Agenda.
Item 7: Community Items/Presentations
A. Traffic, Parking and Speeding Concerns in Paramount
Subdivision
De Weerd: So, we will move right into our Community Items Presentations. So, we will
start with 7-A under our traffic parking and speeding concerns in the Paramount
Subdivision and I will turn this over to Caleb.
Hood: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. I'm going to just set a little
bit of the stage for you, a little bit of the background and history on this project. Joan
Sader with -- in Paramount Subdivision actually has a presentation she would like to give
you. But, again, just a little bit of background. During the October 1st Meridian
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Transportation Commission meeting Nick Rhode, another resident in Paramount
Subdivision, addressed the Transportation Commission regarding his concerns about
living in close proximity to Rocky Mountain High School. Most of his concerns -- concerns
revolved around parking, trash being left by students within the neighborhood and
speeding. At the end of that discussion the Transportation Commission voted to
recommend to you that you consider creating a residential parking district . This
recommendation was carried forward, but during that meeting late last fall the Mayor
directed Chief Lavey to meet with neighbors to explore other options besides that
residential parking district. That neighborhood meeting was held on Wednesday, January
30th at City Hall. There were approximately 25 people present, including Paramount
residents, members of the Police Department, including the chief, the school resource
officer for Rocky Sergeant Arnold and, then, members of the Transportation Commission,
principal -- the principal of Rocky and other city staff. A general consensus from that
meeting was reached and John Wasson from Ada County Highway District was also
present at that meeting and is here this afternoon. What the general consensus was is
that ACHD would install additional limited duration no parking signs on some additional
blocks within Paramount and I'm having some technical difficulties actually showing this
on the screen. The area. Let me -- let me pull this up and it won't -- I don't have a red
arrow, because it's hidden right now by this bar. But there will be additional limited
duration no parking signs installed on additional blocks within Paramount Subdivision.
So, again, Rocky Mountain High School is here and, then, lot -- and there is already
restricted parking on a couple of blocks within the subdivision , but extend that further,
deeper into the subdivision to help curb some of the parking concerns anyways. No
decision or consensus was reached, however, regarding traffic calming options, including
stop signs, pedestrian striping and signage or trash concerns. I will note Rocky somewhat
recently installed a garbage can on their side of the fence where the micro path
connection exists to a lot in Paramount. We did discuss that janitorial staff needs to dump
that a little bit more often, because it's being used and overflows and, then, the wind picks
it up and blows it about anyways. But maybe just drop at my portion. A lot of that
conversation -- a lot of the conversation revolved around behaviors and lack of respect in
the neighborhood. Joan is going to address some of the things I just brought up and
some of the other concerns that they still have, though, regarding traffic, trespass and
trash. So, with that I think I will turn it over to Joan, unless there is any -- any questions
from the Mayor and Council at this point.
De Weerd: Okay. Any questions from Council at this time? Hi, Joan.
Seda: Hi there.
De Weerd: If you will, please, state your name and address for the record.
Seda: Joan Seda. 1271 West Laughton Drive, Meridian.
De Weerd: Thank you.
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Seda: You're welcome. This is not my area of expertise, so bear in mind that -- okay.
Get my equipment going here. Again -- you don't -- you don't have a screen in front of
you, do you?
Cavener: We do.
Seda: Oh, do you?
De Weerd: Yes.
Cavener: Yeah. We see your presentation.
Seda: Okay. Anyway, basically safety issues, impacts created by the Rocky Mountain
High School pathway -- or the pathway that goes into Rocky Mountain High School from
the Paramount Subdivision. Here is the area of the impact and as you can see on the
upper left is this area of the school. You can see the walkway. It's all marked. Laughton
Drive. Deer Crest. Arliss. Legarreta. And the main area -- the ground zero is what I refer
to it as -- is right here at the walkway and a majority of the issues that we are dealing with
come from the walkway and this -- this has been going on for three plus years. When I
first moved there last year all the stories started coming in and I had heard that at one
time the homeowners had actually chained the gate shut, because they were tired of
dealing with issues and no one could do anything about it. So, apparently that was taken
down because of that, but now at this point in time we have had petitions done and there
are 102 homeowners that have signed seeking help for the calming studies . We had
calming studies done. For calming studies -- or not studies. Intervention. Excuse me.
And speed signs -- or the parking signs. This is the ground zero corner. Off to your right
there -- I don't know why that's doing that. Off to the right is a pathway and this is West
Laughton Drive in front of me and, then, the corner is -- it's a limited visibility corner that
goes from West Laughton onto Arliss and, then, onto Deer Crest and when school is out
as you can see it's a normal neighborhood. It's traffic, trash and parking abuse free. And
you see people out enjoying themselves. That's the way it should be. Here is the
unsigned Rocky Mountain High School pathway and it's currently used as an extension
of Rocky Mountain High School parking, drop off, pick up. It's the source of West
Paramount issues and this has been going on, as I said, three plus years. It has gotten
worse with the increased traffic from the apartments and from other subdivisions where
students come in trying to avoid the traffic on McMillan and Linder, because it's faster and
quicker and they can get in and out sooner. The issues are not mere inconveniences, but
rather abuses, speeding, parking, traffic congestion, safety issues, property damage,
trash and litter. Here is the elementary school on the east side of the subdivision and as
you can see it's properly signed and also all around the school the other accesses are all
-- for the high school they are all properly signed as well for safety, but both of the
pathways that were created as egresses on North Fox Run Way and the one on Laughton
Drive have no signage or safety measures in place and my question -- the question that
most of the homeowners are concerned about is it should be appropriately protected for
all students and minors in the neighborhood. Here is, again, ground zero. It's all marked
as you can see by the red arrows. Here is the -- oops, I bumped it again. Sorry. Laughton
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Drive, the corner -- the S turn that goes from Laughton Drive onto Deer Crest and it's
limited visibility and the pathway right here and, then, behind this house is the school with
a drop off and pick up and this area is a high volume of vehicle traffic and congestion.
There is loading, unloading, u-turns and speeding and, as I said previously, we have a lot
of subdivisions dumping traffic onto this in addition. There is no pedestrian signage, there
is no speed limit signs and this area that you're viewing is all sign ed for no parking, yet
the ongoing parking abuses continue and, then, we have the daily trash between the
school and the eateries on Linder. Here is a posting on the Rocky Mountain High School
web page that basically tells parents not to use Laughton Drive as a drop off or a pick up
for this -- pickup for the students, yet as -- why I'm here, the parents and students don't
abide by this. Here is a video just to see -- give you a little visual. The a.m. traffic. Utter
chaos. This happens three times a day, five days a week , loading, unloading. There is
usually only one lane for traffic to move through , because people park on both sides in
the street and, then, on top of that you have students walking in between the cars. There
is no pattern. It's just chaos. And once you have chaos you usually have accidents. But
this is what we look at every day. Again, it's an extension -- it's become an extension of
the Rocky Mountain High School and ba sically we -- our issue is it's not safe with the
congestion and the traffic impeding, the parking in the no parking zones, the u-turns and,
then, on the service days of the trash and for the mail people, a lot of times they cannot
get up to the homeowners' houses because of the cars. They won't move. They just stay
put. Here is a -- I'm not going to go through the whole video. I don't want to bore you to
death. Here is the lunchtime crowd. Have anywhere between a hundred and two hundred
students that emerge onto West Paramount to the eateries and their cars. Again, this is
West Laughton going into the limited visibility corner that goes into Arliss. There is no
pedestrian signage. Highly congested. And you see -- as you can see the kids don't
really pay attention to cars, they just walk out in the road regardless. Here is another
view. Again more congestion. It's dangerous. There is no protection there for the
pedestrians and -- or the homeowners. Limited visibility. And there is no pathway that
converges onto the sidewalks once the kids are out in the streets, they just walk where
ever. I think everybody has the point; right? You don't need to watch more. No popcorn.
Quick movie. That is the afternoon scene that we experience. Again, it's all marked as
no parking zonage, but yet we have parents and students that park here 20 to 30 minutes
before school lets out.
Bernt: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: I don't mean to interrupt. Are those parked cars or are those just people who
are --
Seda: Just people in the cars and their cars are off and they sit there.
Bernt: So, it's not like that during the entire -- they are just waiting for people to walk out
to the cars to leave.
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Seda: They will sit there 20, 30 minutes before school gets out and it creates a lot of
congestion there --
Bernt: Right.
Seda: -- and, then, when the kids come out and walk between the cars it's just chaos.
It's just -- I'm surprised somebody hasn't been hit yet, but I don't want to go there. But,
anyway, yeah. Again, the traffic's impeded. Again, the garbage people can't get up to the
garbage cans. I have seen people hit people's garbage cans. They can't deliver mail.
It's just an ongoing issue. And, then, here -- just to give you an idea of the other streets,
here is Legarreta. Every day the students come in from the other subdivisions and they
park where ever they can find a stretch and usually the same cars that you see every day
and they moved from street to street. When one gets a ticket for whatever reason, they
will move to another street. It's -- it just goes on and it's -- it's all day long and it's five
days a week. They are speeding. A lot of parents have told me they won't let their children
out in the front yards, because they feel it's so unsafe and, then, residents can't use the
adjacent parking -- like for if a service person was to come to work on something at their
home, they -- and, actually, I have heard this of construction people, they have to park
down the street without their tools, because the students are -- their cars are in the way.
Here is another -- here is Deer Crest. This picture I took at the end of the day, so it's
really not what it normally is. Usually we have anywhere between 20 and 40 cars that
come in from other subdivisions and park there all day long. It's all students. Once the
school is out it's empty. Most of the abusers are not from Paramount. A lot of them you
will look in their car window and you will see Rocky Mountain High School parking passes
hanging from their mirrors. Again, creates traffic congestion, limited visibility, whether
you're driving in it or walking on the sidewalks and we have the volumes of trash daily.
There is no stop signs. There is one speed -- speed sign over by Linder, but you don't
see it when you're at this end and this is one of the areas that Chief Lavey talked about
putting a stop sign at this intersection here to help slow down the speeders because of
the S turn. Here is parking abuse on Arliss. Same thing. Where ever they find a stretch
they park. Again, limited visibility, congested, you can't park next to your homes and at
this point in time the homeowners are expressing the concerns that they feel as if students
have more rights than they do. We don't have a voice. There is nothing we can do unless
there is an illegal component where we can call the police in. Here is just examples of
the trash and it blows from Linder between -- it's between Linder and throughout the
neighborhood over to the school and we -- they did put in one garbage can. When I first
moved in and I talked to the principal Hirano over there, told him how bad it was and he
ordered this garbage can, but it's mainly a dumpster, not a garbage can. It's that bad.
But, basically, the residents are burdened on a daily basically with picking up the trash.
It's everywhere. And I walk out in front of the kids myself at lunch hour and pick up the
trash right in front of them. It doesn't -- they don't get it. Okay. Anyway, basically, what
it's doing to the neighborhood it's decreasing the value of our property. Again, another
picture of the trash. And the homeowners, basically, are saying, you know, why should
we have to pick it up when it is the students that are dropping it. Another issue. Property
damage reported by the homeowners in West Paramount. I have had people tell me they
have broken sprinklers all the time, because the students park up on the curbs onto their
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lawns. There is mailboxes hit or taken out by hit and run drivers fairly regularly.
Landscaping is damaged by the speeding drivers missing the corners. There is speeding
by both students and parents all in a hurry. No speed signs. And, then, there is damage
to the residents lawn. Trees are vandalize. And any signs that you have permitted to put
in the yard to ask them not to walk on the grass, they steal when they choose not to use
the sidewalks and, basically, the residents have to pay for any damage or replacement of
anything on their property, they have to pay for it. Homeowners, again, feel that they have
no rights, no voice in handling the abuses and we pay the taxes and we also pay the
school taxes, yet the burden is falling on the homeowners and the taxpayers. The
homeowners want solutions, not bandaids. The HOA right now hasn't been much help.
They are still under the control of Brighton. We have petitioned them, the legal counsel,
to amend the CC&Rs to try to get some of the HOA money towards street solutions and
issues, but this is on hold. Mr. Wasson from ACHD has helped us tremendously. The
Mayor and Mr. Andrus I have e-mailed back and forth, but no intervention to date. The
superintendent of schools turned it back over to the high school principal. The high school
principal has made some progress. He has done online post, announcements. One
garbage can. Signs have not changed. The bike -- the trees and he has organized
sporadic volunteers to help pick up trash . No permanent solutions, but he is trying.
Meridian Police Department do patrolling frequently. They can't stop the student parking
unless there is an illegal component. Too much of a time delay between the calling
occurrence of incidents -- incidents, obviously, because they are busy and everybody
means well, it's just nothing has been resolved and things have gotten worse. I hate to
mention money, but no solutions thus far have cost taxpayers money, because of the
ongoing costs for services by the police, the school authorities and the ACHD resources
and the ACHD traffic calming study was done last year. Basically it 's on hold. The
petitions are done, but the HOA funds are needed to complete the interventions, the
speed humps. The HOA currently states -- are stating that they believe the city, county
and state should be paying for the speed humps, so it sounds like a long drawn out
process without guarantee and I did hear this week that the HOA is supposedly going to
be turning over the next two, three months,. So, maybe that will make a difference. I
don't know. But just to remind you, 102 homeowners, taxpayers, 75 percent of the owners
on the effective streets in West Paramount have signed the petitions for no parking signs
and traffic calming measures. Lots of solutions. Summary. Basically, we need the
problems ended. Common sense solutions or continue to use -- misuse tax money by
misusing public resources. As Caleb had said just previously, a summary of the meeting,
basically, the people that were in attendance all agreed to do a concerted effort statement
to try to stop the abuses and attempt to drive the park ing users back to school parking
lots and Mr. Hirano said at that meeting that he still had 60 parking spaces available at
the school that weren't being used and, basically, it boils down to two choices for
resolution. One is to vacate the pathway, which was mentioned in the Transportation
Commission meeting back in October by petitioning the City Council to remove the
common lot. But the fire authorities at that meeting on the 30th basically said that we
need the egress as part of their city fire code, but another concern that I'm hearing is that
we are wondering if the pathway is even compliant with the American With Disabilities
Act, because there is a manhole cover that sticks up probably three inches and it 's right
where the two properties abut, right at the gate line. So, that's another issue. And the
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pathway on the other side -- on North Fox Run Way is paved all the way in, whereas this
one is just a sidebar concrete up to the gate and it is all mud and grass and the manhole
cover. So, it's interesting. The other choice, basically, gate the pathway, but it has to be
used as originally intended as a pathway. The ongoing concerns -- the summary, the
safety issues with the students and the homeowners -- an average of 65 student cars per
day in West Paramount from other subdivisions and, again, as I stated, there is parking
available in the high school parking lot. Property damage reported throughout West
Paramount by numerous homeowners and every home I can tell you on the corner of
Laughton and Arliss -- every corner -- every home there has had either a mailbox taken
out, landscape taken out from the speeding drivers missing -- missing the corners and,
then, again, the trash is excessive between the school and the eateries. We are here --
I'm here representing everyone. We need your interventions to help protect the
homeowners and the students from further abuses and harm. Some of the issues that
we had discussed at the meeting on the 3rd -- the 30th were a more restrictive no parking,
no -- no stopping no drop-offs signage at the pathway or ground zero. Also some type of
signage for pedestrians and student crossing and A CHD is handling the extension of the
no parking sign throughout West Paramount and, then, they talked about a stop sign at
Arliss and Deer Crest to help slow the speeders down, especially into the turn with the
limited visibility and our concern is if that's not done on that street, the congestion, trash,
and speeding and abuses will only continue, because there is anywhere between 30 and
-- 20 and 40 cars a day that park there from 7:30 to 3:00 and five days a week. And, then,
we talked about a curb cut, which would go into my property or my driveway, which I don't
have a problem with, which would maybe mentally help the students converge from --
from the pathway over to the other side of Laughton and onto the sidewalk versus walking
through the yards and damaging land -- landscape. And, then, again, lastly, Chief Lavey
felt that if we put in the signs and some of these interventions would help decrease the
abuses that we are seeing -- that kind of summarizes everything. Hope I didn't put you
to sleep.
De Weerd: Thank you, Joan. So, Caleb, with that list up, what was the recommendation
of the group in addressing this list?
Hood: So, Madam Mayor, again, the meeting on the 30th, I believe it was, the community
meeting that we had here in conference room A-B, the consensus was to have ACHD go
ahead and install additional limited duration no parking signs. That 's really the only thing
that -- that any resolution was drawn to and so at least by those people in attendance at
that meeting. The Transportation Commission last week, they are considering trash and
some of these other things. I know Mr. Wasson has looked at the request for a crosswalk.
The Transportation Commission didn't pick that up either. I don't think that they -- they
are not opposed to a crosswalk, they just didn't see the -- the warrants or didn't hear the
warrants from ACHD saying, yeah, it makes sense to put a cross walk in there, so they
kind of stayed silent on that or neutral on it. Some of the things -- and I -- I'm just going
-- one of -- one of the comments, at least from one of the commissioners, was a question
of is there really a safety concern or is it nuisance types of things, but I think you used the
word nuisance; right?
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Seda: If you lived there you would understand it.
Hood: Just saying some of the sentiment from -- there hasn't been a history of -- of
incidents there and I hope there -- there isn't one, but that's something I think that they
factored in a little bit. I certainly feel for folks that are within there -- I saw the videos and,
yeah, that's a lot of kids in -- in a short amount of time of -- not of kids -- just anybody
using that. But, again, to answer your question, Madam Mayor, they are supportive of the
additional -- extending the limited duration no parking. Didn't pick up any things to further
define what parking means, if that means idling in my car -- I mean my car is stopped, but
if I'm in it and the key's in the ignition is that parked or if I get out and leave , you know,
didn't really take that up at all either. I think there is some level of -- but, again, they didn't
recommend anything more than what was kind of discussed the week prior by the rest of
the group.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Council, any questions for Joan?
Seda: Can I add one thing?
De Weerd: Yes.
Seda: The reason why we mentioned the more restrictive signage there at ground zero ,
because the no parking signs are not taking care of the problem and that's kind of -- we
need help.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Madam Mayor, a question for Leslie or the fire department. This more
restrictive parking sign request, you had a sign that says no drop -off or pick-up, is that
even something you guys would be able to enforce? I'm just curious. I have never seen
a sign like that in Meridian. I have seen, you know, one like -- I have seen like at schools,
you know, not a drop-off zone, but I -- I think it's more information and not one that the
police enforce.
De Weerd: It doesn't work on -- at the schools either, so -- Mr. Nary.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Cavener, I haven't looked
at the code, but I don't think there is any provision in the state code for that. So, that's
what I think the police would be restricted by.
Seda: Mr. Wasson had mentioned such a sign to me , but I couldn't tell you the exact
wordage on the sign.
Bongiorno: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: Hi, Joe.
Bongiorno: Good afternoon.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Bongiorno: I do know -- I worked with Emily last year on the fire code portion of it. The
only sign that I'm aware of that would be enforceable is the no parking fire lane sign along
with curbs that are painted red that says no parking fire lane. That PD can issue a citation
for or code enforcement can issue -- if it's signed that. I'm not sure about the no stopping
anytime part.
De Weerd: Thank you. Other questions from Council?
Cavener: Madam Mayor, just one additional --
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: You talked about the 102 names that represent I think a portion of the affected
residents.
Seda: The homeowners. Yeah.
Cavener: Homeowners. Is that 102 members? How big is your homeowners
association? How many homeowners are in Paramount? Just trying to get a sense of
that 102 -- is that half of your neighborhood? Ten percent?
Seda: It's not -- no, that's just the west end. There is like -- I saw a stat the other day that
was over 1,200 homes, but that's --
Cavener: It's that big?
Seda: But that's not the complete build out numbers. You would probably know better
than I. It's big.
Cavener: And -- Madam Mayor. The reason why I ask is I appreciate hearing about the
impacted group, but also trying to take into consideration, you know, if -- but when it
comes to no parking signs, we have learned that it just continues to push the issue further
down the road and they used the word we don't want band-aids, we want solutions, and
my -- my fear is that we place additional no parking signs, a year from now someone who
lives down the road is going to be coming back here before the City Council to say we
need more no parking signs and now all of Paramount has no parking signs and is that
the most appropriate solution as well.
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Seda: Well, I think so for the West Paramount, because it's the closest to the pathway.
If you move the signs out any further the kids are going to go elsewhere. It's too -- it's not
convenient.
Cavener: I think what we have seen, Madam Mayor, is that if we -- we place no parking
signs it just pushes the issue further down the road.
Seda: Chief Lavey made the comment that he was hoping with the signage, which we
have already gotten the petition for, it would drive the students back into the parking lot.
That was his thought.
Bernt: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: Thank you, Joan, for your comments. I appreciate them. This question is for
Lieutenant Leslie or maybe the chief. It looks like it's going to be the chief. My question
is what -- what have we done over by Mountain View and -- is it that -- is that working
over there and can that same thing be done, if appropriate, by Rocky Mountain?
Lavey: Madam Mayor, Councilman Bernt, I have a few comments, but to answer your
question, the types of signs that we are talking about are the ones that we used at
Mountain View as well and some already exist in Rocky Mountain neighborhoods. We
are talking about putting up more. But Councilman Cavener is correct is that you just
have displacement of those cars. Those cars have to come somewhere. I would be
hopeful that they would be in the school parking lot, but I'm -- I would be kidding myself if
I thought that's where they were going to go, because the reason why they are not parking
in the school parking lot is it takes 20 minutes to get in and out of that school. But that's
not unique to any of our schools. They will start parking in that school if that's the closest
place for them to park. So, if the parking lot -- I mean if the no parking extends out far
enough it's really going to come down what's the shortest distance. The other thing that
you need to realize is that we are talking about signs, signs, signs, signs. The more signs
you put up in your neighborhood your neighborhood just becomes ugly and do you want
a sign in your front yard. You know, some people might, some people might not. So,
those are things that we have to take into consideration. I will tell you I'm probably not
going to be the most popular person today, because I do have a couple of comments. I,
too, live next to a school and I -- I have an understanding of -- of what this neighborhood's
going through, but what they are describing is not unique to any school in this valley. We
see this happen in every single school. The police cannot control simply bad behavior or
rudeness or control things unless it actually is against the law. I know that we have wrote
over 200 citations -- parking citations in the neighborhood. We write speeding tickets in
that neighborhood and, apparently, it's still occurring. So, we understand that, but I'm
having a little bit of trouble understand ing why we are here today, because we had a
meeting two weeks ago when we decided on a couple of things and I thought we were
going to kind of do a phased approach, see how it worked and, then, approach it again
with another meeting. That was my understanding. So, this was a little bit of a surprise
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today that we are having this meeting. I do believe that having the types of signs that we
have in their neighborhood already and what we agreed to put additional up, ACHD was
going to do free of charge, controls no parking between a certain period of time in the
morning and a certain period of time during lunchtime and it really combats the problem.
Now, the other things are symptoms that's occurring in that neighborhood. You have the
-- supposedly the speeding in the neighborhood, the congestion, the cars, the parking of
the cars, some vandalism to some trees, the vandalism of the sprinklers -- all those will
be taken care of if they are no longer parking there. But, again, we have that problem of
-- of displacement. How far out -- how many signs do you have to put in the neighborhood
to push it out to take care of the problem. I know that Principal Hirano has worked with
us and put up a trash bin that can help with some of the trash. It's helped. It hasn't
eliminated the -- the problem completely, but one of the things that we found is that it was
filling up really quick and we had to tell the janitors that you need to start checking that
and emptying it. So, that was part of the solution as well. The speeds -- the speed
complaints -- Mr. Wasson could probably come up and tell you the speed studies that we
have done in -- in the neighborhood don't validate the speed complaints. What we have
found is that there is a perception of speed and -- and that comes with probably young
kids, fast cars and noisy cars, loud music. That is not to say that they are not -- some
aren't speeding, but the studies do not validate the concerns that we are hearing, but that
doesn't say that they are not being reckless, because one of the things that we find is that
people think that if there is a certain speed limit that that's what you get to drive all the
time and they don't adjust their speed lower for conditions, lower for congestion, lower for
kids in the neighborhood. So, it's just something that we need to talk about. The other
thing that we have heard from the neighbors is the rudeness of the kids when confronted
by the neighbors and yet it floors me what we hear kids say. I reminded them that they
say things even worse to us and we actually get it recorded, but it just floors me that the
communication is that way, but it's not against the law. So, there is nothing I can do about
that. And, then, the other thing as far as the stopping or standing, there is sometimes -- I
suppose we could probably make up a parking ordinance that has a no stopping or
standing, but it's got to be enforced, too, and if we already heard that we are strapped,
we are not in the neighborhoods enough already, we are not going to be in the
neighborhood to enforce that sign and , obviously, they are not doing things already that
-- they are doing things already that may be illegal, if they are speeding or parking in no
parking zones and stuff another sign is not going to correct that problem and so we are
not opposed to it, we just need to be real. Is it really going to fix the problem? Is it going
to be a band-aid? Is it going to make you feel good? Or is it actually going to solve the
problem. I don't know what the answer is. I will tell you that we have faced this same
problem in Mountain View and it took some time, but once we put those measures in
place and allowed that time, that we don't have complaints there anymore. But it takes
time. It takes longer than -- than two weeks.
De Weerd: Any follow-up questions for Chief Lavey?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
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Cavener: The stop sign that you were supportive of -- that recommendation, I know -- I
hear you. It does seem kind of odd that we had to sit at this neighborhood group meeting
and now we are having this discussion at City Council, but I wanted just to make sure
what was shared earlier, that you supported a -- a stop sign at that S turn. Is that -- is
that accurate? Is that -- is that -- is that a recommendation that came from the police
department that the City Council needs to explore?
Lavey: Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, that recommendation did not come from the
Police Department, it came for the neighborhood, but we are not opposed to it, but we
are not the traffic experts, so I can't tell you if it's going to alleviate the problem or not.
So, there is no reason for us to oppose it, but you would probably have -- I don't want to
do this to him, but you would probably have to defer this to Mr. Wasson and say it doesn't
conform with the traffic standards in the big book that they use on regulations .
Cavener: Okay. Thank you.
De Weerd: Are there any other questions?
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: How critical, given its proximity to Linder, how critical is that pathway as an
access? I know when it comes to any particular level of safety with schools, that
everything is critical, but, in reality, is it?
Lavey: Madam Mayor, Councilman Palmer, I guess you would have to ask yourself this:
If your kids are in that school and there is an emergency, how fast do you want them to
get out and that's really what you can't -- you can't quantify. How fast do you want us to
get in to help. How fast do you want us to get out. We found that in the neighborhoods
-- Mountain View, for an example, to walk completely around Mountain View is half a mile.
A half a mile. And so you need to have several different accesses to that school . If
something is going on in the front, we need to come in the back. If something is going on
in the front and back, we need to come in on the side. I can't really answer how critical it
is. You would have to look at the amount of entrances and exits that are already there
and, then, make that determination. I do know that there was some information that was
provided that the reason why the gate was unlocked is because it was now a fire code
violation, but I don't know if that's true. We would have to defer to the fire department to
ask them if that's -- if that's the case.
Bongiorno: Chief, that is not the case. We don't -- that is not a fire department
requirement.
Lavey: Okay.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: I mean as policies -- we are really good at just talking and meeting and talking
and meeting and doing it over and over. It seems to me the only way to solve the problem
is to lock the thing up. So, if you're two to five months away from being able to take over
the HOA, my recommendation would be when you take it over lock it up and it's over. Or
if there is a way to have a one-way turnstile that can only be activated in emergency or
something -- I don't know. But I mean we can -- we can meet and talk and meet and talk,
but it seems like this is -- this is coming from a kid who -- I had a parking pass at Mountain
View for three years, I never once parked in the parking lot of the high school. I parked
at the church. There was no way I was going to park in the parking lot, because I was
never getting out of that thing. So, I -- I would absolutely do the same thing if I was living
there and the only way I would stop is if the access was gone. So, we can have more
meetings or, hopefully, when you take over you can just shut it down.
Lavey: Madam Mayor. Councilman Palmer, I think you just validated exactly what we
were saying, is that no matter what we do the kids probably aren't going to go back to that
-- to that school unless you take that away from them. We are not opposed to -- as far as
I know we are not opposed to closing that pathway down. One thing you do need to
consider, though, is -- and I realized this is high school, but I know that the busing routes
are based upon a mile and a half radius and I know that if -- if that cut through allows kids
to get through there, then, that cuts out that radius, but if they have to go a mile and a half
to now get to that school, then, you're required to bus them and the person at the meeting
said that now the busing is 50,000 dollars a day. So, I'm not saying that that's factual, all
I'm saying is that -- that was brought up, that that is an unintended potential consequence
that you need to consider. So , if you're going to close that access down, all those kids
that live in that neighborhood that now walk to school , if they have to walk more than a
mile and a half now to get into the school grounds, then, they may be required to be bused
and that will come with a cost. So, that is just a -- a caution to share.
De Weerd: Well -- and I imagine that connection was a condition of approval.
