HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-01-12 Work Session Minutes Item#1.
Meridian City Council Work Session January 12, 2021.
A Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 4:50 p.m., Tuesday, January
12, 2021, by Mayor Robert Simison.
Members Present: Robert Simison, Joe Borton, Luke Cavener, Treg Bernt, Jessica
Perreault, Brad Hoaglun and Liz Strader.
Also present: Chris Johnson, Bill Nary, Crystal Ritchie, Warren Stewart, Garrett White,
Jamie Leslie, Joe Bongiorno and Dean Willis.
ROLL-CALL ATTENDANCE
Liz Strader _X_ Joe Borton
_X_ Brad Hoaglun _X_Treg Bernt
X Jessica Perreault _X Luke Cavener
_X_ Mayor Robert E. Simison
Simison: I will call this meeting to order. For the record it is January 12th, 2021. Tuesday
at 4:50 p.m. We will begin our City Council work session with roll call attendance.
ADOPTION OF AGENDA
Simison: Next item is adoption of the agenda.
Bernt: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Councilman Bernt.
Bernt: I move that we adopt the agenda. The first -- excuse me. I just noticed we have
a -- we have a -- like -- we have a change to the agenda. Would like to amend Executive
Session to include 74-206(1)(d). But other than that I move that we adopt the agenda as
amended.
Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor, I second the motion to adopt the agenda as amended.
Simison: Have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on the motion? If not, all
in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it and the agenda is agreed
to.
MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES.
CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item]
1. Idaho Fine Arts Academy Pathway Easement
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2. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Horse Meadows
Subdivision (H-2020-0060) by Riley Planning Services, Located at 710
N. Black Cat Rd.
3. Professional Services Agreement for Event Coordinator Services:
2021 Meridian Main Street Market Between Eventageous Idaho, LLC
and the City of Meridian
4. Real Estate Purchase and Donation Agreement Between the City of
Meridian (Buyer) and Challenger Development, Inc. (Seller) for Future
Fire Station Site at Gander Creek South Subdivision No. 1
5. Approval of Grantee Agreements for the Meridian Small Business
Grant Program
Simison: Next up is the Consent Agenda.
Bernt: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Councilman Bernt.
Bernt: I move that we approve the Consent Agenda, for the Mayor to sign and for the
Clerk to attest.
Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor, I second the motion.
Simison: I have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda. Is there any
discussion? If not, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have
it and the agenda -- Consent Agenda is adopted.
MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES.
ITEMS MOVED FROM THE CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item]
Simison: There is no items moved from the Consent Agenda.
DEPARTMENT / COMMISSION REPORTS [Action Item]
6. Human Resources: Annual Report
Simison: So, we will go into Department/Commission Reports. First up is the annual
report from our Human Resources Department. I will turn this over to Director Ritchie.
Ritchie: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Let me see -- I want to make sure I'm screen sharing
properly. This is the first time I have presented on Zoom, so I will see if this works. Please
let me know if it does not. Can you all see the presentation? Okay. Thank you. Again
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thank you so much. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Members of Council. We very much
appreciate your time today as we present to you our annual department report. Let's talk
a little bit about human resources. You have seen this graphic before, but it still remains
true today. This is all of the different areas of HR support that our department provides
to departments and to our employees. Our HR team consists of six staff members. We
have recently had a new team member join us. His name is Josh Hanlon, if you haven't
had an opportunity to meet him yet. He is our new administrative assistant here at our
front desk and we invite you to welcome Josh to the city. We have welcomed him to the
HR department. We are glad that he's here. So, we often get asked, being a department
of six, looking at that bubble graphic of everything that we do, how do we do what we do
each and every day and this rings true, you have seen this before, it is a joint effort with
everyone in Human Resources. We do it by pulling together. We partner together. We
help each other. We collaborate. We operate with teamwork. We have cooperation for
each other. But it takes -- I have often said before we are small, but mighty, and the only
way that we can do what we do is by pulling together as one support group. So, let's take
a look at the 2020 projects and initiatives this past year. This is an at-a-glance snapshot
of HR's efforts this past year. There is a policy and compliance, employee engagement,
community focus, our training and development efforts, benefit and wellness initiatives,
compensation, employee relations and in the midst of all of that the focus we had on our
internal department processes and the improvements that we have made this year. So,
let's take a deeper look. So, in regards to the strategic objectives --
Borton: Mr. Mayor?
