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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-04-20 Work Session Minutes Item#1. Meridian City Council Work Session April 20, 2021. A Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, April 20, 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, Todd Lavoie, Brian McClure, Mark Ford, Joe Bongiorno and Dean Willis. ROLL-CALL ATTENDANCE X Liz Strader X Joe Borton X Brad Hoaglun X Treg Bernt X Jessica Perreault X Luke Cavener X Mayor Robert E. Simison Simison: Council, we will call the meeting to order. For the record it is April 20th, 2021, at 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. Hoaglun: Second the motion. Simison: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it and the agenda is adopted. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] 1. Approve Minutes of the April 6, 2021 City Council Work Session 2. Approve Minutes of the April 6, 2021 City Council Regular Meeting 3. Release of Temporary Sewer and Water Easement for Hensley Station Page 4 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 2 of 24 No. 1 4. Final Order for Daphne Square Subdivision (FP-2021-0007) by Matt Schultz of Schultz Development, Located at 4700 W. McMillan Rd. 5. Final Order for Quartet Southeast (FP-2021-0012) by Brighton Development, Located at 4020 N. Black Cat Rd. 6. Final Order for Southridge No. 5 (FP-2021-0011) by The Land Group, Generally Located South of W. Overland Rd. and West of S. Linder Rd. 7. Acceptance Agreement for the Display of Artwork in the Initial Point Gallery June 2021 8. Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Housing, Public Facility, and Improvements Notice of Intent Recommendations for Program Year 2021 Funding 9. Resolution No. 21-2266: A Resolution to Amend the Future Land Use Map of the 2019 Comprehensive Plan for 11.84 Acres Known as Aviator Subdivision, Generally Located Near the Northeast Corner of N. Black Cat Road and West Franklin Road in the SW '/4 of the SW '/4 of Section 10, Township 3 North, Range 1 West, Meridian, Idaho 10. Resolution No. 21-2267: A Resolution Vacating a 5-Foot-Wide Easement Being a Portion of Lot 7, Block 1 of Scentsy Commons Subdivision, as Same is Shown on the Official Plat Thereof, Recorded in Book 108, Page 15229, Ada County Records, Situated in the Southeast Quarter of Section 8, Township 3 North, Range 1 East, Boise Meridian, City of Meridian, Ada County, Idaho Simison: Next item is Consent Agenda. Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: No changes to the Consent Agenda, so, therefore, I move that we approve the Consent Agenda. For the Mayor to sign and for the Clerk to attest. Hoaglun: Second the motion. Simison: I have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it and the item is agreed to. Page 5 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 3 of 24 MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. ITEMS MOVED FROM THE CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] Simison: There were no items moved from the agenda. DEPARTMENT / COMMISSION REPORTS [Action Item] 11. Finance Department: Annual Report Simison: So, the next up will be Department/Commission Reports. So, I will turn those this over for the Finance Department annual report and to Mr. Lavoie. Lavoie: Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council. Let me go ahead and get the screen shared for you. Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, again, appreciate the opportunity to present to you the Finance Department's annual report. It's crazy, it's been 12 months already since we have done this, but it's been an interesting 12 months to say the least. So, we are going to give you an overview of what we have been working on and what we do for you and the road ahead. Again, I did provide this presentation to you a couple of weeks ago to kind of give you an idea of where we are going. There will be a few slides that I will just jump through, since it's more informational purposes only. But feel free to, please, let me know if you have any questions during the presentation. I just want to make sure that I got the right screen shown -- the screen -- change pages for you. Perfect. Thank you very much. So, the agenda today is we are going to discuss who we are and what we do for the city. Expectations from us. We will talk about some of our successes over the last 12 months and, then, we will kind of touch on where we are going in the future and what we believe we need to work on for the city itself. So, who are we? Again, we -- we hope that you stop by anytime. Come visit us. We think we are a good fun group of people to be with. We are a prideful group. We take a lot of pride in what we do. We believe in being ethical and transparent with all things that we work on. Again, we have an annual audit that tells us if we are doing a good job or bad job -- again -- but these are some of the pictures that we took during the last 12 months. You know, COVID did create some problems with getting together. But we were able to sneak out one day and act as a group and we had a good time, engaging one another at Settlers Park. We felt that the game that we selected kind of fit the theme for 2020. It was a -- it was a tough one. But, again, it was a creative game, so we had a good time at the park and, you know, I think a lot of people are showing, you know, Zoom photos as your, you know, 2020 review, this is our version of it. During our holiday event we weren't able to get together, but we engaged as much as we could. We tried to act as a team. You know, we are a pretty tight family. We like to have a good time. This particular screenshot is a memory from a game called BeanBoozled. Not sure if anybody's played it. We had never played it. But it is -- I'm -- be cautious if you do try this game. It's a Jelly Belly game that has both good flavors and bad flavors and they are colored the same, so you don't know which one you are getting. Just looking at this picture you can see that Sandra, myself, Jenny, Karen -- we didn't do so well on the -- on the beans that we picked. Jaime and Karen -- or Jaimie and Nancy, obviously, picked a good one, they are having a good time laughing Page 6 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 4 of 24 at the fact that we picked a bad bean and we are eating it live. We did this for about ten beans that we also were done, because it got pretty painful, but, again, we try to have a good time, try to keep that spirit going, but that's who we are. We are the Finance Department, Clerk's Department, we have a good time, but we take ourjob very seriously. Just know -- just to let you know and we do, you know, take a lot of pride in what we provide you guys on a daily basis. This is the org chart. The Clerk's Department I don't have listed. Chris will be providing you an annual report for the Clerk's Department in a couple of weeks, so, again, I did show him on this. He will represent the Clerk's Department for us and we can't go on without saying that we do have a retirement coming up. Reta Cunningham. Who are we? She's a big reason who we are. We will talk about -- more about that on April 28th. Hopefully you will be able to attend the event. But, again, can't go on with saying who we are without saying Reta Cunningham is pretty much who we are and you will hear more about that on April 28th. So, following the agenda, you know, what do we do for the city. This slide here kind of provides a general overview of