Hood: Madam Mayor, if I can just piggyback that a little bit, so -- and -- and to put a little
bit more in context -- so, yes, when the pathway was there before the homes were, that
was a condition of the project with the intent of access from the neighborhood to the
school and I will just point out -- although not as convenient, there are other two micro
pathway connections to the school. Again, this -- this route is a little bit further to get into
the school itself. Then you have one on the north as well. Similar to the parking
discussion, in my opinion, though, if you close this one you're going to push that concern
either to here or here. If you're going to drop off -- you know, you're going to -- you're
going to -- this becomes more attractive or this becomes more attractive to drop off now
and we don't want to necessarily push everybody out in to Linder Road, which has a
horrible level of service in these peak times, too. So, we are trying to capture some of
those trips within Paramount to some degree. I'm not saying that totally that that should
be the only thing that's considered, but, again, if you're going to say that you no longer
want to have this connection, you should think about the downstream impacts , then,
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because you are still going to get people that want to drop off and pick up their kids in
Paramount and not go through the front of the school or pick them up somewhere else.
That's -- you're just pushing it somewhere else in the neighborhood , so -- and, again, I
will just advocate -- I don't think it is a good idea to close all three micro paths; right? I
mean this is a neighborhood serving type of a thing. We want the kids that are in there
to have fairly good access to the school during school hours and even after school hours.
if the ball fields aren't being used you can go and recreate there. They serve as de facto
parks. We don't necessarily want to have people go out and around to Linder Road and,
then, back to get to these -- these types of things. Again, I'm not saying that doesn't --
that shouldn't trump or -- or not, you know, the concerns of the neighbors, but just, again,
things to think about if you change something here, there is going to be an impact in other
places, so --
De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions for Chief Lavey? Thank you. Any questions for
Joan at this point? Okay.
Seda: May I add one thing onto the pathway discussion? The pathway on the -- at the
board transportation meeting talking to the gal that made that comment about having to
pay for another bus, basically, I came in myself to North Fox Run Way and went straight
ahead and made a left where the other pathways are on the north side and, then, came
in from North -- North Fox Run Way and went down a lot and it's pretty much equal
distance, so I don't -- she is going to look it up, so I -- I said I really wouldn't think that
there would be much more as far as having to bus kids, because it's pretty much equal
distance. If you came into the same to the -- to that particular road off of McMillan.
De Weerd: But I guess my concern would be -- I live down the street from a school, too.
So, I -- and I know how that traffic goes. But if I lived on that road I would be offended if
that gate was closed, because I moved there so my kids could walk to school and could
use that pathway. So, that -- that would be an additional consideration or concern on --
on that. Any further questions for Joan? Okay.
Seda: One last comment. One thing about it is we are just right around the corner from
the school's drop off and pick up, it's not that inconvenient just to walk the path along Deer
Crest and come around the corner right into the school. So, it's not that far away from
the front entrance and -- and most of the kids that are using that pathway are the ones
that come in by automobile. I watch them every day.
De Weerd: Well, I did see in your video three kids went into one of the houses in that little
cul-de-sac, so --
Seda: Those kids do walk. Right across from me, yes.
De Weerd: Yeah. Any other questions? Thank you. John, where are you? Wasson.
Come on down. Thank you for being here to address Council and any questions that they
might have. We appreciate that.
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Wasson: Thank you. For the record I'm John Wasson, assistant traffic engineer, Ada
County Highway District. 3775 Adam Street, Garden City.
De Weerd: I know that Council did ask a question about the stop sign at Arliss and Deer
Crest. Have you looked at that and -- and what are your thoughts on the stop sign being
placed there?
Wasson: We have looked at that stop sign, Madam Mayor, and ACHD is supportive of
installing a single stop sign to stop eastbound traffic on Deer Crest and the reason we are
supportive of it is it's a delineation of the commercial district into a residential
neighborhood. So, we are fine with doing that and we will proceed with that.
De Weerd: Okay. And, then, I know another point that was brought up was painted
crosswalks that could help direct kids as to where to cross the street . Is there a
willingness from Ada County Highway District to look at appropriately placed crosswalks?
Wasson: Madam Mayor, thanks for that question. We have looked at that and the location
where Mrs. Seda wants us to install that crosswalk would make that a noncompliant
crosswalk, because it would line up into her driveway and so ACHD is not supportive of
that. We have looked at the potential for another one at the corner of Laughton and Arliss.
That would create more problems and really would not be used by the students.
De Weerd: So, in -- in your professional opinion there is not an appropriate place, then,
for a -- a striped crosswalk?
Wasson: Madam Mayor, no.
De Weerd: Okay. Council, any questions for Mr. Wasson? Thank you, John. Oh, John,
one more thing. And in traffic calming, as I understand it, because our neighborhood also
looked at traffic calming measures being down from a school, you still require that -- a
certain percentage of the houses on the impacted roadways have to sign a petition ?
Wasson: Madam Mayor, we did. We did receive a petition. We have -- we have done a
speed study. They met the volume criteria for traffic calming by having 136 vehicles in
the peak hour. Their 85th percentile speed or the speed at which 85 percent of drivers
are driving at or below was 27 miles an hour and 95 percent of all traffic is 30 miles an
hour or less. So, that did not meet the criteria, but because they met the volume criteria
they were eligible for traffic calming. We received a petition. We went forth and
conducted a cut through study and the cut through percentage was 6.3 percent. Vehicles
stopping to drop off students aren't considered destination trip vehicles, so they don't
count as a cut through vehicle. So, the cost for traffic calming would be borne by the
neighborhood for the asphalt and the labor. ACHD would still install signs, pavement
markings and do the engineering and inspection at no cost to the neighborhood . Once
those humps are into ACHD standard and fire department input, we would -- we would
accept those speed bumps into our inventory and there would be no additional cost to the
neighborhood. The cost as of last November was in the vicinity of 11,500 dollars. I have
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-- for four speed humps, Councilman Bernt. I have asked the individual who gets those
bids for me to get a rebid and make sure that the cost has stayed stable or if it's gone up
or down.
De Weerd: Wow. Thank you for sharing that. Okay. Council, any further information
needed? I guess, Mr. Nary, this isn't listed as an action item. What was the hope?
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I think it's just listed as a presentation.
De Weerd: Right.
Nary: So, I don't think -- I think it was just informational. I think it is, like the chief said, if
the Council felt more than what was presented needs to be done, we certainly could take
some direction in that regard, but I think the chief thought we were going to allow this to
play out a little bit and see how that went, but if the Council would like to do more or set
it for another discussion for specificity, that's fine.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you.
Hood: So, Madam Mayor, if I can just piggyback on that real quick. So, I'm the one that
talked with Joan, although I kind of -- I didn't force her to be here, but -- but -- but this is
basically a report back. I mean that was the direction to meet with the neighborhood from
the chief, we went back to the Transportation Commission, so this really is sort of
informational sharing, although if you have a silver bullet we would sure like you to shoot
it now, because, you know, there is still some ongoing issues out here. But I have talked
with Joan, too, and she understands that the city doesn't put up stop signs, we don't paint
crosswalks, you know, some of that stuff is within ACHD's purview, but, again, we just
thought it was good to -- to circle back and sort of close the loop, although we haven't
implemented some of the additional no parking signs, so there may be more yet to come,
but it's my fault, I guess, for -- for having it on the agenda, but I thought that was the
proper road, was just to kind of circle back and report back say, yeah, we did what you
asked and met with them and this was kind of the solution and fingers crossed that it
helps. So, that's -- I'm not necessarily asking for any action. I know Joan had some
things she was asking for, but she understands that, again, our city's purview and ACHD
and that relationship.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: It sounds like we have got at least some agreed upon solution that solves the
problem, whether it's that silver bullet I don't know. Madam Mayor -- and I don't know
how the rest of the Council feels if it's warranted for us to look at a stopping and standing
ordinance and you talk -- I know there was a constituent this morning who has concerns
about the amount of cars that stack up in front of Linder Elementary, Barbara Morgan
Elementary. I used to live by Meridian Middle School --
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De Weerd: That's where I live.
Cavener: Vehicles stack up there. I know there were some real issues at Chief Joseph
Elementary until they made some changes. Again, we need parents to rely on busing or
let their kids walk to school, as opposed to drive all of our kids to school, but the reality is
that many parents feel obligated to drive their kids to school, but by doing so are creating
I think some real significant traffic impacts in our community and so I don't -- I don't know
if a stopping and standing ordinance solves that. I don't even know what one would look
like, but I don't know if we as a body want to explore that as another potential remedy to
solve this problem.
De Weerd: Okay. Would any of the other Council Members like to weigh in?
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor, Council, since the chief had a recommendation that we
see how things kind of play out, not much can be done in a couple of weeks, I would like
to see us go that route. I think another ordinance, especially that puts a burden on our
police, that are already quite overextended, doesn't feel right right now. I sympathize. I
also live near a school and the school and a special bus stop, so I understand dealing
with traffic and people waiting and parents and things of -- can be very difficult and -- but
I think we need to let it play out and, hopefully, see that things maybe calm down through
the measures that we are using.
De Weerd: Yes, chief. And can you tell us, too, when -- when those signs would be
installed and -- and what your recommendation would be and when to re-evaluate to see
how effective the signs are?
Lavey: Madam Mayor, that's perfect. I had one comment first. One of the things that I
did after we had our meeting on the 30th was reach out to Lieutenant Harper, asked him
to get in touch with Sergeant Gonzales, who is SRO supervisor, and those two, along with
Officer Allison, who is the Rocky SRO, who all three were in attendance at that meeting,
and, then, Principal Hirano get together, the four of them, and discuss is their actions that
they might be able to do within the school to help curb some of this problem . I realized
that there is probably not a lot that they could do that's going to have a lot of teeth to it,
but at least we have to have that discussion and do some -- some problem solving. So,
that is occurring. It has not occurred yet. I can tell you that -- since I'm at the microphone
I want to have Mr. Wasson come up here. I actually heard what he said . If they put this
-- if they put the sign order in after our meeting, it's about a week to go in and -- put the
order in, Digline comes in, they got to come in and paint the curbs and -- and -- and allow
time for the crews to get out there. We are talking about two weeks have gone by so far
and so we are probably within a week or two into it if it occurred right away. One of the
things that Mr. Wasson told them is that the neighbors could anticipate seeing a little paint
dot on the -- on the curb or on the sidewalk and that would be an indication of where that
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sign was probably going to be and if there is any concerns about where that sign is
located, if it's directly in front of the front windows of their yard or something, there might
be a little bit of wiggle room that they can move it one way or the next , but they actually
are regulated as to every 250 feet as far as where those signs are going to go . So, they
should be in in the next couple of weeks. The other thing that we talked about was having
a follow-up meeting. We did not discuss a timeframe for that, but I think it would be
reasonable to look at the springtime. You know, we have to have those signs come up
and -- and maybe have a follow-up meeting toward the end of the school year as well
and, then, maybe another one right before the school starts next -- next summer. But I
don't think it would be all that effective if we did it any sooner than -- than springtime.
De Weerd: Okay. Mr. Wasson, maybe you can help us --
Lavey: Correct anything I got wrong.
De Weerd: Yeah. At least shed some light on when the signs might be up .
Wasson: Madam Mayor. John Wasson. Ada County Highway District. Again, because
of the weather that we have had I have not gone out and put the dot of paint, because if
I put it in when it's wet the paint washes away. I can do that this week. But it will probably
take about three to four more weeks to get those signs in, because, quite honestly, they
-- they are not my only responsibility. I have got other responsibilities that I have. But I
can -- I can certainly expedite this and get it moving. But Digline requires a minimum of
72 hours for them to be able to come in and do their locates and, then, we have a single
sign shop guy who is responsible for that area and, quite honestly, he can't drop 35 signs
in -- in the neighborhood in one day. It will take them a little bit of time. But we will get
them in. We -- we have committed to that. They will be about every 250 feet, so they are
enforceable and as the chief said there is some wiggle room . But I generally try to put
those on property lines, on adjacent garages, so they are not in front of somebody's
picture window.
De Weerd: And so you can't order the signs until you have gone out to figure out how
many you need?
Wasson: That's correct, Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Okay. How about the stop sign?
Wasson: I can -- I can have that marked for Digline this week and most likely that would
be in the end of next week or -- or the very start of the following week.
De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions for Mr. Wasson? Okay. Thank you so much.
Wasson: Thank you, Madam Mayor.
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De Weerd: So, chief, I guess if we could at least work with Joan to set a follow-up meeting
with the neighborhood, maybe around spring break or at least a month after the signs
have been installed. I don't know -- when is spring break?
Lavey: Madam Mayor, spring break is the third week in March, around the 20 -- actually,
I think it's the 23rd. I think that's --
De Weerd: Probably about the time it will be going up.
Lavey: Yeah. What we can commit to is that Joan and -- and Caleb have a connection.
Joan also has my e-mail as well. There is a distribution list now. We are in contact and
so we will just decide on the best time that works for everybody's schedule. I think we
could target for the -- the end of March would probably be an appropriate time or maybe
-- once the signs are up maybe three or four weeks out after the signs are up. So, end of
March, first of April we can commit to another meeting.
De Weerd: Okay. Okay. Thank you. And thank you, John. We appreciate how prepared
you were with your -- your presentation and any of the neighbors that came to join you.
Thank you.
B. Historic Preservation Commission Annual Report
De Weerd: Okay. Item 7-B is under our Historical Preservation Commission. Welcome,
Josh.
Evarts: Hey, thank you, everybody. I'm Josh Evarts. Address 303 State Avenue, Old
Town, Meridian. 83642. I'm here today -- first of all, thank you for having us in here.
Blaine Johnson, our president, couldn't be here this week. He asked if I would step in.
The only charge he gave me is that I would take as few liberties as possible with the
narrative that he provided me, so --
De Weerd: I understand that.
Evarts: -- I will be reading while you guys look on, but I will add a little bit of color here
and there. HPC has been fortunate to retain most of our commissioners this year. We
did hit a home run with Kourtney McBride, who is our youth commissioner. She already
serves on MYAC and heavily involved in Meridian High School, including the school
paper. We did get an additional seat on our commission this year. We were able to get
Jody Ault and -- to respond to that, be part of our team. She is really, really valuable.
Brings a lot of experience and as we have been taking on some projects over the last
couple months, she is right in there volunteering, getting her hands dirty. So, it's been --
it's been really really great. Great addition. Photos of historic property. Something that
we took on this year. My wife and I went on a drive , as we occasionally do on Sundays,
to update our inventory of historic properties. One of the things that we noticed is there
were lots of Planning and Zoning signs that were on these historic properties. So, we got
together as a commission and we decided that we would put out an RFP for a
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photographer, so that we could start capturing pictures. So , the first thing the planning
department did is they did use Bussin for their transmittals, so that we can monitor when
things show up that are on our inventory, then, we can activate as a commission. So, we
did contract with two of the respondents in the RFP. So , we have got two that are
available, because a lot of times these things happen quickly and depending on their
schedule we wanted to have two different individuals t hat we could send out to a site to
get pictures. So, we -- our hope is to capture pictures of these buildings and structures
that people remember in Meridian before they get torn down. So, the photos you're
seeing here are actually by Greg Browning, who one of our two, and the photos have
been spectacular. They have been really great. In fact, they have initiated conversations
by our commission of perhaps producing products through our historic society calendars
-- barn calendar, some things like that, that really celebrate some of our rich structural
history. Next slide. Virtual tours. So, we had a gentleman come approach our
commission, he actively builds virtual tours for -- for other entities throughout the country,
actually. So, in addition to taking photos of these properties, in 2018 we decided that we
would pilot two sites and get a sense of what his services could look like here in Meridian.
So, we built this interactive tour -- actually, he built it for us. We just -- just provided the
media and content for that. It's limited to just those two properties, something that we are
going to look at as a commission as our budget allows and as we get feedback from other
people that are consuming that virtual tour and make sure that it fits wit h our mission.
Engaging local students. So, this was our second year of running a cost -- or contest for
local schools. We expanded it to not just be high school, but we went down in grades
from there. We did award two created Meridian history projects this year. One project
was a stop motion video. The other was a Frenzy. Frenzy is a cool like PowerPoint on
steroids kind of thing that integrated original artwork, personal family history from an elder
relative and a Meridian history. They were really really super products. So, we are excited
about next year, engaging the schools again, because it's -- it's neat to be able to offer
these programs to get students excited about what's going on in our history. So fun -- fun
times. Meridian history course. So, this year, with the help of Jake Garro, Amy Birch and
Linda Belthoff, we offered our Meridian history course to the public. Amy and Linda led
the course and had a number of guest speakers, to include Mayor Tammy, Jim Zamzow,
Carol Stanley. Our Commissioner Dawn Cronk was able to attend the course all day and
help facilitate, as well as present HPC. After the course Dawn presented a recap and the
Commission decided to offer this as a public course for at least another year. So, we got
some great response, some great feedback, it was something that we as a Commission
-- we love making our time available, so we will continue to offer that to the public as long
as we see continued interest from the public in things that are history. Historic
Preservation Month. My favorite month of the year. So, our historic walking tour, the
mobile app version of that, as well as just what goes on during the month, we are
continued to be tightly partnered with our Meridian Downtown Business Association, who
shares the cost of that ongoing walking tour app. They have also added their additional
mapping layers to highlight downtown businesses. I was in their meeting this past Friday,
they are looking to make that a key part of their recruitment for more businesses in
downtown, as well as look for ways to partner with us in May to incent people participating
in that downtown walking tour. Dawn and I and Ella Kramer, who is our -- our student rep,
we -- we always host an HPC hosted walking tour during May as part of Historic
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Preservation Month. Two years ago we had a handful of folks, eight to ten. This year we
promoted it a little bit better and we had an army show up. So, we had over 25 people,
as you can see in the pictures. We thought that Dawn and I would be sufficient and we
could divide up a group of eight to ten, as we had 35, my voice projects more than hers,
so I led this ragtag group of rebel rousers throughout our downtown and told stories, most
of them true. The guided tour stopped at a couple sites, including the middle of the Bell
house, the Norse house. Dick was fantastic. He actually opened up his home and
allowed us in small groups to go through and -- and see a treasure trove of history. So,
we are going to reach out to Dick again, see if he would be willing to do that. We also
continue to place the -- if this property could talk science throughout downtown , partnering
with those businesses to make sure they were aware of their history and -- and why they
were important. The current app download has been done 145 times. We gave away 20
coins in 2018 and we are developing our strategy for this upcoming May to increase those
numbers now that those things are purchased and we have them, we want to celebrate
that. Historical Society. So, the Meridian Historical Society, city staff, commissioners and
other civil stakeholders have been brainstorming to assess how and where the collections
will be maintained years from now. So, we started the work in 2018 of really engaging
with Lyla and city to determine what's our long-term strategy for dealing with all these
resources. Many of you guys know we have got a whole warehouse of things downstairs
and we -- we are meeting to mature our process for continuity planning, for lack of a better
word. So, in 2019 this is one of our big objectives is to really figure out what that transition
program looks like, where these assets are going to be stored and, then, we are looking
to bring in a college level intern that can aid in the inventory of documents and other
related recordkeeping associated with that collection. It's getting big, it's interesting, we
want to hold onto it and curate it in such a way that future generations can enjoy it. So,
those are work with Historic Society. Last one, but certainly not least, Children's Museum
of Idaho. So, HPC is continuing to follow the progress of the recently opened Children 's
Museum. The museum has multiple exhibits that speak to the roots of Meridian's history,
but our contribution to their efforts was in the form of supporting the construction of a
small outdoor cabin. The local kids can explore and learn about how early Meridian
residents may have lived. The cabin's interior walls were finished with the wood of a
Meridian barn that was torn down earlier in 2018. So, our commission, through your guys'
approval, was able to support that. So very very -- very cool thing that we were able to
do. With that I would just add that as a commission we continue to serve at the delight of
the public. We have a lot of fun. For those of you that are in the public behind me , if you
have never been to an HPC commission meeting, they are fun and I think we are doing
a lot of really, really great work and look forward to serving the city in the future. So, with
that, if you have any questions.
De Weerd: Thank you, Josh. And thank you for your service. Council, any questions for
Josh?
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
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Little Roberts: Madam Mayor. Josh, thank you. Thank you so much for all of the work
that you and the commission does. I really did enjoy my time getting to be your liaison
and got to see a few of these things start to fruition. So , it's really exciting to see them
happening. So, at this point my question is can we not see those pictures? Are they not
available anywhere and we just know that they are -- they are there for a time when we
do have access to them, because the ones that we have seen are absolutely gorgeous.
Evarts: Yeah. Madam Mayor, Commissioner Roberts, one of the discussions that we are
going to have at our next meeting is what are we going to do with those pictures, because
we have a number of different products at this point. So , one of the things we talked
about was creating an historic location layer inside of our app and making those pictures
available there. That does two things. One, it gives us a central way to push it out. It
also encourages people to get the app. It's an additional cool thing that they can get. The
concern was if we push it to the app, then, what about the rest of the city that doesn't
have smartphones, which we want to be sensitive to . So, we are -- we are going to
discuss how to get those -- those images out, because they -- they really are spectacular.
The public is paying for those, so we are just trying to figure out exactly how we are going
to make those available. A great question.
Little Roberts: Thank you.
Evarts: I will tackle it.
De Weerd: Thank you. Any other questions?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Josh, the virtual tours, when are those going to be available to be seen and
how will the people be able to see them?
Evarts: Yeah. Madam Mayor, Commissioner Cavener, that is a great, great question. So
-- Hillary, so you have --
Blackstone: I was planning to share that on Facebook. It's just a simple link. It is hosted
through Whole Films, which is Brandon Holt, a photographer's website, so he was born
and raised in Meridian, now he lives in Eagle and that's why he -- this is also a passion
project for him as well and so it really is just a link that I just need to -- to share with the
world and I plan to do that through Facebook and, then, also posting on the city's site as
well.
De Weerd: When you do have that link will you e-mail it out as well?
Blackstone: Yes.
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De Weerd: Awesome.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: A question again. Josh, I think I said this last year. HPC is doing so many
things and it's just been a dramatic turnaround as an organization , really forward thinking
and doing lots of great things. Can we go back one slide on that cabin, please? I think
that -- that was a budget request that I wasn't super excited about and, then, when I see
this and the thoughtfulness that went into it, it makes me feel like, wow, I was really wrong
and that this is really really great. So, I guess at least to my question what -- what are the
other things the City Council or our city can do to help support all the great things that
HPC is doing?
Evarts: Yeah, Madam Mayor, Councilman, I -- you guys are so supportive just in general.
I think that we just -- we just need to continue to keep you guys abreast of what 's going
on. I feel a little bit bad that -- like we talked about something like this virtual tour and we
haven't provided you a link. So, we will just take it upon ourselves to get better about how
we are communicating with you guys. I think these kind of touches -- I mean we give you
guys an annual report and, then, we come to you when we need something. I'm happy
to look at a greater frequency of -- because we try to keep these things relatively short,
but if there is a way for us to better communicate interim kind of throughout the year we
are happy to look at things like that. But we have experienced no heartache or hardship
because of any stalemate or -- or inactivity on your guys' part. You guys have been super,
so -- and you give us a lot of freedom. We really -- we are fairly aggressive as a group,
we like to do things. One of the things we have talked about is are we doing too much.
We don't feel like we are doing too much right now, but we have got a good balance of,
you know, members on HPC that I think that as commissioners will take on the appropriate
amount and lean into you guys when we need you , so --
Cavener: Madam Mayor? Just maybe a request for -- for you. It would be awesome to
have some of these photos maybe on the screen out in the lobby, rotating on our screens
before City Council of some of these buildings , just as a -- a place so our public can see
them, so that -- and all of our citizens won't know until they know about this and being
able to have kind of a passive way where we can expose that as they are in the building
might be great way to -- to shine a light on that.
De Weerd: And Hillary works in the right department for that.
Blackstone: Thank you.
De Weerd: Mr. Clerk, isn't that correct?
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Blackstone: I can share those files with Barb and she can add them to that. I just wanted
to ask do you want me to have all of the addresses posted on there , too, so that people
can look up those addresses?
De Weerd: I think that would be great.
Blackstone: Okay. Great.
De Weerd: Any other questions for Josh? Thank you.
Evarts: Appreciate you, guys. Thank you.
De Weerd: And thank you for the passion you bring to the HPC.
Evarts: And I want to say that Cherry -- or Lake View Golf Course. I knew it always as
Cherry Lane, but Lake View Golf Course, you're welcome for warming up the crowd.
Thank you.
C. Discussion about Lakeview Golf Course Future Proposal
De Weerd: I would have said we would have loved that you set the example for a short
presentation. Okay. Item 7-C is also under community presentations and who best to at
least introduce this. Mr. Nary?
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, we have had a discussion with the
operators of Lake View Golf Course about a future proposal in regards to some of the
infrastructure there. This has been vetted with the golf course committee. I did see some
people from the committee here in the room as well. So, this has gone before them for
their input and, then, they wanted this opportunity to come back in front of the Council to
present this proposal and to get some direction as to what next steps they might do.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Mr. Oaas. Thank you for joining us. If you will, please,
state your name and address for the record.
Oaas: Yes. Erik Oaas. 4200 West Talamore Boulevard in Meridian. Madam Mayor, City
Council, you know, I find it really sort of appropriate that we would be right after the
Historical Commission, because we -- what we are talking about here today is -- is an
irrigation system that probably would qualify, since it was installed in the 1800s, so -- just
kidding. Just kidding. I first -- first of all, I want -- I look around the room and have said
hello to a lot of very good friends of mine and -- from the golf course and I found myself
wanting to take their order for what they wanted to eat or drink, but, at any rate, we are
here today to -- to -- to present a proposal for a problem. This -- this problem has been
around for a very long time and we think because -- you know, with the help of the city,
we have been looking at lots of different solutions over the years to solve this problem,
but we have -- we -- for one reason or another -- I'm not going to take away the
presentation itself, but for one reason or another they have -- none of them have come to
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fruition. We are here today to promote -- propose a solution that we believe would be a
long-term solution and preserve the golf course for the long, long term and potentially in
perpetuity. That's our intention, That's what we are here for. And that's why we are
making the pitch today. I would like to introduce the members of our team that can -- that
are much more knowledgeable about this -- this proposal than -- than I am. I'm -- I'm sort
of the -- the figure -- a figurehead here. I have a working knowledge, but -- but these guys
are the experts and I would like to just have you stand for a minute Scott Turlington and
David Lehman from Primus Policy. Ken Rock from Launch DFA and Caroline Merritt from
True North Public Affairs and I would like to have -- at this point have Scott Turlington to
come up and he is going to present the proposal and I will be here with him, you know,
as part of the question and answer. Scott.
Turlington: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, my name is Scott Turlington, 802
West Bannock Street, Boise, Idaho. 83702. I would like to -- and several of you have
seen this. We -- we did meet with the golf course focus group on Friday -- this past Friday,
February 8, from 3:00 to 4:30 here in City Hall and one of the things that we wanted to
make sure that we did prior to coming before City Council is having fully vetted this with
the focus group and that seems to be the -- was a good discussion. We utilize them to
discuss what the solutions and the options that we have come up with as a -- as a lessee
potentially and you will see those options today as we go through the -- the presentation
and we will -- we will be able to move along quickly, because I know that many of you are
aware of these. We also sought their input, solicited some questions from the focus group
to get some direction from them. We weren't asking them to approve or -- or -- or anything
like that, but we -- we did want to know if they were supportive of us at least coming
forward to the City Council at this meeting today to present the solutions that we have to
you. And so I believe as we mentioned some of the focus group members are here today
as well. So, the problem, as Erik's described and as you all know, is that the system has
been regularly failing for a number of years now. That's been documented in a couple of
studies in '02 and '06 through the USPDA inspections, worst that the inspector has seen
in his entire career. The repairs have also become increasingly costly. It's a matter of
time before we do, in fact, see wholesale catastrophic failure. I t's not when but if and it's
linked directly to how old the system is. About 40 years old roughly for the original nine
and, then, later with the back nine. The other -- the newer nine those conditions are also
in equal condition. The system is in the same condition. So, replacement parts, also
interesting enough, something I learned as we got into this, replacement parts for this
system aren't available and so it's a -- it's a difficult situation. The dry spots are very
interesting on the course as well. Just an aerial shot and many of the property owners
and many of you perhaps have watered the fairways behind your home. So , the issue
has always revolved around the cost to replace the system . Replacement -- total
replacement and also enhancement of the system is the only option that we believe is
viable. The cost to do that is approximately two and a half million dollars and those costs
haven't been verified with bids or estimates to this point, but based on industry knowledge
or industry data that we will talk about in just a second. To date over the past 13 years
the lessee has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep the current system
operational, again, applying the bandaid fixes and it's just not economically feasible at
this point to continue down that road, especially if you're not going to consider substantial
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increases to the rounds of golf or season passes, which he is not willing to do. So, at this
point we are at the crossroad of replacing the system , enhancing it so that it will operate
the way it's supposed to and without the ability to do that the lessee doesn't have a choice,
there is no money available for him to do that, will have to walk away from the lease and
these are things that we have, obviously, talked about. So, what are the replacement
costs? As I mentioned estimates, roughly two and a half million. Could be a little bit more.
