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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005 10-25 Pre Meridian City Pre-Council Meetinq October 25. 2005 The Meridian City Pre-Council meeting was called to order at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, October 25, 2005 by President Councilman Shaun Wardle. - Members Preseot.__Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Shaun Wardle, Charlie Rountree and Christine Donnell. ----""._--,----. Staff Present: Bill Nary, Doug -S!rong, Anna Canning, Steve Siddoway, Josh Wil~,?_~, Craig Hood and Will Berg.-- --------------- --N/ Item 1. Roll-call Attendance: Roll call. X Shaun Wardle X Charlie Rountree X X Christine Donnell X Keith Bird Mayor Tammy de Weerd Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Bird: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move that we adopt the agenda as published. Rountree: Second. Wardle: It's been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda. All in favor? ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. Item 3. Discussion Concerning School I Park Property with Wendell Bigham from Meridian School: Bigham: Madame Mayor, Councilmen I am here briefly to talk tonight to further the discussion that I have been having with Mr. Strong representing Meridian Parks. As you mayor may not be aware we are in discussions with the Parks Department in consideration of a joint school park site, vicinity McDermott, Cherry Lane on approximately 40 acres. That 30 acres out there where the current rodeo is located. The school district is desirous of acquiring a school site within that square mile, so the obvious was to review that the chances of a school park site - I can tell you that that type of agreement is fraught with all kind of problems and I can go into that, but if you would like you could come to Boise at 7:00 and attend a meeting regarding a school park site that didn't work. It's still the right thing to consider. We have done a conceptual layout on the site just Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting October 25, 2005 Page 2 of 17 in terms to see what the school would look like. That said, the school could be located anywhere on the property and we are getting some requests by land development, but do not wish to discuss the subdivision that you have yet to hear from - but for some land development issues in the vicinity of the park that have approached us about a school site within a larger residential development. So, I have got to tell you that the school district is struggling in terms of where is the best sighting of an elementary school, either in conjunction with the city on a parks site or in a more traditional neighborhood or a more traditional neighborhood that it serves. So, with that we are simply trying to further the discussion and my goal on behalf of the school district is to find a piece of property and forget about it in that square mile for six to eight months before the development comes. So, I think with that I would stand for any questions you may have or - I don't (inaudible) to speak for the Parks Department. Wardle: Council, if you would like to hear from Director Strong? Doug. Strong: Mr. President, members of the Council and Madame Mayor, Wendell's' in the introduction to this prospect and it has just been a discussion at this point, it seemed like when we first started talking about it an opportunity for possibly a first time to partner with the school district in the development of a school site and an adjoining park site and maybe take advantage of what we need and what the school needs jointly with green space and possible space in the building and things like that. So, it is a very preliminary discussion that that particular site does offer some challenge and I think some opportunity in that there is a gas line that runs through the corner of it that would have to be considered in the design, but the location on Cherry Lane seems to be desirable for the school district as well as far as visibility and accessibility to the school site rather than being stuck back in a development, so that is where we are right now. We looked at one preliminary design as Wendell has mentioned and we would need to make some changes to that, but I think what we really need to know is how the Council feels about a prospect like this at this stage in the game. Wardle: Thank you, Doug. I will get us kicked off, I guess, with my opinion of and I have expressed it before that I think that partnering a parks site with a school site is a win, win for all of the citizens of Meridian and certainly something that we have expressed an interest in the past. To have this opportunity and to have the school district approach the city, in my opinion is very important. I would like to see it happen in more than certainly just this one site in our community and that is maybe a question that I have for the Legal Department. Mr. Nary, we currently own the site on McDermott and Cherry Lane in question, correct? Nary: That is correct. Wardle: How would the city go about partnering with the district in terms of the ownership of the property? Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting October 25, 2005 Page 3 of 17 Nary: Mr. President, members of the Council I guess how you would fashion that would be what direction the Council wish to take with that. I mean, if you are looking at co-ownership of the property then I guess we would look at some transfer with the school district. I don't know if that necessarily gets us very far. I think most of the ones that I am familiar with and we have talked about in the past, like with the City of Boise have been not joint ownership; they are basically co-locating a park adjacent to the school. The city maintains ownership of the park property. The school maintains ownership of the school property and there is some common area agreements, across access agreements, arrangements about maintenance and how that is done and that sort of partnership type of thing, whether it's done in an MOU or any other type of contract, but that is more common as to how those are done and how some of the other public private types of partnerships have been done on some of our other park ground. Although, this one would be different because of it would be our ground just adjacent to the school, but that would probably be more common as the more of the sharing of costs and sharing of maintenance rather than ownership. Wardle: Thank you, Mr. Nary and I guess one of the questions that I had is and I assume that the school district would need to own their property in order to qualify for bonds to build the school and certain things like that and I am wondering and I know there is a process in place for a public entity to sell a piece of property to another public entity. I am wondering if we may explore the ability for the city to have the potential of looking at some of the other sites in the school district is researching throughout the community instead of just simply selling or transferring a piece, maybe have the opportunity to look at locating another site or two to obtain additional parkland in some of the neighborhood sites that we have looked at. So, I just put that out for suggestion. De Weerd: Mr. President. Wardle: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I know this is something the city has been talking about for a number of years and I know it brings challenges, Wendell, but as a taxpayer I appreciate that approach and would love to see that partnership. I do have a question for you based on the timing. It is on a trunk line that we do not plan to have developed at this point. Certainly not until the expansion of the sewer treatment plant is done so what is the timeframe? Bigham: Mr. President, Madame Mayor the timeframe is simply as the development occurs in that square mile. Our basic assumption is that that square mile will go at approximately three houses per acre. It will generate between 1,700 and 1,800 households in that square mile, which is a sufficient number of houses to fulfill that elementary school, so our goal is to not build, our goal is simply to acquire lands for five years, ten years, three years, whatever the Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting October 25, 2005 Page 4 of 17 infrastructure is under the areas so that we have protected the taxpayers interest in terms of acquiring the sites. De Weerd: Mr. President. Wardle: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Are you also aware of the planning that is going on along that corridor as far as transportation goes of McDermott and the extension of Highway 16? Bigham: Yes, we are we understand that Cherry Lane would probably be under, over if you will, but no access onto McDermott Road. There are several square miles of the district that are on the west side of McDermott Road or (inaudible) portion of our district resides in Canyon County. We are trying to make a conscious effort to have the school located on the east side of McDermott Road, but we do realize that we are approaching a corner if you will on McDermott Road and Cherry Lane whereby it simply bakes the obvious question if we have a school in that square mile, are we better off as a school district to have that school located closer to the center of that square mile as opposed to the (inaudible) in the bottom corner? That is simply the dilemma that we face in terms of acquiring sites, ahead of if you will a platted subdivision that we can negotiate with. I can tell you that our fallback at least for the near future will be to continue to look at subdivisions as they come in, unless we collectively decide that the joint school park site is beneficial. It is beneficial. It is the right thing to do. It is an exceedingly difficult thing to follow. Donnell: Mr. President. Wardle: Ms. Donnell. Donnell: Wendell, stay right there because I am going to lead to a question, but before I do that I am going to give a little bit of perspective. I think Wendell has heard this before, but I will go ahead and say it for the benefit of all of you and that is that when we first entered into an agreement with Boise City on parks, I was the first one to say this is never going to work. At that time, Dan Mabe was the Deputy Superintendent and he was very much opposed to it. The current superintendent at the time was driving this partnership with Boise City. I, like Dan felt that it opened up all kinds of problems. I envisioned children walking through - let's just talk about that one out at Andrus, that is behind the "Y" there and connects to a subdivision and at that time, there were no restrooms. I don't know if there even still are any restrooms in that park, I don't think so, but I had visions of the bogeymen jumping out and grabbing those kids and hauling them into the restrooms to have fun and games and all kinds of other issues. I thought that it would be hard for the district to control, not only the activities in the park, but the maintenance of it, the trash - I mean, it was a whole bunch of things and Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting October 25, 2005 Page 5 of 17 having - going around and around with Dan Mabe he said regardless of what we think, Christine, this is the politically right thing to do for our taxpayers and for whether that is the city's or the district. Now, having said and it turned out from my point of view at least at this point because we partner now with Spalding, Boise City, we're in somewhat of a something out at Pepperidge that has been a disappointment because the city did not follow through with what we felt was the commitment that they