what we provide the city from the Finance Department's perspective. We have the utility billing division. We have the procurement division. We have an accounting division. And we have a budget and finance analytical division. So, this slide kind of explains to you or shows you in a visual perspective what we do. Everything we do we perform at the highest professional level that we can. The interactions that all of our team members engage in on a daily basis are pretty dynamic and just simple at times, but they are usually pretty different. Every customer has a different need and we must be flexible to meet those needs on a daily basis. As I spoke earlier, our goal is to deliver the highest level of customer service to all their customers, which includes you, Council, Mayor, the citizens, our staff and our business partners out there. So, our customer base is pretty vast. The goal of our department is to deliver to you an annual clean audit every single year. I can be proud to say that the city staff members have done that again for you. I think it's our seventh year in a row that we have -- the City of Meridian has successfully delivered to you -- to you Council and citizens a clean audit, which we are very very proud of and we have to be held to the highest level of transparency and accountability. The audit report kind of gives you that answer or that report card and we do act as your internal auditors for the city. So, we are both internal auditors and auditors of all financial statements and transactions. So, again, this is just a -- kind of a general overview of what we do for you and the citizens. We are going to touch bases on why we do things by division. So, why do we --- why do we have the utility billing team. Well, again, we are here to provide our customers all the assistance that they need to answer their questions. We just got approval -- or not we, but COMPASS just approved some numbers last night -- or yesterday of the population numbers. So, might be a little premature announcing this, but I'm going to do it. The number for City of Meridian is 127,890. Yes. That's 127,890. That equates to about 43,000 customers that our utility billing team manages and assist on a daily basis, in conjunction with the enterprise teams, your water, sewer teams over there. Dale represented those. And we also have the relationship with our trash services provider. So, that's what -- that's why we are here. We are here to service our 43,000 customers and work in tandem with water and sewer teams, along with the trash services provider. So, that is why they are there in procurement. Why do we have a procurement team? Keith and Sandra are here to, you know, provide for procurement needs for the 500 and some odd employees that we have here at the city. You know, our goal is to Page 7 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 5 of 24 make sure that we keep everybody out of trouble to make it easy. You know, our goal is to make sure we are following the laws. Keith is helping create the laws and update the laws. So, that is why we are here to make sure we are following procurement laws and making sure we are satisfying the acquisition rules without getting us in trouble and making sure we are as transparent and ethical as possible with all procurement needs. You know, why do we have an accounting division. The clean audit is the ultimate reason. That's why we want to have the accounting division. We are here to provide information, financial guidance, customer service, training, any type of help that you might need. You know, we are always bound by governing bodies with ever changing requirements, so we are constantly educating ourselves, educating our team members, educating our customers. Again, our goal is to deliver a clean audit and manage the city's finances in an ethical and transparent way and make sure that we can represent you as our Council and our citizens in a professional manner. Then, the last division we have on the screen is our budget division. Again, primary goal here is to deliver a balanced budget to our citizens on an annual basis. We have to follow a sound approach when we develop the annual budgets. We need to work with you, along with our fellow directors and staff members, excuse me, to make sure that we share and collect information to our citizens and to make sure we share and collect the information for you, the Council, to make sound and informed decisions on an annual basis. So, those are the -- that's the kind of general overview of what we do for the city. Another aspect of what we do for the city are what we would call professional services. This slide kind of highlights some of the professional projects that our staff has the ability to provide you and our citizens and our customers. We have the ability to deliver internal audit services, efficiency analysis, and, you know, provide all services and accountability and transparency to all of our customers. It is our responsibility to deliver all services and financial information in an ethical and transparent way. Apologize. Excuse me. So, with the professional services, along with our standard services, you know, we provide rate model development, business model analysis, some financial contract auditing and process improvements, our Peak Academy, and, then, financial cost accounting. So, those are some of the professional services that we provide our customers. This is our mission statement that supports the city's vision statement. Our goal is to always deliver a positive experience in all things that we do. Pretty simple and straightforward. That is our ultimate mission and, hopefully, you see that in your interactions with us on a daily basis. Following our agenda -- so, the expectations from us. So, with all the services defined, you know, the Finance Department is committed to providing the financial guidance, the training, the internal audits and high level of customer service to all of our customers. This commitment takes time. You know, we are hoping that you see these changes occurring daily, yearly, monthly, but that is our ultimate goal what we are trying to achieve here. We believe that as we exceed our customer expectations that we will deliver a successful audit to you, the Council, to the Mayor and to all of our customers. We take great pride in having a clean audit. The audit is kind of our report card. We get this every 12 months, which we look forward to every year. We learn from our mistakes and we adapt to the changing compliance rules and our goal is to always make sure that we are fiscally sound and fiscally responsible and the audit is done on an annual basis, it allows us to identify any gaps, any issues, any problems. It provides us guidance and training opportunities. It allows us to continually improve on our internal controls. Our procurement controls, our policy language -- again, with the Page 8 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 6 of 24 annual audit, as we improve all these, the auditor will provide you an audit report that summarizes our abilities, our interactions and, hopefully, does display a clean audit, which this year does it, but, again, that is our expectations. That's what we believe you should expect from us and, again, hopefully, you are seeing that on a daily basis. So, to continue with the agenda. Successes. So, since we have last met we have been working on a few projects. This slide kind of represents what we have been working on. Starting in the top