One of the things that did come out of our focus group meeting , which was very helpful,
but came from the Parks Department director is -- is what is the actual cost going to be
and so we know that -- that the cost remains to be determined, but we did some -- some
research and through the Golf Course Industry Association they published an article in
2017 through their association of superintendents for golf courses and they have a
general number, a basic number on what replacement costs should run and it's based on
a per sprinkler head number. So, approximately today a thousand sprinkler heads are in
service at Lakeview. So, the industry average as we just -- I was just mentioning is about
1,500 dollars per head all in to replace a system and that 's just replacing the thousand
that are there. However, to have a satisfactory irrigation system that meets the standards
there is probably another 350 to 500 sprinkler heads that need to be installed to
supplement the thousand that have to be replaced. There will also be a pump that's
associated with that and the cost for that roughly 400 to 600 thousand for the pump. So,
our total replacement and enhancement cost are, like we said, in that two and a half
million, maybe a little bit more ballpark, but that's a number that we will, obviously, want
to verify as we -- if we move forward and as we move forward and the issue has been the
funding. We have looked at all of the potential options. Traditional options aren't
available. I know that many of you and the group has focused on or discussed municipal
bonds being issued. The wastewater facility funds that were a potential until last year,
trading discharge credits, bank finance, state and federal assistance, all of those solutions
have not panned out. There is a solution, however, that Erik and I started discussing late
last summer and that is the use of what's called a Community Infrastructure District or
CID. This was an idea that I presented to Erik and CIDs have been around in Idaho for
about ten to 11 years and I was actually a part of the original group that got the statue put
into law to help developments pay for infrastructure up front and Kent Rock, who is here
today, with Launch DFA, is one of their -- one of the principles with the group that actually
does the -- the financing for the CIDs and helps with the setup of that. But what a
community infrastructure district does is authorizes the use of bonds that will pay for in
this case the replacement of that irrigation system and potentially other course
improvements. What's great about the CID is that taxpayers and existing homeowners
are not on the hook or not required to make the payments to pay the bonds back and the
city, obviously, as well has no obligation to make those payments and during all this the
city continues to maintain ownership of the golf course. So , in this solution with the CID,
just a little broader overview, the city would be required to authorize this creation of a CID
and, again, it's a special taxing district that's created by a vote of the landowner or
property owners within a specific area, so you -- you delineate boundaries. In most
instances CIDs are overlaid with -- over bare land where you don't have residences,
because it's at the beginning of a development and so the vote to create that typically
comes from the landowner, comes before City Council, there is public hearings, so there
is a public process that the statute requires and the other key point of this is that the funds
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that CID bonds are -- are used for -- can only be used to finance public infrastructure. So,
nothing privately is -- is -- is available to be used for the use of CID funds and that's a key
component, because the golf course itself is a -- is a public entity; right? The city owns
it. The irrigation system as a result is public infrastructure and under this scenario would
remain public infrastructure. It has to. So, the assessments that are within the CID are
implemented on the real property within the boundaries of that district and the bonds can
run for as long as 30 years. So, they are able to be amortized and -- and -- and we will
talk a little more about that in a moment. So, once the CID has been created three
members of the City Council would act as the CID board to oversee all the activity in the
projects that would occur within that Community Infrastructure District. That's just a little
-- that's a very general overview of kind of how it's setup and what it -- what it does. So,
the -- the solution and the terms of what the funds would be used for through this
Committee Infrastructure District is a new and properly engineered irrigation system.
That's a definite requirement and that will happen. That's the purpose of it. Additional
benefits potentially involved paved cart paths, rebuilding tee boxes, replacing bridges and
enhancing greens and fairways. Anything associated with the public infrastructure of a
golf course is available under the terms of the CID and it also directly ties into the budget
also, depending on how much money is available through the issue of these bonds. So ,
here is the proposal on how we get there. So, under this scenario to create a CID the
lessee would have to acquire approximately five to ten acres -- we don't know exactly
what that number is yet -- from the city in order to do this and to do that we understand
that there would be potentially a land swap that would be required or some other method,
which we certainly agree with pursuing that as well to look at. The property that the lessee
would -- would -- has interest in acquiring would not include any of the playable golf course
and, then, the CID will be created to overlay the proposed property and there would be
no existing homes within that CID and so, generally, the area -- and I know this may be a
little tough to see, but, again, from a math -- and these are just estimates, approximates,
nothing concrete, you can see on the before slides the -- the areas that we would propose
to acquire from the city via an exchange. The general area located on that first slide
include where the maintenance facility is located, the clubhouse and additional area.
There is a lateral irrigation -- canal lateral on the following and you can see in the -- the
top basic or general square footage of the parking lot area and , then, in that fourth slide
the open area that's on the other side of the road from the parking area that roughly equals
out to about 219,000 square feet, which is just over five acres in that scenario. So, the
proposal under this scenario would be to build a new clubhouse , pro shop, a new
restaurant, bar, special event center, golf training, fitness center and the maintenance
facility that's currently there would be relocated to a different location on the golf course.
So, the piece of the proposal that funds this, that makes it possible to create the CID and
get the bonds issued and to repay the bonds we propose to develop high end townhomes
or condos for age 50 plus homeowners. It's important to note this wouldn't be subsidized
apartments or assisted living, these would be the active 50 and older, which is a very
distinct demographic. The real estate is an essential element for solving this problem.
This is the piece that brings the private partnership with the private money to the table to
solve the problem and while we don't yet have numbers of units that would be required,
we haven't looked at that, we have done some general estimates, but before we move
too far down the road it was important to have this discussion to see if this makes sense
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for the City Council. So, we don't have a really good handle on how many units , what
they would look like, et cetera. So, we can talk about that in just a minute as we wrap up
if there is additional questions there. But, again, this is the -- the core piece of this
proposal. This is what is required in order to pay for not only the irrigation replacement
enhancement, but the additional improvements that would be done. And I guess I will
mention it. The way -- the way this ties into the real estate development piece -- when a
CID is created and real estate is developed, each unit of real estate has an assessment
that's -- that's tied to it that is -- that's the homeowner's responsibility that's buying into it.
So, it can range from a few hundred bucks a year to a few thousand bucks a year that
each homeowner that buys into it is required to pay. So, you get to your numbers by
figuring out how many units you need and that helps you size the bond in this case to
determine what size bond you're able to do based on the market. So , that's the -- the
core piece of how a CID is able to have a bond issue to pay for these -- these
improvements to public infrastructure. We -- we wanted to, after meeting with the golf
course focus group, kind of develop a little bit of a timeline if you will. It's very conceptual,
but roughly 45 to 60 days and key in that is what the Council, you know, may desire to do
today is just -- we are not asking you to give approval, but if we understand this -- you
would like more information, then, we can go forward and start doing some of this, at least
we have the ability to do that, that would be helpful coming today and that would help with
this timeline as well. So, if that's the case -- and we move forward today to look at this,
we would began feasibility studies, architectural concepts. We would prepare those, so
that we can get some of the basic questions answered and that is how many units would
you propose and what would it look like. One of the things that is -- would occur within
the next couple of weeks, very quickly, is Caroline Merritt with True North Public Affairs
would start holding a series of neighborhood meetings at the golf course for the
neighborhood to come in and ask questions and so that we can educate them on that .
We would also be required -- and this would be part of what Kent Rock does is to develop
a finance plan on what this looks like and, then, assuming all that is making sense as we
go, there is a point where public hearings would be required in order for the public to
come in and to provide comment and solicit I guess feedback from the stakeholders.
Ultimately we would get to City Council approval of the finance plan, which isn't the same
as approval of the district. The master plan will be finalized and the CID legal documents
will be completed and -- and I will -- I would I guess add as a caveat during a lot of this
we would most likely be working very closely with your legal counsel as we go forward in
this process and, then, ultimately where we would like to get to by the end of the 60 days
approximately is to have the City Council approve the creation of the CID, which, then,
allows for bonds to be issued and the project to go forward. So, the outcome, of course,
is, you know, the preservation of the commun ity, the enhancement of the golf course,
sustainability of the city's resource. It gets us to the ability to operate the golf course on
a much longer term basis. The city will -- will benefit from that and -- and during all of this
there is, obviously, a lot of other moving parts and pieces. Just remind you that today this
is just conceptual. This is high level. No, I guess, real lines drawn yet. We just want to
find out if this is something that the city has some interest in learning more about, can go
forward and start this process, at least on our end collecting additional information, so
that we can come back to you and say here is more of what it would look like. So, with
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that, Madam Mayor, happy to answer any questions about this or anything that you might
have.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: Thank you for your presentation. Madam Mayor, I also -- I have a quick question
and I was -- as you know I was part of the focus group that was involved last week when
you made this presentation. You spent a little bit more time talking about the building of
the new clubhouse and stuff and so -- other facilities and the licensing agreement that
would come with that. I -- I would think that my colleagues would like to know more about,
you know, the specifics on -- on that aspect of your presentation.
Turlington: Sure. You bet. Madam Chair, Councilmen, with -- with the proposal as you
can see it contemplates the lessee acquiring that land and, then, the lessee providing the
-- the money to build these -- these amenities. So, that leads to the next questions, the
city no longer owns that portion of it and so as we have discussed internally and
conceptually with legal, the way we would I guess remedy any potential default that would
occur as far as access -- the city being able to operate the golf course with a different
lessee in the event of a default, is, essentially, negotiate what would be called a license
agreement within the current lease or within a new lease that would need to be negotiated
and that license agreement would give the city the ability to access these amenities in the
event of a default by the current lessee, so they can operate them and still run the golf
course. So, that -- that covers the default scenario. The next question, then, is what
happens at the end of 60 years presumably, because we would want a new 30 year term
and, then, the lease extends for 30. So, what happens at the end of 60 years if this is still
the current lessee and there has been not defaults. That gets handled through the up
front negotiations we do in the next 60 days and the proposal would be that at the end of
the 60 days that someone -- or the 60 years rather that the facilities have to be acquired
by either the new lessee or -- or the city and so that's a -- it feels like a short-term answer,
but I would also suggest that, you know, in a 60 year span there will be another entire
irrigation system replacement and so there is a -- there is a lot of pieces that happen in
there and -- and that also doesn't take into account that potentially this lessee -- maybe
not this lessee, but his successor might want to be an ongoing lessee and would bid at
the end of 60 years to continue doing that. So, that piece is a little bit different on -- if
there is no default; right? But if there is a default at any period of time during the lease,
then, the license gives the city the ability to access all the facilities on private land to
operate the golf course and so that's how we would handle that and there is a lot of stuff
to work out there and, obviously, the legal folks would be highly engaged in that, but that's
our concept.
Oaas: We might talk about Tamarack.
Turlington: Yeah. So, there has been a couple of examples around the state where you
have either state -- specifically state property and private property where you have a lease
scenario and on the private property there are facilities that are essential to the operations
of the leased property and -- and in the case with -- with a resort -- with the ski resort, a
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big portion of the lifts are actually on private land and the mountain is leased land and so
the way that was addressed is -- is through the license agreement and, then, that provides
the state the ability to have access to those facilities in the event of a default of the lessee,
so that it can be continued to be operated during the lease terms. So, there is some
precedent for having those license agreements in Idaho, although I doubt it's happened
with cities, but maybe with other municipal golf courses, I just don't know. But at the state
level that -- that has occurred.
Bernt: Madam Mayor, follow up? You mentioned that sometime in the future there would
be a possibility, whether it's 60 days -- or 60 years -- or, excuse me, 30 years or 60 years
down the road that the city would potentially acquire those properties . Would that mean
that we would have -- by -- and you say acquire those properties, would we -- would we
have to buy those properties back from Erik or Erik's company or future partners that are
associated with Erik's company?
Turlington: Madam Mayor, Councilman, it wouldn't necessarily have to be the city, it could
be the lessee, but someone and the end of 60 years would have to acquire the -- these
facilities in order to operate them, just like this current lessee would have to pay to build
them, they would have to do the same thing and so that would be part of the negotiations
they would have.
Bernt: Madam Mayor. They would -- they would just maybe -- not necessarily purchase
them, but just continue to lease them from -- or to create a new lease agreement with --
is that what you're saying, that they could be leased from Erik's company?
Turlington: Madam Mayor, Councilman, I think -- obviously it's all subject to negotiation,
but I think if --
Bernt: That's a possibility.
Turlington: A lease with the owner is possibility or an acquisition is a possibility or option
-- a lease with an option. I mean there is a bunch of scenarios that would get -- that we
would look at.
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: I don't know if it was a whisper or -- did somebody say Tamarack?
Turlington: Madam Mayor. That's correct.
Palmer: What could go wrong? Sign me up.
Turlington: Well -- and, Madam Mayor, for -- for a little bit of context, that actually is one
of the provisions that kept the state whole during the last decade.
Bernt: I think it is a great example, actually.
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Turlington: Yes. So, actually, it actually -- this is kind of a good example when you have
a lease you want it to be favorably negotiated for the lessor. So, in
Tamarack's case the state never lost a penny. In fact, they are the only ones that made
money and as a result of some of these provisions, like a license -- the license that exists,
the state's always had access to do that. So, I think that with -- you know, with the -- you
know, with the construct of a lease and how it's negotiated would be very important in this
and that's why, you know, during the 60 days we, obviously, would want to negotiate a
new lease so that we can incorporate those provisions and other provisions that would
make this successful.
Oaas: And Tamarack, by the way, is in better condition today --
De Weerd: You will need to speak into the microphone.
Oaas: Yes. And Tamarack, just as a -- as a development is finally back in good hands
and is in position to where it will be successful.
De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions? Okay. No? Okay. Thank you.
Turlington: Okay. Thank you.
Oaas: Did you have any -- Madam Mayor, Council, did you have any questions -- any
other questions for me?
De Weerd: Council, any questions for Mr. Oaas?
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: I don't know if you -- if you have looked around at other land or anything, but,
you know, as we only had discussed it in executive, you know, it was made clear that it
would -- it would have to take place with a land swap and not just necessarily equal in
size, but equal in value and it would have to be something that we would want. So, just
as a reminder to -- not that I guess you forgot it, but -- but that's how it would have to work
and also for me to be comfortable with it you would have to have a large majority of the
neighbors -- I don't know if that's this crowd or if they are here for something else, but to
be on board with, you know, multi-story, where it wasn't foreseen that it would ever exist
before. Otherwise, I'm certainly open to continuing the discussion and seeing the next
steps.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary, I know one of the -- the points of discussion with the golf focus group
is that the city is liable to replace the irrigation system and as you know it's -- as was
presented and what you just heard, it's around a two and a half million dollar project and
so they are looking for ways to find a solution that -- they did have a slide that showed
different funding mechanisms and one that was being truly proposed or pursued had to
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do with our reclaimed water system. When we got our new permit that pretty much
excluded that as an option, because not only of cost, but it no longer was a strategy to
address phosphorus levels and -- and that's -- in front of you is -- is just another option
and at this point what feedback is being sought -- maybe not today, because it doesn't list
it as an action item, but to consider it and they are looking for direction as to -- is this an
option that would be considered.
Oaas: And, Madam Mayor, Council, I just -- just to be -- expound -- expand on that just
-- just a little bit, in order for us to -- see, it's sort of the cart and the horse issue. In order
for us to bring back, you know, something that's concrete or reasonably concrete, we
have got to start spending money and we are fully prepared to do so, but -- but, on the
other hand, if -- if this is a nonstarter and the Council feels, you know, no way -- no
possible way we are ever going to consider this, then -- then we can't -- we can't -- it
would be foolish for us to go out and start spending a lot of money and so if we are looking
for -- just looking for some direction from the Council about whether -- whether this is a
viable -- something that this Council would consider if this gets -- it met the conditions that
the Council deemed were appropriate.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I'm happy to share my perspective. It's -- Erik, it's really hard to say, yeah, I
could get along this. There is -- because there is so many other steps along the way that
really invites the public to participate, so I don't want you to feel misled to say, yes, I think
this is a great idea today and tomorrow I hear some compelling testimony from residents
over there about how terrible it would be that changes my mind. So, it's -- it's
disingenuous for me to give you any type of support, because the process hasn't
completely played out. If you want to continue to move through this process of public
hearings and whatnot, I think that's great, but that's ultimately your decision to make, it's
not one I think that the City Council needs to be telling you, yes, you need to move forward
or, no, you do not need to move forward. It's -- it's really -- you're in the driver's seat.
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Milam: I -- I agree with Councilman Cavener's comments, but I think that -- I think the
way I understand the direction you're looking for -- and, really, the only thing we can even
say at this moment is there is not no way that this could ever happen. I mean that's about
the best supportive comment that we could give with -- with all of the unknowns. So, I
guess you're just asking if any of us think that there is no way it could happen, that we
would let you know. So, if we are not saying that, then, we are saying there is not no way
-- double negatives, is that --
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De Weerd: Well -- and I think you have just kind of verbalized a little bit of what the golf
course task force says. They can't say, no, we are not interested. It's not an indication
that this is the way, but there was interest in what is a further discussion and -- and what
would it mean and what would it look like and what do the neighbors think and -- and that
sort of thing.
Oaas: Yes. That's -- that's exactly right. And if you look back at that timeline slide there
are -- there are several points along the timeline that the Council has the wherewithal and
the decision making ability to say, no, this doesn't work or, yes, this works, but it needs
this, this, or this.
De Weerd: And it's your risk.
Oaas: And it's -- and it's our risk. But in order -- back to Councilwoman Milam's comment,
all I'm looking for at this point is it's not no way.
De Weerd: Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: Madam Mayor. I don't think that that's the case and, honestly -- and I -- I spoke
about this at the focus group. I applaud your creativity. I somewhat agree with Mr.
Cavener in the sense that it's -- it's not going to be our say whether this goes forward or
not. Ultimately you're the proprietor that's going to put together a plan and going to invest
your capital to possibly make this work or not and so that's not for us to decide whether
you do that or not, but it's a good thing that you have a smart team around you. I know
your team. They are very reputable. They are smart. They have done this before. They
have experience. I would rely upon -- I guess the only advice I give you is rely upon their
advice. I mean at the end of the day this -- I mean I have done some basic math, you
know, on my -- on my Google phone up here and that -- that's what you need to do, just
see if it's going to work out and if it makes sense how many units you're going to have to
build and -- and go from there.
De Weerd: Meaning he was doing the math on his phone.
Bernt: What did I say?
De Weerd: I don't know what you said. I was just clarifying.
Bernt: Okay. I was using a calculator. Yeah.
Cavener: On your Google machine.
Bernt: Google machine.
Rock: Madam Mayor, Kent Rock. Address is 95 -- 3957 Monarch Sky Lane and -- and
with the Launch Development Finance Advisors. The one thing I just wanted to make
clear on the process is the next step of this is to bring you back all the numbers , the
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finance plan and say here is really the details of this is what you need to get it -- what we
-- what you're looking at. Do you want us to go to the next step. So, all we are saying is
is this an absolute thumbs down at this point. If so, then, we are done. But if you want
to see more that's the direction we need and that's what we are looking for.
De Weerd: I think as long as you realize it's not approval.
Rock: Right. Because you could say no at the finance plan, then, after the finance plan
the law requires us to come in with a formal application, at which time you receive the
application and could say no or your next step after the application is to have a public
hearing if you are looking at going forward and, then, you finally at that point, after the
public hearing, is when you decide the final let's go or it's done. But this is just saying are
you -- is this a thumbs down at this point and , then, we won't waste the time. If it's not a
thumbs down, then, we move to preparing the finance plan to bring back to you to look
at.
De Weerd: Thank you. Any clarification needed on that?
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Say that this all happens and it was to be replaced, what -- how long -- what's
the lifespan of a new system, before I realistically should be start beating or --
Oaas: Well, if we -- if we operated on the history of this -- this current system -- that guy
there in the back with the -- with the hat on, he has -- he has been a magician for the last
-- let's see. We -- we took over in 2005. It's 2019 now. The system was -- should have
been replaced then, according to the -- the two reports, one done in 2002, one done --
done in 2000 --
De Weerd: But never should have been built the way it was built.
Oaas: Yeah. It was built with residential sprinkler heads. It was -- the pipe was never
glued properly. I mean it was -- in the words of the inspector, this PGA inspector, the
worst example -- the worst irrigation system he's seen ever in all -- all of his inspections
around the country. So, to your -- to answer your question, we have bandaided this
system for that -- that long and we are -- and it's -- but it's -- it's to the end. I mean we are
literally to a catastrophic failure now. How long will it -- will a new system last? That's --
that's a good question. You know, but certainly -- certainly it's going to last well beyond
or -- or certainly last at least half as long as what the current system is, which -- and, like
I said, it's 40 years. So, it's -- a new system is probably a 15 to 20 year lifespan, but I'm
just -- I'm just pulling that number out of the air.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Given that most of you will probably outlive me on Council, most of you hopefully
won't outlive me and that would leave me and my kids to pay for t he next round of it. So,
I don't know what you all need to be planning, but , please, do so. Just doing some quick
math on my Apple machine up here -- what we are spending -- I don't know if it needs to
be, you know, replacing one hole every year with a new system ten years down the road
starting on that or something, but with what we are spending on public art installations
alone this year would have paid for not only the repl acement, but the upgraded plans for
a total of 1,500 divided by the 18 holes, would have paid for one hole's worth of the
complete replacement and upgrade of it. So, we are going to get some pretty signs in
some of our parks and some spinning things to look at. Meanwhile, we are not planning
ahead, we are just planning to replace a potential catastrophic situation now, we are not
talking about what to do next time. So, given that I will certainly be the one paying for it ,
let's keep that in mind and fix it after I'm gone.
Oaas: And, please, understand Councilman Palmer, that in the best of all worlds it would
be great to replace one hole at a time, but you can't do that. I mean you just -- you just
physically can't -- you can't take the old system that we have got that were bandaided
and connect it to a new -- a new -- new pipe and new sprinkler head, it just won't work.
So, you have to do nine holes at a time -- shut down the nine holes and do a nine hole
retrofit all at once and, then, open that nine whole segment up and do the other nine
holes. So, you just -- unfortunately, it just -- you just can't do it one at a time. It's -- it's --
you're connecting a square peg in a round hole and it won't work.
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor. Erik, thank you very much for the presentation and thank
you -- those of you that live around Lake View and are on Lake View, thank you very much
for being here. Probably one of my biggest concerns is, of course, the feedback from the
citizens that live on and near Lake View. My other big concern is the city not owning
something -- like the dirt that goes with the golf course in order to operate the clubhouse
and things like that and I know that it's been talked about that there is ways to work that
out, but -- and, again, I'm not saying no, no way, but those are my biggest concerns.
Oaas: Council Woman Little Roberts, we -- we understand and, yes, I understand your
concerns, but in order -- in order to make this happen -- like Scott was saying, in order to
make this happen you have to draw investment capital in -- in order to -- to -- because the
CID -- none of the CID monies can be used for roof tops or buildings or -- or anything of
that nature. So, you have to attract investment capital and in order to attract investment
capital you have to offer a return. You know, it's -- it's sort of like we can't -- I couldn't -- I
-- there is no way I could even find investment capital if the facilities were not owned by
the investors, so it's -- it's -- it's sort of -- that's just the way it works. In order to pay back
the bonds you have to have the private property and you have to have the -- the residential
housing units that pay the assessments that pay back the bonds. That's just -- that's just
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the way it is. And I understand, but -- but we are facing a two and a half million dollar
problem right now that we have no solution for.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor, follow up. And I understand. I'm certainly willing to listen
to the conversation. I just wanted to give you a heads up that that was a big concern for
me and my other concern is relocation of the maintenance shop, because as you well
know, there is not much extra property, if any, around there.
Oaas: Yes. I understand.
De Weerd: Okay. Any further questions?
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Just -- just some feedback, Erik. I have been one of your bigger supporters as
you struggle through some of these year over year and we have talked candidly about
some of the problems that are -- over the course of 14 years there has been deferred
maintenance and -- and an expenditure which you knew was going to be coming down
the road with problems with the system that might have exist ed when you took over in
'05. Nonetheless, for whatever reason it wasn't capitalized and so there is not resources
available to -- to fix it now is what it sounds like. I am certainly intrigued and open to
hearing the ideas, with the understanding, like has been expressed, that, you know, you're
well aware that there are a lot of hurdles and unknowns that may throw this off track. But
there has been discussions with you candidly that among all of those unanswered --
obviously, the specifics on location and design and the entitlement process, all of which
are contingencies on this, a completely new lease with operational matrix and reporting,
rents, term, every component of it is also part of the package that would have to come as
-- as part of any proposal, the specifics of what, if any, land swap might make it viable,
those are unknowns, but take all of that and each one of those are independently required
to satisfy us to make it work. So, the numbers and how it might pencil fascinate me. From
the financing perspective I have been involved in these deals before, but that almost is
some assurance for the bondholders we are going to ultimately purchase these, to
understand that there is a revenue stream to pay it back, but from our perspective not
only are we hopeful that the bondholders get paid back and it is successful long term, but
all of those other items that you have heard today, at least in the design and the location
and the land swap and all of the input that is yet to come from the public are an important
required part of it, too. So, I heard -- I had the flu over the weekend -- I had the flu over
the weekend and so I was watching TV at 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 in the morning, couldn't sleep,
and one of the many things you see at 4:00 in the morning, at least -- it was news to me
is -- is advertisements for -- for weight loss. This is totally off the rails, but -- and here was
the pitch that they made and it just fascinated me and I was sick and it was 4:00 in the
morning, but -- but it's these programs, right, where if you don't have to diet and you don't
have to workout, you don't have to change anything and you lose weight and I thought,
well, I'm in, I guess. I mean I guess the devil's in the details down that road, but it sounds
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like a pretty good program. So, if your package is -- it sounds great; right? If there is a
mechanism that fixes all the problems and it doesn't put it on the taxpayer and it's a perfect
design and a great land swap and a perfect lease that has control and -- and provides a
better product for the citizens and more involvement in the success of the course and it 's
more beautiful than it is today, okay, sounds pretty good. But you're going into it eyes
wide open, knowing that there is a lot of concerns and questions that will come and with
that the question for you or for Scott was the time frame that you rolled out -- I'm uncertain
why a CID would have to be approved prior to those 14 variables being resolved. If, for
example, the lease or -- or the entitlement when it gets to us in the summer or fall, if
something throws it off, why would we need to set up a CID before that?
Turlington: Madam Mayor, Councilman, the -- ultimately -- if you look at the slide, the last
level, approval of the CID, after everything has been done, all the hurdles have been
crossed, I think that's what we propose and that's the process, but as you look down at,
you know, there is things that the city council has to approve, the finance plan, but keep
in mind approval of the finance plan isn't approval of a CID. So, I don't think that we would
be asking that the CID be approved before all of these steps have been completed to
your satisfaction and the public's satisfaction and so I think that's my -- that is how --
Borton: Madam Mayor? And that's -- that's where the question came up. I read it as
though in 60 days you're at the end --
Turlington: Oh.
Borton: Potentially.
Turlington: Yeah.
Borton: And the reality is the variables that I have described are ten months.
Turlington: Yeah.
Borton: Right? So, would it be -- in ten months would all of those other variables are --
assuming they are all satisfied, that we would, then, approve a CID, because you're not
selling bonds until then anyway, I assume.
Turlington: Madam Mayor, Councilman, I think that's correct. I think the 45 to 60 days to
get through all the due diligence and process -- I mean in a perfect scenario, if we are
talking about losing a lot of weight quickly without doing work, we could get there in 60
days, but that's, obviously, I don't think what we are talking about. There is -- there is a
lot of work to get done just with the community outreach alone and the finance plan -- and
these things do take time, so this, again, just all conceptual what you're seeing today and
it's certainly not in stone, but that's kind of how we just wanted to portray that as 46 to 60
days to get us to the point where we have a good handle on -- I would hope, Madam
Mayor and Council, that we are not looking at ten months down the road for approval of
the CID. In that last I think we could get our work done a lot sooner than that, but I also
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understand that, you know, it does take time to get buy off and support, but that would
seem like an extraordinarily long time just to me, but --
Borton: Well -- Madam Mayor? And the reason I asked, for example, in -- what would --
why would we approve a CID if we don't -- it's a land use process, for example. The
entitlement hasn't been completed. We would probably sit here and say I'm not ready to
approve a CID, for example.
Oaas: Councilman Borton, I would assume -- you know, I understand what you're saying,
but -- and approval -- a contingent approval is just that, is approval based on the
contingency being satisfied or a conditional approval, similar to any other project.
De Weerd: I guess the question is why -- when there is a land swap that would be
required, where there is a project -- there is an actual project of --
Oaas: Right.
De Weerd: -- if you were to get the land, what would you put on it, what would it look like
and all of that, it seems like the cart in front of the horse and I think that that's the point
that was being made, is that's a lengthy process.
Turlington: Madam Mayor, we don't disagree and I think as we go forward we are going
to learn a lot from how government works and how the -- you know, how long it does take.
I mean we are not saying this should be done in 60 days, but to the extent that in 60 days
is there a project that will go forward -- and, hopefully, we can get to that, because it may
take longer, but, you know, we are -- we are going into this, like you said, with eyes wide
open and we are committed to finding out these answers, so I --
De Weerd: Well, as long as you understand, I guess, the answer to how government
works is it works for the people and there is a public process as part of that and there is
information that's needed for the public to weigh in on.
Turlington: Correct. And, Madam Mayor, the part I think that we would like to do is we
start the neighborhood meetings. Those aren't, obviously, a government sanctioned
process, but with the public hearings that would occur -- and I don't know if the city would
have those, but I think that's all factored into this. The CID process -- and inherent in that
is public transparency.
De Weerd: Okay. I'm hearing conversations on all sides of me right now, so -- I'm trying
to even listen here.
