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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-01-26 Work Session Minutes Item#1. Meridian City Council Work Session January 26, 2021. A Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, January 26, 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, Tom Otte, 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: Council, I will call this meeting to order. For the record it is Tuesday, January 26th. 4:30 p.m. We will begin this afternoon's 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 as published. Cavener: Mr. Mayor, second the motion. Simison: Have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as published. Is there any discussion on the motion? If not, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it and the agenda is adopted. MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES. CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] 1. Approve Minutes of the January 12, 2021 City Council Work Session 2. Approve Minutes of the January 12, 2021 City Council Regular Meeting Page 4 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. January 26,2021 Page 2 of 16 3. FMI at Ten Mile Crossing Water Main Easement No. 1 4. Linder Village Sanitary Sewer and Water Main Easement No. 1 5. Linder Village Subdivision Water Main Easement No. 2 6. Final Plat for Bainbridge No. 12 (FP-2020-0016) by Brighton Development, Located on the South Side of W. Chinden Blvd./SH 20- 26, Approximately 1/3 of a Mile West of N. Ten Mile Rd. 7. Final Plat for Stapleton No. 2 (FP-2020-0014) by Conger Group, Located at the Southwest Corner of W. Harris St. and S. Meridian Rd./SH-69 8. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Southridge South (H-2020- 0083) by The Land Group, Inc., Generally Located South of W. Overland Rd., East of S. Ten Mile Rd. 9. Development Agreement Between the City of Meridian and Daniel Eisenring (Owner/Developer) for 2810 E Franklin Rd (H-2020-0097) 10. Development Agreement Between the City of Meridian and SI Construction, LLC (Owner/Developer) for Goddard Creek Community (H-2020-0092) 11. Addendum to Extend Project Agreement Between the City of Meridian and Nampa and Meridian Irrigation District to Authorize the City to Discharge Water from Well 32 Into the Ridenbaugh Canal for a Designated Period in 2021 12. Approval of Sixteen Grantee Agreements for the Meridian Small Business Grant Program 13. Approval of Four Grantee Agreements for the Meridian Small Business Grant Program 14. Heroes Park Parking Expansion Contract: Approve Award of Bid and Construction Contract to Bricon, Inc. for the "Heroes Park Parking Expansion" Project for the Not-to-Exceed Amount of $432,500.00 Simison: Next item is our Consent Agenda. Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Page 5 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. January 26,2021 Page 3 of 16 Bernt: I move that we approve the Consent Agenda. For the Mayor to sign and for the Clerk to attest. Cavener: Second the motion, Mr. Mayor. Simison: I have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda. Is there any discussion on the motion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it and the Consent Agenda is agreed to. MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES. ITEMS MOVED FROM THE CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] Simison: There were no items removed from the Consent Agenda. DEPARTMENT / COMMISSION REPORTS [Action Item] Simison: So, we will next move on to our Department/Commission Reports. First item up is the Solid Waste Advisory Commission Annual Update. I will turn this over to Mr. Cory, I believe, if -- Johnson: Mr. Mayor, I do not see Mr. Cory, but I did invite Tom Otte in, so he can hopefully help us identify him. Simison: Okay. Tom -- oh, we have got Steve now? Otte: He isn't on right now. I should have him shortly. He doesn't -- oh, he is on now. Simison: He is on. Mr. Cory, thank you for joining us. You are recognized as soon as you are able. And if you are speaking we can't hear you. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, Mr. Cory has no audio. It looks like there is video capabilities, but no audio. So, you may want to call that number and join. Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: Do we want to move to Mr. Lancaster and the Transportation Commission while we figure out Mr. Cory's situation? Simison: Do we have Mr. Lancaster on? Okay. All right. We can do that. Bernt: There he is. Page 6 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. January 26,2021 Page 4 of 16 16. Transportation Commission: Roundabouts and Alternative Intersections Simison: And, Mr. Clerk, if you can try to communicate with Mr. Cory on that. Okay. Mr. Lancaster, you are recognized for 20 minutes. Lancaster: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council Members. I'm Ryan Lancaster and it's my pleasure to participate in this work session on behalf of the Transportation Commission. The presentation I have for you today is on alternative intersections with extra emphasis on roundabouts. These intersections come up periodically during commission business and -- and during Council business. So, there are several fairly new commissioners and the commission asked for more information on alternative intersections. I made this presentation to the Transportation Commission in December. With the Transportation Commission being an advisory commission to you, we have looked for ways to have more interaction with