left-hand corner we have our customer services. We have continued our movement to a paperless environment. We have continued to use Peak training to look at all our processes and manage our efficiencies or improve our efficiencies for internal and external customers. We also conducted an overhaul on our website this year. We worked with the IT Department and we updated our internet site to be more mobile friendly and to be based on the data that our consumers were using. So, we used the traffic data that we track on our internet to figure out what our customers were using and we made those particular items the most visible and accessible to our customers. So, we devised -- we developed our website to meet those needs. Again, if you have visited -- if you have gone on to the website normally you will see that it's way more mobile friendly on your phone. That was our ultimate driving factor is we needed to make it so that you can access your information easily on your phone. It still works just fine on a regular PC, but only you saw those improvements. The next topic we will discuss is performance. It kind of goes along with -- Peak -- Peak training or Peak innovation training. We worked on six processes during last fiscal year. The processes went on to save the city-- let's see, how much? Forty-nine thousand dollars a year. So, our first year of really doing process improvement, we saw some improvements or maybe we saw some savings, you know, as we are all learning this Peak approach and I think we will be able to expand to make these larger--or these victories a little bit larger in the future as we all, I guess, understand the concept and buy into the Peak training opportunities. Another thing we worked on from a performance standpoint is how do we manage COVID. You know, we all adapted pretty quickly. We felt that we were able to transition from an in-office to remote environment pretty seamlessly. We had started a paperless movement prior to this, so the COVID-19 management -- I just moved a few of our to do list items up on top and we were able to make those happen and we felt that we were able to deliver a seamless interaction with our customers. We engaged them to see how we did and we made changes on the fly, but that was one of the items we worked on over the past 12 months. Technology is the third section. You provided us some money to acquire a procurement software solution, which is called Bonfire. Since we have created or started that software we have processed 49 bids successfully. We have heard great things from our internal customers and our external customers. Bonfire has turned our procurement process from a bid standpoint completely paperless. We now require zero paper from our outside customers and inside customers. All information is at your fingertips. So, no longer will you need to e-mail somebody to get an Excel file or e-mail and get a Word document. Everything is at everyone's fingertips. It is mobile friendly, so if you are in McCall on your iPad you can get access to your RFP bids, you no longer have to go through a different paper process. So, we are pretty happy about that item. With that innovation or that acquisition that you helped us acquire we were able to analyze the process improvements and we have determined that we have been able to push off hiring any procurement staff for a few more years at least, because we have determined that the software itself has Page 9 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 7 of 24 improved so many processes that we won't need to have an additional body just to have an additional body, even though we are going to be increasing workload demand over the next few years. So, again, we appreciate the software. We think it's going to save us money in the long run, because it allowed us to create process improvements, which think will delay any staffing needs in that particular division. So, appreciate that. Opengov Stories. This is a transparent communication to our external customers. We have upgraded or updated our transparency website using Stories, so that we can now be -- I guess, educate -- help educate the -- our customers a little bit more about what we do for the city from a financial perspective. So, again, we hope that you have the opportunity to check that out. We are happy with the way that turned out. Auto reporting in -- we as a city deliver a clean audit, so we are pretty stoked on that. So, that goes out to all of our staff members that made that happen. Opengov dashboards. We have some opengov training that was sent out that we will be providing in the next few weeks. We have a City Council dashboard that now provides all of your -- I guess KPIs or indicators that you found that are important to you. So, we have now gone completely digital from a -- from a reporting standpoint for you -- you, Council. We used to provide you a 70 page financial report. We now have provided you a dashboard that is accessible on the web. So, hopefully, that is proving to be beneficial for you. So, again, now you have data that's live every single night, as opposed to waiting 30 days for an updated set of financials. So, we think it's way more timely for you. It's trying to get you the data, so you can make informed decisions since you meet weekly and providing you a financial report every 30 days wasn't I think the right data set for you. So, now you have actually financial data that's updated nightly for you. So, this is some of the successes that we have worked on over the last 12 months since we have last met. So, now we will touch on the road ahead. So, again, the agenda here -- again, I think you will see a theme that our goal here is to provide our customers with better tools. Kind of like dashboards. Provide you guys with better tools, so that you can make informed decisions. So, that we can allow our customers to be more effective, more efficient, hopefully. It hopefully allows the staff members to free up time to work on other items and make the financial management easier. That's our goal with our road ahead. It is our responsibility to continue to look at the tools that we provide our customers, to adapt to the ever changing environments. Let's see. A few of the items on this list-- might have some budgetary requests down the road, but our ultimate goal is to do all of these things in house with the skill sets that we have within our own staff. So, again, just looking at customer service. Again, we are going to continue to look at using technology to reach our customers from a paperless standpoint. We are going to try to make the customer interaction more seamless. You know, we are all getting comfortable with, you know, how Amazon works and how everything is pretty quick and at your fingertips. I think our citizens are going to want that from us as a government and we need to figure out how do we meet that new demand or that new lifestyle expectation. So, we are constantly looking at that and utility billing is going to look at process improvements regarding electronic payments, see how we can continue to allow our customers to get -- make payments. That's easily -- that's easy for them, so we don't create a burden for our customers to have to drive to City Hall. Twenty years ago it was a lot easier to drive here. To get from Eagle and McMillan it's a lot more difficult. So, we want to make sure that we don't create a burden to our citizens from a payment standpoint. So, we are cutting -- we will continue to look at making it