gave us. I think you and I were both in that meeting, weren't we Wendell? And so that has caused a concern, but maybe that is the meeting that you are talking about having to attend tonight. What I would like to know after giving that little story is what kinds of issues have you seen from the school districts point of view at both Spalding and at Andrus? Now we know the Pepperidge issue, but --? Bigham: Good question, Council Donnell. Andrus has worked out very, very nicely. Spalding has worked out very nicely. I think some of the constraints that either we place upon ourselves today or the public places upon ourselves today, we probably in some respects stop us from doing a Spalding or an Andrus again. Simply put, we have a school site in Charter Point Subdivision adjacent to a subdivision park. A big discussion at Ada County and why we wanted to put a fence up between the school and the park site. Young kids do not know when to stop until they run into a fence. So, we have to kind of corral the little things up. They need boundaries at a lot of places in their life. The other thing is that we want to control the environment. Now, if you put on your parenting hat, you really don't want your kids to go wandering off into the park next door. So, we always end up with this fence that cuts through the joint use areas. The partnering is much more important - it's value to me is placed in the goodwill of cooperating between districts. It will save the school district no additional land or very little land, maybe an acre or two, not that that is not insignificant, but it doesn't really save either of us any land. The more pragmatic problems associated with those mundane details is Spalding, Andrus were annexed into the City of Boise. The case of Pepperidge and I will get to what I am thinking, your (inaudible) structure is Pepperidge while they had collected impact fees for the development of the park over the last ten plus years, because of annexation they could not garnish operating dollars to build a park. Here we sat two years into the opening of the school, we have about % acres of grass on 7 acres that the kids can play on - 700 plus kids at school. It fell apart because we could not get both the city and the school district to the same moment and time with money and our needs for building the school is entirely different than your needs for building a park. So, should we go forward on the Cherry Lane site, some of my questions are when you own the land can you invest Parks Department dollars in it where it is not annexed into the City of Meridian? Again, please understand we are very neutral on annexation. We are perfectly fine building in the county, but we would prefer to work with the city. So, when will the annexation occur, what if the schools need to build is ahead of your desire to annex? How do we share in the development costs of (inaudible---------)? Whoever is in first is going to have to build some type of road for some distance to probably connect into it. So, those Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting October 25, 2005 Page 6 of 17 are the more constraining details of what can bring us through the exact moment and time with both sites having the funds. The rest of it are details that are very manageable. De Weerd: Mr. President. Wardle: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess with an expectation of partnership that's fair. The park should be developed at the same time as the school and I don't see the school being needed until the sewer is there because you will not have the rooftops - you already see what rooftops you will see, so I think those will work well in tandem, however, this won't be your traditional park. I believe you know the rodeo has been out there and although there are not concrete plans, there has been some conceptual planning done. Is that the kind of facility you want a school place next to? Bigham: Mr. President, Madame Mayor sure. It's a sporadic operation, if you will. Personally I believe the rodeo either in its current location or simply the desire to have those types of rodeos will probably become passé at the time that we start actively looking at building. I do not want to say that it is a dying sport, but I see it as a waning activity and is this a suitable location for them over time? All of that said, to further where we go, we all need to be prepared to spend some money. The first process would be the programming of the school site, the park site and / or the rodeo assuming that we would need to come forward with a minimum two lot, possibly three lot subdivision for planning activity to define legal parcel that we must own and the parcel that you must own so that we can get through the building permit stage when we need it. That planning activity, we are willing to undertake that to the next step in terms of looking at where and how the school might layout on there. The big question is do we work around the 8 to 10 acres that the rodeo probably needs for their non-parking, you know their main venue activity. But, we would like to move forward with that I think with the Parks Department so that we could see what it would fit. We do have a wonderful natural barrier going right through the site and that is that high-pressure gas light. We have got to stay away from that thing. Bird: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Bird. Bird: Yeah, how many acres do you need, Wendell, for the elementary school? Bigham: Mr. President, Chairman Bird or excuse me Commissioner Bird ten acre, maybe nine depending upon how we have access to some of the open park space. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting October 25, 2005 Page 7 of 1 7 Bird: Thank you. Rountree: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Just a comment and this is an enlightening discussion about a whole lot of other issues that we might want to think about as a city. But, my comment on partnering is that I think it is certainly worthy to explore, but I agree with both Christine and Mr. Bigham and there are issues and sometimes it is just not in the taxpayers interest for the issues you create. I didn't know that we owned that property and it's interesting that we do, but nothing stops a federal aid roadway quicker than a publicly owned park. So, that potentially is a future planning issue for anything that we might desire in terms of corridor protection along McDermott and if in fact that corridor does become a freeway, which is what is envisioned I believe in Communities in Motion I don't know how suitable that site is particularly for either a park or a school. It could very well be that that corner contains some type of an urban interchange and we all know what happens around those in terms of pressure and development. I think the idea of partnerships is a great idea and we ought to pursue them and we ought to explore them, but I think in this particular site, we probably ought to really think about what we are going to do there anyway in the long term and I think the discussion tonight is making me thinking about - we need to think beyond what we have been thinking about at that particular site, but if there are other sites that would work better in terms of partnerships, let's pursue them. I think Anna and Steve probably ought to - and Doug as well probably ought to think about the most recent ordinance that we did as it related to corridor preservation and in the concept of what kinds of land uses would fit at that local. The joining of essentially a major east west corridor and a significant north south connector in the county. Wardle: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Mr. President it's not the corner piece- Rountree: -- well, but in that vicinity. De Weerd: Yeah and I think Planning has talked to Doug about it because Doug was going to come to Council for a connecting easement through the property to McDermott and we took that out for this very reason. So, I understand that a lot of that is in question out here. This was just brought to find out more in openness as to that partnership and I think it is important to clarify so that the school district when they form these relationships they don't find the Pepperidge aspect. I am sure those neighbors thought that park and when you say less than an acre to play on that is not a lot of ground for kids and so the city has a Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting October 25, 2005 Page 8 of 17 responsibility to that. That has been strongly underscored, I think with that partnership. Wardle: Just a thought - Mr. Bigham I have a question about - well, having grown up here in the community and the fact that the school district provided the de-facto open space, green play space component of our community for many, many years in all of my childhood. One of the questions I have is as the community of Meridian and the city has grown and added acres as park space, certainly we have been caring for more of those. What would you say, I am thinking here in operational dollars, what playground acreage does the school district maintain --? I guess I am just looking for a rough figure. Do you know by chance? I know it's a lot, but - - Bigham: I will give you several numbers because the picture is actually a little bigger than probably all want to wrestle with on a day-to-day basis. We approximately have 700 acres. If you took the north Meridian planning area, the ten square miles in there, give the number of schools required by the land consumption that is already approved, taxpayers are investing in last year's dollars right at $24 million per square mile for a K-12 education. We chew up about 2.5 to 3.0 percent in land within the community to do what we are doing to date. Doing what we are doing today is something that we need to revisit because within the confines of just south of the freeway, if you will to the foothills at Star we are looking at numbers of a district at 75,000 to 80,000 students. We are looking at a district of being 65 high schools, 22 middle schools, 35 alternate type facilities and 13 to 15 high schools. So, the partnering between the cities and the county and the school district in terms of shared facilities gets to be a very worthwhile discussion and the worthwhile part of the discussion starts taking on the cause that I am trying to champion today and that is something that can be done at Meridian High School. We are investing in the technical program out there. We think it's important to keep the existing Meridian High a vibrant park of the Meridian community. Given the escalating land cost and the increased pressure for community use, the acknowledgement, if you will that a lot of the school district's property is used by the greater community is we will start talking about the need to put artificial turf inside the stadiums, practice fields so that we can get more if you will - hate the term 24/7 type use out of the turf because we grow grass when we don't need it in the summer and need it in the fall and the water shuts off. So, there are many more things to the planning and the partnership that's a little bigger strategy, understanding full well that Meridian is a large geographic portion of our district than what we are looking at (inaudible------ -) also. So, I think that the bigger picture is what is it that we all envision down the road and that number gets even scarier to us as you all go off to the Blue Prints for Good Growth and the planning strategies trend has consumed what, 140,000 acres of land? If we had done it on a smart growth basis, we would have consumed 45,000 acres. What does that tell us if we change our growth patterns? That