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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005 03-08 Pre Meridian City Pre..council Meetina March 8. 2005 The Meridian City Pre-Council meeting was called to order at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, March 8, 2005 by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Shaun Wardle and Charlie Rountree. Staff Present: Bill Nary, John Overton, Kenny Bowers and Will Berg. Item 1. Roll-call Attendance: Rollcall. X Shaun Wardle X Christine Donnell X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird -Ã........ Mayor Tammy de Weerd Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Bird: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move that we approve the agenda as published. Donnell: Second. Wardle: It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. Item 3. Presentation on Regional Plan by Kelli Fairless: Fairless: While the presentation is getting set up, one of the things that I am trying to do double duty here and I am showing you our regional plan and the plan is - this is the plan that we are taking out and doing extensive public outreach on this year. We are trying to, this calendar year, reach every community, as many citizen groups, as many different types of stakeholders as we can to let people know what this plan tells them about what these services will do for these individual groups and then we are also - I usually meet with all the Councils during the summer time to talk about kind of an update and to give you our dues request. This year because some of our meetings are going to be done earlier before we typically do that, so I thought that I would let you know that we are going to be developing a Memorandum of Agreement with each of our member jurisdictions pertaining to our dues requests this year. So, we will have the dues requests plus a draft of this agreement that will be having out probably Meridian City Pfe-Council Meeting March 8, 2005 Page 2 of 12 in late Apñl, early May. The reason we are doing the agreement is we do our annual audit every year and our auditor suggested that for every source of revenue we have, we should have some kind of documentation or agreement. So, it will be a fairly standard cooperative agreement or Memorandum of Agreement between each of our member jurisdictions and it will basically state how much the dues will be, the dues that are requested and what services we will be providing as a result of those dues. So, it will also be tied to service operations, funding requests and things like that. It looks like the presentation is just about up. De Weerd: Mr. President. Wardle: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Will the dues be going up? Fairless: The dues are based on population. We use the 2005 COMPASS population. The way we do our dues is we build our budget then look at the dues requests from - you know look at how much dues we need and so far it has stayed at .60 cents per capita. We have been able to stay within that .60 cents per capita. That was what was set three years ago, I think. So, we don't build our budget around our dues, we build our dues around our needed budget, if that makes sense and it has typically gone up because the populations have gone up and we have kept the rate though at .60 cents and that will go to the board in May once we build our budget, we will go to the board in May with a dues schedule and then the board votes on that and that is what we will bring. So, I can't say today whether they will go up or down, but we will do it based on budget. De Weerd: Okay, we will just keep pressure on our board members. (Inaudible discussion) Fairless: Council President, Madame Mayor, members of the Council thank you for the opportunity to come and talk to you today about our regional plan. Valley Regional Transit has been working on this plan now for the past couple of years. The board adopted it in January 2005 officially; the board adopted the entire plan. We are using the public outreach for this plan and our planning process has been very public centered. We have done a vañety of - (inaudible discussion) Fairless: Let me start this over again. The public outreach is the first element of this presentation and we looked at a variety of different opportunities to engage the public in our planning process and this has been pretty much since 2001 when we started. We have done a vañety of stakeholder interviews. I think we Meridian City Pre-councll Meeting March 8, 2005 Page 3 of 12 probably, combining all of these outreach efforts, probably reached 10,000 or more people in the Treasure Valley. The public opinion surveys we have done, two public opinion surveys - one in 2001 and another one in 2002. We have done a vañety of open houses for each of our different planning processes. We have also done hosted meetings and focus groups as well and public heañngs. We have held public hearings and are required to do that for most of our service changes. So, what we have learned is that the public support for public transportation is strong, that existing services are lacking and that people would use the services if they were convenient and they offered people a viable alternative to the automobile. People would like to see us market the services - Councilwoman Donnell was involved in one of our public hearings and this theme