you and we thought sharing this presentation with Council will be an opportunity to reach out on a topic that comes up from time to time in the commission and Council and even with any luck we can maybe be on the same page. Some of you know me better than others, so I thought I would give a brief introduction on myself. I'm honored to say that 2021 will be my tenth year serving as a commissioner. I'm a licensed professional engineer and I'm employed locally as a traffic engineer. Fortunately, my employers have been supportive in letting me take time off to participate in the commission all of these years as a citizen volunteer. I'm a professional traffic operations engineer and a member of the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. So, between my employment and volunteering through the commission, I'm involved in transportation on the national, state, and local levels and that's a lot of fun for me to bring my education and experience to the commission and be able to influence topics within our city limits. I'm sorry I can't be with you in person today, but in trying to be a good citizen I'm taking the city's recommendation and presenting from my home. So, I don't want to spend too much time in preliminaries here, but I thought it might be helpful to do a little introduction. So, with that I would like to start the presentation and, Mr. Mayor, I'm open to either taking questions during the presentation or at the end, whatever works for you. So, to start off with just a little bit of information about intersections. So, why we are even talking about this. Intersections are the source of about half of severe crashes on our roads and the left turns in particular represent a high proportion of those. These first few slides that I'm going to show I borrowed a lot of these from the Federal Highway Administration and I don't plan to show -- to talk about everything on the slides, but we will just hit a few hot topics. So, some of the benefits of using alternative intersections over what we might call conventional intersections are improvement -- improvements to safety performance, operational performance, and value. So, if you can get the same or better operational and safety performance out of an intersection with a smaller footprint, then, you know, there is improved value there as well. So, these are the four alternative intersections that I'm going to touch on. Roundabouts, restricted crossing U-turn, or RCUT, median U-turns and displaced left turns. So, I'm going to touch on a couple of these real quickly and, then, we will spend the rest of the time talking about roundabouts. So, you know, why do we do alternative intersections. Here is an example of why we do them. This is the Eagle and Fairview Page 7 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. January 26,2021 Page 5 of 16 intersection from Google Earth and, you know, it's a huge sea of pavement. You know, the -- the approaches to the intersection are up to ten feet -- or, I'm sorry, ten lanes wide, plus bike lanes and, you know, so roads can take up a lot of land in the city; right? So, if we can do -- if we can serve the same users with less footprint that's a benefit. I'm just going to touch on the -- the first two bullet points here. Some common denominators between all of these. They treat left turns differently than a conventional intersection does and there is fewer conflict points or less severe conflict points or even the conflict points are -- are separated from the intersection. So, with roundabouts these have been around with us for 30 years now. The first modern roundabouts in the United States were built in 1990. So, about 30 years. The -- the modern roundabout designs are an improvement over what used to be built in particularly the east part of the United States with rotary intersections. It can be used in lots of different situations, high speed, low speed -- the design of the roundabout doesn't change. The operations of them are still relatively low speed, but they can be used in any -- in any kind of intersection. So, there is different flavors of U-turn intersections, RCUT, Michigan U-turn, Through-U. So, the example on the right is -- I will show another example here where ACHD recently built one of these in -- one of these intersections in Boise. They go by different names depending on whether they are signalized or not, but the principles are the same for all of these U-turn intersections. This is the one that ACHD built in Boise. So, off of Veterans Memorial Parkway, the bottom left, the top right road, left turns are still made as they might normally be, but on State Street to make a left turn a driver actually drives through the intersection and, then, makes a U-turn and a right turn. So, this takes the left turns out of the intersection, separates them -- separates the conflict where there is not as many conflicts and turns it into a right turn. So, that's the benefit of this type of intersection. So, I'm going to move through these pretty quickly. So, the next one is displaced left turn and this one's pretty interesting in that, again, the left turns are treated differently, but the left turns are actually moved to the left side of the road and, then, make the turn. So, a few years ago when the Idaho Transportation Department came to talk to the Transportation Commission about planned improvements on Chinden, there were several of these intersections proposed and they were almost apologetic about proposing these other intersections. I