the density will go up, the number of school facilities, the need for Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting October 25, 2005 Page 9 of 17 parks will go up and land will become more and more of a limited resource to us. So, there is a little more to it. I just don't know quite what that first step looks like. Wardle: Sure. I think that that is a discussion that the City of Meridian should be having and has thought about. I know at the department level just on some smaller bases, but certainly feel it's important to begin a partnership and to think of all of the different ramifications that can happen. So, thank you. Council, any additional comments, questions on this specific --? Bird: I have none. Wardle: With that, I will move to Item No.4, which is discussion of the elementary process with Mr. Bigham. You are still up, sorry. Item 4. Discussion Concerning Elementary School Process with Wendell Bigham from Meridian School: Wardle: Mr. Bigham, I have down Item No.4 the discussion of the elementary school process. Did we have that discussion already? Bigham: Mr. President, I did not come prepared tonight to talk about it. If you give me a little more information I will gladly perform on command. Donnell: Don't know what this means either. De Weerd: Mr. President, when I saw that we thought you had requested to get some comments about the new school that you want to bring on and what the process would be. Who requested this item? But, we did see it as an opportunity to talk about connectivity and that sort of thing. So, you didn't have anything you needed to discuss? Bigham: Mr. President, Mayor De Weerd, no I think it could be kind of a carry over from multiple discussions on an elementary school site and a joint school park site. I did not have any other than the school park site tonight. De Weerd: Okay, you do understand that the RFP was open and you are moving forward with an elementary school, so certainly we want to be a partner and help facilitate that in a fast track manner. Bigham: I appreciate that. Wardle: Thank you very much. De Weerd: Mr. President. Wardle: Madame Mayor. Meridian City Pre~Council Meeting October 25, 2005 Page 10 of 17 De Weerd: I guess if we could ask Steve to - Steve and Robin worked on a lot of when the different school sites will be coming on. He worked with Wendell in identifying what school is when - they identified what has been platted in those areas so we can start looking at any kind of connectivity sidewalk issues and that sort of thing, so I will turn it over to Steve. Siddoway: I don't have a prepared speech, but Mr. President, Madame Mayor and members of the Council, we do - knowing that the discussion tonight was on north Meridian schools, generally and the Mayor had requested it a couple of weeks ago that we look at sidewalk weeds in the area and how they relate to the future school sites. I have been working with Robin Jack, the GIS person in Public Works to create this map. What we have identified is this is a six square mile area between Locust Grove and Ten Mile, Ustick and Chinden and these are the upcoming school sites that we are anticipating to see. The first one is right here in 2006 at Havasu Creek Elementary and looking to - Wendell is Havasu Creek Elementary one of the elementary schools that is under - opening the bids and --? Okay. So, this is the first one in this north Meridian area that you will see. It will be next year in 2006 and '06 is the opening date, is that correct? Now given that it is around a developed subdivision where all of the phases surrounding it have been final platted we would expect to see the sidewalk connectivity to that elementary school next year. The next ones coming online include the Heritage Middle School in '07 and the Paramount Elementary in '07 - those two. Going first the Paramount Elementary, it is in a phase of Paramount that has been recently final platted and moving up so it should have good sidewalks and access for kids within it, but there is still a lot of area surrounding it all through here that has not yet been final platted, but many of which if not most of which should come in by the time the school comes online. Paramount has been coming in with final plat phases regularly, every other month or so. So, we looked at that and then Heritage Middle School there is development approved on both the north and the east side, so you can see that there would be sidewalks coming to it and from there the place where there really is no good access is for the kids that are down in this area and up in here to be able to come up Meridian Road or along McMillan to get to this school at this site? So, those are some fairly obvious missing sidewalks at this point. The next one you will see is Rocky Mountain High School in 2008 - De Weerd: We all start singing on that one. Siddoway: It has out parcels on both the north side and the south side and directly across the street that are not currently planned to have sidewalks. Of course, there will be sidewalks surrounding it through here and Paramount, but for kids that may walk from adjacent neighborhoods or across the street or from the south - (Inaudible discussion) Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting October 25, 2005 Page 11 of 17 Siddoway: The whole purpose of - the other two that are identified on this list are Cedar Springs Elementary down here and Silverleaf Elementary up here and those two were not included in the most recent bond, but are planned potentially for 2009 as a guesstimate at this stage, is that fair to say, Wendell? Of course, Sawtooth Middle School is existing and we saw the real need for sidewalks come online real hard when that one came up and so this is kind of an early look now that we know what the bond is bringing, trying to get a feel for what sidewalks we are likely