Turlington: So, yeah, again, Madam Mayor, just the -- the transparency of the entire CID
process, if you look through that statute, it's -- every step along the way there is -- there
is transparency and public involvement and so it's pretty lengthy and th ere is a lot in there,
but there is no effort on our part now or ever to circumvent any of the public process and
I know there is not any interest on your part, so that's our commitment.
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De Weerd: Well, I think you heard as much certainty as anyone can give you is it's not
absolutely no.
Turlington: And I would say, Madam Mayor, too, that -- that it's not and it could be -- a
scenario could exist where, you know, in a month or 45 days we come back with a
response that says, well, this doesn't work for us. So, the answer from us is no. So, now
it's back to where we are today and that's a different solution. So, we don't know the
answers yet either.
De Weerd: Right.
Turlington: But we have to find out and that's what we have to do.
De Weerd: Okay.
Oaas: And one final --
De Weerd: And did I adequately portray that? Okay. Okay.
Oaas: Madam Mayor, I'm sorry to interrupt. I would just -- just one parting comment. I
read an article yesterday about golf courses nationwide and the reality is that over 200
golf courses are closing every year. Two hundred. And -- and it's because of supply and
demand. I mean it's very simple. And what we are proposing here is an idea. It's a
solution that we hope -- we hope will work for the city and we hope will work for all of our
patrons and we hope will work for us. That's the spirit that we are following in presenting
it to you.
De Weerd: Okay.
Oaas: Thank you.
Item 8: Department Reports
A. Legal Department Annual Report
De Weerd: Thank you. Okay. Item 8 -A is under our Department Reports and we have
our Legal Department's annual update.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the City Council, it's my privilege again to be here to
give your annual report. I know all of you look forward to this every year. I think Madam
Mayor has heard every one of them and, you know, we could do it twice a year, but it's
always good to leave them wanting more, so it's my privilege again to be here. This is
our 15th year as an office and I am very proud to be here and our team is here and I
would put our legal department up again any city in the state of Idaho in the quality of
service that this city gets, that our citizens get, that the Mayor and Council receive from
our legal staff and our department. We are very proud to work for the City of Meridian
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and I wanted to take some time to highlight that, as well as celebrate the successes. My
colleagues and our partners from the city of Boise are here to talk about prosecution when
I get done, but I did want to talk a little bit about the things we have done in our legal
department that some of you know, some -- and the people watching online, Mrs. Palmer
and a couple of others may not know, so I wanted to make time to talk abo ut those things.
So, this is our team outing. We went to the dump. We thought that would be a good
opportunity for us to learn a little bit more about our landfill, we have our solid waste
advisory commission that we participate in. We -- actually, one of our -- our deputy
attorneys Andrea Pogue has been a member of that commission for a number of years.
We decided to take our team outing this year and go to the d ump and learn a little bit
more and if you didn't know they have a store there that's open -- one day a week on
Fridays that you can go and collect some of the recyclable materials that they have
collected, like leftover paint or leftover cleaner and they make no promises of what's in
the bottle is what's on the label, but they -- you can have it for free. The line is out the
door. It is literally their most popular thing they do the re at the landfill.
De Weerd: What's most popular?
Nary: This -- free recyclable at the hazardous waste facility.
De Weerd: The mystery products.
Nary: Yes. You presume -- most of them are like Andrea is holding in this picture, but this
is our team picture this year. Again, this is our 15th year as an office. Is that about age
15 for all of us? Somewhere in the range. So, this is a very embarrassing thing for all of
us --
De Weerd: Oh, my gosh.
Nary: -- to share with you. I also wanted to highlight --
De Weerd: That looks like Eli.
Nary: I also wanted to highlight the years of service that all of us have had for either this
city of other cities as well. We, again, have a very dedicated group of people to provide
services to our citizens and as an office, again, in our 15th year we have had no turnover
and I have said it to you folks many times and I let people know we have had zero turnover
in our office for that time period. We have added two people since we started, which was
Emily and Andrea and we have never had anyone leave. We have provided that level of
continuity for our department. We think that's something that's a g reat value to our
citizens and our departments as well. So, now I didn't do anything, but I don't know why
it's going backwards. We think we provide great value to all of our departments and to all
of you and to our citizens, that level of continuity is not common. Again, not a little -- not
to brag, but I am the third longest in-house city attorney in the state. So, this is -- this is
something we think is of great value to everyone. We are going to take that one down.
Here is our mission statement. Again, this is our objective for all of us, work every day to
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make this a better community for everybody and we carry out the mission of the city for
whatever direction the Mayor and Council provide, whatever the departments want to do,
we make it happen. Most of the things we do most people don't see. The department
addresses issues, concerns, questions, problems, we try to do everything we can to solve
it, make sure it's done legally, make sure everything -- and by the time it gets to you on
Tuesday all of the issues that should be vetted and that you can be comfortable and
assured all of the solving that you would be concerned about in your position as elected
officials have been addressed and we can answer those question for you. So, let's talk a
little bit about the individual things we do. So, we look at -- you know, when I say review
every item on the City Council agenda, I have said it year after year as we were preparing
this one, I looked back at probably seven or eight different presentations we had had.
The data doesn't change much. We still do the same thing. Reviewing every item on the
City Council agenda is a real thing that really is important to us. We spend a great deal
of time preparing, so that you, again, can be assured that it's done, it's complete, it's done
properly. I tried to highlight a couple of things. Again, most of the stuff you have seen.
You know we staff all the meetings. We staff all the Council meetings. All the commission
meetings. We are parts of internal committees, like impact fees and the golf course.
Managing litigation appeals, mediation, and subpoenas. We get a number of different
things in the city. We get subpoenas that we handle in our office that we address with
both city departments, as well as fire staff. Our partners with the city of Boise help us
with subpoenas that go through the police department. But we review all of those. If we
have appeals -- this year we had a land use appeal that we are still pending a decision
on, we handle that internally. You hear a number of people come in front of you saying
we are going to appeal this. Well, again, we are prepared to address those as they come
along. We deal with all -- whether it's litigation that we handle or litigation that outside
counsel is involved with, whether it's through our insurer ICRMP or on our own, we help
manage that litigation with them to help keep c osts down. We also deal with mediation,
if we do mediation, as we did last year with the fire department , we handle that as well.
So, we do a variety of different things on that front to both provide the best service we
can for the citizens and for the city, as well as keep the costs reasonable. We review all
the public records responses that come to the City Clerk's office. There was 454 of them
in 2018. So, you can see there was an uptick of about 150 more during the year. Many
of them are very simple and occasionally they are very complex and two of our attorneys,
Emily and Andrea, are the primary leads on those requests and they work very closely
with the clerk's office on managing those, meeting the time frames as required by statute,
whether it be three days or ten days, depending on the complexity of the request and we
try to push them all out within three days, if that's possible, and if sometimes it takes a
little bit longer we make sure we are compliant with the code on that. We also work with
the clerk's office on temporary use permits. Again, we had an uptick in those as well in
2018 with 125. Some of those can be handled through the licensing process and
occasionally some do require an agreement of some sort with the entity that wants the
TUP to make sure they meet our requirements, our code, whatever might be necessary
to make sure the event is safe and is done properly. We help craft those agreements with
the clerk's office. Again, you can see some of the other things that we assist the clerk's
office. We provide daily contact and daily assistance with. So, 15 years, the recurring
theme of our presentation today. If you look at that -- so, 15 years after the Declaration
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of Independence was when the Bill of Rights was established. So, 15 years seems like
a long time in some contexts and not very long in others. So, we thought we would give
you some of those along the way. Human Resources. I put in here assists with rewrite .
I highlighted the assists with rewrite the standard operating policy and procedures. This
is a very large undertaking that we are partnering with Human Resources on to revise
and review our policy and procedure manual. It was adopted back in 2002. There has
been a few changes over the years here and there, but we felt there was a need for
consistency and also as I have told you on a couple of occasions we have been in front
of you with some policy changes over the last couple years we really felt the need from
an operational standpoint to separate out the policy from the process. Many times the
policies is a page or less and the procedure is 14 pages. So, it really makes more sense
to separate those two, because the policy is the rules that we have to follow, procedures
sometimes change based on legal changes, IRS changes, process practical changes,
personnel changes. So, we really want to separate that, but it's a major undertaking.
Andrea Pogue has taken the lead with our departments with Human Resources to get
that done. We will be bringing that back over the course of this year. We have worked
closely with Human Resources and Legal back in -- a number of years ago, I think it was
in 2012, with the Police Department to help them get their policy manual updated and
changed. So, this is a continuation of that process. Again, there is a number of different
things we assist on, whether it be with contracts, legal compliance, personnel actions. I'm
very proud that, you know, when we talk with our insurer ICRMP we are one of the very
few cities that work so closely with them that we talk with them about personnel actions
and issues and problems that we are having and how we are going to address them,
whether it be through -- through some sort of reprimand, a performance improvement
plan, occasionally there is a termination, but they work so closely with us -- I mean most
of the time when we are checking in with ICRMP and talking to them, they are saying,
yep, that sounds great, what you guys are doing sounds perfect. You know, we really
have a good relationship with them and we have had very little claims because of that.
We spend a great deal of time making sure we do things right and how we -- how we
operate, so that we don't, again, have more cost and impact to the city. The Finance
Department -- again, they are very busy. We work very closely. Again, we are sort of -- I
don't want to say evil, but we are a necessary part of the support system, whether it be in
contracting, in the finance arena, we work very closely with them on all of it, whether it's
being the purchasing contracts -- again, they -- the law has changed. Our -- in fact, our
purchasing manager has been integral in the state to the change in purchasing laws to
make them better and we have worked closely with him and we make sure nature -- again,
we do a lot of contracts, whether it be Parks or Public Works or whatever, we work very
closely with them to maintain that and make sure we are, again, following what the code
requires. Ted Baird is one of our leads on a lot of these things, especially on the
purchasing side. Ted has worked very closely -- I think I looked at one slide from a few
years ago and I said if we bought some dirt anywhere Ted was the one that helped make
it happen and that's still the case. The Fire Department. We have done eight collective
labor agreements since 2005. We have been very successful in working with our -- our
collective labor groups, with our union, and being able to come to the table and reach
resolution, sometimes not that easy for either side, but we have been able to get to
resolution and have a good meeting of the minds and a good discussion. So, I'm really
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proud of that. We, again manage grievances and arbitration. We have actually looked at
improving that process through this last one. Again, we do a lot of code issues with Chief
Bongiorno, if he has questions. We also deal with public records, because it's very unique
in the fire department. So, Emily Kane from my staff will spend a lot of times helping them
with those, because there are real specific things in public records because of the medical
component the firefighters do that is unlike most other public records. So, we have to
make sure we are compliant. When we do that we want to make sure that's done properly,
so we, again, work very closely when those requests come in. So, 15 years after
statehood is when they started building the capital. So, that's a picture from early 1900s
as the capital construction was underway. Police Department. Now, again, this is a
partnership one. We work with the city of Boise on that and they provide a great deal of
service to the Police Department and they will come and tell you about that in a little bit,
but we -- in addition to that, we also advise code enforcement. So, that becomes really
something -- and, again, Emily Kane takes the lead for our staff and works code
enforcement and those are a variety of issues that you would see, such as leaves or
nuisances and things like that. So, parking issues is another one that code deals with.
So, we work very closely with them in helping them work in our neighborhoods, work with
our citizens, so those issues as they come up on we try to assist them as well. Again, we
have also worked closely with police and one of them -- actually, both of them are on your
agenda today with the vehicle sharing program, as well as the ordinance that we have
been working on that we are going to talk about a little bit later. Emily handled those items
as well. So, again, we think it's a great opportunity to provide that input on the front end.
No one likes that -- no one -- no one at the office -- not everybody likes to call their lawyer,
but it's a lot easier to call your lawyer in the beginning than it is aft er you did it. Parks and
Rec, again, we are really engaged with that. We attend the commission meetings. We
provide a lot of input to parks and things, whether it's the construction of new and
construction in parks, again, you can see there is some varieties of different things. We
provided support with Home Court. We provide issues of that. Art in the Park. So, those
are the new things that we had this year. We had some new art projects that come
through and that was a partnership with the arts commission and the parks commission,
as well as us providing support and getting those agreements done and finalized, so we
can get those projects up and going. Some things -- even small things you may or may
not know. We have a city arborist and we have city arborist standards. We require in
certain situations where people have nuisance trees that are growing into the roadways
or a sidewalk or obstructing things, so we work with those homeowners through the
arborist to make sure those get abated when they need to be. Community Development.
That's probably the area we are engaged with the most. This one doesn't have one lead,
we all do this and whether it's attending the meetings, providing daily support, providing
answers to questions, preparing development agreements -- the one person that -- that I
do want to highlight that does take the lead -- if you look at the development agreements,
it's got 39 of them in 2018. Michelle Albertson, our legal support service -- legal support
services manager does all of those. So, those are -- all the projects she sees. Sometimes
they are new annexations, they come in with a development requirement or you see many
modifications of developments that's come in and we prepare all of those ourselves.
Those are prepared by Michelle. It -- some of them -- again, it's like a lot of legal issues,
some are very routine, some are incredibly complex and so those are something we work
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very closely with the Planning Department on. Again, the land use ordinances all get
prepared by us. We provide different levels of support. We -- for example, the EBS
agreements and special agreements, we have done those for years and this year as we
transition into bringing those services in house we work very closely with the department
to provide those services to get those contracts ended, to get those new people on board
to assist with that transition. There was a lot of that. You recall we had a number of times
where we would come to you and say, well, that 30 days we thought we had is really less
and we need to get this moving faster and we help ed assist with a lot of those things.
Andrea Pogue is also with the Comprehensive Plan update. She has been working
through that with the committee. So, we, again, have had to try it -- we want to be hands
on on the front end, we want to be there at the outset, so that way we can try to resolve
all those little bugs and things that come up as they come up , rather than waiting until
later. So, this is just down the street, a hundred years ago. I think this is the year Mr.
Warrick was born that you heard that property a couple weeks ago. So, yeah, this is
Idaho Street. That water tower -- and you can see the Heritage building is on there. So
-- yeah. So, this is about a hundred years ago. This is 1918, 15 years after the city was
incorporated. Public Works. This is another one I think -- oh, let me back up. I got to
wait on that one. Yes. Let's go back twice -- we will get to that one.
Palmer: Was that also 15 years after the city was created?
Nary: So, Public Works is another area, because it's such a large department with lots of
different needs. I would say we don't really have one person assigned to that department,
we really have everyone that takes that. Again, lots of different things. We have seen a
lot of transition with our SWAC, Solid Waste Advisory Commission, this year. We did a
lot of work with that. We have helped with updates to the code. We have helped them
with contracts. Resident recycling. I mean a number of different things. Sewer and water
assessments, we have worked really closely with that. That's been a really contentious
legal issue and so we have tried to be really good at being up to date on that and working
directly. So, we have been involved in all different facets of Public Works, whether it be
engineering, wastewater, or water. Again, this was 15 years ago. So, it doesn't take long
for things to change. Fifteen years doesn't seem very long to a lot of people and it's quite
a bit different. This is also 15 years ago and I really didn't want to use Tom Brady or the
Boston Red Sox, but, literally, 15 years ago the Patriots won the Super Bowl and the Red
Sox won the World Series, just like they did last year. So, other things from 15 years ago
we thought was also good to note . Facebook. I have heard of them. I think they have
become quite popular. On the risk management side. So, over the last year -- and we
want to make sure you saw, you know, claims against the city really pretty steady and,
again, the claims against the city vary greatly. We were talking about this today in our
directors meeting. We get many -- we get claims that we have nothing to do with. People
-- I always call it the shotgun effect. They will send -- they will file a claim with us, Ada
County Highway District, Ada county, the city of Boise, the state, they will file with
everybody and we had nothing to do with it. So , the number of themselves aren't really
concerning to me. I look at every one of them. We evaluate every one of them. We work
closely, if we feel we have errored and we need to address it, we will address it. There is
times that there are issues that we really didn't cause it or we had a legal reason to do
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what we did and we send the claim to our insurer and they may work with them and
sometimes we pay it and sometimes we don't. Again, you see ICRMP paid 15 claims out
of the 35. Again, some of those are ones where the -- it was very clear to us what the
issue was and we took care of it. I have always said to all of you it's always been my
philosophy as a risk manager, if we aired we need to just address it. We are the
government, that's our responsibility, we should take care of it. But there is other
occasions where we are not at fault and if you're harboring a fugitive and we kick the door
down, we are probably not going to fix it. So, there are occasions where we don't pay for
that, because it is our responsibility to do what we did. Damages to other city property
caused to other property. Again, those vary. That's an area we are targeting in our
strategic plan. Our strategic plan objective was to create a comprehensive risk
management program, which we actually have, but we want to memorialize it. It's not
necessarily in policy. It's in practice. We want to make sure we make policy, so it's clear
to everyone this is what we do in these situations and how we address claims, how we
address damages, whether it's damage caused by us or damage caused to us, so the
departments know what to do to get those addressed and so we are working with our
department directors to create a policy that will come back in front of you -- I plan on this
year, so that we can put it in place, moralize the procedure, create a clear reporting
process that's easy -- easy to manage, so that way it can be seamless and go from down
-- in perpetuity. So -- and that's the area we felt as a director team , as our risk
management team, that we can look at trends to determine if there are other things we
as a city need to be doing. If we cause damage, like in collisions, we want to see what is
causing those collisions and that is their training necessary or equipment necessary to
address those types of things, because, obviously, that's something we can affect. The
damage caused by others to us is probably less likely we can affect. We will look at
trends, there is no doubt. We want to know if we are hitting the same light pole can we
move the light pole, that might be one occasion. But, again, car collisions and things like
that many times that are caused by drunk drivers or bad drivers or inattentive drivers,
there is not a lot we can do to affect that. But we need to look at those trends and that 's
what our intention is as part of our strategic initiative. And so that was -- oh, excuse me.
I guess we skipped through the slides. That's kind of where we are. Right now we are in
the policy making stage. We have drafted a policy that we are reviewing. Any comment
-- we meet on a quarterly basis, so our next quarter I asked the -- the committee members
to provide me input prior to the meeting, so we can finalize that at the next meeting , so
we can move it forward in our process. Fifteen years from now. And I had to take the
liberty for the very last time to put the courthouse on a slide, because it is done. So, that's
why it's double crossed out, it's done. But where are we 15 years from now? I don't know
if we will have drones and scooters, but we may. I don't know if we will have cat licensing,
but we may. But we know in our strategic plan going forward we do want to look at a
police attorney in house at some point in the future. We talked about this at the budget
time last year and so we are working with finance to look at that for a long term . What
would that take, when would it makes sense, you know -- and, again, is it an in house?
Is it continuing with the contract with the city of Boise? We have had zero service
concerns and issues with the city of Boise. We are really happy to be working with them
these many years, but is that a long-term solution? Maybe it is. Is contracting still the
long-term solution, whether it's the city of Boise or someone else? Maybe it is. Or doing
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it internally ourself is a possible solution. So, any of those scenarios we want to explore,
look at cost, look at practicality, look at when would be the best timing to do that. So, we
are working on that on both the police attorney fees and prosecution, just so that you
have enough information to make those decisions when it needs to be made. We also
looked at additional civil attorney. At this juncture, in my discussions with my team and
with -- with the Mayor, we don't feel the necessity in the immediate future to look at
expanding our civil attorney team, but we do need to look down the horizon and look at
the future. You know, our city is only getting larger, the complexity of legal issues are only
getting more -- more so and we can only spread our bandwidth so far. We do have the
ability to contract when we need it. That's how we have solved it when we have needed
to and -- and I don't foresee that changing in the immediate future, but there will be a point
where an additional attorney might be appropriate , but we won't come to you without
some matrix and some ability to demonstrate why that 's necessary, not just we are just
busy. That's not going to work, so -- it's not right. Okay. Criminal prosecution. Again,
our -- our partners with the Boise city attorney's office have been great partners. We have
been with them as our prosecuting entity since 2002. The service and quality we get from
them, both for public records responses, advising our police on call, doing training,
prosecuting all our cases, providing a service for warrants and all the things that goes into
the criminal prosecution side that we were concerned if we had a court facility how would
we manage to move that work from where we were to something else right now isn't
needed and we, again, have a great relationship with them. I want to make sure they
have adequate time to share what they are doing, but this is really the end of my portion,
if there is questions. And, again, after they are done if you have questions. So, for me,
I'm happy to answer them. I would like to take a moment, because they are here. Would
you stand up for one second. All of you -- four of you. I know all of you know them, but
as I said -- and I can't overstate it --
De Weerd: You look different than your pictures.
Nary: I -- I don't want to overstate it, but I can't say enough how fortunate I feel, both to
work for the City of Meridian and to work with these four people every day. They all have
the same desire that I do and the same desire that I t hink all of you do, is to do the best
for our citizens to make this a good community to live in and we do it every day. No
complaints. We like working here. Everything about it is great. But I wanted to take a
moment to make sure to recognize them. They make me look way better that I could do
this and --
De Weerd: That's true, Bill.
Bernt: That is true. We are all in agreement with that, Bill.
Nary: Good. I will introduce Michael Dean.
De Weerd: Okay. Hold on.
Nary: Oh, sorry.
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De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Not a question, but a comment that I really -- I love your department. You speak
privately of everyone on your team the same way. It's remarkable and you guys talk about
Bill that way. You guys have this wonderful trust and great working relationship and it 's
-- it's fun to hear you speak so positively and you brag about each other, even knowing
that they might not ever hear about it, but it means a lot to us to see how you work well
together and it's awesome.
Bernt: Well said.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Nary: Thank you. I appreciate that very much, Councilman Borton. That means a lot to
me and I appreciate it. I know that same sentiment from all of you and I appreciate that
very much. I will introduce Michael Dean and Kevin Borger from the Boise City Attorney's
Office, they will share the prosecution side with you and, again, we will answer questions
after that if you have any. Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Dean: Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor and --
De Weerd: Good evening.
Dean: -- and Council. We appreciate the chance to be here. My name is Michael
Dean --
De Weerd: Welcome.
Dean: -- with the Boise city attorney's office. I have been here before and I appreciate
coming back again. I will tell you we appreciate the partnership we have with the City of
Meridian and we greatly appreciate the partnership we have with the Police Department.
They are top notch and I can't speak highly enough of them and the --
De Weerd: We think so, too.
Dean: -- the officers there that help us quite a bit. We -- our prosecution contract covers
a few different areas. The criminal work at the courtho use, as well as the advice to the
police -- and there are two components to that, the police advice that is given and training
that's given at the police department and also the on-call portion. I will be speaking about
the criminal prosecution portion and Mr. Borger will speak to the police advice portion as
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well. We currently have 15 criminal prosecutors and one victim witness coordinator that
engage in our prosecution efforts. We cover five full-time judicial calendars. We do cover
two other partial calendars, arraignments and other -- other hearings that are set on those
judge -- judges' calendars. We have two additional rotating capital calendars for
settlement conferences, bench trials. Those are assigned to a particular judge, but rotate
among the various judges on the second and fourth floor at the Ada County Courthouse
and so they are in addition to the regular courtrooms we cover and we also have one
especially a problem solving court, domestic violence court, which is a high intensity court
is focused specifically on domestic violence-related offenses, cases in which there is a
specific need for -- I should say greater supervision. We put 15 cases into those -- into
that court this past year. We have two dedicated prosecutors and one dedicated victim
witness coordinator that cover those cases. Typically they -- they resolve within 60 days
and have review hearings over the course of a year. Specialized treatment services as
well. We do have three police advisors and one paralegal and one of those attorneys,
Mr. Borger, who is dedicated to the Medium Police Department. I will note that we also
have four -- four attorneys that serve on call for the Police Department as well. Our
prosecution service include a number of things. We screen all reports that come in to
determine whether charges are necessary. We notify the victims or reporting parties if
we decline to file charges. We also work with them when we do file charges . We notify
them of upcoming court hearings. We review all filed misdemeanor citations and
misdemeanor arrests to ensure that they are properly filed and that they are also proper
arrests or talk with the officers if we have unanswered questions there. We do initial victim
contact on every domestic violence related case. Our victim witness coordinator in house
makes a call within 24 hours to every victim on every domestic violence, stalking violation,
protection order, no contact order to try and give them an update on what to expect
throughout the criminal justice system, as well as find out what needs they may have .
That's, then, turned over the victim witness coordinators who work with the City of
Meridian. We -- we prepare officers for court appearances. We have a great number of
those, bench trials and jury trials, suppression hearings, any of the motion hearings and
work with them to ensure effective outcomes at those hearings. All discovery review
preparation response, that's changed over the past couple years from our previous paper
responses now to an entirely paperless system with the -- with the Odyssey system at the
courthouse, the iCourt system as well there, too. All hearings and arraignments through
appeals, trials. I will note this past year -- when I looked it up last night we had engaged
in 11 jury trials on behalf of the City of Meridian. One was a hung jury, eight were
convictions, so approximately about an 80 percent conviction rate on the ones that went
to -- went to jury trial. The one hung jury resulted in a plea shortly thereafter. So, I think
that's a good -- a good conviction rate at trial there. We also engage in domestic violence
court as I mentioned. We -- we opened 15 -- almost 16 thousand new cases in 2018 for
Boise, Meridian and Eagle and Garden City. We -- we prosecute on behalf of all four
jurisdictions. Twenty-one thousand five hundred and sixteen new charges were
contained in those cases. A little over 4,000 on behalf of the City of Meridian, with a total
of 5,500 charges. There is about 25 and a half percent of our total cases similar to our
new charges and that appears to be pretty consistent. When I looked at last years
numbers it ran about 25 to 26 percent of our entire case load. We covered 28,534 total
hearings, with Meridian covering, once again, about just over a quarter of those. I
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anticipate that will go up a little bit this year. The courthouse has engaged in a few new
-- they have had a few changes over the past year. Some of our settlement conferences
for infractions were -- well, they are increased I should say. The court took those away
last year and everything was set straight for a bench trial. This year we -- we asked and
the police chiefs from various jurisdictions asked if we get engage in those again,
settlement conferences. The court obliged and so we have a few additional hearings this
year. I anticipate that number will go up. Incoming charges by year. It fluctuated a little
bit. Gone up. Gone down. We were about, you know, a little over 300 -- near 300 more
than in 2017 this past year 2018. Our incoming offenses from the City of Meridian. The
largest bulk we deal with the traffic infractions, followed by traffic misdemeanors.
Controlled substances, usually marijuana, paraphernalia, a few other prescription type of
offences there. Our property crimes involve vandalism, petty theft, crimes against person,
battery, assault, there is a disturbing the peace charge in there. DUI covers all DUI
offences. DUI first offense, second offense, successive offenses, under age, commercial
driver offences. Warrants. Typically involve probation violations, contempt to ensure
compliance with judicial orders. Domestic violence can cover anything from domestic
violence, domestic assault, battery, stalking, protection order violations, no contact order
violations. The miscellaneous involves anything else. I will say a number of those are
noise violations, dog violations, animal offenses and anything else that may not fit within
the others. Our top ten charges we provide this from the City of Meridian within the past
year. Paraphernalia is the number one controlled substance, followed shortly thereafter.
They usually go hand in hand. When we see those . Also down there DUI is toward
bottom, 178. The prior -- the prior chart that had 370 some included all -- once again all
DUI offenses, second offenses -- second offenses, excessives. I looked last night at the
conviction rate for DUI in the past year. Taking out a few old cases that were clean-ups
from 20 some years ago, everything resolved last year in the merits of the case, we had
96.9 conviction rate for the City of Meridian. That's excluding some 20 or 15 year old
cases that were in part of a process -- more clean-up process I should say. And so I'm
pretty proud of that number there.
De Weerd: Fantastic.
Dean: Those are the primary services that we provide for the -- for the prosecution
services. I will yield the floor and turn the time over to Mr. Borger for some information
on the police advice services.
De Weerd: Thank you, Mike. Hi, Kevin.
Borger: Good afternoon. Nice to see you again. Kevin Borger. I want to talk to you a
little bit about confidence. I was asked to join the police advice team within the last year
or so and asked to take on Meridian as my primary assignment. Proud to do so. I have
lived in Meridian since 1986. Bill hired me at Boise in 1991 and I have been there ever
since and I worked with Ted and Emily and Michelle at the city of Boise, so I'm -- I'm happy
to report that I know them all and appreciate the hard work that they do . In coming here
to talk about police advice, one of the main things that we do -- backup to criminal, though.
There is no distinction between Meridian and Boise. When we get our files -- I have done
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a ton of criminal work. You can be satisfied that when we get a file we don't look to see
was it a Boise officer or Meridian officer, other than decide who to subpoena. All cases
are treated the same. We don't decide whether they go to trial, whether it is a Boise or
Meridian case. So, the City of Meridian gets treated very well and I'm happy to report.
On the advice part we advise Boise the same way. So, if there is a situation that needs
to be brought to the attention of the officers Meridian is included in that and we make sure
that the bulletins go out and they get the advice the same as the Boise police officers do.