Ritchie: -- and our current strategic plan we had seven initiatives.
Borton: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Yes, Councilman Borton.
Borton: Sorry to interrupt. Sorry to interrupt, Crystal. Are the slides supposed to be a
advancing?
Ritchie: Yes. Mine our advancing. Are they not for you?
Borton: No.
Cavener: I see strategic objective status. They have been advancing for me.
Borton: Oh.
Simison: They have been advancing for me as well.
Borton: Oh. I'm frozen. Sorry.
Strader: You are not -- it's not in presentation mode, though, Crystal. Just FYI.
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Ritchie: I'm showing it is. How do I --
Borton: I think it's freezing on my end. I don't know what's going on.
Ritchie: You want me to pause or --
Borton: You can proceed. Maybe it will unfreeze. Don't wait for me. I can hear you, so
I'm tracking. Go ahead.
Ritchie: I apologize. So, this is a snapshot look at the strategic -- strategic objectives
that we have had over the course of the last five years and as a team we were able to
accomplish 71 percent of our strategic objectives. We have two remaining. One is
regarding promoting cultural and workforce diversity and we are anticipated to complete
that in March of this year and also identifying specific training needs and we are
anticipating to complete that April of this year. So, we are looking forward to getting those
closed out as well and completing all of the objectives that were tied to our current plan,
as well as focusing on the new strategic plan and the tasks that will come with that. So,
let's take a moment and we will talk about employment. So, employment, recruitment,
and staffing is a significant amount of time on behalf of the HR staff that we spend working
towards hiring the top talent that we have here at the city. On this slide you can see that
we have primary responsibility for managing and assisting with all employee-related
matters and this gives you just a little bit of a snapshot of where we are as a workforce.
So, you will see on the upper right-hand corner the average city retention rate for 2020
was 90.09 percent. The average years of service collectively amongst our workforce is
seven point -- little over seven years of experience and you will see the breakdown there.
For 20 plus years of service we have 27 employees of the city who fall in that category.
Sixty-six fall in the 15 years to a little less than 20 years and 74 employees fall in the ten
to 14.99. Eighty-six fall in five years to ten -- almost ten years and, then, 238 of our
employees fall in the zero to a little less than five years. You will see there in the lower
left-hand corner of your slide the average years of service by departments and division
and, then, over on the right years of service by department and position. And we want to
take a moment on behalf of the City Council, on behalf of the senior leadership team, and
on behalf of Human Resources, we want to thank all of our employees for their dedicated
years of service here at the city. So, when we talk about employment, we talk about our
workforce, we also talk about recruitment. We spend a significant amount of time in the
recruitment efforts across the city. We are responsible for assisting applicants with their
application to the city. We are responsible for assisting employees and managers with all
phases of the employment process. We oversee recruitment, interviewing, job offers, the
drug and alcohol testing, background checks, except for law enforcement, et cetera. It is
a full cycle process here at the city. So, you will see here that this year the city received
a little over 4,000 extra applications for employment. The average cost of recruitment this
past year was almost 44,000 dollars. We have 77 job postings that resulted in 126
positions being filled. To support those recruitment efforts we processed 126 pre-
employment appointments, facilitated and -- or, excuse me, coordinated 103 drug and
alcohol tests. We conducted approximately 635 reference checks and when I say we I
will say that this is solely done by Jessica More in our office. She primarily handles all of
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the reference calls for every employee that we hire. The average cost of recruitment for
employment search was about 298 dollars and our average time to fill last year was 99.68
days to fill a position and that time to fill is reflect -- reflected from when a position became
vacant until the position is filled and a new hire has started and is attending orientation.