said there is no need to apologize. I made a comment in the commission meeting that there is no need to apologize. If we can have better operations with different intersections, then, we should. So, again, this is just an example of how that intersection works. The Utah Department of Transportation was an early adopter of these kinds of intersections and they found improvements in their crash -- they had fewer crashes and they had improved travel time. So, with that I plan to spend the rest of the time talking about modern roundabouts. I actually got this graphic from city staff, Brian McClure. So, thanks to him. But, you know, there is some -- sometimes trepidation about roundabouts. People think that they are difficult to traverse or they are -- you know, whatever the reasons might be. Really roundabouts are -- are simpler to use than a -- we will call a conventional intersection. Again, you kind of separate conflict points. So, there is -- you know, the decisions are -- or to accept to enter the intersect -- to enter the roundabout and decision when to exit the roundabout and that's really it. There is no looking left and right to see if there is gaps in both directions, it's just looking left to see if there is a gap to enter the intersection. You know, there is a National Lampoon's movie that makes fun of old circular intersections that, you know, once you get in them you can't get out. That's Page 8 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. January 26,2021 Page 6 of 16 not the case in a modern roundabout. You just enter and exit, you know, at the desired place. So, the outside lane always turns right or goes through the inside lane go who left or you turn. There is a few features of roundabouts that make them roundabouts, so there is a central island that traffic circles around. Usually it's circular, but I will show you some examples that aren't. There is pedestrian features if there is -- you know, if pedestrians are expected to be present. There is splitter islands on the approaches. There can be bicycle facilities. There is truck facilities. So, all of these things are designed in to accommodate all of the road users. So, some of the -- well, these are the features that are present in a roundabout. So, if some of these are missing it's not by definition a modern roundabout. For example, in my neighborhood here in Meridian there is a circular intersection in the neighborhood, but it doesn't have splitter islands. So, while it's a circular intersection it's not a modern roundabout per se, because it doesn't have all of these features. This is kind of a famous picture in the roundabout community in that this comes from New York state where they took a -- a older large rotary intersection and actually built a modern roundabout in the middle of it and, then, demolished the older rotary. So, roundabouts are relatively small. They are designed to have low operating speeds in them and this is just an example of old versus -- old designs versus new, if you will. There is a few roundabouts sprinkled around through Meridian. This is shifted just a little bit, but I think you are familiar with -- with these. This is kind of an interesting piece of information in that some researchers did some surveys before a roundabout was constructed and after and so the dark green are the attitudes before construction and, you know, so you look at this and there are, what, about 65 percent negative or very negative and, then, after construction the lighter green it switches to about 75 percent positive and so the perceptions really changed before and after and it really flipped. So, you know, I think we see this in -- in things like land use; right? Kind of the not in my backyard NIMBYism; right? But once -- once roundabouts are -- are built and they find -- and users find that there is improved performance both safety wise and operations wise, the attitudes change. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Hey, Ryan, I don't mean to interrupt you, but I think you invited that. Can you go back to that slide. I'm just curious if you could give us a little bit of background on where that data came from and how recent it is. It's -- it's compelling to me and I just -- I don't know if it's based on a domestic survey response, an international survey response, an Idaho survey response. Can you help fill in the gaps about where this was conducted and when? Lancaster: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Cavener, I will be happy to. There is a source here at the bottom and I will describe what that means. So, NCHRP means National Cooperative Highway Research Program. So, a synthesis is they talk to a bunch of different agencies and compile their results. So, this is United States data. That research report I think is getting a little bit dated at this point. It was about ten years old. So, again, roundabouts have been in the United States for 30 years and so this was done about 20 Page 9 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. January 26,2021 Page 7 of 16 years in. Now, that's the source. This is the national survey in the United States within, you know, the last ten years or so. Cavener: Thank you. Lancaster: Okay. So, roundabouts and crashes. Earlier I talked about how the alternative intersections change or reduce the number of conflict points and this really shows it with a roundabout. So, on the right there is 32 conflict points, whereas on the roundabout there is only eight, and most importantly it