My part is that I come to Meridian three afternoons a week, I attend the command staff. I
want to be here face to face, so the officers come into the office, I share it with a couple
of your sergeants and happy to do so. So , if they have questions they can come in and
ask me directly and I have been doing that for quite a while now. Currently I'm doing
police training. They call it block training. It's just an alternative that's stayed over for a
long time, but last the few Mondays we have been meeting in the afternoon, going over
various topics and you can see them here. One of the other things we do are gun
dispositions. There is a variety of things that we do, but I just want to talk to you about
the confidence part that I'm here, I'm available, the officers are getting to know me better
and better and so that is an on-site service that we provide and happy to do so. The
officers are given the -- the information, as I mentioned, through a variety of different
means and the e-mail bulletins, the classroom training I have talked about. I am fine and
so are the other people on my team, so -- I'm still kind of sick, but when I was really sick
they took over for me and conducted one of my trainings. Here is an example of a bulletin
that goes out and some of the topics -- you can read them for yourselves as what we are
talking about. I asked the command staff what do you want me to talk about during
training. They pick the topics. We didn't select them for you. So, it's -- it's very detailed,
it's very tailored to Meridian. You didn't get Boise times two, you got tailored to Meridian
that I put together just for you. So, I wanted you to have confidence that I live in Meridian,
I love Meridian and I know a lot of you -- some of you better than others, but Paul Warrick
attends my church, so when you mentioned the Warrick property, I know Paul and he is
a member of my Sunday school class. So, I appreciate Paul very much and other people
in Meridian and so just wanted to give you that confidence that I'm here for you and happy
to do so on behalf of the city of Boise. Happy to stand for any questions, along with Mike
and Bill.
De Weerd: Council, any questions? Okay. Yes, thank you for the partnership. Thank
you for all you do and -- and the support you give our Police Department.
Nary: Madam Mayor and Council, thank you again. It's always a pleasure to be in front
of you. It's always a pleasure to bring this update. I try to make it a little more fun or
interesting for you as I can. But, you know, I truly mean what I said. I appreciate all of
you. I appreciate what you do for our office and providing us the time and the support to
provide that back to our customers, to our departments and to our citizens and I'm very
grateful for that. So, thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Borton.
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Borton: Madam Mayor. Seeing the hour, we have got a couple of potential juggles we
can do to try to accommodate a schedule. Item -- let me see -- 8-D and E -- Mr. Hood is
a part of, but we have a 6:00 o'clock comp plan meeting that's going to start shortly that
he is leading, so -- and, then, Item 9-A and B, who are here ready, willing and able to
present, we would like to move up. Here is the wrinkle on that. I think 9-A and B are
probably 15'ish minutes each, so maybe 30 minutes total for 9-A and B. So, we could
move 9-A and B to the next item, take care of those, Caleb can work on the comp plan
and we will see where things line up with his meeting and his agenda items. If the Council
wants to amend the agenda and allow the Arts Commission -- or Idaho Commission on
the Arts and our Arts Commission to go next.
De Weerd: Caleb, your meeting is just across the hall?
Hood Yeah. Madam Mayor, I'm in the building, just an A-B and play a role, but I will go
do my kind of intro thing and, then, check back in. I'm going to have to go back there, but
I can be back and forth in two places.
De Weerd: Okay.
Hood: Sorry about that.
De Weerd: That's certainly not your -- your scheduling issue. It was ours. Okay. Yes,
let's go ahead and move the Arts Commission forward and -- and, Caleb, whenever you
check back we can -- we can pull you in. Okay? Was there anyone here for the public
hearing on the shared vehicle program ordinance? Okay. Okay. Without the chief. With
the exception of the chief.
Item 9: Commission Presentations
A. Idaho Commission on the Arts Presentation by Stuart Weiser
De Weerd: Okay. So, we will go ahead and skip to 9-A and under our Commission
Presentations, the Idaho Commission on the Arts ask Stuart to come forward. You
brought your own podium. The only thing that's important is that you talk into the
microphone.
Weiser: Talk into the microphone.
De Weerd: Yes.
Weiser: I guess we are up and running. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Stuart
Weiser. I am the deputy director of the Idaho Commission on the Arts, which is a state
agency. We are located in the historic warden's house at the Old State Pen.
De Weerd: Thank you for joining us.
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Weiser: Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. Our topic for today 's
presentation is arts and the economy and we are going to touch on a number of subjects
in the next 25 minutes or so. But first off why do the arts exist? Well, the primary reason
is that they contribute to our quality of life. The arts make our communities more livable.
They make us want to live and work in certa in places. The arts tell our story as a
civilization. They also caused us to challenge our thinking and question our judgments .
But there is a lot more that for a long time those of us who work in the field didn't
consciously think about and that's the role that the arts play as an economic driver and
that's what we are going to look at today. We are going to take a look at the economic
impact of the not-for-profit arts in the United States. To do that we are going to travel
across the country and visit several different organizations. We will talk about what makes
up the economic impact, how it influences and is influenced by the National Endowment
for the Arts, and, finally, how to determine the local impact. So, let's get started. First a
short quiz. You don't need to raise your hands unless you want to. It's okay to just make
a mental note of the answer that you believe is correct. What is the annual economic
impact of the not-for-profit arts in the United States? How many of you think it is less than
a hundred million dollars? How many of you think it's between a hundred million and 250
million? How about between 250 million and 500 million? Or more than 500 million? To
help answer that question we are going to take a look at a few nonprofit organizations
around the country. First, though, how many of you know these two websites? GuideStar
and Charity Navigator are invaluable informational tools. They contain the financial
information on hundreds of thousands of not-for-profit organizations in the United States.
Much of that information comes from IRS 990 forms, some of which they obtained from
the IRS and some from organizations that self reported. If you have an interest in a
particular organization you can look it up in the search bar on either website. All you have
to do is register as a user, which is free. Now, in order to answer the question I posed a
minute ago, I looked up a few organizations to see their total expenditures and their total
payrolls in fiscal 2016, which is the most recent year for which all of this information is
available. So, we are going to take a quick trip across the United States to visit those
organizations. We are going to start in New York, we will hit Philadelphia, Pittsburgh,
Chicago, Salt Lake City, San Francisco and, finally, Seattle and we will do it in under five
minutes. Since I come from New York originally, I'm going to start with one of the most
well known symphony orchestras in the world, the New York Philharmonic . In fiscal 2016
the New York Philharmonic spent more than 76 million dollars, which included paying their
personnel over 52 million. Across the plaza at Lincoln Center is the Metropolitan Opera
House. Some of you may remember the days of the Texaco Opera Theatre, w hich
broadcast from the Met Saturday matinees all across the country. Well, behind the
horned helmets and polished voices there is a substantial money machine. In fiscal 2016
the Metropolitan Opera spent 292 million dollars and paid their employees 227 million.
Wow was right. And before we leave New York, let's make one more stop at Lincoln
Center and take a look at the New York City Ballet, which happens to be the largest dance
company in America. In fiscal 2016 the City Ballet had expenditures at 81.4 million
dollars, including a payroll of 47.9 million. As we head south from New York City down
the New Jersey Turnpike we get to Philadelphia , home with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Their expenses in 2016 were 58.6 million dollars, with a payroll of over 30 million dollars.
On the other end of Pennsylvania is the Pittsburgh Ballet, which had expenditures of 9.6
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million and a payroll of 3.7 million and from here we head west to Chicago. How many of
you know this painting? It is American Gothic by Grant Wood and it hangs in the Art
Institute of Chicago. Now, some people would ask how much of an economic impact
could an art museum have? I mean the paintings are already there, they are already
hanging on the walls, it's not like there is a whole bunch of artistic creativity going on, but
I have a surprise for you. The Art Institute in 2016 had expenses of 295 million dollars,
of which they paid their employees 122 million and if that money had, instead, gone to
the two people who posed for the painting it might have ended up looking more like this.
A few blocks west to the Art Institute building is the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Now, they
are not as big as the Metropolitan Opera in New York, but they are still a pretty major
financial force. In 2016 the Lyric Opera spent 82.2 million dollars and paid their personnel
about 46 and a half million. Continuing west and a little closer to home is the Utah
Symphony and Opera in Salt Lake City. And, again, they are not as big as the New York
Philharmonic or the Philadelphia Orchestra, but they still pack a monetary punch . Their
expenses in 2016 were over 22 million dollars, with a payroll of 14.2 million. Arriving in
San Francisco we get to the San Francisco Opera. If you left your heart in San Francisco
the opera can help you pay to get it back. In 2016 the San Francisco Opera spent 81.3
million dollars, with a payroll of more than 60 million. Now we go north to the city of
Seattle, Washington, our final stop. Seattle is home to the Pacific Northwest Ballet, which
in 2016 had expenditures of more than 24 million dollars and a payroll of 14.7 million.
And, finally, down the street from the Pacific Northwest Ballet is the Seattle Symphony.
Their expenditures in 2016 totaled 28.9 million dollars and their payroll was 19.4 million.
Now, there are roughly a hundred thousand nonprofit arts organizations in the United
States. Lots of arts organizations are small, many are volunteer driven, others like the
Sun Valley Summer Symphony and Ballet Idaho in Boise have -- are a little bit bigger with
professional staffs and budgets of a few million dollars. Some organizations, though, are
really big. So big, in fact, that the 11 that we just looked at had combined expenditures
of more than a billion dollars in 2016 and combined payrolls of more than 639 million. So,
getting back to our opening quiz. There were four choices and if you said that the
economic impact -- the annual economic impact of the nonprofit arts is more than 500
million dollars, you would have been right. In fact, it's a lot more than 500 million.
According to a study released in 2017 by Americans for the Arts in Washington, DC, the
annual economic impact of not-for-profit arts in the United States is about 166.3 billion.
Why so much? Well, here is a simplified version of why it works the way it does. Let 's
say that you just bought a ticket to attend a performance at the Idaho Shakespeare
Festival in Boise. Well, when you bought your ticket, though, and whether you realize it
or not, that was not the end of your spending, because on the day of the event you will
probably be using gasoline to get there, you will probably eat out. If you have young kids
you might have to hire a sitter. The people performing in that show might be flying in from
somewhere else and the personnel who staff the theater are also using gasoline to get
there and they are also eating out, et cetera. Plus they are being paid for their services,
as are the people who work at the nearby restaurants that are expecting the post
performance crowd. Everyone also pays taxes on their earnings or at least they are
supposed to. Additionally, people who are coming in from out of town might be staying
overnight in area hotels. Visitors from out of town, in fact, on average spend twice what
local audiences spend and in Idaho arts organizations are collecting and remitting sales
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taxes to the state on the tickets that they sell, as well as on anything else that their
customers might be buying at the gift shop or from concessions. So, there is a lot of extra
spending in addition to those tickets that you just bought and that extra spending is
factored into the economic impact mix. One interesting fact that we discovered while we
were doing some informal research in our office is that the amount of sales taxes that our
funded organizations collect and remit to the state actually exceeds the amount of grants
that we award by tens of thousands of dollars. A good example of that is the Boise
Philharmonic. In a recent year our grants to them totaled 18,440 dollars, but the amount
of sales tax that they collected and remitted was more than 39,000 and, likewise, the
Idaho Shakespeare Festival, they collected and remitted over seven dollars in sales taxes
for every dollar of grant money they received from the state. More than seven times as
much. So, in Idaho state government actually makes money when it awards grants to
not-for-profit arts organizations and since this has brought us to the relationship between
economic impact and the government, I would like to go over some numbers that I
personally find kind of interesting. First in the 2015-16 fiscal year, which is the same fiscal
year as all the organizations we looked at a little while ago, the federal government spent
roughly 3.7 trillion dollars on a budget of 3.9 trillion. What you see on the screen is an
excerpt from the actual spreadsheet published by the Office of Management and Budget
showing the 2015-16 expenditures by category, along with the 2016-17 estimates. Keep
in mind that the way the federal government labels its fiscal years is the opposite of the
way just about everyone else does it they label it in the yea r it begins. We all label our
fiscal years in the year that they end. I don't know about you, but I have trouble getting
my head around how big 3.7 trillion dollars is. So, think of it this way: It's the number 37
followed by 11 zeros and here is another way to look at it. If you spend one hundred
dollars every minute of every day you would spend 144,000 dollars per day. That means
that you would spend 52,560,000 dollars every year and at that rate if you divide 3.7
trillion dollars by the amount you spend every year, at a hundred dollars per minute it
would take you more than 70,000 years to spend 3.7 trillion dollars. A miniscule part of
the federal budget goes to fund the National Endowment for the Arts, which in that same
year, 2015, had a budget of roughly 148 million dollars. It's a little bit higher now. Now,
let's have a little bit of fun. We are going to compute the number of minutes in a year and
you will see where I'm going with this in just a couple of those minutes . Sixty minutes in
an hour times 24 hours in a day times 365 days in a year gives you 525,600 minutes in a
year. An easier way to remember this is to go buy a ticket to the Broadway show Rent,
which has a song called 525,600 minutes. We are going to take this result and use it to
calculate the cost per minute to operate the United States government , factoring
everything -- factoring in everything that the federal government does . So 3.7 trillion
dollars divided by 525,600 minutes gives us a rounded total of seven million per minute
to operate the United States government, which also happens to compute to 117,000
dollars per second. It was disconcerting to me to find out that my entire annual salary
and benefits would not even cover one second of the cost of runn ing the federal
government. Now, figure out the ratio of the National Endowment for the Arts budget to
the full federal government budget. Divide the budget of the National Endowment for the
Arts, which is 148 million dollars, by the primary cost of running the U.S. government and
you get 21 minutes. The federal budget pays for 525,600 minutes of governmental
services and in fiscal 2015 the NEA got 21 minutes of that, which if my math is right is
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roughly 4,000ths of one percent. If we were to look at this another way, by doing some
simple math that is based on that spreadsheet you saw earlier from the Office of
Management and Budget, we could compute exactly how much of the year 's calendar is
allocated to every federal program and you might find the results a little surprising. What
you see on the screen was the calendar for fiscal year 2015, the same year as all the
organizational financials we looked at earlier. The federal government fiscal year starts
on October 1st. So, that's where this calendar starts. The first 88 days of the fiscal year
went to running the Social Security Administration and paying out Social Security benefits.
The next 58 days paid for defense spending and everything that that involves. Then came
Medicare, which used up 54 days. And next were programs that are referred to as safety
nets, which used up another 50 days. And other healthcare programs, such as Medicaid
and CHIP, accounted for the next 48 days. Now, notice that we have only hit five
categories of federal spending and we are already into the last quarter of the year.
Everything else that the federal government does has to fit into the next ten weeks.
Paying interest on the national debt accounted for 22 days or six percent of the federal
budget. Benefits and services for veterans used up 16 days and notice that we spend
more money on debt service than we do on veterans. Education, training, employment
and social services, 12 days. And, then, finally, we get to all the other federal programs
including, among other things, agriculture, the Justice Department, the State Department,
transportation, energy, commerce, the environment and science and technology
research, which took up the remaining 17 days. But look closely, do you see that flat red
line in the middle of the last day of the fiscal year, September 30th? That's the National
Endowment for the Arts. Twenty-one minutes. A flat line on the chart and I actually had
to make that flat line thicker than it really is, just so that you would be able to see it. But
what is the return on investment for that flat line ? Well, according to Americans for the
Arts in 2015 the United States government took in 13 billion dollars in income tax
revenues from people and businesses who are employed by or made taxable income
because of the arts. That represents over four million full-time equivalent jobs. What that
means ultimately is that the U.S. government got back about 88 dollars in tax revenues
for every dollar that the taxpayers invested in the National Endowment for the Arts. If
your financial advisor told you that one of your investments was paying an 8,800 percent
annual return, would that make you happy? Here is how it shakes down. Arts
organizations and their audiences spent 166.3 billion dollars and in the process they
supported over four million full-time equivalent jobs. That spending added more than 96
billion dollars to household income across the country and it filled the coffers of local,
state and federal governments. Local governments got about 6.9 billion. The various
states about 7.7 billion and the IRS took in 13 billion dollars. So, what does this mean in
Idaho? So, our agency, the Idaho Commission on the Arts, has not yet done a complete
statewide economic impact study of just the arts, but others have done something similar
and the results are impressive. A couple of years ago the Idaho Nonprofit Center released
a study showing that in 2014 Idaho's not-for-profit arts, culture and humanity sector
consisted of 501 organizations that employed 807 people, paid them almost 18 million
dollars and that the organizations themselves had assets of almost 119 million dollars and
expenditures of nearly 50 million and that was five years ago. Additionally, the National
Endowment for the Arts in a joint effort with the United States Bureau of Economic
Analysis has done a study of all 50 states. They have determined that Idaho has 20,235
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arts-related workers in both nonprofit and for profit fields. They earn 900 million dollars
annually in compensation. Pretty impressive. And if you want to estimate the economic
impact of any not-for-profit arts organization or group of organizations, there is a neat tool
on the Americans for the Arts website that will allow you to do it with a reasonable amount
of accuracy. You just go to americansforthearts.org and here it is. You can see that it
factors in population, expense budget and total attendance at events and it computes an
estimate for economic impact. So, using this calculator I took the information off the final
reports from all 189 organizational grants that we funded last year. I aggregated it and I
plugged in the totals. Since the population of Idaho is more than a million, I used the drop
down box to choose that range. Then I plugged in the total expenses from all of last
year's final grants reports -- grant reports, which added up to 17,009,130 dollars and,
finally, I entered in the total number of people served, which added up to 1,382,751 and,
then, I hit the calculate button and here is what we got. In 2017 the estimated total annual
economic impact of the organizations that the Idaho Commission on the Arts funds is
64,808,730 dollars. Those organizations support 1,771 full-time equivalent jobs in Idaho,
added more than 40 million dollars to local household income, generated over three
million dollars for local government revenues and added more than 3.7 million to Idaho
state government revenues. We funded 189 grants, costing a total of 606,336 dollars,
which means that the state government revenue generated is the return on investment of
620 percent overall or 1,240 percent just for Idaho if you factor in that half of our grants
budget comes from the National Endowment for the Arts and is not a state expense. And,
again, these are not my numbers. I plugged in publicly available data to create this report,
which presents reasonable estimates based on average data from around the country.
So, you can see the enormous positive impact that the nonprofit arts has on the region 's
economy. And that concludes my presentation today. I appreciate the opportunity to be
here. If you have any questions I will try to answer them or just chat with me after the
meeting. Thank you very much.
De Weerd: Thank you for your presentation. Council, any questions? Thank you very
much.
B. Meridian Arts Commission Annual Report
Mauldin: Hi.
De Weerd: Good evening.
Mauldin: Thank you, Mayor Tammy and Council, for having us to present here tonight.
I'm Leslie Mauldin, I'm chair of the Arts Commission and I'm going to hold my notebook
like a musician, because I'm more comfortable that way. I would love to give a special
thank you to Stuart Weiser whom you just heard talking -- taking the time to be with us to
share the compelling study on the arts and their economic impact . Mr. Weiser has a wide
range of experience in the arts, both administrative and artistic. He is a musician by
training. He's a conductor and I have had the privilege of working with him on stage as a
singer with him being the conductor with Opera Idaho. He has been in symphony
orchestras in Pennsylvania, the Carolinas and Oregon and served on the staff of the New
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York -- New Jersey Symphony, Long Island Philharmonic and here in the west at the
Aspen Music Festival. He is the development director for the Boise Philharmonic, which
is what originally brought him to Boise 11 years ago and now he is a frequent guest
speaker on topic of fundraising, finance or development and as you heard tonight the
impact of the nonprofit arts. Along with his music education, he holds a BA from the State
University of New York College of Sedonia and a masters of science degree in leadership
and business ethics from Duquesne. I find that an interesting combination. So, we are
very fortunate to have had him here and to have him serving with the Idaho Commission
on the Arts. As you can see several of my fellow art commissioners are here with us this
evening and I would like to invite them forward to introduce themselves. Come on down.
Barnes: I am Stephanie Barnes and I have served on the art commission for the last five
years. I am an insurance agent. I have also insured the city at some point. I have worked
with Bill. I also play in a band play. I play bass guitar and sing in the local country western
and rock band Sweet Briar and I'm just going to give you a little fun fact. In 2015, because
that's the latest year that they have information for, 66 percent of adults in the United
States attended a visual or performing arts event or went to the movies. In Idaho that
was 76 percent, which beats out Oregon, California, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania,
Nevada and many other states.
Peters: Hi. I'm Jessica Peters. I'm a newer member of the arts commission. I'm excited
to be starting my second year here. I have been an Idaho resident for about seven and
a half years and I have lived in Meridian for about five years with my husband and my two
stepsons. My family of origin is filled with artists, musicians, performers and writers and
I also work with the written word. I thought you might be interested to learn that in 2015
43 percent of adults in the United States read plays, poetry, short stories or novels and
45 percent of adults in the United States personally performed or created art. In Idaho
those numbers for reading literature and performing or creating art were 56 percent.
That's more than in Washington, California, Nevada, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York and
many other states that year.
Zahn Griffith: Thank you, Mayor Tammy and Council for having us here. I'm Bonnie Zahn
Griffith, I'm the vice-chair for the arts commission and I have been a resident of the city
of Meridian for the past four and a half years. I came here from Montana , thankfully, for
some warmer weather and thoroughly -- thoroughly enjoying the area and the fact that
we have an arts commission and interest in the arts in the community. So, just as I --
reiterating something that -- this is already said. The national nonprofit arts generates 13
billion dollars in revenue based on income taxes and payroll taxes . The budget for the
National Endowment of the Arts is, by comparison, about 150 million. So, if you compare
that return it's 88 dollars for every dollar spent by this endowment of the arts. So, it's a
pretty huge effect. Thank you so much.
Sullivan: Hello. I am Dr. Jennifer Sullivan and I am an Idaho native. I have two degrees
in violin performance from the Eastman School of Music and a doctorate from the
University of Oregon in violin performance and arts administration. Currently I'm the
development director for Idaho Regional Ballet. I'm artistic director of Axial Music, a small
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business that I own here in Meridian. I have previously been the string department head
at the Treasure Valley Community College, Northwest Nazarene University, and Sun
Valley Summer Symphony. I consider it a great honor and responsibility to be a member
of the Meridian Arts Commission, the strategic planning committee and to be the liaison
to the Meridian Symphony. The arts play a powerful role in my entire family and I was
delighted when my ten year old daughter brought home a composition assignment from
school one day and it's titled modern art city. You will find this in your packet and this
essay describes from her viewpoint what a modern city should look like. I hope you enjoy
this interpretation of a young person's vision and the author is sitting here with us tonight.
Sonya, would you stand up. Thank you for your time and for allowing us to present today.
I look forward to our future discussions.
Mauldin: Thank you, commissioners. We have so many new commissioners I thought
we would just have them introduce themselves, instead of me just saying -- saying their
name. So, that was -- that was fun. I would also like to thank Axial Music for the
performance. You noticed there were two players as you were coming into chambers
tonight. That was, of course, Dr. Jennifer Sullivan, who sits on the council -- on the
commission and her student Rachael Parker. So, I would like to thank them and hope
that you enjoyed it.
De Weerd: Yes. Thank you. It was lovely.
Mauldin: And since they all gave a fun fact I'm going to give one that from -- because I
like sports and music, so I'm going to give one from the sports world. In a typical year 17
million fans attend NFL games. That's impressive. But not so much when compared to
24 million that attend symphony orchestra concerts nationwide. Lots of people listening
to music. I would also like to thank staff members Emily Kane and Hillary Blackstone for
the wonderful ongoing assistance to the arts commission. Thanks to Hillary's efforts our
annual report -- report is included in your package to read at your leisure, but we would
like to share the highlights in a brief overview of our 2018. We have had some personnel
changes on MAC as I pointed out before in the last year and we are so grateful for our
past commissioners and the impact that they continue to have on the arts in reading in
the valley. You have already met them, our newest members, and we have a great group
of people. It's a good dynamic on the commission right now. I'm very excited about it.
Thank you for the continued opportunity to serve in this capacity. In 2018 we had over
one hundred artists display their artwork in Initial Point Gallery here in City Hall and the
gallery continues to grow its reputation. We also had two of our Concerts on Broadway
to integrate student outreach and to their commitment to the concert seasons this year.
Avenue B provided workshops for the young performers of Treasure Valley Children
Theatre and we are -- we are proud to partner with the Meridian Boys and Girls Club to
bring Jeffrey Castle, who is a rock violinist and he did two solo sessions for the kids over
there and just had a huge impact. They were all saying I want to play the violin. I don't
know what the parents were thinking, but they were so excited and Jeffrey is wonderful.
So, we were really happy to be able to bring that. And Avenue B invited TVCT's younger
members to join -- join the band for the final number at the main stage and they sang and
danced, along with Avenue B to an Abba song. So, that was a lot of fun. They did a great
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job. Meridian Art Week is in it's -- we are only in our third year, but we continue to foster
the growth as a signature event and last year we experimented with opening up the chalk
art competition to the public and we got really, really good community engagement and a
great response and some beautiful artwork. It hurts my heart, though, because it -- it
goes away. Luckily we have photographers to take beautiful pictures, so that we can
remember that beautiful chalk art and we are going to continue to grow our partners and
offering for Art Week in 2019. We also in the park held dedications for Journey of Heroes
at Heroes Park and Far and Wide at the Meridian Mill, thanks to partnerships with the
Parks Department and Meridian Development Corporation. The Treasure Valley
Childrens Theatre continues to have a powerful reach with students throughout the valley
and last year they had nearly 16,000 attendees and so we know that that had a fiscal
impact, given what Stuart just told us. People going to dinner, getting -- there is lots of
babysitters needed for that group I -- I could imagine. So, we are excited to say that just
this last month they moved into their new home in south downtown Meridian, just off
Penwood. So, we were so happy that they were able to find a committed space and they
were able to stay with us here in Meridian. Mayor Tammy, Council, thank you again for
your time here this evening and for your dedication to the arts in Meridian. I would also
like to thank, once again, Mr. Weiser for joining us and hopefully his presentation helped
us further define and bring understanding to the value that the arts has in our community
and on our economy. It is also our hope that we have more clearly shared our vision for
how the Meridian Arts Commission helps to make the City of Meridian a more wonderful
place to live, work and raise a family. We will be working with Mayor Tammy and our
Council liaison Joe Borton as we -- to advise us as we develop a plan for incremental
budget increases over the next five years that will correspond with our new strategic plan .
That will continue to build upon and give potential to add further positive impact on the
arts to our community. We look forward to sharing this with all of you in budget
discussions, but on a personal note when I first got invited by Mayor Tammy to join the
commission, the late former Councilman Keith Bird was our -- our liaison and it was my
privilege and honor to serve with that splendid human being . Just -- he has a heart as
big as you can imagine and it was wonderful and also it's with a little bit of sadness in my
heart that I -- I give this report realizing that it's the last annual report up here with Mayor
Tammy sitting in that chair. Thank you. It's been my honor, my privilege and your love
for this city has made me want to just stay here. So, thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you, Leslie.
Mauldin: Thank you again for the opportunity to be here tonight and we will stand for
questions.
De Weerd: Council, do you have questions?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
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Cavener: Not a question, just want to say your enthusiasm for the arts is contagious. We
are very lucky to have you as a great ambassador. I just wanted to compliment you on
bringing your commission with you. I don't think that we have ever had something like
that and I thought it was a great way to meet the commissioners and have you kind of
personalize the arts each kind of introducing yourself. I just thought it was a great way
-- at least for me as a Council Member to get a good sense as to who those people are
and what you bring to the table. So, great idea, we really appreciate you being here
tonight.
Mauldin: Thank you.
Cavener: We are sorry it took so long to get you guys on the agenda.
Mauldin: Oh, no problem. Thanks for being flexible. We needed to be at the report so
that Stuart could join us, so thank you very much.
De Weerd: They just didn't know what they were asking when they wanted to be towards
the end.
Mauldin: I mean the dedication that -- the standing up and I -- I would -- I'm not a good
sitter, so --
De Weerd: Well, we thank your commission for being here and for your leadership.
Certainly to Hillary. The upstairs art gallery continues to just be -- I think second to none
and I -- I talk to the artists and -- and they are so thrilled with the professionalism, the --
the process of space and, Bonnie, I know you are not a one person show, but the time
and effort and detail and the work you put together with Hillary and the rest of the
commission is -- I mean that's the most time intensive of anything on our arts commission,
but all of you bring your talents and your contacts and your passion to the city that does
continue to make it a premier place to live and we thank you for that dedication to adding
to the culture that we have in this community. So, thank you for being here and thank
you, Leslie. Appreciate your kind words.
Mauldin: Thank you.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Okay. Council, yes, let's take a break and -- ten minutes?
(Recess: 6:20 p.m. to 6:39 p.m.)
B. Finance Department Quarterly Update
De Weerd: We are back in session and so I will go ahead and turn this over to Mr. Lavoie,
who is going to give us a presentation on the Finance Department quarterly update.
Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, again, appreciate the opportunity to
present to you our quarterly presentation. Tonight's presentation will be -- will be on our
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fiscal year 2018 results. Fiscal year 2018 results are in the audit report. Just let you
know it will be published this Friday, so we will be sending out an e-mail to you with the
latest update on the audit report. I will give you a hint, a clean audit again. Go team. So,
if you have any questions about 2018's results, please, stop by the Finance Department,
we are happy to answer any questions for you. Believe it or not we are already four and
a half months into fiscal '19, so we are already preparing for the -- the audit coming up
here and I'm going to go through this report pretty quickly. I know the time and you guys
have been here a while, so, please, let me know if you have any questions about '18
results. We are more than happy to talk to you in detail back in the office, but I will go
through this pretty quick, again, show you our agent results, what we do -- this is our
annual, quote, unquote, report card, it shows you our budget to actuals, kind of lets you
know how we are doing from a budgetary standpoint, you know, and in giving you our
opinions on our results and our projections, looking at our fund balances for our Enterprise
Fund and General Fund. We will take a look at our top revenue sources, top expense
sources and, then, give you a heads up of what we will be presenting in our next quarterly
update in May. So, with that we will go ahead and get this started. First thing we are
going to look at is the General Fund revenues. General Fund finished at 19 percent
higher than we budgeted. So, again, that's a good side of the fence to be on. Our goal
is always to be a hundred -- right around a hundred percent, but, again, it's our best
opportunity here. The largest percentage difference you will see on the screen is going
to be impact fees and licenses and permits and that is a direct impact from the permits
and the projects that we approve here weekly. We had a phenomenal fiscal year '18. We
were just a few permits short of our record breaking number of a little over 3,100. So,
again, we don't project revenues at record breaking numbers. We are more conservative.