One of the things here in regards to recruitment there that it was a challenge was COVID
and how we navigated recruitment efforts through COVID to ensure that the departments
had the staff that they needed to continue to provide the services and support that they
offered and the HR team came together and we looked at each of our recruitment
processes, our pre-employment processes, our staffing processes to identify how could
we shift it to a remote environment during the time of need this past year and we were
successfully able to do that. Other agencies in the valley had a hiring freeze and our city
continued with our recruitment and staffing efforts to deliver those top talent employees
to the departments who were in need of the staff to continue their services on a daily
basis. You may have heard that HR and IT partnered together this year to take a look at
building a new recruitment tool. So, up until this past year HR was operating with a tool
that was at least ten to 12 years old. It was the tool that was in place when I came on
board and it was a tool that was internally developed at that point in time by a high school
intern working with the city and it was a great tool at that point in time and it carried us for
a good amount of time. However, it was time to upgrade. It was time to have a fully
developed, fully functional tool that provided us greater functionality than the tool that we
had. So, the new tool that we have is called E-Recruit. It does provide internal and
external application of employment tools for the citizens, as well as our internal
employees. It gives us greater functionality, much easier to use. We are proud to say it's
mobile friendly, so you can apply from any mobile device, not just at a computer at your
-- on your desk. It does give individuals the opportunity to create a profile when looking
for employment or different jobs within the city. This new tool has reduced the time it
takes for an individual to fill out an application. They can track their application status and
where it's at through the recruitment process here at the city. They can subscribe for job
alerts if they have particular interest in a particular type of job or a particular department
within the city. It does allow us to get a designated department access, so it helps us with
communications between Human Resources and the hiring departments filling positions.
It gives us greater efficiency and transparency as we also are working towards a
paperless recruitment effort here at the city and we do want to pause and give a huge
thank you on behalf of the HR team, to the IT team and their partnership in the
development of this tool, because it has been a collaborative effort and they have been
absolutely wonderful to work with. Specifically have to call out Nick, Pat and Kristy on
this team as they have helped us build this tool, test this tool, and implement this tool.
We are in phase three of this tool. We are going into phase four where it's going to start
being able to provide to us the opportunity to pull metrics, data, reports and numbers out
of the system in the tool, rather than from a manual process. So, we very much appreciate
everyone in IT who has helped us with this. Compensation and benefit administration is
another aspect of Human Resources. We are responsible for assembling, managing, and
administering employee compensation. There is a lot that is involved with compensation
administration. HR co-chairs the compensation committee. We develop employee
communications. We provide guidance to departments and department hiring managers
to wages to ensure that they are in alignment with our compensation program. The
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compensation committee is tasked with reviewing our compensation program on a regular
basis. HR participates in and reviews the results of many salary studies throughout the
year. We provide guidance to departments regarding new hires and job offers to ensure
alignment with our compensation program. We facilitate the third party market analysis
or a third party review of our marketing compensation programs to ensure that they are
market competitive. Those are all different things that take place at different points in time
throughout the year. It's an ongoing process and it evolves every year. Benefit
administration is another bubble, if you will, of responsibility that we have at the city. You
will see there that we are responsible for assembling, managing, and assisting employees
regarding their benefits and that is not just a one time event, such as our annual
enrollment. We have a staff -- a benefit staff here who help employees on a daily basis
with the questions that they have, the guidance that they need, the resources, the contact
information. Employee benefits typically include health, disability, life insurance,
retirement accounts, vacation accruals, sick leave accruals, et cetera. We have a benefits
committee that meets regularly to evaluate our medical, dental, and vision plans. This
year the HR staff facilitated 26 open enrollment virtual meetings along with 18 virtual one-
on-one sessions. This was significant this year. Typically we have done those in person
where we have offered the meetings, we have gone across the city, we have joined staff
meetings to deliver our open enrollment presentations and, then, we have provided
computer lab sessions to help individuals navigate their enrollment on our employee self-
service portal. With COVID this year we had to shift that to a remote platform, so we
conducted our meetings virtually. In addition to that we still have one-on-one sessions to
employees who needed to reach out. We did those virtually to help them be able to
navigate and enroll through our employee self-service portal. The benefits team created
a new benefits guide and an online benefit platform, so that our employees can access
their information not just through the internal intranet, but also from home. Given the
challenges this year we still were able to deliver -- offering several wellness activities. We
had offered 27 challenges. Indoor contests. We provided COVID support and resources,
as well as nutritional well being -- well being webinars and we continue to offer FMLA and
workers compensation support and guidance, as well as the employee assistance
program and the services they support or provide. Here is a slide that gives you a little
bit of an overview of our wellness works programs. We started with our wellness work
activities prior to COVID and we continued through COVID. I will say that our benefits
team did a great job this year in transitioning our in-person activities that we run yearly to
a -- basically a remote offering, so that we could be compliant with COVID restrictions
and keep our employees safe. But while doing that we still had a number of events that
we were still able to offer and that we completed and you will see a list of those there.