comes out all the time in our outreach to the public is that they want to see the services being marketed so that we could encourage people to use them so we are maximizing that resource and also to improve regional coordination and improve the coordination among the different service providers and to plan for rail today in the present for a future rail system. So, we have taken all this public involvement and applied it to our regional planning efforts and over the last several years, I have come back to this Council at least once each year to talk to you about the different things that we are doing. On the 2001 technical memorandum is the document - what's happening is the graphics are hiding - they are there they are just hidden. We did the technical memorandum, which really provided a concept for public transportation services for the Treasure Valley. Out of that technical memorandum the next phase was our five-year strategic plan. This is where we adopted five strategic priorities so that we could position our organization in a way to be able to complete the plan that - to be able to reach the vision that we had. We did a rail corñdor evaluation. There were members on our technical committee from the City of Meridian that sat on that. It was really a technical evaluation of the rail corridor, looking specifically at what is this infrastructure? What is the quality of the assets? What would it take to upgrade the rail to accommodate a passenger rail? How much - what is kind of a thumbnail sketch of how much it might cost to operate it and also to purchase the capital? We also looked at as a parallel process, how do you value the - do an evaluation of the rail corñdor for a potential purchase of that by a public sector organization? Then what we are specifically talking about today is our regional operations plan, which is the phase of taking the concepts that we developed and now applying them more specifically. So, when we look at the community desire and our expertise in planning services and the expertise that we have been able to gain through the help of many consultants over the last few years, we are working towards achieving our vision, which is to provide transportation choices so that people have opportunities to be able to use them for personal business needs and also to support our livable and healthy community. The first phase of this is the service restructure and we are looking at some short-term changes - the service restructure is really looking at existing resources. It is taking what we already are spending and realigning those routes. The first phase of that we implemented on March 1"', last Monday with the restructure of the Nampa services and the inter-county services and those that Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting March 8, 2005 Page 4 of 12 started March 1st we have been seeing good rider ship. We have had a few glitches here and there, but for the most part the transition has gone really well. We are looking at routes in the Nampa/Caldwell area and the Boise urbanized area that are simple, more direct, more two-way services verses long winding loops around neighborhoods and also simpler and easier for people to use. The other part of our short term implementation is looking at opportunities for expanding the vanpool, carpool and rideshare programs as well so that we can expand those in areas where we don't have a lot of transit and that is most of the Treasure Valley at this point looking at ways of growing into bus services through development of vanpool and rideshare programs. This is the long-term portion of the regional operations plan. This is a six-year vision. Ada and Canyon Counties, the lines on the map in this - the way we looked at the six-years, we did a bookend approach, so we have the low growth scenario, which includes fixed route bus service and every community in Ada and Canyon Counties or a type of bus service and also the shaded box show what are called flexible routes, which are routes that are better served lower density, suburban type developments and then the lines on the map, the different colors represent the amount of frequency, so the red lines are 15 minute frequencies, the blue lines are 30 minute frequencies and the green lines are a mix of 30 minute peak and 60 minute frequency all the way up to 60 minute all day frequency. You will see through the bookend approach that the basic network for the transit system stays the same between the low growth and the high growth, what we start seeing is additional frequency rather than added coverage. Specifically in Meñdian you start seeing these green lines here represent 60 minute all day service throughout on Ustick and these would connect to other regional services east of Meridian, you have services that come again from the east to the west at Fairview and serve downtown in the City Hall area, this blue line is a 30 minute all day frequency on Franklin Road and you notice that in this scenario there is no service on Eagle and I will talk a little bit about that. We do have service on Five Mile where you can connect at Five Mile and come into Meridian as well. All of these services feed in and out of regional hubs, the hub that serves the Meridian services, Meridian would serve as a hub and you would see facilities located near the interstate, this transit center here near