So, that's why you see those variances so great. Again, we will analyze the data. We
retune our projections every year, but fiscal year '18 -- when you see 340 percent greater
than what we budgeted, that's because we always have record breaking permits. So,
again, I'm not surprised by that. We present a conservative approach based on the
averages. Last year was an anomaly. Our property taxes at 1.7 percent of budget. Again,
that's what we are shooting for. We are looking for that -- within five percent variance,
plus-minus. Usually on the plus side is what we want. So, I'm happy with that. Again,
property taxes. Our largest revenue source, as you can see on this slide -- so, for us to
get that to be within two percent we are very happy with that. Again, we will continue to
analyze the data and retune our projections every year. Again, this is kind of our report
card to you to show you how we did. First thing we are going to look at now is the General
Fund expenses. General Fund personnel ended up at 90 percent of total budget. So,
again, it's not too far off from our average . Our average is 96 percent and I will explain
why we kind of missed the target on this one. The biggest difference you will see on there
is Comdev, 72 percent of what we budgeted. Big transition going from contract to in
house. So, we are not going to spend all the budget yet, because we are still hiring. So,
that's why you will see that big difference. So, we are okay with that amount in that figure.
The largest gap in dollar variances is the Police Department, a little over 1.2 million left
behind. The last time I checked we had ten vacancies. That's all vacancies. That is all
timing again. It's a tight labor market, so we are not too surprised by that, but on the flip
side the police have the second best spend rate at 91.6 percent. So, it might be a large
value, but, again, they had the second best spend rate. So, just imagine what they would
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have done if they had the capabilities of hiring those individuals at a timely basis. So,
again, nothing too alarming on this. I think everything looks good from a personnel
standpoint. Operating came in at 89.2 percent for the budget. Our average is 88 percent
over the last three years. So, we are right on par. But, again, we would like to get it closer
to that 95 percent, so we are going to retune and relook how -- how we budget our
operating expense, see if we can dial that in a little bit. You will see Comdev at 113
percent. Again, that's a good thing for fiscal '18. Going forward it won't be the case.
Fiscal '18 was based on a contract based model. So , every time expenses went up your
revenue went up. We won't be able to apply that same rule of thumb going forward. So,
now we are going to want to see expenditures -- expenditures right around that hundred
percent mark, revenue a hundred percent. So, again, that's a good problem to have for
fiscal '18. Fiscal '19 we don't want to have that problem. And, then, the last item for us
in General Fund is going to be the capital. Capital spent 45.9 percent. You can see we
left about ten million on the table or unspent between 18 million and the eight. We are
okay with that. The city departments have requested 8.8 million of that ten million to be
carried into fiscal '19. Unfinished projects. Fire station -- or park development. Fire
stations. So, again, we are okay with that, because they are going to spend 8.8 of the
ten million this fiscal year. This is just a quick summary of the General Fund that we
presented. Again, revenues 19 percent higher. Mainly due to the growth in property taxes
was at 101.7, so everything else is attributed to growth and you see the expenditures.
Again, we are on the right side of the fence on all these lines. Revenue. We want it to
be higher than budget. That's a good problem. Expenditures. We want to actually be
lower than budget. All great problems to have. But, again, we are going to learn from
this and continue to fine tune our budgeting and forecasting approach. We are going to
do the same approach to the Enterprise Fund. The Enterprise Fund revenues, they ended
the year at 26 percent higher than we budgeted and I can lean on the General Fund
examples, mainly due to growth. The amount of permits and the contracts that we
approved here at the city, you will see that these assessment s, the two middle columns,
they averaged 78 percent higher than what we expected and that's right along with the
impact fees and the permits. So, again, we are not too surprised by that. Sewer sales,
you can see we almost nailed that one a hundred percent perfect. Water was a little bit
lower than we projected. Again, we will tweak our adjustments accordingly. And I don't
think there is anything too alarming on this one. We are pretty happy with the results and
move -- again, like I said, we will continue to watch the assessment revenue as we
approve the contracts and developments here on a weekly basis . Expenditures for the
Enterprise Fund. The Enterprise Fund ended personnel at 88 percent. Their average is
actually 89 percent. The largest variance you will see on here is our Public Works. You
will see that they left about a half a million dollars on the table . They did have some
vacancies during fiscal year 2018. So, hopefully, we will see the number get closer to
95'ish percent in 2019 as we fill those positions. Operating came in at 81.2 percent.
Again, the largest gap here is the Public Works Department. They left 700,000 on the
table or 46 percent. Their team has requested 80 percent of that, about 500,000 of that,
to be carried into fiscal '19. So, even though they didn't spend it in '18, they will spend it
in '19. We will continue to work on our operating. The water department 95.7 percent.
Those were great numbers to shoot for. So, that's what we are going to put as a target
to see if we can achieve those kind of numbers. And, then, the capital for the Enterprise
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Fund 71 percent. They spent 41 million dollars in fiscal '18. I don't have to tell you about
all the projects going on out there, but that's a huge project over there. You will see that
there is 17 million, quote, unquote, not spent. I think the number here -- they are asking
for 15.9 of that million to be brought into '19. So, you can see the majority of it will still be
spent over the two year span. So, great projects going on and, again, nothing that we
are concerned about. The production over there is going well. Like we did with the
General Fund, here is the overall summary of the Enterprise Fund. Good problems to
have. The actual for revenue is higher than the budget. The actual for the expenditure
-- expenditures are lower than the budget. Again, all good problems to have. So, with all
these results the question is how does this impact our General Fund balance. So, this is
the results. The General Fund will add 10.9 million to the General Fund balance. Again,
I spoke to you 8.8 of that we are taking into fiscal '19. So, you can consider 8.8 of the ten
million already gone. So, we added about two'ish million to the fund balance. It's going
to be -- community development is going to be a large impact. You can see they did 3.2
of that alone. So, again, what is our fund balance fiscal year ending. We are at 64.3
million. A lot of that's already spoken for. Again, the 8.8 is General Fund carry forward.
We have reserves. But that's where the General Fund resides at this moment as a fiscal
year 2018 year end. We are going to do the exact same thing for the Enterprise Fund.
How did they fare? Again, they had a great capital expenditure year, like -- and these are
all approaches that we have been supporting and promoting for the last ten years. Save
and spend. Save and spend. We are in the spend mode, guys. So, we spent ten million
-- 10.9 million of our fund balance to make the fiscal year go through, but that's okay. We
have been saving for this day. They still have a balance of 39.5. Again, 17 of that's going
to be carried into '19. You know, we have all this in our financial projections that we should
-- you know, we will be good, we will be able to complete the projects over at the treatment
plant accordingly. Top fund -- top revenue sources for the General Fund. I don't think this
will be too much of a surprise to you, but in the last few years property taxes by far the
greatest for the General Fund. Building permits. Cyclical. Right now we are still in a
strong growth period, so they are going to be strong for us and along with the impact fees.
Top expenditure sources for the General Fund. I don't think it's a surprise to you it's going
to be our personnel for our fire and police. They are our largest departments, they are
our largest divisions, so it's not too -- too big of a surprise there for us. Same thing for
the Enterprise Fund. What's the largest revenue sources. Right now it is going to be
sewer revenues and sewer assessments, but normally it is going to be sewer revenue
use and water revenue use. Those are our normal largest revenue producers. Just this
past year we have had huge permit numbers, so our sewer revenues for assessments
were higher than our water revenues in this case. And those expenditures for the
Enterprise Fund I don't think it's a surprise it's going to be capital over at the treatment
plant. It's a big -- big expenditure, along with water. They will always be our two largest
investments and that's a great thing for the city. So, what -- what that -- that's what we --
in our fiscal '18 recap for you is our fiscal year '18 actual results, kind of the report card
for you guys. Our fund balances, where we reside as of 9/30/2018. Again, all this
information will be in the audit report that I submit to you guys later this week and , then,
we showed you our revenue sources and expenditures. Next time I meet with you it will
be May. We will give you some -- more of a demographic approach, what do the numbers
look like, how are we doing with our growth projections of population , permit sales and
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things like that. Again, as a reminder I will send out the audit report when I get it. It should
be later this week and with that I stand for any questions. And as always stop by anytime,
we can answer questions in more detail if you wish.
De Weerd: Thank you, Todd. Council, any questions?
Lavoie: Thank you.
C. Police: Proposed Vehicle Immobilization (Booting) Ordinance
De Weerd: Thank you. Okay. Item 8-C is under our Police Department and Legal. Let's
talk booting. Booting.
Kane: Madam Mayor, Members of Council, I'm Emily Kane. I'm a deputy city attorney
here. I'm joined by Lieutenant Scott Colaianni from the police department and we are
here to talk to you about a proposed booting ordinance. Booting is an industry that is
gaining popularity in Meridian as we grow, which is pretty typical. We have been working
on a regulatory ordinance, both internally with the Police Department and my office and
C.Jay and Nancy in the clerk's office. We have met with some -- the two business owners
that provide booting services in Meridian. Case Parking Enforcement, who has a
representative here today. Deep Six Parking and Security Services. And we have looked
at other cities' experiences, especially Boise's. They have a good roadmap. They have
a good track record. And as -- since they are close that would provide some consistency
across the valley. Our objectives in working on this ordinance were to bring some
consistency and clarity and regulation. The state legislature last year did add booting to
one of the available parking enforcement options, along with towing, so it is clearly legal.
However, there are some -- there are some areas where adding regulations or clarifying
regulations would make it clear everybody's role in a particular situation and a level
playing field for everyone with regard to booting. Our other objectives were public safety.
We are looking at a situation where vehicle owners are approached alone, sometimes at
night, and sometimes they are minors or vulnerable -- vulnerable parties and consumer
protection issues. So, to set release fees to be -- to be the same for everybody or at least
have a limit, so that those release fees don't change or go up depending on the
circumstances. Add some due process protections for vehicle owners, some signage
requirements, so that -- that people are notified of what the expectation is when they enter
a particular property. We added a property protection component, so that both vehicles
that are booted and also the booting equipment that is used is protected , so that people
don't drive off with the boots still on their car and damage that equipment. That wouldn't
be allowed under this ordinance . So, our -- the draft that we have for you it has -- it
incorporates licensing requirements for people who are doing booting for all the personnel
that are doing that and it adds those regulations to meet those objectives. As I said, we
met with these two stakeholders, the two booting companies and we talked about a
number of issues that they had. It was a really productive conversation, a really
educational conversation, certainly for me. We learned a lot about how -- how it works
and kind of worked our ordinance draft to be more accommodating to fit their business
model. So, just to quickly go through this, they -- we started with making it so that you
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could not tow a vehicle that had already been booted for I believe 48 hours and in working
with them we realized that there were some reasons that you -- you might want to both
boot and, then, tow a vehicle. Certainly not right away. That was what we were really
trying to prevent was a practice where the car is booted, immediately the tow truck is
called and they recuperate both of those fees. What we learned is really they are not
interested in doing that, they are just -- if the boot doesn't work they need the option to
remove the vehicle. So, a 12 hour window is -- we figured was adequate to accomplish
both of those objectives. We started with -- our original draft said one boot per vehicle.
There are some instances where one is not adequate to get the job done , but really what
we were trying to achieve was that there would be only one release fee per vehicle and
so that was amenable to everybody, so we -- more than one boot would actually still be
allowed under this draft, but there would only be one release fee allowed. There would
be a limitation on the fee that the companies could charge to release the boot. We learned
that about a hundred dollars is the industry standard or right below that. So, this draft
incorporates a one hundred dollar limit on that release fee. We started by saying that the
booting vehicle that responds to the scene, these have a lighted sign and both of them
said, oh, please, no. That's silly. And so we agreed that reflective would be okay, just to
make it so that the vehicle owners could be assured that they are dealing with a legitimate
party, a licensed professional. The -- we talked a lot about whether cars could be booted
in the fire lane or in a disabled parking spot. We started out by saying no way, if you want
to deal with cars in these places, then, you need to have them towed. But what we learned
is that that's not really an effective parking mechanism -- parking enforcement
mechanism, because people, basically, see or hear the tow truck coming and run out and
move their car. So, in order to deter people from parking in the fire lane or in a disabled
parking spot, the boot can go on and what we kind of negotiated was that the booting
company would need to stay in that area, so they would stay there so that when the
people came to move their car, then, they could deal with that parking enforcement
situation on the spot and it would prevent the situation that we are worried about that we
would need the fire lane -- that someone would need the disabled parking spot, but there
is a car blocking it, which we don't want that, we don't want to permanently mobilize
vehicles in fire lanes and disabled parking spots, but what we have learned is that this
parking enforcement mechanism is really to deter people from parking in the fire lane s.
The idea is if you park in the fire lane, the car is booted and you have to pay to have it
removed, you wouldn't do it again. So, it's sort of like parking tickets, but it's, obviously,
a private transaction. So, our draft incorporates that allowance that you can boot in the
fire lane, you can boot in the disabled parking spots, but you need to stay right there. We
talked a little bit about response time. We initially said be there in 30 minutes, but in
talking about how big Meridian has gotten, sometimes that's not always feasible. So, an
hour we -- this draft incorporates a provision that says the booting companies need to
respond within an hour of being called . We talked about signage. At the property sites.
The state code provision says that it needs to be in a consp icuous location, so there is
some room left for interpretation. There is not always clear signs. So, this ordinance
says that each entrance to the property. We talked about particular wording that needs
to be on there and incorporated some flexibility. This ordinance draft does incorporate
some standards for the signs to talk about how big the letters need to be, it needs to be
white and red, so that it stands out, so that it's not a surprise. So, this last issue, the
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ordinance draft we wrote the disqualifying criminal history provisions -- well, to take a step
back, we, as a condition of the license, the booting professionals do need to undergo a
background check and similar to our mobile sales units or our door-to-door salesmen,
they wouldn't -- there is a list of disqualifying crimes that if you had that in your history
that would disqualify you from the license. Similar to -- well, exactly like our mobile sales
unit, there is a five year window within which the certain crimes cannot be on your record.
There was kind of some debate about whether that should be five years or three years
and I think this is the only -- the major situation or the major provision that we still don't
have consensus on with regard to the booting companies, whether it shoul d be five years
or three years. So, our recommendation is that that five years stay the same to be
consistent with mobile sales unit and because, as I said, we are dealing with vulnerable
people at all hours of the night. So , it's our recommendation and that of the Police
Department that that stay at five years. And Scott can talk more about that if we need to.
Our process so far -- we sent a draft ordinance to the stakeholders, including the property
managers around town of apartments. We, as I said, met with the owners of the parking
enforcement companies. We are here tonight and, then, the next steps that we would
recommend would be to have a public hearing on the proposed ordinance, have the first,
second and third reading and at that point, since we are talking about adding background
checks and a fingerprint requirement, we would need to reach out to Idaho State Police
and they reach out to the FBI, so that we can be authorized to add that to our ordinance.
So, that's a little extra step that we would need to have in there. We would be adopting
an application fee, so that's part of the process. And, then, we would propose an effective
date of May 1.
Colaianni: So, if I could jump in and just give you a little bit of context on how we got
here. So, apartment complexes. We approve apartment complexes. They get built and
many times there isn't enough parking for visitors or people that park there shouldn't be
parking in certain spots, handicapped spots. They don't have the pass to park in certain
areas and so the apartment complexes have property management companies that, then,
contract out to these booting companies to manage their parking problems within the
development and although well and fine, what it's led to is now the police are being called
to some of these situations, because there has been arguments about this got damaged,
you can't put this here I was parked here. I have a pass and so now we are getting
involved. So, this is causing us a little bit of heartache and that we are having to become
a party to this dispute and so there is going to be more apartments coming online,
everybody in front of us knows that, right? Lots more. And so our expectation is that this
-- this problem could grow without some sideboards. So, our goal was to put something
together and not to impede businesses or property owners ' rights to manage this, but to
give it some sideboard so we can intervene, because we are taking money from people
in parking lots at night and they may be kids, they may be, you know, older people we are
taking credit cards or checks and so we need to have something in place to kind of guide
us to allow us to manage this and if they damage these people's property let's step in and
say you can't do that either. I mean it works both ways and so we are looking forward to
put this ordinance together. The word flow is already built. We have it for the mobile
sales licenses. The disqualifiers are there. The forms are there. The process is there. I
review all those. We have had no problems with the mobile sales licenses since we put
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that ordinance into effect on the five year timeline. It's worked very well. And so we think
this would fit nicely in there. The clerk's office has assured us this won't be a huge burden,
because there isn't that many booting companies. We do hundreds of mobile sales
licenses. There is not that many booting companies right now. So, I don't think it's going
to be a tremendous amount of additional work and I think this is a fair balance between
business and property rights and government making sure we are taking care of our
citizens and that everybody is playing by the rules and being duly notified of, you know,
what it's going to cost if I park here and I shouldn't . Just kind of preemptive, the longer
term goal is, you know, maybe we need to take a look at apartment complexes and make
sure that we are asking for more -- extra parking and our UDCs are looking at those things
to create more space for those people that are visiting. As they get bigger and bigger and
bigger, you know, a lot of these garages they put in their people put their stuff in there and
they don't park in them, so that's kind of how we got here. So, I guess we will stand for
questions. I do think someone has really stuck out his time here, Nathan, to be here for
Case.
Milam: Madam Mayor? Oh, sorry. Really nice job on this you guys. Nice good teamwork
and I read through it earlier and it all seems to make a lot of sense and doesn't look like
you missed the whole lot. I guess one concern that I ha ve is the 12 hours, I know you
said you started at 48 and I realize that they -- they might need their parking, but what if
somebody is out of town or, you know, I don't know. I guess I had a personal experience
not that long ago where I was out at a conference and something happened with a vehic le
that I owned while I was gone and I found out on my way home that it had been towed
and so, yeah, I guess it -- unless there is -- unless there is some other kind of notification
other than just the boot, if that person has left and isn't -- doesn't see the car within 12
hours, now they are paying the hundred dollar boot and a 300 , 400 dollar tow bill. So, I'm
a little -- I'm a little concerned about that.
De Weerd: Was there a question in that? I was trying to capture what that might have
been.
Colaianni: I think I would -- I would agree with you -- yes.
De Weerd: Hey, Scott, can you use the other mic. Apparently Mr. Palmer can't hear with
the -- with the mic you were using.
Colaianni: Okay.
De Weerd: And he is -- he is on the phone.
Colaianni: Okay. I was -- I was literally looking for him. I'm like, wait, what? Yes. And
so to answer your question, I don't know if it was a question, but that could happen. Yes.
Milam: Yeah. Okay. So, I guess the question part -- part of it was is there any other way
that they get in touch with the vehicle owner, other than just booting it ? They don't try to
reach the owner --
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Colaianni: No. So, I -- they put the boot on and, then, there is a document that goes in
the windshield --
Milam: Right.
Colaianni: -- as to who to call it and -- when you come up to your car. So, if you don't
ever come up to your car, you're gone, you're out of town and you have illegally parked
it, yeah.
Milam: I would like to see that 24 hour -- changed to 24 hours and I think that's a medium
that -- in between, but --
De Weerd: You did get that, if he is -- if you're illegally parked.
Milam: I know.
Colaianni: That's -- that's -- that's the right word if they are illegally parked or -- you know,
I mean that's -- that's the penalty.
Nary: Excuse me, Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I don't know if this helps or hurts the -- the conversation on that, but we do have
regulations on how much time has to pass before you can tow a car off the street, but I
don't believe they have the same length of time to tow a car off a private parking lot. They
just have to provide notice. So, they don't have to give you 12 hours if you park illegally
in a private parking lot anyway. So, I don't know if, really, it -- and I may be wrong, but
my recollection is there is no requirement, they just have to provide notice.
Milam: Okay. So, Madam Mayor, I guess to clarify, the only place that these boots are
being used is on private property?
Colaianni: Correct.
Nary: Yes.
Milam: I'm fine with --
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: A couple of -- a couple of questions I guess. The first part is kind of lead to
criminal versus civil. So, my understanding is that our police department is enforcing the
criminal action if someone parks in a fire lane or in a handicap spot , so I'm trying to wrap
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my head around why we are having a civil business booting people for being in violation
of city law.
Kane: Madam Mayor, Council Member Cavener, we did talk about that a little bit, the role
of the police and these private parking enforcement companies. It's really a matter of
resources. So, we talked about really you can't have it both ways. You can 't boot a car
that's in the handicapped spot and, then, call the police and have them come and ticket
the vehicle and pile on and pile on. It's, essentially, a choice. So, you can -- you -- it's
one or the other. Either -- and same in the fire lane. So, it -- if an apartment complex has
chosen this as its method of enforcement for those -- for those particular violations, then,
that is what they have chosen to do and it's still a violation of law. However, the -- I guess
the issue is that they can call the police and they could respond, because they have the
time in two minutes and they are there to issue the ticket and that works great, but in the
instance where everybody is busy or far away and it takes 45 minutes or an hour to get
there, because it's a pretty low priority on the triage on some days, so it -- it's just not an
effective tool for parking enforcement. So, it's -- it's we -- we talked about we don't -- we
don't want to end up in a situation where the police are the private parking enforce rs, so
you're -- you're right that you could do either one, but that we talked to -- according to the
parking companies, the parking enforcement companies, this is a really common issue
that people are facing when they run out of parking, people feel free to just borrow the
fire lane or, you know, have a party and you just fill up the fire lane or I'm just, you know,
dropping off the groceries. So, I borrow the handicapped spot or just that people don't
care and park wherever they would like. So, this is really -- it -- the boot is really intended
to be a short term fix. So, it's an immediate -- it's clearly an immediate problem for the
vehicle owner that gets taken care of quickly, without having to go off site to deal with the
tow, without having to wait for the police or bring the police into it.
Cavener: Madam Mayor, follow up. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Emily, I appreciate I think
where you guys are coming from about limited resources that our police have and maybe
what's the best use of their time. Likewise, I guess the inverse is equally concerning for
me is that we are now letting a civil business handle enforcement over something that is
our laws and I -- from a citizen perspective I -- I don't know if -- if I'm a citizen who gets
booted for parking in a fire lane. Well, now I'm wondering why the city is in the business
of booting my car, but that's not the case, but I think that our citizens believe that there is
laws and, then, there is civil issues and this -- boots are very much a civil issue. So, I'm
not quite sure that I have got my head wrapped around that piece and I don't know if that's
a piece that I'm -- I'm fully in comfort -- comfortable doing. I guess, Madam Mayor, a
question, then, is what -- if I park in a handicap spot or I park in a fire lane, what's my
citation and what's -- what's the cost of that ticket to me?
Kane: Do you know the --
Colaianni: I don't know off the top of my head.
De Weerd: You need to say that in the microphone.
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Colaianni: A hundred and fifty-seven.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Nary: So -- so, Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Cavener, again, I don't
-- I don't know if this answers your question. Remember, these are still private property;
right? So, this is places that are not public property. So , it's not a school or somewhere
else that a fire lane might be, this is a shopping center or an apartment complex. So, it's
still their property and how they enforce it. Yes, we could cite and there are provisions in
the code that allow citations. It certainly is not a routine practice for the police to patrol a
parking lot unless there is a call. So, this only prohibits towing and booting, not towing
and ticketing. So, they still could receive a ticket for it, but it's their private property
enforcement mechanism to keep their parking lot turnover and all of that. So , it's not
really like they are two different things, it's just two different -- two different methods. I
mean the city of Boise has had booting for 25 years and if you look back at the ordinance
-- I was just looking at it before they started talking -- the ordinance was passed in 1993
and to date myself I'm the one that wrote it in 1993. And so it was a problem. This exact
problem that -- that they -- our police are experiencing now here are the same problems
that existed in 1993. So, this is a great attempt to get in front of that before it becomes
more of an issue and there is a template that already exists that does work. So, it has
worked very well in Boise and they have regulations that handled -- it's handled very
routinely now and so I think we do have a good model that's worked. They, obviously,
have amended it over -- over time, but many of the things in there are things that existed
then, that we are seeing now, so -- so it can work.
De Weerd: Chief.
Lavey: Madam Mayor, I apologize if this was covered already, but, you know, we were in
a -- a no man's land for a while, because there was that argument about whether this was
civil, whether this was criminal, was there an ordinance, was this vandalism, was a civil
-- civil penalty and, then, the state legislature made it lawful to boot cars and so there is
a state code out there now and without having some sort of perimeter or side rails on it,
it's kind of like scooters, it goes -- it goes haywire and we need to have some sort of
roadmap in place that says if you're going to do this this is what we expect in our city. If
you don't, then, you're going to have what you have currently with the tow companies and
I just got a complaint today of a 475 dollar tow bill, that's because there is no parameters
in place and so we can not do this, but we need to make it clear right now, then , that we
are going to say this is a civil agreement between the apartments and the companies and,
then, when the people damage these cars -- I mean damage these boots, we are not
going to take a criminal report. We need to make that clear right now, because that is the
problem that we are running into is people are getting booted, they are not liking it, they
are -- they are damaging property and -- and if we want to say, okay, well, then, tack that
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on to the price of the fine, we need to decide that. But the ordinance was to put some
parameters in place, to put some realness into the situation and that 's really how Boise
had to get control of their -- their ordinance, because everybody was willy nilly doing it
and they had to put the ordinance in place to be able to get some control. So, to prevent
the chaos this is what is in front of you today.
Cavener: Madam Mayor? And, chief, I'm not suggesting that we -- we don't do this. I
think this is important. I just -- I have real concerns about how we are blurring those lines
between criminal and civil. Madam Mayor, I did have one additional question, though,
about Item 3-3-3L, which calls for having two forms of payment. I think that's really
appropriate. I guess the -- I don't know if the committee had any conversations about if
the vendor would, then, charge an additional fee to process a noncash payment. I know
you see that across the country is that, you know, you got to give me a hundred bucks.
Oh, you have only got a credit card, well, it's 120 dollars. And so I don't know if that's
something that you guys had discussed and if there would be anything included in there.
Kane: Madam Mayor, Council Member Cavener, we did talk about that. The -- the
hundred dollar limit does incorporate the credit card processing fee that I know at least
one of them said that they -- they had charged, so they get -- they pass that onto the
consumer. And Mr. Nuno can talk more about that I'm sure.
Cavener: Great.
De Weerd: Okay. Other questions from Council? I know this isn't a public hearing, but
we have companies here that have waited as long as we have been here, four and a half
hours. Would you like to hear from them?
Nuno: Hello.
De Weerd: Hello.
Nuno: My name is Nathan Nuno. I live at 9136 West Brogan Drive in Boise. I'm also the
owner of Case Parking Enforcement. Little history about myself. I have been in this
business for about 18 years. I started out in the towing business and during that time I
saw how expensive tow bills were and the chance of people losing their vehicles for that
expense. It goes up every day for storage in the -- in the towing industry. So, the bill
always gets higher and higher and higher and most of the time when they go to get their
vehicles out of impound they are taking money out of their rent money and have to recoup
that and I just found that booting, once we started doing that -- I'm a Californian, please
don't hate me. I moved here for a better life. But it became a visual deterrent of people
seeing a vehicle booted and those people start thinking twice about where -- where to
park and it's a lot cheaper. We charge 95 dollars. I do charge a card processing fee. It's
three dollars. So, it's within that hundred dollars, but it seemed to me -- and I got positive
feedback from people that, yeah, I would rather be booted than towed. You know, you
get a couple friends together and you can pitch in 20 bucks here and there and you can
come up with that fee, instead of, you know, three or four hundred dollars right off the bat,
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because, like I said, it goes up every day. When I -- when I moved here I -- I actually had
planned to start a towing company, but there is like a hundred freaking towing -- sorry,
excuse my language -- a hundred towing companies here in the Treasure Valley. It just
wasn't competitive. And at that time there was one company called KBS which did booting
and I went to them, talked to them about their business model and the lady who owned
that had no experience with parking enforcement. Two years ago I bought them out and,
then, I was the only company, but now I have another competitor, but with the growth here
I have gotten a lot of managers at these complexes when I go to solicit them that don't
like towing, they like the idea of booting, because it's cheaper, it's a visual deterrent for
people to see that a car is booted. They think twice. And it's a less invasive way of doing
parking enforcement, instead of just towing off a car and charging them several hundred
dollars and for the most part people that live at these complexes don't understand why
their car is being towed. It might be broken down or that kind of situation, as where the
booting, obviously, they are in violation of something and they got booted. When Meridian
-- I came to Mayor Tammy and I met with Mr. Nary and the police chief, we had a great
conversation. I met with Emily from the attorney's office and all that, and a couple
lieutenants, it was very productive and that's -- I'm okay with being regulated and I told
everyone that and as long as it's smart regulation, because I feel like sometimes it's
overregulated, but with the managers and the city doing this, I think that having open
dialogue and getting it fixed the right way because of the growth will work out for the city
and my company and my competitor's company in the long run, because I explained to
Scott -- lieutenant, in the last four years that I have started my company off people who
damage my boots or cut them off vehicles, I have lost about 40,000 dollars, which I have
a whole bag of keys to all my locks that I keep as a reminder of, you know, that's how
much money I have lost and that's money that I could have bought another vehicle with
for patrolling, more boots -- because this is getting more popular -- popular; right? At the
present time I have about 162 properties in the Treasure Valley and it's -- it's getting more.