We are proud to say that this year we were also the recipient of the American Heart
Association Bronze Level Workplace Achievement Award and this is our third year
running in receiving this award, so we are very proud of that and we continue to strive for
these achievements through our wellness program in future years. We also have training
development here in the city in the offerings that we have to invest in our employees. This
is a snapshot of the different offerings and what we were able to do this year. So, we
offer new employee orientation. You will see that we had 126 successions this year to
ensure that we had the staffing needed to provide the services that we do to our public.
It is a partnership between HR and -- and IT and we generally offer it every two weeks.
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We have a leadership training program that is comprised of trainings, lunch and learns,
and self development opportunities for our leadership and senior managers. Executive
coaching is part of that program. We also have succession planning here at the city. We
are in our third year this year. We have six key positions that have been identified. In
this past year the department has reviewed and updated all of those succession plans.
We also participate in the ICRMP risk management discount training program each year
and as a result of our participation as a city this past year in 2020 the city did receive an
18,484 dollar discount towards our annual premium. We have an internal best training
program. This year we had 187 employees participate over the course of 15 sessions
that were offered with 42 and a half hours of course instruction and we also offered
avoiding discriminatory harassment training across the city. We have one more
department to go and we will be wrapping up this year. COVID played a role in how much
we could offer this year and so, for example, in our best training most of that is instructor
led and so we have taken a pause in -- in with COVID to determine how can we move it
forward now that we have remote workers and on a virtual platform and so we are pleased
to say that we will be resuming the best program and other training services through the
remote platform via teams, so that our employees can still get the training that they want
through a virtual platform and keep that moving. So, we are excited to -- to bring that
here in the next month or so. In addition to our internal programs we also have an
education reimbursement program that is offered to our employees. This is a snapshot
of the utilization, the number of participants, and the total funds that are expended on
behalf of the city to invest in the growth and development of our employees as they pursue
educational interests. Another area of responsibility is employee engagement. We have
an HR team here that is passionate about promoting a culture of employee engagement
where all of the work here by our employees is meaningful, our employees are valued,
and that the teamwork is celebrated. These are a few examples of what we were able to
accomplish this year citywide. We did offering and participate in a United Way campaign.
That campaign this year was different. We had to transition it to be more virtual and more
online, rather than the in-person activities that we have had in the past, and as a result of
that campaign we were able to raise a little over 5,600 dollars towards the United -- United
Way campaign and the needs of individuals in the -- in our local area. We also celebrated
67 employees for their years of service here at the city. We celebrate those in five year
increments. We traveled either across the city prior to COVID or during COVID we
transitioned those to a remote platform to still ensure that we were recognizing the years
of service of the employees who are dedicated to the work that they do on behalf of the
city every day. In addition to that we also participated in our Do The Right this past year.
In 2020 everyone -- every department was responsible for offering and bringing a focus
to a Do The Right event and so ours was themed Caught Spreading Kindness and we
were excited and happy to participate in that and bring that across the city for Do The
Right. Policy administration and compliance is an ongoing focus of HR. Something that
we are required to do. It's something that we need to do. Here are a few examples of
those efforts this year. We have some new policy developments. We have our remote
work policy. A paid parental leave policy. We have the temporary policies that were in
place for the emergency paid sick leave and the emergency FMLA. We also had
pandemic emergency paid leave administration this year. As noted we developed the
temporary policies that we were required to provide. We administered those leaves each
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and every day and we ensured that we were compliant with the federal regulations of the
policies that were offered through the Family First Coronavirus Response Act. In addition
to being federally compliant we also take a look at our internal processes to ensure that
we are still compliant with ongoing changes. One of those focuses this past year was our
veterans preference processes. We had an audit of our processes. We reviewed and
updated our internal procedures. We incorporated our veterans preference process into
our recruitment tool to ensure that we are compliant with the federal regulations and the
expectations when recruiting. In addition to that, as I noted before under training and
development, we facilitated avoiding discriminatory harassment training. We have one
more department to go and we will be wrapping up that department over the summer of
this year and we want to take a moment to pause and say thank you to Joe Borton. Joe,
you have been our Council liaison this past year. We really appreciate the time, the
commitment, your partnership, your support, your questions. We couldn't have done it
without you and we wanted to say thank you for everything that you have done in that
partnership with HR and we continue to look forward to working with you in the future and,
then, we also want to take a moment to say hello to Jessica. Welcome to the team. You
are going to be our Council liaison this year. You and I have already met. But on behalf
of the HR team we are very glad that you are here and we are looking forward to working
with you in 2021. And with that I stand, aka I'm sitting at my desk, for any questions that
you may have.