the interstate and then the Town Square Mall is another anchor for these services as well as a transfer center in Nampa, so you would connect Meñdian to these transfer centers in this low growth scenario. In the high growth scenaño, again, you basically see the same structure, but you start seeing more red lines, more 15 minute frequencies - you get and I will show in the next slide these red lines, this is a 15 minute frequency in the Franklin area - in the low growth we had a 30 minute frequency all day on the interstate serving the inter-county needs and the commuter needs. In this scenario we have 30-minute frequencies all day on the routes such as the one that serves Ustick and Fairview and downtown and this yellow line is the rail corridor developed into a commuter rail service. So, you have the rail corridor that takes the need for those inter-county services on the interstate away and you shift that over to the rail corñdor and then you see a 15-minute frequency on the Franklin. Again, this is to make that more desirable for people who are Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting March 8, 2005 Page 5 of 12 commuting, if you have higher frequencies. And then you start seeing these connecting network, the five-mile routes and the routes that connect to Meridian also with the 15-minute frequencies, the higher frequencies. This shaded box down here is what we call a flex route, which ties folks in these less developed, lower density suburban areas, the flex routes would deviate from a regular fixed route to be within a quarter of a mile of each of the homes within that region and over an hour peñod of time, they would try and hit all the stops that they have had requests for, so it's kind of a combination of a demand response and a flexible deviated route system. Those tie into the urban systems through the transit canter, you see that dashed line there and there is another one that ties into the Town Square Mall on the other side, so you are again finding opportunities to connect people in the lower density suburban neighborhoods with transit that fits those kinds of developments. As a summary, again, the low growth scenario, extensive coverage with hourly routes throughout Meñdian, you have half hourly service along Franklin and also half hourly service on the interstate through - the connecting Nampa through Meridian, stopping in Meridian and going into Boise. Flex routes in southwest and then the transfer center would be near 1-84 and also in addition to that we are looking at our administrative facilities for Valley Regional Transit continuing to be present in downtown Meridian as well or somewhere in Meridian, even along the corridor. In the high growth scenaño we look at extensive coverage with half hourly service throughout the area; 15 minute service along Franklin and also then the inter-county services move from the interstate to the commuter rail line; a transfer center in this scenario we located closer to downtown, so it ties into the rail corridor or you could also have commuter rail stops both in .downtown Meridian and at Eagle Road and we would again continue to plan for our administrative facilities in Meñdian. So, we get to the costs. Under the low growth scenaño, the operating costs are six-year range, this is at starting out at about 10.9 million dollars per year, growing out into 17.6 million dollars per year, with an average capital cost over that six year planning horizon of 1.33 million dollars and then in the high growth, the reason there is such a difference between the first part of that range is that you are spending those first five years building that rail service, so you are operating those higher frequency bus services and transitioning into the rail service. The 42.6 million dollars a year for operating includes the commuter rail line and then the average capital costs of 6 million dollars a year. So, we are looking at what's next in our - we are going to continue our public outreach efforts, we are doing these presentations to pretty much anyone and everyone who will let us in their door to talk to. We are working closely with legislators, business leaders and other key stakeholders to define a funding option that would be acceptable for public transportation, not just in the Treasure Valley, but that's an issue statewide that we are working with a vañety of different stakeholders on and we are also working on implementing service improvements, those service improvements with existing resources will be implemented sometime in 2005. We are working with west Canyon County communities to try and develop some of the rural services out there and I'll be knocking on the door of Meñdian City Council to talk about opportunities for us to Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting March 8, 2005 Page 6 of 12 expand services in Meridian in the near future as well. We are focusing our energy over the next year or two on really marketing the services that are out there. We have a CMAQ Grant in fiscal year 2006, it's a $250,000 grant that we are going to partner with ACHD Commuter Ride and really market the services with the system changes and we have a good baseline now for how we are doing today and I think we will be able to show the effectiveness of good marketing and effective marketing in the system. That's the end of the formal presentation. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have. Rountree: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: KeUi, can you bring back the slide on costs? Fairtess: I think I can. Look at that? Rountree: Wonderful, you have mastered the technology. That's actually in millions, not thousands? Fairless: I thought I had changed that. Thank you, I meant to have that in millions, thank you. Rountree: I have a question on the costs. What all is entailed in terms of, I guess to be blunt, where is that money coming from? Where do you anticipate it coming from? What's (inaudible) going to make up as part of that and some of the details of that because I am sure you are going to get those questions next week? Fairless: Yeah, I appreciate you asking that. We do have as part of the detailed plan all the answers to those questions. What we looked at is about $15 million in the low growth scenario and that's averaging over the years, the six years. Over the average of that $15 million in the low growth would need to be some additional revenue source that would be some local option. Then there would be assuming about a 25 percent on the average fair box return and advertising revenues and all those things that we typically get now, but we factored in some growth for those based on having more equipment and increasing rider-ship and then we also anticipate or at least our ways and means committee suggested that we continue to have some factor in there for collection of dues from our member organizations, but as we increased other revenue sources, those would go down right now at .60 cents per capita, it might be something like .25 cents per capita or something else, so that there is again local buy in to the system because there is local investment in the system, but not so much that it keeps people from being able to participate. In the high growth the local option authoñty is about $40 million of that over the average. It's about $40 to $50 million, but you combine the operating and the capital together. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting March 8, 2005 Page 7 of 12 Rountree: So, the capital numbers you have up there is at annual average? Is the operating four or six years or is that an annual average over a six-year period? Fairless: It would be a range starting at 10.9 and it goes up each year as you add more service, so you are basically ramping up. It's kind of the low range of that low growth is the first year once you have started and then you ramp it up each year until you get to the six year, so that the actual average over the six years is about $15 million per year and for the high growth the average is about $40 million a year or so; $38 million a year for the operating. Rountree: Okay, it now makes sense to me. Wardle: Kelli, just a comment I have as far as the high growth scenaño and the stops in Meridian at Meñdian Road and Eagle Road, I am sure were placed in there because those are high traffic areas. One of the things that seems to me is if that were to be viable and if it ever were to take place that certainly some sort of a connection to the major commuter traffic on the freeway would be in order and so to add a stop at say where each of the overpasses is, we have got large amounts of commercial growth in Meñdian specifically south of the freeway and to be able to tie a runner service from the rail stop over to the south end of the freeway would make, in my mind, sense to the community. Fairless: The one thing that is really hard to depict on the map are those kind of special shuttles that occur when you have a rail system and you would have, you know a park and ñde where someone would get off at the rail and you might have some kind of express service to a major employer from that rail station and those are the kinds of things that are envisioned in this, but there aren't actual lines drawn on the map to show that. So, there would be some shuttle kind of support services as well. Wardle: Just as a follow up, one of the areas that ~ we are seeing at the Eagle and Overland area in Meridian a large (inaudible) but also at Locust Grove near the high school there as becoming a large entertainment area. So, just kind of a difference of services and people that would be there. Mr. Rountree? Rountree: Anybody else? Thank you Shaun. Kelli, you indicated you'd talk about Eagle Road and you didn't. I just wanted to point out that the next phase of Eagle Road improvements will accommodate or at least are intended to accommodate rubber tire transits. Fairless: One of the issues and I will get to the map, maybe - this does show in the high growth we do start seeing service on Eagle Road and it is for 30 minute peak and 60 minute all day. The reason that we don't see it until we get to this high growth is that and actually it could happen sooner with those improvements but at time we were designing this we didn't really know what the improvements Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting March 8, 2005 Page 8 of 12 were going to be. If you don't start seeing improvements on Eagle Road in the traffic, you're basically, in order to keep a 30-minute frequency you have to have so much equipment out there that it becomes cost prohibitive. De Weerd: Mr. President. Wardle: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess a couple of things in working