You guys keep letting them built and that's great for me and it's great for the city. It brings
revenue in. But I think this ordinance needs to be cleaned up a little bit more . There is
things that I'm perfectly fine with. One of the -- one of the discussions Emily brought up
is the -- the criminal record part. I brought that up also. I feel some of the charges in
there with the misdemeanors are usually a six month to a year probation violation and
now we are extending it to five years where someone that's on probation is only on
probation for a year for a misdemeanor usually, unless it is multiple, so I just felt like five
years on that misdemeanor part was very extreme, because, to be honest right now, I
have two drivers that couldn't work here, because they have had four years since they
committed a misdemeanor. So, I couldn't have them work. My -- getting employees to
work in the Meridian area would be more difficult and, honestly, it's very difficult to hire
employees right now, good ones at least, and that's what I strive for is to have the best.
That was probably my biggest fight on that is because I want to keep those employees
working and I remember telling Mayor Tammy that I want Meridian to be the role model
on this, because, you know, Mr. McNair wrote Boise's, it's a little outdated. I would love
to go to Boise and say, hey, look at what Meridian did. This is what we need. And I know
Nampa, Caldwell, even Eagle now is looking at doing ordinances also. So, if I could have
you guys fix this to where I can go to those other cities and say, hey, let's do it like
Meridian, that would be awesome for me. Other little things -- just the whole licensing
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process seems a little difficult. As far as applying, I understand -- I -- I'm not sure if the
company applies or just the people that are going to work here. So, I'm not sure if I need
a city license or just the people that work for me need a license to work here . As to where
Boise, you get a city license, and then -- which includes everything that's asked for on
this, but, then, the employees who work under my company, it's a very -- more simple
process. They put down they work for me. The city already has all my pricing list and
insurance and all that, but in this one every employee that applies for a license here would
have to bring the same info that I brought for my company to get a license. So, I -- I would
like to see that simplified. But besides this -- it's -- it's a good piece of ordinance as far
as -- as far as I'm concerned. So, yeah, just little tweaks. I would like to see parking
enforcement put on the vehicles -- on the sides, like it says on here, with the name
reflective. I would like to be very specific on, okay, that's the parking enforcement
company. I know my competitor does security also and he just has security on his side
-- on the side of his vehicle, so it gets a little confusing that he does parking enforcement.
So, I would like that defined in that, but -- sorry, I'm a little nervous here. I did the state
stuff, too, and this is a lot simpler than that. Those people are very intimidating. Yeah. I
-- I just want to work with the city and make sure that this is legit. I don't wan t any fly-by-
night companies coming in. That's my biggest fear is someone that's not going to follow
the rules and screws it up for me and my company. So, yeah, I mean -- I guess that's all
I have to say, since I was mumbling, but --
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions?
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor. Thank you so much for waiting. We appreciate that. What
is your average response time when you're called to come unboot something?
Nuno: So, it really depends. If we are currently releasing vehicles, we might have a
couple ahead of a new person that calls. With my business model Boise says 30 minutes,
which I'm trying to get changed, but I usually tell them, hey, we have a couple releases
ahead of you, it might be about 45 minutes. If it's longer than that we will give you a call
and let you know it's going to be a little bit longer. But when traffic is bad it's at least an
hour. I mean if we are in Boise, we have to come out here, at least an hour sometimes,
depending where in Boise we are or even if , you know, we are on the north side of
Meridian and I have to come over here to Franklin at Ten Mile over here, that can be an
hour in traffic, especially if there is an accident that's even longer time. So, an hour is a
really good time I feel.
Little Roberts: Okay. Thank you.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
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Cavener: I agree with Council Member Little Roberts' statement. Appreciate you sticking
with us tonight. How -- about how many employees do you have?
Nuno: I have seven.
Cavener: Seven?
Nuno: Yeah.
Cavener: So, seven. And you said you have 162 properties?
Nuno: Yes.
Cavener: Okay. Thank you.
Nuno: If I can add one thing I forgot. About the fire lanes and the handicaps. I'm against
the fire lane one. I -- I feel that's a public safety issue. I know it says we have to stay
there if we boot and all that, but even if a fire happened, all we could do is take the boot
off and the car still sits there. I'm -- okay. We are calling a tow truck and them coming
and getting that vehicle and state law states that, too, that anything in a fire lane has to
be immediately towed. Now, handicaps, I'm really religious on that, because I had a
grandmother that fell and -- because she did kind of park in the handicap and I have a lot
of parkers around BSU and a lot of those kids have handicapped permits, but they are
not handicapped. But I also feel that maybe the police department should handle those.
I currently have a couple of the state reps looking into making booting in handicaps legal
at the state level, because in that state level it says it's illegal, that we can't do it, they
have to be towed, but I'm starting to have a little bit second feelings on that -- on that.
Plus it also creates a revenue for the city, too, if they come out and ticket the vehicle, but
the only thing I didn't like about that is that if I do boot it I have to sit there and who knows
how long that car will sit in the handicap. I cannot afford to have an employee sit there
for, you know, 24 hours while that car is booted and also just to -- you, council member, I
don't know what your situation with your -- your car being towed, but we have vehicle logs
for assigned spots at my complexes, but they also have a parking addendums and in that
parking addendum and that I have for my properties it states if you're going out of town
for more than seven days to notify the off ice and they will put you on a list in case
something happens on that. Weekends. If I boot a car on a Friday, we don't do anything
with that car, we will leave it in the spot until Monday, because someone might be out of
town, but during the weekdays and all that -- but with assigned spots that -- I was the
biggest critic on this time limit on assigned spots, because if someone calls me and says
there is a car in my spot, I want to get them that car back as soon as I can and I will leave
that car booted for -- all my properties it's usually 24 hours, but the assigned spots, once
that tenant -- who usually pays for the parking in that spot, starts calling said, hey, when
do I get my spot back. I usually get a hold of the manager and say, hey, they are -- they
are wanting their spot back, I'm going to go ahead and tow it and we do it. I don't do any
of this boot and tow automatically, that defeats the purpose of my business, you know,
and it costs the people a lot more money, so -- but --
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Cavener: Okay.
Nuno: Okay. I think that's --
De Weerd: Thank you.
Nuno: You're welcome.
De Weerd: Any other comments?
Kane: Madam Mayor, I guess we would just stand for questions. We -- as I said, I think
we have consensus on most topics and with regard to the fire lane and the handicap spot,
if those are off limits to booting and just the sole dominion of the police department, that
is okay as well. That's kind of where we began.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I think that's something that -- you know, for a public hearing you want to
present it as is and that's something that we as a Council can discuss before taking any
action. If the rest of the Council is supportive of leaving those in, then, we have got the
confidence to move forward. If other Council Members feel comfortable by removing that,
we can take that action as a body at that particular time.
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Milam: I agree. I don't think it necessarily has to be dealt with tonight , but I do feel like
they should be separated. Handicap and -- and fire lane is two different things and I don't
have a problem with the way that you have the handicap handled. You know, if they have
the proof of their -- their tag, they don't get charged and that all makes sense, but the fire
lane is a hazard and I don't -- so, I don't know if those need to be in there together or if
they can be separated.
De Weerd: So, what is behind the five years on a misdemeanor? What is the magic --
Colaianni: Madam Mayor, Council Members --
De Weerd: See, you shouldn't have grabbed it to begin with.
Colaianni: I'm going down. So, there was a couple things. So, with misdemeanors --
this is just -- with misdemeanors -- a lot of times when we have misdemeanor convictions
there is typically a year or two of supervised or unsupervised probation that goes with
that. There is paying fines. There is different things that go on. And so we want to allow
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time for all that to expire. It just doesn't -- there isn't just a hard cut off and, quite honestly,
this model has worked for us in the door to door sales and we haven't had any problems
with it. When we are talking about exchanging money and credit cards and checks and
this type of thing, it's in our best interest, I believe, as a police department to ensure that
those people that are handling those types of situations have been out of trouble for a
period of time. You know, we get up here and get into semantics about every little thing
and all the years and what -- where is the fine line, but we just felt that this -- given our
history with the -- with the door-to-door sales is -- is --
De Weerd: And that's consistent with it. Okay. That's all you needed to say.
Colaianni: It helps with me in processing this as well. I mean quite honestly.
Cavener: Madam Mayor? Sorry. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Scott, if I remember
correctly, as a -- as a licensed -- a potential licensee, if they don't meet that criteria they
could come and appeal that to us; correct?
Colaianni: Yeah. There is a process for appealing, yes.
Cavener: I remember going -- we had that process once.
Colaianni: Yes.
Cavener: And so I mean --
Colaianni: I mean it doesn't happen often, but we have built in a process that said, hey,
you know, these are the reasons I would like to appeal it and they can come here and
appeal that. Yeah.
Cavener: I'm good with that.
Nary: And Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: And Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, just for -- I guess more for the record,
because I know you all have had time to review this, but it isn't all misdemeanors. I mean
it is very narrowly construed to ones relevant to the operation of basically people that are
driving doing something, people that are driving around doing these, collecting money as
the lieutenant said. So, they are really relevant to the action. So, it isn't every
misdemeanor or every offense, so --
De Weerd: Thank you. Anything further? Okay. So, we will bring this back in form of a
public hearing.
Kane: Thank you.
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D. Community Development Block Grant Administration
Discussion
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Okay. Well, Caleb, you're back. See, did we delay it long
enough that we can hear your report on Item 8-D?
Hood: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. I wish I weren't actually before
you tonight. I have my tail between my legs a little bit here. I have got a little bit of a story
with our Community Development Block Grant program. I have talked to our Council
liaison a couple of times now, but thought it best to do it like this, rather than just putting
a budget amendment before you without a story. So , we do have an upcoming budget
amendment that we would -- we would like to process. Well, we would rather not process,
but we kind of have to. We have -- maybe I will tell kind of that side of the story. We have
been in discussions and sort of fighting this for some time, but we -- just this last year got
in writing a finding of our program that really there is no path forward. We even worked
with Finance a little bit and at this point there -- the decision is the decision and we really
don't have any other avenues to pursue to get outsi de of this. So, it's not -- it's not that
bad, but this isn't fun. So, just a little bit of background. Through the CDBG program, the
planning and administration, so, typically, our -- our planning and administration, a lot of
it has been paid for staff time, benefits, and -- and -- and salary, wages. Also things like
mailings and radio advertisements and things like that that just sort of go along with
administering the program, but that's capped at 20 percent of any entitlement
community's allocation. Well, that's -- that's -- that's a given. Historically that cap was
calculated by HUD on a cumulative basis. However, a few years ago HUD issued a rule
requiring grantees to track obligations and expenditures of funds for each specific fiscal
year grant, rather than track that -- track information cumulatively. Long story short -- I
will try to make it short. We didn't spend all our funding in 2015. We had some timeliness
issues. One of the other requirements from HUD is you can't have more than 1.5 of your
-- a grant kind of on the books or unallocated or spent. They want you to spend the
money. They give you the money to do good in the community and so we were running
up on a timeliness issue, so we took some of -- some funds that were unspent from admin
and rolled them forward into PY-16 and did some other things with that. Well, this rule
came down, we didn't do a good job of tracking how much we spent in administration for
that one given year and we do what we call -- we blew the cap. So, we overspent what
we were allowed to in admin by $6,252.06. So, like I said, in November of 2018 HUD
issued a finding -- they were here in September? Yeah. September. They did an on-site
monitoring. A couple months later they sent us a letter saying we found this, you need to
pay back $6,252.06. What it also said -- we have been talking with this -- and this isn't
unique to Meridian, by the way. This change at the national level affected numerous
communities. Boise is dealing with it. I'm not sure if Nampa is. Caldwell. Other cities
certainly this thing hit them, because it was a change in the way that the program was
administered. I'm not trying to make excuses, just saying that there is others in the same
situation. So, again, we have that now officially in writing and our response was , okay,
well, if we have to pay it back we have to pay it back. So, really, I'm coming to ask you to
-- that we need to comply with the spending caps and timeliness for the future, though, to
say we aren't going to do this again, we have learned our lesson, we are putting some
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things in place where this should never happen again. We are tracking this more
diligently, working with our community partners and better consultation. Not that we
weren't communicating well with Finance before, but, really, looking at that better. Going
forward this, again, shouldn't happen again. So, the Community Development
Department requests that Council approve a future FYI-19 budget amendment that will
allow the CDBG program to reimburse HUD the 6,200 dollars and change to close the
monitoring finding. I didn't mention it, but it is in the memo that's in your packet. HUD
has about -- because, again, so many communities in the nation are in the same situation.
What they are talking about doing is we pay it back through our General Fund and they
give it back to us as a credit to our HUD account. So, we don't totally lose that money,
but it is restricted, then, to only be used for CDBG type purposes; right? It's not -- couldn't
be used for parks or whatever else . Police or whatever. So, that is something that they
have said, you know, we want to credit back your account, but we have got to make this
whole. This rule is broken, it needs to be paid back. So, anyways, that's the story that I
have to tell you. Essentially you can't tell me no. You can, but I would highly recommend
not to do that. So, we will -- it is an ask, but it's sort of -- again, tail between my legs,
unfortunate situation and -- and I think we have learned our lesson. So, with that I will
stand for any questions.
De Weerd: Sure appreciate that, Caleb. Council, any questions? Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: I don't know why I turned on my microphone.
De Weerd: To make a motion.
Hood: Madam Mayor, it's not an action item today.
De Weerd: Oh.
Hood: I will bring a future budget amendment. And, again, in discussions with
Councilman Bernt, he just -- he wasn't overly -- I don't want to put words in his mouth,
because he turned his microphone on, so he can speak for himself, but -- but he wasn't
real quick on signing the budget amendment form without having the -- the daylighting
this topic and explaining to you the situation. So, didn't want to just put it on the Consent
Agenda and -- without -- without explaining kind of the situation. So, that's where we are
at.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Caleb, for -- are these funds going to come out of revenues from permit fees?
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De Weerd: These don't come out of permit fees. Oh, it -- could it come out of permit
fees?
Hood: So, Madam Mayor, I will let -- yeah. I will let Todd answer that, because we haven't
actually gotten to where --
Lavoie: Madam Mayor, Councilman Palmer, this will just come out of the General Fund
dollars.
De Weerd: What's that?
Palmer: If he's using the right mic it doesn't work. He's got to use his left mic.
Lavoie: Councilman Palmer, is this one good?
Palmer: Perfect.
Lavoie: There we go. To answer our question, Mr. Palmer, we will be using the General
Fund dollars to allocate the permit revenues. We will not be working on that until the end
of the fiscal year to make sure that we actually do have an excess position within the
permit revenues, but we will not determine that until we finish our audit for this fiscal year.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: That lost me. So, will the 6,000 dollars come out of property taxes or it will come
out of permit fees?
De Weerd: Property taxes.
Palmer: Okay. Great.
De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Comment. I let Council Member Bernt know and Caleb, the scale of issues,
this is such small potatoes, but I appreciate you coming and kind of shining a light on it .
I think it was appropriate for Council Member Bernt to encourage that. To your point, this
has happened to municipalities all across the country. You guys' department are going to
put safeguards in place so it doesn't happen again. No issues on my part with the budget
amendment when it comes forth and appreciate you guys bringing this to light.
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E. Linder Road Overpass Discussion
De Weerd: Yes. Thank you again. Okay. Item 8-E is under the Linder Road overpass
discussion.
Hood: So, Madam Mayor, I was afraid of that. I was afraid you were going to look my
direction.
De Weerd: Well, I can actually kick it off, if -- if you would like. During our presentation
from COMPASS last fall we did ask Caleb to draft a letter from the Mayor and Council to
-- I think ITD or COMPASS -- to COMPASS to look into modeling the impact that Linder
overpass would have and as the city would perhaps consider a contribution similar to
what we did with the Locust Grove overpass in order to escalate that improvement and
so Caleb and Robert and COMPASS, ITD and ACHD have -- have sat down -- COMPASS
did some modeling and Caleb has provided that information. This is on the agenda to --
to really have any discussion that Council would like to have before we have our joint
meeting with ACHD and -- and certainly to ask any questions that you might have of Caleb
either on what the situation was that we had with Locust Grove overpass or anything
further as it relates to the Linder overpass. Caleb, anything you want to add to that?
Hood: Madam Mayor, the only thing I was just going to check is -- I wasn't sure what did
make it in the packet. So, I do have the -- the report that COMPASS put together that
does show those impacts. If you do have that in front of you we can kind of run through
that. I know some of it's kind of hard to understand and some of the numbers are pretty
small, but we did run through that a couple weeks ago with COMPASS and ITD and
ACHD. Some of the tables they are going to actually update a little bit to make them more
-- a little more user friendly, because some of it's out of context. Percentage doesn't
always tell the story if you don't know how many cars are using it today. Twelve percent
could be a big number if there is 50,000 cars a day. It's not so big if there is only 5,000
cars a day. So, I mean it can -- it -- so, we are working on some of those things. But --
and they are going to be looking at a little more select link analysis and some more of
those things. The only thing I guess that at this point I would -- and I'm not trying to be
Debbie downer. But from ITD's perspective this is not on their radar. They are -- it's going
to be -- it's going to take some work to accelerate this and even, then, just in reality,
something like this is going to take -- it's a multi-year thing; right? I mean that's how it
works. You got to design it, you got to buy the right of way. You got to build it. They are
at least -- at least three years out and they will tell you you're out six or seven at least,
because we have already got the next five or six years planned. So, again, I'm not -- I'm
just trying to be a little bit realistic. Not that we haven't historically had good results and
there can be some things happening with legislation that can -- you know, some funds
that maybe came out of nowhere that maybe could be reality, but I'm just saying that that's
kind of where they are at right now, realizing there is these other things that could happen,
but at least at the staff level they are like, oh, you know, so they are willing to talk with us
at least, but they are like this isn't on our radar. We have so many other higher priorities
and when they look at the -- the impacts to the state system and they are so narrowly
focused on the impacts to their roadways they don't look at it as a network and the benefit
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to the network and the commuters as a network and that's what's kind of frustrating I
guess a little bit to me is it's so narrowly focused on -- and I get it. They have their roads
they are charged with maintain -- and bridges they are charged with maintaining, but,
anyways, I should probably -- just know that as we -- with these conversations and before
that ITD is going to be the one that I think ACHD is willing to some degree. And I'm not
committing them to anything at this point, but ITD is the one that's a little more -- they
don't have as -- as much ability to kind of bob and weave is maybe ACHD does. Yeah.
Any questions you have in the analysis and I can, hopefully, try to explain some.
De Weerd: I know they don't have the same flexibility or latitude that ACHD has, but I do
know that from when the city put money on the table to be a partner, those local dollars
meant a great deal and it did help in making it a higher priority for the state and in talking
to Representative Palmer, he also reiterated that as well. So, I think it is definitely worth
a discussion and seeing where the position of Ada County Highway District commission
is to see if we can move forward together.
Hood: Madam Mayor, I did think of one more thing, just to put this a little bit -- and some
of the things that we have -- as we have kind of scoped this project at least initially. One
of the things that we think will be very beneficial is if we can do this with state and local
funds and not federal funds, for kind of the reasons you would anticipate. We don't have
to go through the environmental, we don't have to -- you know, some of those other hoops
you have to jump through. It keeps the costs lower and your timeline is accelerated when
you don't use the federal funds. So , that's one of the things we are really pushing for is
to not have a penny of federal dollars used on this project. High level cost estimates,
planning level cost estimates, about 12 million dollars to do the bridge for the overpass,
as well as widen the roadway to Franklin. Give or take. But that's about total cost.
Cloverdale is a pretty good example. It's not -- necessarily apples to apples, but a real
timely example of what that partnership could look like. That's about a 60-40 split with
ITD paying about 60 percent of that and ACHD paying 40 percent and that's about a six
million dollar, four million dollar relationship. So, a couple million dollars. But, again, it's
real real similar as far as project goes and probably what the cross -section of the bridge
would look like, it's going to look real similar to Cloverdale. So -- anyway, so some things
that we are kind of tracking, hey, this is what's going on here, can we do something similar,
maybe, at Linder Road, so --
De Weerd: Caleb, can it be phased in where you can do something similar to what they
did at Cloverdale or Five Mile? Robert and I were talking about that and where they didn't
have to widen the landing from I-84 to Franklin, for example.
Hood: So, Madam Mayor, that is something we -- we discussed and it is possible. Just
my two cents on that -- and depending on how things go, I mean I think you will have a
public that's generally upset with that, though. I mean you have a bridge that necks down
to two lanes, the Franklin -- and, by the way, you know, ACHD is getting ready in January
-- so 11 months from now to widen the next section of Linder across the railroad tracks to
Pine and so that will be all the way widened to Cherry to have this kind of bottleneck area
there, but to answer your question, yes, it is possible and it is something we talked about,
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that it could be -- it could be phased in, but ideally it would be done at the same time. It's
one construction zone for one thing and not do this and, then, in a year or two come back
and, then, you tie it in, but -- but, yes, that is possible.
De Weerd: What is the cost difference?
Hood: Well, I mean you're -- I can't give you a percentage or a dollar amount, but there
are some efficiencies to having one contractor that mobilizes once and does the whole
thing. So, whatever that is you're going to -- you're going to pay for that twice. And, then,
you know, some of that -- there is risk. It could be a better -- a better bidding environment
when we did phase two. It could be worse, though, too. You may be paying more for that
concrete or asphalt, but you could be paying less. So, yeah, I don't -- I -- we haven't
gotten to those levels of detail and really looked at -- at some of those -- if there are
efficiencies to phasing it in or not, but that's some of the initial just public perception of
why would you build this brand new four lane overpass and it necks down to two lanes
on the other side, that just -- anyways, it would be hard to explain.
De Weerd: Any questions?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Caleb, I know it may be a little premature, but, you know, last week the
transportation commission looked at priority projects and I think it's good for Council to
just kind of be updated as to where the Commission kind of landed on this particular
project, because it was -- it was surprising to me.
Hood: Thank you, Mr. Cavener. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, so this will be
probably on the 26th agenda. I haven't talked with the clerk yet to look at that agenda,
but by March 15th we have to have our priorities for 2019 to ACHD, so they can consider
them in their next iteration of the integrated five year work plan. So, just last Monday,
kind of knowing -- knowing this was coming on, I proposed in the draft to the commission
that this be the city's highest priority project to ACHD. That's after having some
conversations with ACHD staff, saying if you want to get our attention it better be -- it didn't
say number one, but it better be at the top of your list. So, that's how we get ACHD's
attention is we all of a sudden make this our top whatever priority. They are going to say,
okay, well, you know, we consider you a partner, we are listening, but last Monday they
-- they agreed it's important, but not quite number one important. So, they recommended
it be the fifth -- number five priority. Again, we can talk about that whole list here on the
26th, hopefully, if that agenda allows. That leaves, again, a couple weeks for us to write
a letter, make any tweaks to that, or research you want to do, so we can get our final list
to ACHD by their deadline of the 15th, so --
Cavener: Thank you.
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Hood: Yeah. Number five is what their recommendation to you is going to be.
De Weerd: Thank you for that interesting little tidbit. Okay.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Just to maybe finish and frame this, the question I think is if the city is going to
explore discussions on how to leverage General Fund dollars to spend on infrastructure
that is another agency's responsibility, are we willing to have that conversation. If there
is any hesitation that we should do that, let's find out now. A lot of devil in the details, but
if we want to -- with a unified voice advance that potential, then, we will do it, but if
somebody had heartburn now is the time.
Milam: Madam Mayor?
Borton: Good.
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Councilman Borton, no -- no heartburn for me and even if it is going to take
three years, we need to -- we need to -- I wish we would have known that three years ago
and we could have been having those conversations then. I mean this is something I
think that we need to do everything we can -- to your point as a unified voice in support
of a project like this. So, I'm fully on board. Agree devil is in the details, but from my
perspective we all need to be together on this.
De Weerd: Okay. It looks like we are good. I can't see Councilman Palmer nodding his
head, but --
Palmer: (Unintelligible).
F. Fire Station #6 Budget Amendment Not to Exceed $1,505,491
[Action Item]
De Weerd: Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Caleb. Okay. Item 8-F is under our Fire
Department.
Niemeyer: Madam Mayor, Members of Council -- I can't remember which mic they said
was working or wasn't working, so I'm going to go with this one.
De Weerd: That one.
Niemeyer: Good evening. We are here -- the Fire Department is here to present a budget
amendment request. This is a budget amendment that has been presented in previous
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monthly updates with regards to Station Six. Chief Butterfield is going to present the
actual numbers, how we got there, but I want to take the opportunities as the fire chief to
recognize the work of some folks before we get into that. First I want to recognize Deputy
Chief Butterfield. Charlie started this project as a planning guide and with t he departure
of David Jones, then, took over ops chief position and that's a job in and of itself and
through all that has maintain a strong workload and due diligence with regards to the
Station Six project, so I really want to recognize all of Charlie's work that he has been
doing on this. I also want to recognize Stacy Redman. Stacy was assigned to us from
Public Works. She is a fairly new employee to the city, so she was thrown into the frying
pan, so to speak, on this project. She is a valuable asset to the city, I can tell you that.
She has worked great with us. She has done a lot of work on this project and will continue
to do so and I also want to recognize Keith Watts. Sorry. Keith has kept us in line with
all the different purchasing procedures that we need to go through and I know he is going
to present next on the guaranteed maximum price . Quick synopsis of the history of this.
It has been a long time coming. I can tell you as the chief we have learned a lot. I have
learned a lot that we are incorporating into the future. We know now it takes about three
years, start to finish, to work a project. So, in our capital improvement plan, as you see
future stations, you're going to see it marched out over a three year period. That is not
something that we had built into the CIP years ago when we started. We had the Bear
Creek investigation, if you will, looking at a potential site. That -- that set us back just a
little bit. We learned a lot through that and so also with regards to the different processes
that we thought we knew that we didn't. Those have been incorporated in document form
within our department moving forward. So , the next station we build is going to go
smoother, I can promise you that. What we also have is we have designed a fire station
that's, hopefully, repeatable on future location sites, minus some exterior changes to
whatever neighborhood we are moving into, the basic concept of our station will be
repeatable. That should save us some time and effort moving forward as well. So, with
that -- first I will take any questions for me. I want -- I want Charlie to be able to come up
and present the numbers. I think you're going to like what you hear. A lot of due diligence
on the part of Charlie. Stacy, as I mentioned. Keith. As well as our RCMGC. So, I will
take any questions now or I will come up again and take some questions.
Bernt: Mr. President?
Borton: Thank you, chief. Mr. Bernt.
Bernt: How are we doing on time frame? Are we still on schedule?
Niemeyer: Chief Butterfield is going to talk to you about a groundbreaking ceremony that
I know all of us are going to be happy to have shovels in our hands and turn some dirt
on. Absolutely. It's the first week of March. So, I will let -- I will let Charlie tell you that.
Bernt: But as far as like the end date.
Niemeyer: Still under the same timeline that we proposed as far as building the station.
That's based on construction, availability, et cetera. So, yes, ESCI --
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Bernt: ESI.
Niemeyer: ESI. Sorry. Confusing for -- still projecting I believe an 11 month time frame
to build and I will let Charlie hit on that as well.
Borton: Okay. Chief. Welcome. Welcome.
Butterfield: Make sure I got the right mic.
Bernt: You got it.
Butterfield: Okay. Well, good evening. So, as chief mentioned, I am here to present a
-- request the budget amendment for Station Six, as I have been in a lot of my previous
times before Council, just to recover -- or to cover back some of what I have talked about
in the past, the estimated total project -- my update to Council was 6,161,118 dollars in
December. That was the estimate of what we understand from our preliminary
construction estimates that we were going to be at. As we went to the bidding this was a
very good bidding environment that we found ourselves in. So , as we went to bid on
January 29th and all the bids came in, the total final project cost, after bidding, was
5,476,991 dollars. So, from the estimates to our actual bid we were under by 684,127
dollars. The estimate versus the actual price. So, with that actual price, the total project
5.4 million, 4,404,554 dollars is the hard construction cost. So, that is what is the
guaranteed maximum price from ESI for this project and that does include the BC quarters
that I had previously reported on as maybe an option. So , even with -- including that
option we were still down under -- at that number of 684,000 below our initial estimate.
You can see the final other areas that do incorporate the total cost of the 5.4 million , as
the 615,532 for Design Engineering Consultants and the five -- excuse me -- 456,905 for
permits, equipment, furniture, fixtures, signalization, et cetera. So, with that our original
budget request for this project back in fiscal year '17 was 3,971,500 dollars. As we worked
through this and came up with our final guaranteed maximum price and the final project
cost, today we are coming before you for a budget amendment request of 1,505,491
dollars. And the primary funding for that is from fire department impact fees. So, with
those being the numbers, I would stand for any questions.
Borton: Council, any questions?
Little Roberts: Mr. President?