Simison: Thank you, Crystal. Council, any questions?
Strader: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Council Woman Strader.
Strader: I was just wondering when we will receive a presentation with the results of the
all employee engagement survey and have an opportunity to dig into that?
Ritchie: Thank you for your question, Council Woman Strader. We will be providing the
employee engagement survey results at our upcoming annual city employee meeting. In
addition to that I have a meeting with the Council president this week to share with him
the Council results and discuss how to disseminate that amongst each and every one of
you, so that you have an opportunity to review that. And, then, of course, ask us any
questions you may have.
Strader: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Council Woman Strader.
Strader: Most organizations I have been part of the leadership team gets an anonymous
breakdown of results by department and, then, they are able to see if we have any, you
know, challenges. Is that type of format what you are eventually going to provide us in
some type of a report or how does that -- how will -- how will that work here?
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Ritchie: We just started getting the results from our third party vendor who provided the
anonymous information. So, the senior leadership team will -- is in the process of looking
at that information now and, then, we will be coming forward with results to all of you. So,
what that looks like at this point in time I don't know yet, but we will keep you
communicated and let you know what that's going to look like and when.
Strader: Thank you.
Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Councilman Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Yeah. Real quick, Crystal. In your avoiding discriminatory harassment training
you mentioned you are wrapping up training later this year. You got one department to
go. It's been a citywide training. I'm curious is that going to continue in new employee
orientation or is it going to be repeated citywide in the future? How do you -- how do you
keep people up to date on that?
Ritchie: Council Member Hoaglun, that's a great question. One of the things that the HR
Department will be focused on this year is an onboarding program that will follow an
employee from new employee orientation. We will have components of that to address
respectful workplace, avoiding discriminatory harassment trainings, those types of things
and, then, in addition to that it's recommended by our current legal counsel that we as a
citywide initiative offer this type of training and other types of training at least on an every
other year cycle. So, we are going to incorporate it in both aspects.
Hoaglun: Thank you, Crystal.
Cavener: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Council, any additional questions?
Cavener: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Was that you, Councilman Cavener?
Cavener: I did speak up, yes, sir.
Simison: Okay. Councilman Cavener.
Cavener: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Crystal, when it comes down to the -- the wellness
works program, is that all staff led or is there any consultant or third party vendor that's
involved?
Ritchie: Council Member Cavener, that is staff lead. However, we do have a wellness
committee that comes together that is comprised of employees across the city who work
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together to develop the offerings that we give here at the city to keep that fresh, to keep
that moving, and to keep it updated.
Cavener: Okay. Mr. Mayor, follow up if I may?
Simison: Councilman Cavener.
Cavener: Crystal, what percentage do you kind of anticipate of staff time we are spending
on the wellness program?
Ritchie: Council Member Cavener, that's a great question. I don't have that information
in front of me. I would be happy to get with Christena who manages our wellness
deliverables here at the city and see if we can get that information and get it back out to
all of you following our meeting.
Cavener: Mr. Mayor, if I may?
Simison: Councilman Cavener.
Cavener: Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Crystal, that would be great and I guess a little background
to the -- to the question. I think our wellness program is really really important and I think
that you and the team do a great job of providing a lot of different program offerings for
employees. I also know that your department continues to be in high demand from our
growing employee base and it might be at a -- at a turning point where we may want to
look at seeing if there is a third party service that can continue to meet the needs of our
employees without making this to be over -- overly burden for our great staff in your
department. So, something maybe for us to consider as we go into budget season.
Ritchie: Thank you, Council Member Cavener. I will get that information for you -- or you
and the Council and I have also taken note of the information you just shared with us.
Thank you.
Strader: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Council Woman Strader.