with our staff so that as we plan our land use and our commercial or industñal corridors that we look at transit stops and shared parking lots and those kinds of things, I know the Ustick and Meridian is right there by our regional park and might be an opportunity for a park and ñde or for some place to park and catch the bus. We don't use that necessarily duñng the week as a high traffic area or parking area. Also, have you talked to A-Car or BCA or Association of Realtors and the Building Contractors Associations? Fairless: Mr. President, Medame Mayor they are on our list of people to contact as far as stakeholders. We have met with them in the past when we've - going through vañous layers of this planning process and yeah, they will be on our list of people to contact. De Weerd: It would be a good partnership to make sure at Ustick that we don't have a whole lot of high density right now, but there are some infill opportunities that could be looked at at higher densities with transit stop opportunities. I guess I was a little bit concerned in looking at what's going on at our national level that the requests that we have for the re-authorizalion funds that the Boise Downtown Mobility study seems to be taking a higher pñority than the railroad corridor and with kind of - it might be the chicken and the egg, but if we don't get the railroad corridor going our roads are going to be so congested no one is going to be able to get downtown. I find that very concerning. Fairless: That I would have to say, Madame Mayor, is the political process. You know basically the - some of that is a mystery to me, but I understand that there are lobbyist that are working on both of those projects and none of them are hired by Valley Regional Transit, so we're - certainly, we put both of those projects, they are a part of COMPASS's prioñties. I am probably as surpñsed as you are that the rail corridor is not getting as much attention and I think it could be that the request is just so large in order to do it. The request is so large that it just may not fit into the big picture in terms of the funding picture. The amount that's actually being allotted in the bill for the downtown mobility study isn't going to get very far in terms of constructing a street car, but it looks at some phasing of that, so it's stilt far short of how much it would take to actually put the street car system in. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting March 8, 2005 Page 9 of 12 De Weerd: I guess I did want to find out to change David Zaremba as one of our members to an alternate and put Steve as a member rather than the alternate. Do you just need a letter? Fairless: According to the statute that enables us to exist, all of our members have to be done by resolution. So, we would just need a resolution from the City Council stating - and we have a template for that. I think Will probably has that in his files, the template for it. Wardle: Is there anything else for Kelli? Bird: I have none. Donnell: Mr. President. Wardle: Ms. Donnell. Donnell: Kelli you do a wondelful job. I watch her not only at this kind of presentation, but of course at our management meeting, team meeting and then the board meeting. But, I have to ask the question do you really like this job? Fairless: I am glad you are asking me this week and not last week or the week before. There are weeks that I like it better than others, but I actually, everyday is very exciting. I believe in what we are doing. I think this is the ñght thing to be doing for the Treasure Valley and I am encouraged by all of you as well, you know, I find a way to get myself out of bed every morning and come and do this job and I am having fun. Thanks for asking. Donnell: You are so welcome. Wait until we get into some maybe negotiations, right? Fairless: Yeah, it's when we are doing labor negotiations that I am not always so excited. Donnell: You do a great job, thank you. Wardle: Madame Mayor just a follow up question and maybe for the City Attorney. Is that a motion that we could make to have a resolution drawn up and placed on the consent agenda for the change in this meeting? Nary: Yes, you are simply given direction; you can put it on the agenda for next week, that's certainly fine if that's the Council's desire because you are not taking action you are just giving direction. Wardle: That would be my desire. Is there any opposition to that? Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting March 8, 2005 Page 10 of 12 (No opposition). Item 4. Discussion of Vacant Farmers and Merchants State Bank Building - 703 North Main Street: De weerd: Mr. President and Council members. I talked with Mike Mooney and Clarence Jones and they were considering the fate of the Farmers and Merchants building, as we all know it will be leveled at some point. I never know the words to use on that, but taken down. It will be scraped. They had a question that with City Hall a little bit off in the future and the cramped quarters at the current City Hall building they asked if we might have a need for the building. They are also talking with the Meñdian Development Corporation too in the early months of the re-clevelopment efforts giving them a storefront and a physical building at the cost of utilities and so I guess my question to you and right now we are - we are very cramped here at City