easier for Page 10 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 8 of 24 them to make payments. Peak, again, process improvements, technology, we are going to be implementing a new budget software solution for you guys next year. It's going to be a big shift. We will provide plenty of training, but you gave us funding last fiscal year. We are still in the implementation side of it, but budget software is coming down the road. We will work with you guys and help you get ready for that. Opengov Stories for nonfinancial data. So, we would like to continue to use opengov to be our portal of data transmission or data transparency to whoever. We are starting to put some nonfinancial data on there. So, we are going to introduce that to Council. Council is the first dashboard that has that-- has the fund balance information, but if you go into your Council dashboard on opengov you will see some new nonfinancial data that we are going to be testing out to see how that's working. Succession plan is a big one for us. We have successfully completed a three year succession plan with the retirement of Reta. We now have to start working on our next group of team members to have a positive succession plan. PBB is an acronym for priority based budgeting. With our -- with the city completing its very first ever priority budgeting process from start to finish, we now need to look at how do we manage to fund all these programs, activities, and services to our citizens. You know, we want to continue to look at a cultural shift, instead of looking at a budget from a department standpoint. We want to look at the city's budget from a holistic standpoint as these are the services that we provide. Executive branch, how do you provide these services. And, then, let us manage that from a budgetary standpoint. It's a cultural shift, but at least it talks about the programs, rather than the departments and the departments still exist, but we are looking at maybe changing -- you know, having a different way of looking at your budget. You know, instead of just departments you look at what we provide our citizens. Timecard. Our timecard is getting pushed to the limits. We need to replace it. So, we will work with HR and IT to identify some new software. We will present a budget request at that time when we find a solution and, then, legislative. Always working at the state, our procurement team is. Keith has been very involved with that and looking at improving our state law, so that we can be more productive and efficient with what we do. So, again, those are the things that we are working on as the road ahead. If you see things that are missing, please, let me know, we are always open to ideas. But these are some of the things that we have on our whiteboard for projects to work on ahead and with that that gets us to the very last slide, which is questions if you have any. So, again, appreciate the time to present to you our annual update and all the success goes to the 17 team members that work on the finance team. They are the ones that make it successful. If it weren't for them we wouldn't have the team that we have. You know, I'm very lucky to work for them and I'm very happy to work for them and I take a lot of pride in what we do. With that I hope that you see that pride coming through in what we do every day. I can tell you that we are pretty proud -- you know, we try to make a positive interaction with everything that we do and with that I stand or sit for any questions. Simison: Thank you, Todd. Council, any questions? Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Page 11 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 9 of 24 Strader: Just a comment. Todd, just kudos to your team. I mean you are a trusted resource I think for all of us, but I have been amazed -- no matter how many questions we ask, no matter how many ways we ask you to slice the data, your team is just really on point and they are just -- I trust them to provide the answers, good, bad, or ugly. I feel like they are really reliable. So, thank you. Lavoie: Appreciate those comments, Liz, and, hopefully, we can keep that relationship between us and all of our customers. We -- you know, we do have a slogan and I do, guess, remind our team members that we want our customers to know that they can count on us in whatever form it is. If it's a question we want that to be the first thing our customers know and that they can count on us. So, I appreciate that, Liz, and we are continuing to work on that and, hopefully, we can continue to improve. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Comment and a question. I echo Council Member Strader's comments, particularly around you and your team's willingness and diligence to encourage more automation, a digital approach to local government. It's pushed me out of my comfort zone. For Council's benefit, one of the things that -- that Todd, when I had the pleasure of being the Finance Department's liaison, is he would say if a citizen had to show up at City Hall he took that as a failure and I really resisted that, but I'm coming around, so I appreciate that. I think that you and your team -- maybe with the exception of the folks in MUBS, they give me a little bit more of a hard time, but everyone else -- top notch. But my question is were there any awards that-- that you received this year? I seem to recall there was an award, but it didn't make it onto the slide and I just want to at least give you an opportunity to -- to weigh in if there was an award that we wanted to highlight. Lavoie: I -- I might be miss -- I might be misrepresenting the award, but I think it was -- the -- the -- the best department of the year award. Is that what it was? Is that what you were referring to? Cavener: You know, I saw something on social media, so I can't recall. I just saw you moving in an animation and it brought me a lot of pleasure and joy, because, Todd, I do think you do a greatjob of leading the department and you do a really greatjob, to Council Member Strader's point, of you and your team supporting us, giving us good feedback and all the information that we need to render our decisions and I really appreciate it. Even the folks in MUBS. Lavoie: Thanks for the good word, Luke. I will let MUBS know there is a little -- a little love there, too. Simison: Council, any additional comments or questions? Okay. Thank you very much, Todd. Appreciate all you do and we will -- we will get on to spending some of your money here in a few minutes if that's okay. But we will -- we will start -- we will move that down. Page 12 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 10 of 24 12. Community Development: Fields Sub Area Plan Update Simison: So, with that, Council, we will move on to Item No. 12, Community Development Fields Sub Area Plan update and ask Mr. McClure to walk us through this next item. McClure: Mask? No mask? Bernt: Take it off, buddy. McClure: Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. This agenda item pertains to the work regarding The Fields Sub Area Plan and which Council prioritized in the 2019 Comprehensive Plan. Our consultants Logan Simpson will be reviewing work to date, including public engagement and, hopefully, we can have a robust conversation on next steps. Bruce Meighen, Megan Moore, and Cameron Gloss are on the call to walk you through this and I will be here to answer your questions or add to our staff perspective. With that--and if there are no immediate questions, I