Strader: Just a general comment. I -- I really appreciate getting the presentation, Crystal,
and I think especially when I was new to Council, you know, the first time we had an
annual report it was really informative. It was important to learn about what the HR
Department does. I was thinking, though, for these annual reports I'm wondering if maybe
we want to provide the slides ahead of time then -- and I don't know what the rest of the
Council thinks. The Council could review the slides ahead of time, so we could focus our
time on questions and challenges. I just want to make sure we get an opportunity to dig
into things like the survey and things like that later in the year, maybe that are a little bit
meatier to have a chance to ask a lot of questions.
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Ritchie: Thank you, Council Woman Strader, for your suggestion. I have captured that
and I will carry it forward and -- and we will bring that back to you.
Strader: Thanks.
Ritchie: You're welcome.
Cavener: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Councilman Cavener.
Cavener: Just for what it's worth, I thoroughly agree with Council Member Strader's
recommendation. You know, even with our -- our next agenda item, the staff were kind
enough to get us the slides to help us be better prepared. You know, as we all have kind
of a good understanding as the department at least here at year two where all this Council
has been intact, maybe an opportunity for us to do less year in review and more maybe
digging one step further. Just a suggestion.
Simison: Thank you. Council, any additional questions or comments? All right. Thank
you, Crystal. Appreciate it.
Ritchie: Thank you.
Borton: Thanks, Crystal.
Simison: Council, we -- we are at 5.22. Just looking at what we have left on this agenda,
I want to try to maybe -- if we can get some perspective on what we think the 6:00 o'clock
is going to look like, Mr. Nary, if we know, so we can determine if we want to move forward,
because -- if we have plenty of time to do all the Executive Session afterwards. I don't
know what you have lined up, so --
Nary: Yes. So, Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, so the exec session that we were
planning to do now I think is probably going to need about a 30 minute conversation and,
then, on the regular session tonight -- one item has asked to be continued. The second
item we did just get a late e-mail for an adjacent property owner who is unable to attend,
because they have COVID, and says there are unresolved Public Works issues in relation
to their property. So, I don't know if that is enough to warrant continuing the entire matter.
We did have a bunch of neighbors at the P&Z level for this that are other properties
adjacent to this parcel. So, it may be one that we can't complete tonight. So, it may be
fairly lengthy and, then, again, the second Executive Session may be a fairly lengthy
discussion as well, so --
Simison: Mr. Nary, do you have people that are coming in at 5:30 specifically or if we did
it all after the 6:00 does that work?
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Nary: It's -- they are all internal staff for the 5:30. So, it's -- it's all staff folks that are either
in the building or at home.
Simison: Okay.
Nary: So, it's perfectly fine either way, sir.
Simison: So, Council, would you like to proceed up until 6:00 p.m. or would you like to
have Todd come back and do the CFP at a later -- on next week's agenda?
Bernt: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Councilman Bernt.
Bernt: Just a heads up. I believe the folks are going to have to reboot the system and
it's going to take about ten minutes for it to get back up and running and so -- we need to
-- we need to add ten minutes in there somewhere for them to be able to do that before
the 6:00 o'clock meeting.
7. Finance Department: Comprehensive Financial Plan Discussion
Simison: Okay. Well, how about I suggest we do Action Item No. 8 and, then, we go
ahead and break and we can reschedule the CFP, because it does not need to be this
evening anyways. If that works for everybody. Okay. So, with that do I have a motion
on Item No. 7? Do we need a motion, Mr. Nary, to --
Nary: We probably should make a motion to continue it to next week.
Simison: Okay.
Bernt: So, to confirm we are going to continue Item No. 7 until next week or later on this
evening?
Simison: Next week.
Bernt: Okay. Mr. Mayor, I move that we continue Item No. 7, the Finance Department
Comprehensive Financial Plan discussion to next week.
Cavener: Second the motion.
Simison: I have a motion and a second to continue this item to next week. Is there any
discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye? Opposed nay. The ayes have it.
Thanks, Todd. We will -- we will get you back on.
MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES.
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Meridian City Council Work Session
Item#1. January 12,2021
Page 13 of 16
ACTION ITEMS
8. Election of 2021 City Council President and Vice President
Simison: So, Item 8 under Action Items, election of the city 2021 president and vice-
president.
Borton: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Mr. Borton.
Borton: I will gladly kick it off. It's been a challenging year and I think our Council has
been served very well with some of the folks who lead us this past year. No surprise. So,
I'm going to make a motion -- or nomination I guess I should say. A nomination for
Councilman Treg Bernt to continue for a second year as Council President.