Hall. I have been trying to figure out where to put my two summer intems. I think we are going to ship them over to Planning & Zoning because they have a lot of space over there, but it really leaves a challenge to oversee their efforts as well. Would the Council be amenable to keeping that building until the new City Hall is. constructed with the commitment to the bank to pay utilities and partnership, perhaps with the MDC as well? Rountree: Madame Mayor, if I might add to that. I don't know if anybody has been in that building since they moved, but I am not sure if Farmers & Merchants is willing to put the money in the building in order for it to be occupied. All the porcelain has been removed. Most of the light fixtures have been removed. All the cabinets have been removed. It's basically a shell and it would cost a fair amount of money to get it back to where it would be occupi-able and I suspect that if that were the case it would probably have to be ADA compliant, etcetera, etcetera and I am not sure that we want to spend the money that it would take to get us in there and I can almost bet that Clarence isn't willing to spend the money, but I would suggest that before we do anything maybe the Mayor ought to go talk to Terry and have him waltz you through there because it's been pretty well picked over. De Weerd: Mr. President. Wardle: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: t appreciate those comments. They didn't share that aspect of it with me. It's like be careful what you ask for because you might get it. Rountree: It might suffice if could pull enough stuff together to put in an office for MDC upfront. Will you could fill that space up in a minute. I think it would be very expensive to get office space for the city, but I would suggest that you do that before you get your hopes up. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting March 8, 2005 Page 11 of12 De Weeni: Okay, Council I will take a tour through the facility and see if it's feasible and come back to you next week. I guess long or short term they were looking at removing the overhead and the dñve-through and creating the parking as (inaudible). Longer term they are looking at that lot and seeing if best use would be the total plans they had or using half of it for an open space gazebo, you know amenity with having the other half of the lot go towards encouraging the bank next door to possibly or when they are ready to re-develop, you can get a bigger footprint of a building and have a nicer amenity with that option in mind. So, if we do proceed with utilization of that building, they would need to, I believe Mr. City Attorney, would need to get that as a - would they have to modify their CUP if they are extending the timeframe? Nary: Madame Mayor, members of the Council, yes. I think I want to at least verify what the time limit was, but yeah, they would have to seek some request to modify that if there was a fixed date of time in which to get that accomplished. De Weerd: And if we were to do that, I would ask that that be generated by the city to request. So, I will report back to you next week. Mr. President. Wardle: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I just want to follow up with Councilman Rountree and Councilman Wardle on our strategic planning exercise. We did meet with Councilman Bird and Councilmember Donnell with our strategic planning. We would ask that you listen to the tapes. Each department gave a department overview and kind of a yearend and upcoming challenges. Will has those tapes and when the legislature has concluded their session, we would ask to have a tour hour workshop pñor to a Council member meeting over at the Police Department where we can go through the strategic focus areas and start placing objectives and benchmarks to them because we strongly believe that the leadership needs to direct that aspect of it. Oh, sorry one last thing. I do have a letter here that is indicating the City of Meñdian support of GARVEE Bonds. .1 believe - well, we have been tracking this; it is in front of committee right now- Rountree: The bill will be heard at Senate State Affairs Friday at eight o'clock. De Weerd: So, we need to get these letters in support to the Governor's Office, to lTD. I will forward a copy to Association of Idaho Cities as well as each of our individual distñct representatives. We have my signature as well as the three Council members. If you will please take a look at this and see if it's amenable to maybe taking action on at the regular agenda to sign. Donnell: Mr. President. Wardle: Ms. Donnell. Meridian City Pre-council Meeting March 8, 2005 Page 12 of 12 Donnell: Just a point of privilege, if I might and thafs to congratulate our Mayor on her award today as a woman of today and tomorrow from the Girl Scouts. I see that she is wearing a beautiful boo tinier that was probably presented to her today at the luncheon and I am sorry I couldn't attend, but I imagine that you were well honored. Wardle: Congratulations. An honor well deserved. With that if there isn't anything else it brings us to the end of our agenda. I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Rountree: So moved. Bird: Second. Wardle: All in favor. ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6:42 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: 1-, t?,¿?Ç;- DATE APPROVED