eliminates all of those blue dots, the crossing dots. So, the potential for the worst kind of crashes, the T-bone right angle kind of crashes. And here is an example of that. So, a roundabout really eliminates the angle and left turn crashes -- the kind of crashes that -- that can occur in a roundabout are sideswipes, rear ends, so, you know, the kind of crashes that -- that may bend, you know, vehicle body work, but don't break passengers; right? And so there -- there is an improvement there. When comparing signalized intersections to roundabouts, roundabouts perform much better crash wise and it's really because you eliminate a lot of those opportunities for the worst kinds of crashes. So, the fatal and injury kind of crashes are -- are way down. Locally some agencies have found that there are still roughly the same number of crashes in a roundabout intersection versus a, quote, conventional intersection, but that the severity goes down and, then, these are the same comparison with a two way stop controlled intersection versus a roundabout. That's because it, again, eliminates some of those more severe crashes, but also makes the driving task easier. So, at a two way stop intersection, you know, the driver has to look right-- look right and look left to find a gap, whereas at a roundabout the driver only needs to look left for a gap. I think I'm going to skip this slide for the -- for time sake. Roundabouts really work well in corridors. You know, just an access management kind of topic here, you know, so, let's say a driver or a road user wants to leave one of these developments on the left side of the picture and turn left, you can eliminate all the left turns and -- and forced the driver to turn right out of the development, make a U-turn around the roundabout, to make the left turn. So, to use the roundabout to basically turn it into a U-turn intersection. So, they work particularly well with access management kind of topics. You know, roundabouts and signals kind of like different things. In a signalized corridor it's good to have vehicles grouped up together in platoons. So, a whole group of vehicles can go together through the intersection on a green, whereas roundabouts it's nice to have vehicles separated more, because they are served one vehicle at a time, rather than as a group, and so roundabouts and signals can be used together, you know, if the -- the operations are somewhat compatible. So, for example, where there is -- or the signal may or-- may not be, you know, based on -- on that grouping or that platooning -- as example of that, you know, that's kind of right in the middle of Meridian is Locust Grove and Fairview and I'm told that the -- the signal timers have a heck of a time with that, because it's hard to get those groups together and so that's an example where, you know, a roundabout really could be used relatively close, because there is not that platoon of traffic. So, roundabouts and signals can be used together in the right situations. Roundabouts and pedestrians is a topic that -- that seems to come up a lot. There is a perception that roundabouts are bad for pedestrians. I'm -- I'm here to share the opposite, actually. So, we are taught and we teach our kids early on to look both ways before Page 10 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. January 26,2021 Page 8 of 16 crossing the street. In a roundabout you don't have to. So, here at the bottom right of the picture I have a pedestrian sign. That's going to be our pedestrian for crossing here. So, the pedestrian has to look left, when there is a gap crosses to the splitter Island, and at the splitter Island pedestrian looks now right and crosses through the leg of the intersection. So, this is, you know, the same concept for why I'm told that some city employees like to park in the parking lot across from Meridian Road and walk down to the tire store to cross where, you know, the -- the crossing is, essentially, the same as this. Cross a few lanes of traffic that go one direction, cross a few more lanes of traffic going the other direction. So, it splits up that task. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Lancaster: Conflicts -- Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Oh. Thank you, Ryan. I just wanted to ask a quick question while it was on my mind about the safety. How much of -- how much of the safety factor depends on the landscaping of the roundabout? Like one of the things that I experienced -- like I'm trying to cross a roundabout -- I think I would be afraid that I'm not seeing a car that's actually just about to like quickly come around the circle. So, are there standards about that and how much is that a factor in the safety? Lancaster: Yeah. Mr. Mayor, Council Woman Strader, that's a fantastic question. So, landscaping is actually one of those required parts of a modern roundabout and there are some -- some guidelines and standards for that. There -- it's actually preferable to have a mound, to have something in the center of the roundabout to give the road users -- usually drivers -- enough vision to see to the left, but not too much to see across the roundabout, for instance. So, that is a design check to make sure that there is enough, but not too much sight distance on the approaches to the roundabout. I hope that answers your question. Strader: Thank you. It does. Lancaster: Okay. Great. Yeah. So, the roundabout for pedestrians, there is fewer conflict points for the pedestrians as well and, again, those