to have when those schools come online and trying to identify some of those deficiencies. . . Bird: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Bird. Bird: Steve, is Hunter sidewalk okay? You don't show a Hunter up there. It's right over - Bridgetower over there. Is it sidewalk okay? Siddoway: It's right up here, right? Bird: Yeah, right in there. Siddoway: And it's already existing today. It is open. So, I don't know if - I know there are undeveloped phases around here. It's all been preliminary platted, but it's not yet final platted, so I don't know - Wendell, do you want to --? (Inaudible discussion) Donnell: Mr. President. Wardle: Ms. Donnell. Donnell: I just have a question for anybody who can answer this. That is whose responsibility are sidewalks? ACHD's, the city's, the county's, the school districts, the developers? I mean, who exactly is responsible for a sidewalk? De Weerd: Mr. President. Wardle: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Since that seems like a political question, I will attempt it. You know, ultimately, the agency that builds them, that collects dollars for them is ACHD. But, I think that as we look at community design, all three entities have a role to play in looking at the big picture and trying to find ways to facilitate good connections. As Steve and I discussed, we looked at it in terms of what isn't on the ground right now, what is in the pipeline, what can we do as far as when development applications come in front of us? And you know, when you talk to Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting October 25, 2005 Page 12 of 17 the developers, they realize what - if you sit down and you talk to them about safety and those kind of things, these sidewalks can be requested in first phases and you know by getting a picture and a snapshot in advance, these are the kind of things that I think we can do and the city can facilitate working with the school district, working with ACHD and looking at what each of us can fact in in making sure connections to the schools happen and they happen in a timely fashion. Right now, Hunter Elementary we have lost those opportunities. Now, does that mean that we can't talk to the developers that are responsible for future phases out there and see if something can happen at a particular time? No, we can do that. It's just getting everything on paper; getting the entities that have the most at stake together and start saying what can we do? What can we do through annexations that otherwise we might lose that opportunity, so ultimately the responsibility is ACHD's. But, I know that our responsibility through comprehensive planning is safety. I think the school's responsibility is our kids and so we all have something at stake here. How was that? Donnell: Follow up Mr. President. Wardle: Ms. Donnell. Donnell: Okay. So, since I am not going to be here this next year, I can just about say anything I want, right? De Weerd: Sure. Donnell: Okay. De Weerd: Unless, Mr. Council President would stop you. Wardle: I don't know if it would stop you anyway, Ms. Donnell. So, feel free. Donnell: You are way too young, Shaun. So, I am going to put on an old school district hat for a few minutes here because over the time of putting schools - constructing schools, there were several things that were disconcerting to me in terms of the request on the part of whether it was the planners or whether it was the Council or P&Z or whatever in terms of the amount of tax dollars that were expended in my view unnecessarily and let me just give you one example - because we came and protested and I don't remember Wendell if you were part of the district at that time when we built the Charter High School on Locust Grove - okay, so we bought that piece of property, 40 acres and we came forward with a request to that school right there in the front and the conceptual plan at the time was to put six of those buildings, with a main building that would be a gym or common use building. A farmer came forward that lived 40 acres back and was concerned about trash that might blow up against or go into his field and that his cows might partake of - okay, if any of you guys were here during this time, you can tell me I was way wrong, but at that time the Council listened to that and Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting October 25, 2005 Page 13 of 17 responded by asking the school district to put a chain link fence across the back of that 40 acre parcel, when in fact the developer was planning to sell, I mean the farmer was planning to sell and it was going to be developed. At the same time, if you think about that property, that elementary school sits back in the back of those 40 acres in an $800,000 road for the city. Now, I guess you could make a point that we - see I still talk in the "we's". But, you could make a case, I guess, that the taxpayers are paying one way or the other, but that road is totally unnecessary at this point and as are the sidewalks that are all along there that nobody walks on because nobody really walks to that building. Most of the children that go to that building are bussed in there. So, I guess, the concern that I have is when we make these kinds of requirements that are spending in my view unnecessary dollars and I think that we have to be really conscious of that and if in fact, ACHD receives the funding, the impact fees to put in sidewalks and roads, while I agree with you Mayor that we all have to be concerned about our community, if that is their responsibility then they are the ones that should be making sure that that happens. Which, it certainly did not happen at Sawtooth and maybe I am speaking for developers, too. Okay, do you want me to get off my soapbox, now? Rountree: Sure. Donnell: Okay. It's just an ongoing concern I have that we seem to just