will turn this over to Logan Simpson. Meighen: All right. Well, good afternoon, Mayor and Council Members. It's great to be presenting to you on such an exciting subject and that is sort of taking the next steps of the Comprehensive Plan. So, I want to first sort of commend you on, you know, many -- many people stop short after they do a comprehensive plan. He talked about their vision. I think The Field Sub Area Plan is a -- is a great example of sort of translating your values into reality and what a great place to do it. I know there is some development out there, but you have been blessed with four square miles of -- of land that you can directly influence in partnership with the community, other agencies, and the property owners to create a great place that really compliments your community. Moving forward, just a little bit on -- on today's objectives. We want to make sure that we give you a project overview. We are in the stage of the project where we have been doing public outreach and the -- and the plan is starting to settle. When it starts to settle we want to start talking about implementation, because that is one of the goals of this project is to move it beyond just the Comprehensive Plan, moving beyond just a sub area plan, but actually moving on to the built form, a place where we look left and right we are very proud of what we see. We also want to talk a little bit about this idea of placemaking, that this plan goes beyond the colors that you see on the Comprehensive Plan to the idea of amenities and -- and places that we can walk and feel and enjoy. I want to make sure that we give you an overview of those. And, then, we are going to start talking about setting the stage for a future implementation. That's a discussion that we want to have it then of what--what we would like to do here, not to come to the final answer, but maybe just sort of as we are sort of midway or a little bit past through the project, sort of set that stage for that discussion on -- on how do we move the project forward towards that final flourishing. So, one of the things -- just to set the stage before we get into an overview of the -- of the project is to talk a little bit about the goals of the implementation and that is to make sure that when we look at what we see on these maps that we are really doing everything we can to ensure that it actually turns out that way and that is making sure that we get the right type of housing, commercial, as well as amenities and placemaking to actually happen and that's -- that takes some crafting, it's things that we have done before, so it's not-- it's not Page 13 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 11 of 24 something that's unachievable, it's just making sure that we pull the right levers to help assist the development community to help us do this. The other thing that's important as we think about implementation and as we go through this presentation is this idea of being proactive and we always talk about coming in afterwards or not being ahead of the game or in -- I think -- I remember definitely during the Comprehensive Plan the community wanting us to be ahead of growth, knowing that growth is going to come, but definitely being head of it and planning for the right type of growth and I think a plan like this can demonstrate that as well. We will talk a little bit also where I want you to think about this idea of-- a lot of the stuff that we will be presenting we need to do anyways. This idea of provision of parks and greenways is very important, but by being proactive we can concentrate them in the right place and make sure they happen at the right time to ensure we get the right type of commercial and housing happening in this critical area. Lastly, by doing it early we can also make sure that we can actually achieve this goal. Right now the land is being absorbed very quickly, so by being proactive we can make sure that the land is still vacant when we take some of these actions, that the cost to the city and our community and our developers is less and in addition, any funding mechanisms that we put in place we can make sure that we capture the incremental value of the land as it goes up over time. So, by doing it earlier we can really get funding sources that are more effective and -- and really help move this project along. So, those are just things to think about. We will jump into the software presentation right now. So, we can move forward here. So, just -- not to remind you about the vision, but the reason it's up here is The Fields Sub Area Plan is a direct translation -- translation of the vision into physical form. So, this idea of having a premier community -- and that is a community that has some of the greatest amenities and that's what Meridian is known for as one of the top communities in the nation. This is an opportunity to re-demonstrate those values, including those level of service levels. It's also about an evolving community and that's making sure that we are adapting our different forms to the various trends that people desire, but also being extremely proactive. Livable community, idea of creating places that are -- that are family friendly, to a vibrant community where we have a core center where people can engage, but a center that represents the latest in terms of how centers are being developed. And, lastly, a connected community, really thinking of not only transportation, but how to be more connected, but also thinking about trails, greenways, and other connections within The Fields Sub Area, but also to our adjacent communities, really capitalizing on the Treasure Valley. Just a reminder of the sub area itself. You can't -- can't ask for -- a planner can't ask for anything better. It's a complete square, but it's a -- from Ustick up to Chinden. Northern border is Star, but this area is exactly four square miles. The concept again is this concentration of a great center and amenities right in the heart of this new community that we see here. We can move on to the second -- you know, we talked about implementation and, you know, it would be wrong to say that you haven't started it, because you have already said some of the key things going that makes this area highly desirable for both what you see in the Comprehensive Plan, but also what you see in the sub area plan. The idea of both capital programs that sort of direct -- provide some direction for a new sewer lift station makes development in this area a lot more feasible. So, it sort of opens the floodgates a little bit, but also sort of quiet quality of life amenities by already pre-setting and having a high school centered in a great location to make this sub area happen, to some of the key buffers that are needed to Page 14 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 12 of 24 make our community safe, to planning for some of the road expansions that are already pre-planned for this area and, then, lastly, the idea of Highway 16 being a long-term amenity on our border that's, again, going to put additional pressure for this area. A little bit of a framework. You know, you will see things that are hand drawn. They are hand drawn for a reason. As we work with the public we want to tell people that these areas, though, they are directly reflective of what you have approved in the Comprehensive Plan, they do take the next level. They give us a sense of the building program, the types of housing, as well as the types of commercial amenities we might see. And in addition it talks about the amenities, how it might feel to move around, what type of an amenity in terms of parks, trails we might--we might see. In addition it starts to speak to connectivity. Not to mention the word traffic, but that's always a concern, an idea that this could be an extremely livable area, but an even more connected area than even other places that you see within the City of Meridian. So, this -- this project began in -- in fall of 2020. 