conflict points are separated somewhat from the intersection. The pedestrian -- or the crosswalks are set back from the intersection, which makes it easier for drivers, too. It separates the driving of the vehicle conflicts from the pedestrian conflict. So, they are taking more one at a time, rather than a whole bunch of conflicts presented to a driver all at once. This is an example in Boise -- a relatively recent roundabout built byACHD and I show this, because it shows how ACHD is -- is currently treating pedestrian crossings at roundabouts. So, I have the pedestrian signs and these flashing -- well, these lights between the signs. They are called rectangular rapid flashing beacons. They are activated by a pedestrian pushing a button. It's just extra warning to the driver that -- that there is pedestrians there. But I also show this goes, you know, a relatively short distance for a pedestrian to cross, you Page 11 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. January 26,2021 Page 9 of 16 know, in contrast, again -- you know, think back to that Eagle and Fairview intersection where there is just a sea of asphalt to cross, so -- but it breaks up the pedestrian crossing into smaller pieces. So, this often comes up with the commission, roundabouts in the vicinity of schools. So, the national guide that -- that talks about planning designing and constructing roundabouts says that roundabouts may be optimal for use near schools and -- and it's, really, for the same reasons, you know, for the pedestrians crossing at -- at roundabouts. So, shorter distances, easier crossing tasks for the pedestrian. One thing that may be a little bit different at a roundabout for schools is it may be necessary for there to be two crossing guards. For example, one crossing guard could do the dark green arrows and one crossing guard would do the white arrows, you know, so depending on the school, depending on where the students are walking, it may be necessary to have two crossing guards. But, otherwise, you get the same benefits. You know, just some local examples of roundabouts in schools. This is Middleton High School. There is two roundabouts right adjacent to the school. Hillside Middle School in Boise. So, it has -- this dog bone or peanut shaped roundabout and here is a picture of the crossing there. So, again, kind of the same treatment. The flashing lights. I think this is Lincoln Elementary School. So, you know, there is the high school, the middle school and an elementary school. So, I have two more topics and, then, I will be done. But roundabouts and bicycles. So, bicycles can -- in most roundabouts they can approach a roundabout in two different ways, either as a vehicle or as a pedestrian. So, here on the left side of the screen there is a --you know, we will say there is a bicycle approaching on the bicycle lane. There is a ramp provided where either the bicycle can continue through the roundabout as a vehicle or exit and traverse the roundabout on the sidewalk. So, another advantage of roundabouts is the -- because the operating speeds are slowed inside the roundabout due to its curvature, the vehicle speeds are really about the same speed as a bicycle and so it can be very comfortable for a bicyclist to traverse a roundabout as a vehicle. But there is the option provided. So, the bicycle could enter the circulating roadway or traverse the crosswalk and, then, enter the bike lane on the far side of the intersection and continue on in the bike lane. Last topic roundabouts and trucks. So, roundabouts are built for a design vehicle, usually a large vehicle or commercial truck. The movement of people and goods is an important thing and so the colored pavement that's usually around the circulating roadway, it's not just for decoration and it's actually meant to be used by the trucks, so the trailer can off track onto that colored pavement and that's how the larger vehicles traverse a roundabout. This last picture is a roundabout recently built in Rigby and I just think it's kind of cool how they staged it here. So, with that, Mr. Mayor, that's the end of the presentation. Simison: Thank you, Ryan. Council, any questions? Perreault: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Perreault. Perreault: Ryan, thank you so much for taking the time to share this with us. Just curious, you had showed a picture that had, basically, two lanes going in each direction, roundabouts at each end, and kind of a Boulevard style and I'm wondering how that Page 12 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. January 26,2021 Page 10 0 16 affects commercial areas and whether it encourages or discourages customers from accessing different businesses along those corridors. Lancaster: Mr. Mayor, Council Woman, I will try to answer the best I can. I will take -- I hope I can answer your question here. If I miss part of it, please, let me know. So, one of the perks that I have in my job is I get to know some people around the country and Washington State has been very proactive in building roundabouts. It was very interesting to me to hear from their state traffic engineer that they had a corridor where they built a corridor of roundabouts like this and, you know, the -- the trucking community said no way, but they built it anyway and after they did the truckers came back and said we were wrong, we can actually drive this corridor -- or we have -- our travel time has gone down since you built these intersections, so, you know, it improved the corridor. As