Cavener: Second the motion. Nomination.
Simison: I have a motion and second for Councilman Bernt to continue as Council
President. Is there discussion on the motion? If not, do we need a roll call vote? I don't
think we do. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it.
MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES.
Simison: Congratulations, Councilman Bernt. Would you like to do your speech now or
later?
Bernt: No speech. I appreciate each and every one you guys. You guys are like family.
Appreciate the support. This has been an interesting year this past year. COVID has sort
of put a kink in different policy things that we all wanted to accomplish, but at the end of
the day it's been a -- it's been a great opportunity to get to know each and every one of
you better, especially Council Member Liz -- Strader and Perreault. It's been great. So,
2021 let's hope for a different situation maybe in a way that we can maybe accomplish a
little bit more and get a little bit more things on the docket. But, ultimately, I really
appreciate the support and I'm looking forward to 2021.
Simison: Thank you.
Strader: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Council Woman Strader.
Strader: I'm not sure if it was stated previously, but I would be very happy to nominate
Councilman Hoaglun as the vice-president for City Council this year. I think he's done a
great job. If he's up for it.
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Meridian City Council Work Session
Item#1. January 12,2021
Page 14 of 16
Cavener: Second the nomination, Mr. Mayor.
Simison: I have a motion and a second for Councilman Hoaglun to be the vice-president.
Is there any further discussion on the motion?
Bernt: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Councilman Bernt.
Bernt: I -- I feel sometimes in making decisions or deliberating that I often think to myself
what would Councilman Hoaglun do.
Simison: Excellent.
Bernt: He's a -- he's a --
Simison: I will remember that.
Bernt: He's a -- he's a dear friend and -- and, honestly, without -- I know you are kidding,
but I'm being serious. I -- I look -- he's been -- he's been great support to me. He's been
-- he's been there for me when I -- when I needed direction and when I needed a little bit
of -- someone to punch me in the teeth maybe to get me back on track. So, I -- I really
appreciate Brad and all he's done. I appreciate his support.
Simison: Is there any further discussion on the motion and nomination? If not, all those
in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it.
MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES.
Simison: Congratulations, Councilman Hoaglun. Any remarks you would like to make?
Hoaglun: Appreciate the Council's support and -- and Councilman Bernt, just don't talk
to my wife, I think she might have a different opinion at times, so --
Bernt: Got it.
EXECUTIVE SESSION
9. Per Idaho Code 74-206A(1)(a) To deliberate on a labor contract offer
or to formulate a counteroffer. Amended to include 74-206(1)(d): To
consider records that are exempt from disclosure as provided in
Chapter 1, Title 74, Idaho Code.
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Meridian City Council Work Session
Item#1. January 12,2021
Page 15 of 16
Simison: Well, thank you. I look forward to working with you both again during this next
year. Excited to continue to build on this team and the relationships we all have with one
another. So, with that we will move on to Item No. 9.
Bernt: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Councilman Bernt.
Bernt: I move that we go into Executive Session per Idaho Code 74-206A(1)(a) and 74-
206(1)(d).
Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor, second the motion.
Simison: I have a motion and a second to go into Executive Session. Is there any
discussion on the motion? If not, Clerk will call the roll.
Roll call: Bernt, yea; Borton, yea; Cavener, yea; Hoaglun, yea; Strader, yea; Perreault,
yea.
Simison: All ayes. Motion carries and we will adjourn into Executive Session.
MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES.
EXECUTIVE SESSION: (5:29 p.m. to 6:05 p.m.)
Bernt: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Councilman Bernt.
Bernt: I move that we come out of Executive Session.
Cavener: Second.
Simison: I have a motion and a second to come out of Executive Session. All those in
favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it and we have come out of
Executive Session.
MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES.
Bernt: I move that we adjourn the meeting.
Cavener: Second the motion.
Simison: I have a motion and a second to adjourn our workshop meeting. All those in
favor say aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it and we are adjourned.
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Meridian City Council Work Session
January 12,2021
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MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6:06 P.M.
(AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
1 / 26 / 2021
MAYOR ROBERT E. SIMISON DATE APPROVED
ATTEST:
CHRIS JOHNSON - CITY CLERK
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