pass the buck around from one taxpaying entity to another. So, having said that I think we need to be careful about what we require. There we go. Wardle: Thank you, well said. Someone want to help me get back on track? I believe that Council member Donnell had a question for Mr. Siddoway before that? Donnell: Oh, I did. Where was I going with that? Oh, no maybe I asked it in terms of whose responsibility is for those sidewalks, but. Siddoway: I think the Mayor covered it. Donnell: Oh, Bruce, you go away. De Weerd: No, don't go away Bruce. Siddoway: Typically, the sidewalks from my perspective are built by as development occurs so the typical process through which we obtain sidewalks is through development. Now, what we have done here is identify areas where there is not approved development, so the question is in the absence of development, what then happens? In a way, it's no one's responsibility and in a way it's all of our responsibility and it just seems like in a situation where we can look at what's coming and we have at the table the largest school district in the state and the largest highway district in the state and one of the largest cities in Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting October 25. 2005 Page 14 of 17 the state, we ought to be able to come to some kind of an agreement or understanding on how to get the sidewalks there. I don't know what that is yet. Donnell: And share in the expense as well, right? Siddoway: I don't know what that is yet, but I am raising the question. Wardle: Mr. Siddoway, just one of my comments in regard to this map. One of the concerns that I have is with the Rocky Mountain High School and that being while most of those students may drive or be bussed to that, certainly, there are other events which may draw community members from the subdivision in the neighborhoods and so I think that specific piece of property is one that is far enough out in planning and will be a large enough construction site that we should look at the connectivity, especially if we are only talking about several out parcels in that. So, that would be one of my recommendations is to look at the connectivity to that specific high school. It appears to me that the majority of the rest of the projects will come forward either as additional development as brought forward or their build out. Siddoway: One other thing that I would offer in terms of what the city can do and the Mayor touched on this. But, we have had pre-apps recently. Thinking about the sites around here, there is Middle School in particular. We had a pre-app on this property; there is no final application, yet, but we know there is someone out there and apparently, I also just heard that there was a very recent pre-app on this property. Now, since these are annexations we could require development agreement and as part of that development agreement say that the sidewalks fronting Meridian and McMillan need to be done whatever the first phase is. I mean, that is something that the city could require of development when development does come in. So, we just offer that as a suggestion and then I will step aside and let maybe Bruce and Wendell speak. I think they both have things that they would like to say. De Weerd: Mr. President. Wardle: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Before Bruce gets up here because I know what he will say is they are responsible for arterials and the interior local roads are generally done by the developer. Wardle: Mr. Mills. Mills: Actually, that isn't what I was going to say. I just want to make a clarification; the impact fees that we collect do not go towards sidewalks. Sidewalks do not cover new impact fees. That does not mean that we don't collect money that we can use for sidewalks. We have fuel tax. We have Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting October 25, 2005 Page 15 of 17 property taxes. Some of that goes towards maintaining the existing roads that we have. Some of it goes towards collectors, which you are correct, Madame Mayor, are not in our impact fee program and some of it goes towards spot improvements needed (inaudible) arterials that are not capital improvements plan. I just wanted to say that the impact fees that we collect from developers are strictly for adding new lanes to the roads that we have; additional capacity improvements. When we went through our last impact fee ordinance, we had quite a few people from the development community on the task force and they did not wish to see impact fees go towards sidewalks because they wanted to see all that money goes just towards moving cars. So, it went out into the lanes. That being said, I just wanted to throw a comment. It's a challenge and I don't want to try and throw cold water on it. This is very important - (Tape turned over) Mills: -- talk to. It's still a tough issue to try to figure out if we can come up with a solution on it. Sometimes when we have enough right-of-way, we can fit some type of a temporary measure out there, a separated pave, asphalt pathway that is not maybe the permanent solution with the concrete sidewalk, but we have got some challenges on that one. We have them on all of them and I realize that the school district - you know I talked with Wendell many times and they have the challenges of trying to locate a facility and it's pretty to locate it when it's already built up around here and find a large enough parcel. I don't want to brush the issue aside because it's very important and we do need to work together and try to find some creative solution. It's a quandary. Donnell: Thanks, Bruce. Wardle: Wendell, if you would offer us an additional comment, please? Bigham: Mr. President, Council members shortly a couple of things and I don't mean to be beating up on anybody because this is exceedingly difficult discussion