far as access, I'm not sure I can, you know, say too much to that, other than, you know, in this example the -- the inner -- the roundabouts are fairly closely spaced and so any, you know, detour around the roundabout is fairly short. So, access is always a concern as a -- as a traffic engineer, you know, access -- there is this balance; right? The balance between land access and -- and operations. As a traffic engineer, you know, I know that accesses can increase crashes and can degrade operations and so that's why traffic engineers like me usually push for combined approaches or right-in, right-out approaches, that sort of thing. So, roundabouts are a strategy to accommodate full access, but -- but with just a short detour perhaps around the roundabout. So, I'm not sure how well I answered your question, but that's my attempt at it anyway. Simison: Council, any further questions? All right. Thank you, Ryan. Lancaster: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. 15. Solid Waste Advisory Commission: Annual Update Simison: Okay. We will head back to Item 15, which is our Solid Waste Advisory Commission annual update. I see Mr. Cory is here and unmuted himself. Steve, are you there? Cory: Yes, I am. Simison: Excellent. Well, the time is yours. Cory: I am getting kind of a message on my video, so excuse the fact that my video is not on. I will just go into the text and we will -- so, I want to thank you, Mr. Mayor and Members of the Council. I am Steve Cory, chairman of the Solid Waste Advisory Commission, and I'm here representing the commission to report on the 2020 activities of the Commission. The Commission was reduced in staff to five members for much of the year, with three vacancies. I served as chair and Commissioner Meg Larsen served as the vice-chair. Youth Commissioner Isabel Kau has been very active and we are very thankful you appointed her to a second term. I want to thank the Council for filling the remaining three positions this fall to bring the commission to full staff. One of our primary Page 13 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. January 26,2021 Page 11 of 16 responsibilities is the community recycling fund program. This year there were no expenditures to that fund. The fund had an initial balance of just over 34,400 dollars. Revenues for the year were just over 4,300 dollars. So, the ending balance is $38,740.32. SWAC conducted its other primary responsibility, the review of the FY-21 annual solid waste rate adjustments. The rate adjustment for both commercial and residential services was comprised of the contractual CPI adjustment and the continuance of the recycling processing cost shared by consumers for another year as set forth in a separate contract amendment. Other 2020 activities included the Trash or Treasure program and our participation in this Ada County Solid Waste Advisory Committee and the Ada County Hazardous -- Household Hazardous Waste quarterly meetings. SWAC received presentations on Republic Services quarterly and annual reports, on the Hefty energy bag program, on the Ada county landfill tipping fees, on the FY-21 proposed solid waste rates and new fees and on the solid waste program metrics and data. Upcoming commission business includes acting on results from the most recent city survey, furthering improvements in recycling efforts, promoting Meridian's Trash or Treasure, Hand-in-Hand, and Recycle A Bicycle program. Continued focus on reducing contamination of recycled streams. Particular emphasis on education outreach to decrease contamination. Monitoring your yard composting market trends. Continuing participation in the Ada County Solid Waste Advisory Committee. Participating in the Ada County Hazardous Waste program meetings and working with Ada county to resolve their desire to simplify landfill rates. I want to highlight SWAC's continuing work to develop a solid waste plan for the City of Meridian. SWAC created a subcommittee to work with city staff to develop the goal and expectations for the plan. Despite the pandemic, the committee met biweekly, both in person and remotely as the guideline advised. The committee was chaired by Commissioner Mark Nelson and included Meg Larsen, Scott Walters, Isabel Kau, and it was assisted by ex-officio member Rachele Klein of Republic Services. The committee presented updates to the commission and it was instrumental in guiding the vision of the city based on the knowledge and survey results that we have. So, in conclusion, it's been an active year for SWAC despite COVID, but SWAC looks forward to recovering our momentum in guiding the city's improved solid waste in the coming year and with that I would stand for questions. Simison: Thank you, Steve. Council, any questions? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Steve, always appreciate you joining us. Nice to see you. I guess or hear you virtually. I'm curious if you would mind giving the Council a flavor for maybe some of the projects or initiatives SWAC is hoping to take on this year. If there is anything new or something on the horizon that you guys are looking to explore. Cory: You know, I think what -- what I'm wanting is for us to steer towards this solid waste plan and it's -- as mentioned it's the goals and objectives that we are going to try to pursue as a city to improve our solid waste and recycling programs, but also to actually have a Page 14 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. January 26,2021 Page 12 of 16 documented plan for how to attain those activities. It's something we will bring to Council for Council's concurrence when we pull it together, but we have reached that size of a community where we can actually direct where we want to go and so what we want to do is have a written plan of how to get where the citizens want to go on waste management and recycling. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Steve, a piece that may merit consideration as you are doing that plan is, you know, I guess I would be looking for if -- if it's appropriate for a recommendation or a suggestion from SWAC around weekly recycling in Meridian and perhaps part of this is being led by COVID and more people working out of our home, but I have heard from more citizens in 2020 wanting to know more about how they can get into either another bin or getting their recycling picked up on a weekly basis. I have got two bins. I don't have any issues paying for a second bin, but I'm wondering where work from home I think will become more of a standard, even when life returns to normal with the vaccinations, this may be kind of, for all intents and purposes, a tipping point for us to start exploring, you know, weekly recycling in Meridian. Cory: Thank you, Councilman Cavener. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Yeah. One thing that I have mentioned at least in passing that I think would be fun to take a look at for the year is looking harder at cardboard as well. With the advent of digital delivery, I feel like we are all overrun with cardboard now and the -- the recycling prices for cardboard have gone up and so I would hope that we could do something around cardboard, maybe in partnership with Amazon or with Republic, but it seems like there should be an opportunity specifically there. So, that's something that I would like to see. Cory: Thank you, Council Woman Strader. We will go ahead and get that forwarded to the committee for consideration. Simison: Council, any further questions? Yes. Thanks, Steve. Appreciate you working through the technology issues and getting on today. Cory: Just my fault for trying to use the older system. 17. Community Development: South Meridian Neighborhood Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan Introduction and Presentation by Edinson Bautista of Ada County Highway District Page 15 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. January 26,2021 Page —of 16 Simison: Fair enough. Okay. Next item on the agenda is presentation from Community Development regarding the South Meridian Neighborhood Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan. This would be -- I don't know if we have anybody from Community Development or if we are just going to go directly to Edinson with ACHD. It looks like that will be the case. Bautista: Hi. Good afternoon -- good evening, Mayor Simison. Let me share my screen here very quickly. Can everyone see my screen? Let me expand this. So, good evening --good evening, Mayor Simison and Council. My name is Edinson Bautista, ACHD senior transportation planner. In today's meeting -- in today's presentation I wanted to introduce the South Meridian Neighborhood Bike and Pedestrian Plan and provide a brief overview of the neighborhood plan process. The South Meridian Neighborhood Bike and Pedestrian Plan is a 16 plan on the neighborhood plan process. This graph displays ACHD level completion of the neighborhood plans that have been adopted with the Garden City and North Meridian. The neighborhood plan are the most recent plans adopted on September 23rd, 2020. This graph reflects that once these neighborhood plans are adopted there is an ongoing process of working the neighborhood --the projects identified in each plan. As of now ACHD has completed 287 projects and 145 projects are just currently programmed in the integrated five year work plan. In this slide we -- I wanted to highlight the south Meridian planning area. The light polygon delineates the overall -- overall city limits south of 1-84. The neighbor plans institute the following goals: Identified and map the biking and walking destination as it pertains to the bike -- to the planning area. Through a robust public outreach process identify the need for connectivity, transit, biking and walking facilities to gather a general consensus for community recommendations. Develop a plan that communicates existing conditions and needs, as well as convey proposals, projects to both the public and ACHD. Through analysis, technical review, and public outreach define, prioritize, and rank projects that address the need to identify. Additional -- additionally, we will identify existing gaps in the sidewalk and bicycle network. Throughout this process we aim to brand the neighborhood plan to ensure recognition through the community of these planning efforts and ACHD's continual commitment to bike and pedestrian improvements. Through the standard neighbor plan process public outreach is conducted in two different stages. First through student outreach. We work with students in the planning area to identify any concerns or recommendations they have regarding their route to and from school. And, second, through the public employment meetings where we work with the public to identify the general needs and recommendation for the planning area. In this slide I wanted to present the project schedule. As it has shown that we kicked off the neighborhood plan process back in December and during -- during the spring of 2021 we are planning to conduct the public outreach effort, as well as the project identification process, and during the summer we will conduct the project prioritization and development of the plan. During the fall we plan to -- to present in front of the ACHD commission with the final draft of the neighborhood plan. Throughout the entire process we are planning to visit the City of Meridian City Council at key points throughout the entire project. With this I conclude my presentation and I will stand for any questions. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Page 16 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. January 26,2021 Page —of 16 Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Thank you for presenting. Just one question. South Meridian is developing rapidly. How long do you expect to go -- after a community has a neighborhood plan how long of an interval do you expect before you come back and do another plan? Bautista: So, from the planning process this is an iteration process that as -- as we -- we start identifying the needs we about -- as we conclude this first iteration and we want to evaluate it we will take into account all those elements to determine the next time we will come back and put them in each of the neighborhoods and that way we will tackle those that need to start coming up in each location at that moment. Perreault: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Perreault. Perreault: Thank you very much for being here, Edinson. So, once these -- once the plan is finalized that information is used to start funding changes that are recommended by the plan or can you take us through what the steps are after the plan is finalized and also wondering if this is integrated or affected by the -- I understand now that--that ACHD is going to develop metrics for pedestrians and bicycles as far as like tracking accidents, tracking, you know, number of multimodal users and things like that. Is that correct? And is that integrated or affected by this? I guess help me understand any of those connections if you would. Bautista: Yes. Mr. Mayor and Council, so the -- after adopting the neighborhood plan the process goes -- so, the -- this planning tool it's used -- it can be used by the city -- by the city staff and as well by ACHD to then -- to add those projects into the overall integrated five year work plan process. So, through that-- through that we go through the -- through the normal process and, then, rank to determine which through the -- the time line that goes into those -- into the project list. And, yes, the --ACHD is working to develop what you would consider performance measures for the bicycle and pedestrian network and overall that -- that will go into the integrated private work plan and more than likely influence the neighbor plan process and after it's -- they are -- they are created. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: Yeah, Mr. Mayor. Edinson, I just want to make sure -- you know, we have an extensive pathway system in Meridian and plans for a more extensive pathway system in Meridian, so I would assume you are working with our Parks Department and our pathways coordinator Kim on making sure you are collaborating and integrating those systems together. Can you talk a little bit about that? Page 17 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. January 26,2021 Page 15 of 16 Bautista: Yes. Mr. Mayor and Council, yes, we --we --we took into account the extensive amount of planning that the City of Meridian have done in their-- in their pathway network. The existence and the future of that plan -- that path network and we are planning to implement those elements into the neighborhood plan -- into our neighborhood plan to -- to reflect that uniqueness that has the Meridian -- at the City of Meridian. Hoaglun: Great. Thank you. Simison: Council, any further questions? Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Bautista: Thank you. EXECUTIVE SESSION 18. Per Idaho Code 74-206A(1)(a) To deliberate on a labor contract offer or to formulate a counteroffer. Simison: Council, we have reached Item 18 on our agenda. Do I have a motion? Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: I move that we go into Executive Session per Idaho Code 74-206A(1)(a)81 . Cavener: Second the motion. Simison: I have a motion and a second to adjourn into Executive Session. Is there any discussion? If not, Clerk will call the roll. Roll call: Bernt, yea; Borton, yea; Cavener, yea; Hoaglun, yea; Strader, yea; Perreault, yea. Simison: All ayes and we are adjourned into Executive Session. MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES. EXECUTIVE SESSION: (5:22 p.m. to 5:50 p.m.) Simison: Council, do I have a motion? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Move we come out of Executive Session. Page 18 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. January 26,2021 Page 16 of 16 Hoaglun: Second the motion. 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. MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Do I have a -- Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Move we adjourn our meeting. Hoaglun: Mayor, I second the motion. Simison: Motion and second to adjourn the meeting. All in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. We are adjourned. MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 5:51 P.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) 2 9 2021 MAYOR ROBERT E. SIMISON DATE APPROVED ATTEST: CHRIS JOHNSON - CITY CLERK Page 19