1 commend you again for-- for like most communities you -- you saw COVID and you kept moving forward. Development didn't stop. You're -- you are still even more desirable in terms of a place for people to live than you were before. So, the fact that you just kept on moving and business as usual for the most part was discreet on your part. So, how we reacted to COVID was it allowed us for more personal interaction and targeted outreach with various stakeholders. So, that would include one-on-one conversations, but it included heavy involvement from both -- a lot of our agencies and that includes, you know, just to -- to plug one is talking to, you know, both Ada county and as well as the folks that address our large roads. People are very interested in what happens in this area as a model for other communities that are adjacent in terms of how to do development right. We also, then, moved forward with the creation of some initial concept based on that feedback and we had digital workshops, sometimes imperfect in some ways, because it is digital, but they were very very -- for some they were very exciting, because they provided direct access right from their home to doing land planning and that's always a fun thing to do from the comfort of your living room. And, then, as we move forward we will again reach out to the public and after we hear from you about the final plan, but we won't start developing that final plan until we gain some additional feedback. Planning to wrap up by spring of 2021. Moore: So, as part of that outreach really three key areas have really come into focus for assets and amenities. The first one really being that area of focus identified early on in the process, which is that center at Star and McMillan. The second being kind of this greenway space just south of that area that connects kind of the platted neighborhoods on the east side, with the third thing, which is kind of the regional city park on the west side of Star. So, these three pieces together really form the opportunity for city involvement in partnership as we get into implementation. So, you will see these three things come back when Bruce speaks again. In regards to these amenities, really looking at the center, there is a couple things in regard to the center that makes it a little bit different than anything else that you currently have within the city. So, really taking a look at the orientation of the buildings, you know, with the anchor commercial kind of set right up against Star and the corner of McMillan, kind of creating a streetscape of building -- building frontage along McMillan and, then, key here is the opportunity to both integrate the greenway system that I mentioned in the last slide with kind of the central park system Page 15 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 13 of 24 that comes up north and intersects kind of with this small scale community focused main street. You also have the ability to blend that main street and blend some of those mixed uses into residential, which is the orange building south along the pathway system and, then, further to the east. So, you have got that vitality that we talked about early on in the vision. You have got that livable. You have got those family friendly assets. The greenway and pathway itself-- so, there is already planned connections to your Five Mile Creek pathway system further east and even past McDermott into the rest of the city. So, what a huge opportunity here to be able to continue that south of this commercial and mixed use center and, then, across Star into this park system that's to the west. But in addition to that, you also have the ability to really focus these neighborhoods on both sides of this greenway, again, kind of creating that vibrant atmosphere, giving these neighborhoods an asset that's maybe not found in other areas of the city and can be something special. In addition to the pathway system itself you have got the opportunity to include open space, picnic areas, and in addition kind of the connection up here to that center itself. Through coordination with Nampa-Meridian Irrigation District, we have already talked about the ability to provide a pathway on the north side, much like you have in the rest of the city and, then, improvements on the south side would be outside of those easements. And, then, last, the city park area. This allows the city to be able to maintain and even fulfill level of service standards currently in place. This is an area of the city that's relatively underserved, mostly because development really isn't out there right now, but offers a key opportunity to get ahead of development prior it to coming in and be able to provide an amenity ahead of those neighborhoods being developed. Again this is an opportunity in regards to the irrigation facilities out there. You have got the Five Mile Creek system and that pathway system we just talked about coming in across the middle of the park site here, as well as the Phyllis Canal system extends further north into Star and, then, northeast in Eagle and even south in the surrounding community in Nampa. So, you have really got the opportunity here -- that's kind of the key of a bunch of irrigation districts providing access to a large regional trail network. The other reason for the location of the park in this -- in this location is really to serve as a buffer to this industrial area. The Intermountain Gas facility here to the west and you have got really great access off Star and with a new collector road to provide access to the -- the park, knowing it would be a high traffic volume creator. Meighen: So, we are working to our--to our discussion item here is we thought we would tease things up with just some thoughts about implementation. So, really, the first step here -- not to decide on anything, but just to -- to open up a discussion for one of many paths to go forward and we will talk a little bit about how we would -- how you might see this area unveiling if you were to follow just a limited level of -- sort of implementation actions to something a little bit more targeted to -- to maybe something that's even a little bit more proactive to help see the vision through. So, I will run you through each one of these, again,just--just because it's on a PowerPoint doesn't mean we are recommending it, it's really for just opening up the conversation. But we talked a little bit about, you know, that idea of the center and the center is located not on the interchange. We have commercial -- standard commercial or -- or traditional commercial located towards Highway 16, but the idea of having a truly walkable great center for all the community to go to -- another destination within Meridian is what we are talking about. So, the idea is Page 16 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 14 of 24 -- is -- is maybe just very limited and incentives to help encourage this center to happen. You know, I think the residential will happen on its own, probably ready to go, you know, as we talk, but