as we have all pointed out. I want to touch basis on Hunter Elementary first. It's designed with Bridgetower, Hunter Elementary, and Paramount Elementary absolute best situation for us. It's almost a square mile under the control of one developer, so the neighborhood inter-connectivity, which is crucial for an elementary school and in this part of the world, one elementary per square mile. That is an elementary school site if that is Locust Grove and is that where your new well is? Somewhere right there? That's an elementary school site to serve this square mile. Paramount serves this. This represents almost one of our worst-case scenarios where we got a school site very late in the process and Lochsa Falls basically chewed up that entire square mile. That's a less than desirable location, but beggars can't be choosers. McMillan exemplifies one real interesting problem. We have got the elementary school here. We have got great connectivity under the subdivision. We even have a turn around, a drop off area on the back of the school site that is just working out Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting October 25, 2005 Page 16 of 17 wonderfully. Moms in slippers and Dads in housecoats dropping their kids off. Kind of scary actually. Maybe it's Halloween. The problem is the canal right through here, the people that are coming I think is from Kelly Creek that is across the street. We have got no way to get them across McMillan. You could throw a rock and hit the school, but they cannot get across McMillan because they have no sidewalks running east to west on Kiltie to get us down to where we can have a crossing guard to the driveway into the school. So, what they do is they dart across the street and then they run across the plank that goes over the Settler's Irrigation (inaudible) structure and then squeeze through a hole in the fence. Not good. So, the canal is an interesting problem down through here. Middle schools serve about 3 % square miles, 3 square miles, three elementary schools (inaudible) middle school, so without growing a boundary I am going to go out on a limb and say this is probably the boundary between Sawtooth and Heritage Middle School, so this school it is important that it connects to this square mile and probably down here because a little (inaudible) on Eagle Road and nobody in their right mind would want to go that direction. So, sidewalks in this area and in the case of Rocky Mountain we are agreeable to widen the road in front of the school. It strikes me as odd that this whole development went in, but there is no real substantial roadway improvements associated with Lochsa Falls, totally expecting we will remedy that as part of the high school. But, the bigger picture is if you could find the larger developers willing to somehow partner in a way and I don't mean to put words in ACHD's mouth that certain projects could be moved up on the five-year plan, that there is a way somehow to cause this road and this intersection to be driven - excuse me, this road here to be driven by some joint interest of that developer; that we could look at a larger structure road because the access is only a problem at our secondary schools. The elementary schools are lot and blocks within subdivisions and between our efforts and a real good job effort by Planning and Zoning; we get all the interconnecting walkways. It is the secondary schools and it is should we be looking at a larger chunk of road? How can we partner? How can we leverage with ACHD that greater good to do the roadway and you need to do an intersection when you do the road. Does you no good to have a really big road that goes to a four-way stop. We are open to that discussion, we are just very reluctant to spend too many of the dollars off- site or sidewalks because no one can give us vertical, horizontal control. The right-of-way for the sidewalks may not exist, so even if we were desirous, we got no place upon which to put them. De Weerd: Mr. President. Wardle: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess the first step was what Robin and Steve came together with on our map. I think the next step is the schools, the city and the Highway District getting together and finding out more what the attendant's boundaries are; where the challenges might be and what we can affect as development occurs and looking at annexation and conditions and working with the developers. Our staff Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting October 25. 2005 Page 17 of 17 have a great opportunity when they walk into the door at the pre-application stage to say these are the concerns, this is the interests of the elected officials and this is kind of what they are hoping to see, so that expectations are laid out in advance and they have an opportunity to be part of the solution, so I think if all of the entities get together and put their heads into this we can find something that will achieve that safety goal of getting our kids to and from school in a safe manner and hopefully avoiding the Sawtooths situations that these future schools coming on. Wardle: Thank you I would like to thank Mr. Bigham for coming tonight. Thank the school district for being a part of this discussion in coming to the table and bringing these issues forward and certainly we look forward to working in the future. Also thank the school district for loaning us one of their fine retired employees to help open our eyes here on the Council and we look forward to further discussions. Council, with that, we are near the end of appointed agenda. Do I hear a motion to adjourn? Rountree: So moved. Bird: Second. Wardle: It's been moved and seconded to adjourn. All in favor? ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6:55 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: ;1 / q / tJ DATE APPROVED