Borton: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: Mr. President, no questions, but if no one else has any discussion, I would
move that we approve the budget amendment not to exceed 1,505,491 dollars.
Cavener: Second.
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De Weerd: We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Okay. Hearing none, Mr.
Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll call: Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea; Palmer, nay; Little Roberts, yea; Bernt,
yea.
De Weerd: The ayes have it.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE NAY.
De Weerd: Thank you, Charlie.
Niemeyer: So, I will wrap this up. No, we didn't hit on a specific day. We are developing
the final date. It will be the first week in March. That's what we are planning. I will get
that e-mailed out to all of you. Hopefully you all will be there with gold shovels and we
will get some dirt moved and certainly stand for any questi ons.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: You touched on this in your earlier comments, then, about accelerating our
planning for future stations. Again, it's not Station Six, period, it's Station Six, comma, in
my opinion, and we need to beginning to really start planning for Station Seven. Taking
that into consideration, what's -- the department have a plan? Have you started to
formulate kind of action steps and I think just -- as we move into budget season to at least
start preparing, so that Council can really understand that this is going to be a multi-year
process for a couple of stations. Any insight you can share with us tonight would be
appreciated.
Niemeyer: Yeah. Councilman Cavener, great question and, absolutely, we have been
-- we have been looking at that planning. The challenge that we are having right now --
we have been looking at Finance and IT on data and all that -- is, really, which one is
next. You mentioned Station Seven. We can throw Station Eight in there. So, really, the
question is -- we have two locations right now, South Meridian, four acres that are
currently owned by the fire district that we have a plan for, tied into the 77 acre regional
park and, then, now our northwest corner and really it's a matter of which one's first and
that's going to rely on data, population growth, service calls, et cetera. We have both of
those stations built into a long term ten year plan of the fire department within the CIP.
One may come before the other. I can tell you anecdotally I could say with the high school
going in, northwest corner might be next. I can say with a build out of the development
around the Regional Park, south Meridian might be next. We will rely on data to help
inform that decision, but what we also have done is timed that out in a three year period.
So, if we anticipate a station, for example, seven, call it whichever one, we need to open
by 2023 -- '24, we know we need to start three years ahead of that the planning process,
so that we can break ground on the day that we say we want to break ground on. So, we
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have -- definitely had those conversations looking forward and we can present that in our
CIP as well.
De Weerd: So, chief, did you say you had a date for the --
Niemeyer: We know the first week of March. We are meeting this Thursday to set the
actual date and time.
De Weerd: Okay.
Niemeyer: We will get that out as soon as we have it.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you.
Niemeyer: Okay. Thank you.
G. Approval of AIA A133 GMP Amendment for “Fire Station #6
Construction ” to ESI for a Not-To -Exceed amount of
$4,404,554.00 [Action Item]
De Weerd: Item 8-G. I will turn this over to Mr. Watts.
Watts: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Council Members. I just wanted to take a few minutes
to go over the GMP, the guarantee maximum price amendment and the process that we
go through to get these. As you know this is a CMGC project and with CMGC the -- the
CM actually gets to bid on bid packages as well and since they receive -- typically receive
all the bid packages, as they hold all the contracts with the contractors, we ask them to
provide their bids, they deliver theirs to the city prior to the bid opening and that way it's
more transparent and just a cleaner process. So, they bid on three of the -- three of the
packages. We had 21 bid packages -- or I should say ESI I had 21 bid packages and
they won two of the three that they bid on. But that -- just for transparency, we wanted to
make sure that the -- we let you folks know this is the process we went through and that
it was clean and very transparent. With that I would just ask for approval of the
guaranteed maximum price of 4,404,554 dollars and I stand for any questions.
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Milam: I do have a question. On the -- the contract at the bottom it says cost above
allowances will be reimbursable expenses. So, this is the last page, number seven. So,
if it's guaranteed maximum and, then, it has a clause in there that says cost above
allowance will be reimbursable expenses, is there other reimbursable expenses as well.
What does that mean?
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Watts: That's if there are any other agreed upon services. There is -- in all the
construction management projects we have general conditions. There is just a number
that's put out there -- those are direct reimbursables that the city pays regardless. There
is no markup at. We -- we put a number out there thinking that's going to cover the entire
project for general conditions. Those are for toilets, clean up dumpsters, those type of
commodities and services. The city does reimburse the contract or a hundred percent for
those. On general conditions they have thrown a number out there and that's included in
their guaranteed maximum price. If we change or modify that and any of those services
go up, that would be reimbursed in addition. That's only through change order.
Milam: And I understand that's how that works, but that's not what this says. It doesn't
say anything about changes, it just says cost above allowances will be reimbursable
expenses and that --
Watts: I don't have that form in front me. Let me grab it real quick.
Milam: Thanks, Joe. Okay.
Watts: And what page were you on?
Milam: So, all of -- the last page -- so, it must be 15, line seven. And I was hoping maybe
I was just reading it wrong, but -- it talks about other reimbursable expenses, power and
stuff like that, which --
Watts: So, there are allowances in -- in the contract. Those allowances are estimates
that I believe is what they are talking about and this is for our exhaust system and our
equipment that the city will be reimbursing ESI for. There is some equipment that will be
-- that will be purchased through ESI on behalf of the city.
Milam: So, there is a guaranteed maximum for some things and, then, there is some
things that are just vaguely thrown out there and they might or might not be --
Watts: That was my assumption.
Milam: That aren't covered by the guarantee maximum.
Watts: That was my -- that was my understanding is only when it comes to these
allowances and -- I don't have total, because they are not broke out separately. I mean
as a total.
Nary: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary? While Mr. Watts is looking for that -- and he can correct me if I'm wrong, but my
recollection is -- so, there are allowances based on assumptions . If they exceed those
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assumptions they can request reimbursement. It's automatic. So, there are -- in all of
our construction projects there are always unanticipated costs or expenses. Sometimes
we do -- we do agree with those requests. They are based on conditions that were outside
the control of the contractor and so those can be considered for a reimbursable expense.
It's not an automatic guarantee. So, that -- that's what that language is meant to deal with
is something that's unanticipated and you have seen both sides. We have brought some
before you saying we don't agree with this request for reimbursement and we want your
confirmation to deny it and we have brought some saying we understand the market
condition may have changed for some particular reason beyond the control of the
contractor and we agree with this reimbursable expense. So, that's -- reimbursable
doesn't mean guaranteed.
Milam: Okay. And it's not the -- and it's not anything that's covered by the guaranteed
maximum.
Nary: Correct.
Milam: Okay. I just wanted to --
Watts: Excuse me, Councilman Milam, Council Members. The guaranteed maximum
price does cover all 21 bid packages. That is locked in and the -- the allowances that the
term refers to, it is the allowances -- and I just added -- I was taking some time to add up
the total of the allowances and it's 264,300 dollars and that is the unknowns of bidding
the equipment that the city has requested the CM do on our behalf and that is to expedite
time and put the ownership back on the contractor, rather than the city, so there is less
finger pointing when that happens.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think what Council Member Milam is getting to,
which is -- I think is a valid question, is with a guaranteed maximum price would this
Council see a budget amendment in the future related to this project.
Watts: I would not anticipate one, no.
Cavener: Madam Mayor? I guess just to clarify, unless we as a body made a decision
to make a change to the building or to make a substantial change to the project that we
initiate, that the contractor won't be bringing us, you know, an increase in price based on
this GMP.
Watts: That is correct, Councilman Cavener.
De Weerd: Anything further?
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Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Ms. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: If there is nothing further, I moved that we approve the GMP amendment
for Fire Station Six to ESI, not to exceed the amount of 4,404,554 dollars.
Cavener: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Mr. Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll call: Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea; Palmer, absent; Little Roberts, yea;
Bernt, yea.
De Weerd: Okay. All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Item 10: Action Items
A. Public Hearing for Proposed Vehicle Sharing Program
Ordinance Second Reading of Ordinance No. 19-1809: An
Ordinance Adding A New Chapter, Chapter 6, To Title 3,
Meridian City Code, Regarding Vehicle Sharing Programs;
Amending Meridian City Code Section 4-2-2, Regarding Party
Responsible For Nuisance; Adding A New Section, Meridian
City Code Section 7-1-9, To Title 7, Chapter 1, Meridian City
Code, Regarding Electric Power-Assisted Bicycles And
Scooters; Adding A New Subsection, Subsection 7-1-9(F), To
Meridian City Code Section 7-1-9, Regarding Prohibited
Parking; Adopting A Savings Clause; And Providing An
Effective Date.
De Weerd: Item -- or 10 -- we already did 9-A and B. Item 10-A is a public hearing and
second reading for Ordinance 19-1809. Mr. Clerk, will you, please, read this by title.
Coles: Thank you, Madam Chair. City of Meridian Ordinance No. 19-1809, an ordinance
adding a new chapter, Chapter 6, to Title 3, Meridian City Code, regarding vehicle sharing
programs; amending Meridian City Code Section 4-2-2, regarding party responsible for
nuisance; adding a new section, Meridian City Code Section 7-1-9, to Title 7, Chapter 1,
Meridian City Code, regarding electric power-assisted bicycles and scooters; adding a
new subsection, Subsection 7-1-9(f), to Meridian City Code Section 7-1-9, regarding
prohibited parking; adopting a savings clause; and providing an effective date.
De Weerd: Okay. You heard this read by title. Council, any items for discussion? I see
we have Emily in the audience. We have --
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Kane: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council.
De Weerd: Maybe push it down in its plug.
Kane: The draft that you have before has the -- oh, that worked. Thank you. Has a few
tweaks in response to the comments received last week. First we added a provision to
the revocation section in which the chief of police can recommend revocation in the case
of -- sort of a pattern of poor actions or practices that threaten the public, health, safety
or welfare and, secondly, added a provision to Section 6 -- excuse me -- 3-6-3 to require
that the vehicle -- the program operators start their program within 30 days of receiving
the franchise. And other than that it's the same draft that was before you in the previous
weeks.
De Weerd: Okay. Any questions for Emily? Okay. Thank you.
Kane: Thank you.
De Weerd: This is a public hearing. Is there anyone who wishes to provide testimony?
Good evening.
Kendall: Good evening.
De Weerd: Thank you for sticking with us. If you will, please, state your name and
address for the record.
Kendall: Yeah. Aaron Kendall. Idaho operations manager for Lime at 2230 South Cole
Road, Boise, Idaho.
De Weerd: Thank you, Aaron.
Kendall: You're welcome. This -- I will be really, really brief here. This is more of just a
thank you and a pledge of our support as we move through this ordinance process, but
we just wanted to thank, obviously, the -- the Council and staff for the work on -- on this
important initiative. The proposed legislation that we have looked at the last couple --
couple of weeks does incorporate many best practices across the country and will
certainly improve the mobility options for the residents and visitors in the City of Meridian.
Also at the first reading we do appreciate the Council interest in ensuring that the
franchises are selected through a competitive and merit-based process. Judging
applicants on their merits ensures that Meridian will certainly welcome companies of the
highest caliber. We are prepared to partner with the city in this important endeavor. So ,
again, we just look forward to the continued collaboration and -- with city staff leadership
and we thank you for your work on -- on this key initiative.
De Weerd: Thank you. And, Council, any questions?
Borton: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Have the discussions between -- I don't know if they were with you or your
company and our chief of police been fruitful?
Kendall: I think we are about to get there. I was actually able to make connections with
them late last week and reached out to Tammy today to set up an appointment with the
Police Chief Lavey and his team to get those discussions moving swiftly.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
Kendall: I have no doubt that they will be fruitful, though.
Borton: Okay. Have not happened yet, but they are coming?
Kendall: No. They are coming. Yes.
Borton: Okay.
Kendall: They are coming to fruition.
Borton: Okay. Thank you.
De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you.
Kendall: You're welcome. Have a good evening. Thank you.
De Weerd: You, too.
Lavey: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Hi, chief.
Lavey: Madam Mayor and Council, I just thought it would be appropriate for me to tell
you that although last week I didn't mention any vendors by name, both the vendors that
have expressed interest in -- in doing business here Meridian reached out to me after last
week's meeting and they both have been positive comments and so I just want to share
that with you. I also wanted to share with you when Emily approached me on the chief of
police and the whole revocation thing I wasn't really supportive of that, but I figured we
are probably going to be the ones that -- that get that information and it just behooves me
to share it with you and, then, you ultimately make that decision. So, I was good that that
was how it was written. So, I think we are just ready to -- although I did have an
unpleasant experience in Boise with a scooter this week, that shouldn't be held against
the companies and so I think we are just ready to implement this and see how it goes in
our city.
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De Weerd: Well, we know that's not what you did on your knee.
Lavey: No. Actually, the scooter might be a good way to get around, but -- no, it wasn't
-- it wasn't a -- it wasn't a scooter. The only disappointing thing is that I have heard a lot
of public express their comments, both sides of it, and it's just unfortunate they haven't
shared that with us. So, that -- that's -- that's a little disappointing, but I can see why they
are not here tonight, they didn't want to wait for the six hours to be able to speak, but I
wish they had been more forthcoming.
De Weerd: Actually, five and a half, but who is counting.
Lavey: It will be well past six for you all.
De Weerd: Yes. Any questions for Chief Lavey?
Lavey: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you for sticking with us. Okay. Any further public comment ? Mr. Clerk,
anything -- okay.
Coles: No, Madam Mayor. Thank you.
B. Public Hearing for Proposed New City Clerk's Office Fees for
Vehicle Sharing Programs
De Weerd: Okay. Well, we will have this on our next week's agenda as well. Okay. Item
10-B is a public hearing for the proposed new city clerk office fees for vehicle sharing
programs. I will open this public hearing with staff comment.
Coles: Thank you, Madam Mayor. On the screen in front of you is the draft resolution ,
which incorporates the new fees associated with the vehicle sharing programs, which we
just discussed. These shouldn't be new to you necessarily. They were included in last
week's packet with the draft of the ordinance to become acquainted with -- we have talked
about the franchise fee throughout this entire process. The application fees that you see
before you are very consistent with other applications within our off ice. So, we -- we
modeled other application processes very much the same way and that's how we came
up with -- with our fees here. The only difference is you see the 102 dollars for the new
franchise, that is a 60 dollar application fee to the city and, then, there is a state statute
that says when creating a franchise that the franchisees must pay half of the publication
costs when we publish that ordinance. So, it's a 60 dollar application fee and, then, half
of the cost goes to the franchisees, which is 42 dollars, which is half of the publication
costs. So, that's why that one is a little strange at 102, but the actual application fee to
the city is 60 dollars for my office to process it. So, with that I will stand for any questions.
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions?
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Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: No questions about the ordinance, but just more about timing and it's -- it is
entirely possible that next week at our meeting the City Council -- I mean I don' t think it
will happen, but it could. The City Council would choose to not pass our ordinance and,
essentially, we wouldn't have scooters in Meridian. Does passing an ordinance related
to fees before we pass an ordinance about how we are going to regulate the vehicles that
they apply to premature?
Coles: And, Madam Major, if I may address that. Members of the Council, Council
Member Cavener, what I'm asking for tonight is actually not an adoption of these fees , I
wanted to bring this with the -- with -- for the public hearing, so that you had an opportunity
to see them and if there was any input from the public that that could be taken. This is
just a draft resolution. We want to adopt this resolution at the same time at which the
ordinance may or may not be adopted.
Cavener: Thank you.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Is there any sign-ups?
Coles: There were no sign-ups, Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Is there anyone who wishes to provide testimony on this item?
Cavener: Emily, you want to go again?
De Weerd: I think she's already testified. Okay. If not, we -- I would entertain a motion
to close public hearing.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: I move we close the hearing on Item 10 -B public hearing for new city clerk's
fees for the vehicle sharing program.
Milam: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to close public hearing. All those in favor say
aye. I think I heard all ayes. Okay.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
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Coles: Thank you, Madam Mayor. We will bring a resolution for the Council's adoption
at the same time to coincide with the ordinance for vehicle sharing program as well.
C. State Board of Land Commissioners' Request for Council
Position on Proposed Sale of Endowment Land Adjacent to the
City of Meridian
De Weerd: Thank you very much. Okay. Item 10-C is very unusual. This IS the first
time we have gotten this kind of letter asking for a City Council position on a proposed
sale of endowment land for land within our city boundaries that the state is putting up for
sale and I know each of you got an e-mail and, then, a certified copy of the letter. So, Mr.
Nary.
Nary: Yes. Yes, Madam Mayor, you are correct. I don't recall the state requesting this
previously, but it is a state code requirement, so -- they didn't cite that in the letter, but it
is required and I know these properties have been considered previou sly for sale. This
is -- if we look at the picture -- I know Council Member Palmer is not here -- Stoddard
here runs north and south adjacent to Franklin Boulevard in the top right corner, so the
northeast -- or the northeast corner of this property there is four parcels owned by the
state that are adjacent to the Meridian cemetery and, then, directly across the street there
are three parcels adjacent to the corner that are -- they are retaining some related to ISP
and the three corner parcels they are wishing to sell as surplus. State code does require
they notify the city and the municipality goes have a right to purchase them first against
a public sale and so that's their request is they want to know the City Council's position
prior to March 6th. So, it isn't necessary for you to take action tonight unless you wish. If
you want to direct us to write a letter that you are either interested in the properties to
consider or you're not interested in the properties at all, we can prepare either one. If you
need a week to decide that's perfectly fine. Again, they requested a response by March
6th. So, no action has to be done tonight, but that's the reason it's in front of you and,
again, I agree with Madam Mayor, I think these have been considered before and they
never asked us. So, I don't know if they just realized that they are supposed to give us
some notice, because we can purchase them if the city wishes to do that.
De Weerd: Okay. Any comments?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Question maybe for -- for Bill. Are we -- are we required to provide a comment
or by just putting it on our agenda tonight do we meet the state code, the state statute?
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Cavener, they are
required to notify us. We are not required to respond. I think as a courtesy is the reason
they are asking, but that's certainly the Council's decision.
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De Weerd: Okay. Well, unless there is any interest, we will not put this on any future
agenda. If you would like to think about -- I'm not sure what you would think about, but
-- okay. Well, thank you.
Item 11 : Ordinances [Action Items]
A. Ordinance No. 19-1810: An Ordinance (H-2018-0122– Tm
Crossing Expansion) For Annexation Of A Parcel Of Land
Being The Tm Crossing Expansion Area As Shown On That
Affidavit Of Correction Recorded As Instrument No. 2018-
087272 Of Ada County Records Which Is A Portion Of Block 4
Of Primrose Subdivision (Book 25 At Pages 1576-1577 Of Ada
County Records) Situated In The North ½ Of The Southeast ¼
Of Section 14, Township 3 North, Range 1 West, Boise, Ada
County, Idaho, As Described In Attachment “A” And Annexing
Certain Lands And Territory, Situated In Ada County, Idaho,
And Adjacent And Contiguous To The Corporate Limits Of The
City Of Meridian As Requested By The City Of Meridian;
Establishing And Determining The Land Use Zoning
Classification Of 1.682 Acres Of Land From R1 To C-G (General
Retail And Service Commercial) Zoning District In The Meridian
City Code; Providing That Copies Of This Ordinance Shall Be
Filed With The Ada County Assessor, The Ada County
Recorder, And The Idaho State Tax Commission, As Required
By Law; And Providing For A Summary Of The Ordinance; And
Providing For A Waiver Of The Reading Rules; And Providing
An Effective Date.
De Weerd: Item 11 -A is Ordinance 19-1810. Mr. Clerk, will you, please, read this by title.
Coles: Thank you, Madam Mayor. City of Meridian Ordinance No. 19-1810: An
Ordinance file H-2018-0122, TM Crossing Expansion, for annexation of a parcel of land
being the TM Crossing Expansion area as shown on that Affidavit of Correction recorded
as Instrument No. 2018-087272 of Ada County Records, which is a portion of Block 4 of
Primrose Subdivision (Book 25 at Pages 1576-1577 of Ada County Records) situated in
the North ½ of the Southeast ¼ of Section 14, Township 3 North, Range 1 West, Boise,
Ada county, Idaho, as described in Attachment “A” and annexing certain lands and
territory, situated in Ada county, Idaho, and adjacent and contiguous to the corporate limits
of the City of Meridian as requested by the City of Meridian; establishing and determining
the land use zoning classification of 1.682 acres of land from R-1 to C-G (General Retail
And Service Commercial) zoning district in the Meridian City Code; providing that copies
of this ordinance shall be filed with the Ada County Assessor, the Ada County Recorder,
and the Idaho State Tax Commission, as required by law; and providing for a summary of
the ordinance; and providing for a waiver of the reading rules; and providing an effective
date.
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De Weerd: You have heard this read by title. Is there any motion?
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Milam: I move that we approve Ordinance No. 19-1810 with suspension of rules.
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 11 -A. Mr. Clerk, will you call
roll.
Roll call: Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, yea; Palmer, absent; Little Roberts, yea;
Bernt, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Item 12: Council Updates on Activities of Boards/Commissions/Committees
Item 13: Future Meeting Topics
De Weerd: In light of time, Council, I would just ask if there is anything specific to give an
update on -- I did ask the chief to stay for more of a legislative update and -- on that PTSI
legislation that he talked with us about in December.
Niemeyer: Madam Mayor, if I could real quick to go to the picture on the screen , I
apologize, I was looking up PTSI information when you just had that discussion and I
asked Bill the proper way to do this. In the future there is a discussion around moving
Station One, because of the location on Franklin, so I apologize for being late and now I
know Councilman Palmer is going to be -- so, the answer is, yes, the first department
would be interested in discussing -- depending on size, the parcel. So, I can certainly
bring that back for a conversation. I apologize for being a little late to the -- the game on
that, but the answer is, yes, we would be interested in at least that discussion moving
forward. So, I apologize again. With regards to -- to the Mayor's request, PTSI, Senate
Bill 1028 is the PTSI-PTSD legislation bill that to this point has made its way through the
committee on the senate side and just passed the floor of the senate today 31 to four.
So, with that it will be moving over the house as you know. I want to just talk a little bit
about what's contained within the bill itself and, then, do my best to answer any questions
you might have as it continues forward. The current challenge, which I think, hopefully,
we articulated well enough in e-mails between Jeff and I, I will tell you, there was no
conspiracy to get injured and all that at the same time. There is that going around City
Hall. It wasn't the case. And I also just want to mention real quick, that the lack of our
firefighters being here tonight -- this was somewhat an impromptu presentation. Certainly
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they support this and we have been in contact with President Rountree and those folks
as well, because this really affects them. So, I will tell you this has been a very good
collaborative effort on the part of the Idaho Fire Chief Association and PFFI. There are
going to be times, as you can imagine, we don't see eye to eye on some issues . This is
an issue we certainly do see eye to eye on, because it is about the health of our firefighters
and our first responders. W ith that the current challenge that we have is that if we have
an individual who has been diagnosed with PTSD -- and that's a very specific example
that I'm going to give as it relates to the bill. Currently there is no work comp coverage
for that individual. The only way you're going to get coverage to get treated for PTS I,
PTSD that's work related is also sustained a physical injury. I have been in the medical
professional a long time. Those two correlations don't add up to me. In other words, you
have to have a broken arm and a brain injury, if you will, to be able to get coverage. I
think that's the lacking of the current bill. What I didn't know until we started working on
this bill is that prior to 1994 the state of I daho had PTSD, PTSI coverage for all workers
in Idaho. That was stopped -- and Lynn Luker has had some interesting take on this --
that was stopped because of some things going on in California and our legislature said
we don't want that to occur here, so they reversed course. This is not necessarily
unprecedented in the state of Idaho to have this coverage for PTSD. So, we know where
the bill lacked. We started off with a draft. We -- there were multiple interested parties
that got together, the Association -- Idaho Fire Chiefs Association, Police Chiefs
Association, the Sheriffs Association, IAC, fire commissioners, et cetera, to find areas that
were concerning as we move the bill forward -- as collectively the bill moved forward. And
so we addressed some of those areas. I want to hit on those real quick. First and
foremost, a diagnosis of PTSI, PTSD has to be made by a clinical psychiatrist,
psychologist, or a licensed counselor with a specialty in PTSD. So, a doc in the box, a
private physician cannot make this diagnosis. That diagnosis is made under what's called
a DCM-5. That is the medical criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD, PTSI. So, it's not just what
they think it should be, it's an actual medical checklist that they go through to make that
diagnosis. We also -- it has to be proven that the issue is through a preponderance of
the evidence. This is an attorney term that Councilman Borton I'm sure can probably
explain even better than I, but a preponderance of the evidence that this occurred at work.
So, there was a concern -- somebody's stressed out, are they going to claim PTSI and
through that evaluation of a psychologist, psychiatrist, or a licensed counselor, they will
ensure that this is truly a work-related issue. There is also a sunset on it. So, it's a four
year sunset. So, in four years if it does pass and there is any kind of concern of abuse,
et cetera, et cetera, the legislature can pull it back after four years. There is questions
about cost and, quite honestly, the challenge with cost in trying to articulate what the
potential cost could be, is that we have no data in the state of Idaho to even then project
what the potential cost was -- or going to be because we haven't had claims. I will tell
you in our department we have had one claim filed for a diagnosed PTSD in one of our
members and that claim was denied by the State Insurance Fund, because there was no
physical injury to go along with it. I think you all know the calls that we have been
responding to in Meridian between the police department and the fire department. The
issue is real. It's certainly real for me as the fire chief and I want to make sure we are
doing everything we can that when somebody has gone through EAP and is still
struggling, we have a mechanism. As far as abuse goes, the neighboring states around
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us that have been implemented this legislation -- we are talking about less than three
percent of the total population will ever even file a claim to it. That's been the data from
other states. NCCI, who is an independent evaluator of projected costs in legislation, did
a review. I believe I forwarded that to you in my last e-mail, a copy that NCCI review.
They said while we believe claims will go up from what they are today, because they are
zero, they felt the cost would be small. That's their best projection from NCCI. So, it's
kind of a roundabout where we are at today. Some key components to the bill that I can
-- off the top of my head bring to you. I just want to say as the fire chief here I support it.
I support getting the help we need for the very small percentage of our population of
firefighters and police officers that may need this. And with that I'm certainly open to any
questions you might have.
De Weerd: Thank you, chief. And thank you for your e-mail this -- this weekend after the
tragic call our guys went on and just put it in perspective on why this really is important.
Niemeyer: I appreciate that, Mayor. I don't want to be too detailed on those types of
e-mails, but I think sometimes we just think, oh, our guys go out on calls. There is a lot
more to it and things that probably even we don't collectively think about that they have
to do. It takes a toll. I can tell you -- and Jeff would be saying the same thing if he was
here, we have been doing this a long time and I will tell you I have got the ten calls in the
back of my head that at any point in time you ask I can bring them up graphically. So,
you don't forget those things. I can deal with it, but not everybody can and we need to
have help for those folks.
De Weerd: And typically I don't text all of you on car accidents, but I did pass along this
one, because I -- I thought we needed your thoughts and prayers with our crews. So, any
questions for the chief?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Chief, just for clarification, it's police, fire, and EMS; is that correct?
Niemeyer: Police, fire, EMS and dispatchers. That was initially a little bit of controversy.
Just from my perspective, one voice of many in this -- in this issue, I -- I was a proponent
of the dispatchers. They are the first leg of our stool and I have known several dispatchers
over the course of my career and they are taking that phone call, imagine some domestic
violence issues that I know Chief Lavey has past on to you and that's that phone call that
they are hearing things -- and maybe they are not there, maybe they don't see it, but they
are seeing it in their eyelids afterwards, so I think it's appropriate.
Cavener: Madam Mayor, follow up. Chief, do we know where our county commissioners
are on this piece of legislation?
Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 26, 2019 – Page 106 of 340
Meridian City Council
February 12, 2019
Page 103 of 103
(AUDIO REC RIDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
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Meridian City Council
February 12, 2019
Page 102 of 103
Niemeyer: I haven't talked to them personally. What I have heard is our current now
county commissioners are supportive of this. I can tell you -- let me step back just a little
bit. We are a part of ACCES, which is the Ada County City Emergency Services, so it's
our EMS JPA. There was a presentation months ago to that board on the PTSD, PTSI
legislation and even there the two county commissioners that are -- that are no longer
present in the county commission, were supportive of this.
Cavener: Thank you.
De Weerd: And so I know this -- this falls within this item, but to take an action we can't,
but I do think -- if -- if this is on the house agenda, I believe that Representative Holtzclaw
is one of the sponsors, as well as Senator Winder, that it would -- it would be nice to see
if the Council is comfortable having the chief represent the city as supportive.
Cavener: Madam Mayor, I'm one hundred -- sorry. Madam Mayor, I'm one hundred
percent in supportive of our Council, if we are all -- I don't know if it's a nodding of heads
or a quick raising of hands to let -- you know, I would support you representing the city
-- you and the chief of police representing the city on this particular issue in favor.
Niemeyer: Good. We will be happy to do so.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you.
Niemeyer: Okay. Thank you.
De Weerd: And I just had one other thing -- mostly of note is on Allumbaugh House I
talked several months ago that the county was not doing their increase for the funding
piece and they have come up with the funding to cover that gap. So, I did want to update
Council on that. So, that's -- if there is nothing further I would entertain a motion to
adjourn.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: I would move that we adjourn.
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adjourn. All those in favor say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 8:52 P.M.
Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda February 26, 2019 – Page 107 of 340