the actual commercial center providing a little bit of help, but, then, also making sure that we do assist with design and character standards for what's near there, the greenway and the pathway and park that Megan talked about, making sure that it develops into -- one that regional park is something special, it does catalyze the area and brings the community together, but also that that Five Mile Creek greenway is something that serves both the residential areas to the south, but also is something of an urban amenity greenway that serves the center. So, providing those standards of what that greenway looks and feels like would be at least a good first step. We go on to sort of what could be next, you know, sort of--we would do those things. Same -- same actions, but we go a little -- a little bit further and that is looking at working on that Five Mile Creek and actually being -- using that to meet some of our level of service standards, but also, you know, something that the city has done before is construction or supported trails. It's actively building and constructing land and acquiring the right of way for that trail itself. That showing the development community that we -- we are serious about this being a great center for Meridian and, then, sort of moving on from there is a next level is, again, something that we need to do anyways to meet our level of service is concentrating -- is doing those first two things, but also concentrating our efforts in terms of our parks right towards the -- the center of this area in that regional park and doing it early and that includes design and construction of a new regional park, something to catalyze the heart of this -- of this area of Meridian and meet our standards. It also creates -- I wouldn't say a bargaining chip, but it creates an offset as developers come in. This could be something that they need to contribute to or at least something that could be waived in some ways -- in some ways to meet their parks and rec standards that they have to provide anyways. So, there is some bargaining chips there. Lastly is -- is not to forget all the other implementation methods that are out there by clearly partnerships and we talked a little bit about open space and fee waivers, especially in light of that larger park. There is the ability to offer some professional density bonuses for -- for -- for that center. Code updates. There could be some adjustments directly related to this area. And I want to focus a little bit on this -- the concept of an improvement district. That is something that could be in place -- put in place earlier and that's something that's used in Idaho and by putting it in early you are essentially capturing the incremental value as that land goes up and if you think about that as well, you know, you are investing in a lift station. Also our partners are investing in a large amount of road improvements going through this area, all those arterials, and, then, eventually, a new highway and that's something that's going to really force land values up in the future and, then, as well as people develop this nice center that will also go up as well. Capturing that incremental value allows us to put those dollars back into this area to help pay for-- help pay for implementation. So, on that note it's a -- it's a tough subject for later in the day, but we thought we would have this discussion with you earlier, rather than later. So, I will turn it over -- back over to Brian. McClure: Mayor and Council, we would like to discuss some of the ideas, get your initial thoughts and concerns and, then, if needed follow up with an initial workshop discussion. Before you submit for a final draft document for public hearing we want you to be comfortable with this. We don't want you to be blindsided by anything and so we just are Page 17 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 15 of 24 looking for some of that feedback now or at an additional meeting. To stress, we are not asking for you to make a decision today and even when we submit the final document there will be some flexibility. Keep in mind that this is still a high level plan and details have to be considered with opportunities and as things shake out. With that here are a few discussion suggestions. What are some your initial reactions to doing things a little differently out here? Is the city willing to explore and expand tools to ensure this area of the community doesn't have to get on a freeway or near an interchange to access neighborhood, goods and services and without any dedicated funds or land for improvements is there any latitude to explore the funding sources to ensure that the area has a park and to maintain -- maintain or improve service goals. With that I would love to have a discussion with you all. Simison: Thank you, Brian. Council, any questions for staff or the consultants? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Maybe to get help -- to get some things going, either a question for Brian or for Bruce. Would you mind kind of just giving us a summary about what some of the feedback came from the stakeholder group. I know it -- it formed a lot of the recommendation that you shared with us, but we didn't spend a whole lot of time kind of giving us what that feedback was from -- from that group. Meighen: I'm actually -- I'm actually going to refer to -- to Megan on that one, since she sat on all of them. I sat on some of them. Megan, do you want to jump in and talk a little bit about-- make sure we are completely transparent, both the good things and, then, any controversy that was out there. I'm sure the Mayor would appreciate that. Moore: Sure. Of course. So, early on in the process, you know, we really kind of focused on the center and its surroundings with some of the stakeholders and asked folks, you know, some of the key big ideas that they saw in this area. A lot of folks talked about other case studies. I know Bown Crossing was mentioned quite often as something to look at for this area and so, hopefully, you see some of those similarities with kind of that central street through that town center, but also was the opportunity here to really be able to integrate the neighborhoods with the center itself a little bit better than maybe -- I shouldn't say better than has been done in the rest of the city, but a little bit differently, maybe, to be able to expand that central street within the center, expand that into some of the medium to high density residential to the east and, then, utilize that linear green space, you know, really to create a focal point for both the center itself and the neighborhoods, be able to create connections across it and really form kind of this -- this really central core to that four mile square area, because it is a little bit separated from the rest of the city. So, a lot of the focus early on was also talking about some of the character, some of the historic and even architectural character that we really didn't get into tonight, but anticipate having some imagery to focus on that within the plan itself. A lot of folks have mentioned kind of the history of the -- the agricultural area, so building Page 18 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 16 of 24 on that as part of the architectural character to create, you know, some kind of focal point within that center, like a -- like a barn building or barn roofline is probably a better way to put it out here and, then, building on that aspect as some of those elements along the greenway. So, the open space, et cetera, the benches, et cetera. In regards to funding options early on, we did talk to some, you know, developers -- folks in the financing industry for development, et cetera. Realtors. And CID -- even LIDs, local improvement districts, were also brought up, but CIDs were brought up quite often, as well as just kind of the partnerships between city and development as it comes in, be able to work together, both understanding kind of the vision for the area as well. I could go on and on and on, but I should stop and ask is there anything else specific that you wanted to -- wanted me to talk about within the public outreach process? Cavener: Mr. Mayor, if I may. Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: I think that's helpful. Thanks. No, Megan, I think that's helpful. You know, some of the feedback that I had heard from stakeholders, participants, really touched on two things. One, the desire to celebrate Meridian's agricultural heritage, which you touched on, and some thoughts about the CID. So, I appreciate that you kind of summarized that. I appreciate that. I don't have any further questions at this time, Mr. Mayor. McClure: Mr. Mayor, I would just maybe add in -- and this will come as no surprise, but repeatedly -- and I think from everyone I talked to -- pathways and conductivity was important. Just like the rest of the city. Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: On paper I have always liked the idea of having this type of community and sub community at The Fields District. I just think it -- it's just -- I think it's a great idea and I think that it was a focal point during the Comprehensive Plan discussions. I believe we owe it to our citizens to stick to it. I think one important part of this -- to make this successful is for sure getting, you know, those who own property out there, landowners, future developers, let them understand that this is what we are planning on and I believe that we are doing that. I think that those -- that own property or who have purchased property or who are looking at purchasing property in this area, I just don't want any surprises personally. I just want them to have buy-in and make this as a really cool area, inner community where people can -- can congregate, can -- can experience community in a way that really isn't part of--we haven't done before in the City of Meridian. One last thing. I like the -- the dairy aspect of it. You know, I like the -- the farm aspect of it and, you know, our friends to the east just opened a park recently that I love and they did a fantastic job with it. Don't necessarily think that we need to be copycats per se, but maybe sit down and talk with them and -- and look at what they have done and incorporate that, Page 19 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 17 of 24 because that has Meridian written all over it if you ask me, in my opinion. Cavener: We could do it better for sure. Bernt: Luke said it, not me. And so I think that's a -- that could be a really cool thing. I know we are not talking about design here and that's not the focus of what our discussion is, but that could be a really cool idea for that park somehow, some way. Simison: Council Woman Perreault. Perreault: Mr. Mayor? Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Perreault. Perreault: I do have some questions about the plan, just higher level questions. First I -- I want to just make a comment that I actually would love to see a little bit more of the neighborhood services on some of the corners there, just -- you know, that -- that is an area where it's -- it's likely going to remain a little more rural. I don't know what the plan is on the north side of Chinden. I assume that is just in the county right now and not sure exactly how Star will develop southward and so just would like to actually see a little bit more -- you know, if this is going to be its own concept, I want to see a little independence to it of the surrounding area and so I would -- I would recommend just a little bit more on that neighborhood services focus and, then, also curious about the -- the medium density residential all the way up to Chinden and on Chinden. So, I know that's part of our comp plan, but that being such a major thoroughfare, it seems to me like you would have a more intense use along that section between Star Road and Can Ada and then -- yeah. And if you have any information for us about -- I mean we didn't see on the renderings what uses are -- are already expected on the east -- or, excuse me, on the west and on the north. So, I -- I'm curious what that looks like big picture and how much that was taken into account as the -- the decisions were made. So, I was the community development liaison last year and we worked on this just a little bit. COVID kind of affected the process for us and it does look a little different than I last saw it, but if you could share some thoughts on how this is going to integrate with the plans Canyon county and Ada county, that would be helpful. McClure: Mr. Mayor, Council -- Council Woman Perreault, most of the land uses were -- we did quite a bit more analysis on this area during the Comprehensive Plan process and, I apologize, I don't have anywhere to look at, so -- eyes are meandering for you. Part of that included looking at balance of land uses and that included our neighbors. What you don't see in our map is considerable amount of-- your traditional, for lack of a better word, stripped out -- what will be stripped out commercial retail services along those major corridors and we are not competing with that. The idea with this originally at least was to provide a number -- the number of rooftops needed in this area to support the -- the commercial center at the core, which, again, is not to compete with those other land uses in adjacent cities. So, like Star, Nampa to the west, Nampa to the south and, then, largely scooting everything to the east of State Highway 16. But that's why you see those land Page 20 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 18 of 24 uses there. They -- they represent a balance, the number of rooftops needed, jobs needed -- not just here, but citywide. Certainly if your direction -- or request is to look at that again we can, but that analysis had been done previously and we were really focusing on how do we implement that vision as part of this work here today. Perreault: Mr. Mayor, follow up if I may. Simison: Council Woman Perreault. Perreault: Thank you. Thank you, Brian. I know the intention, of course, is not to -- to do -- to compete. What I just want to make sure is that we have the appropriate balance for this area and we are not looking at it as an island and independent of what's happening with the neighboring areas and they probably won't develop as quickly potentially as this area might. So, we may not know. But we can make our-- our best, you know, guess as to what might happen. But would you also mind answering the question about having the MDR up along the -- along Chinden? McClure: Mr. Mayor, Council Woman Perreault, yeah, so that -- again, that was there in terms of just number of rooftops and balancing those rooftops. We are certainly cognizant of the land uses in adjacent areas and what they have proposed. This is a little different. We are trying to do something that works here and sustains the area without, for example, more than necessary burdening the transportation network with trips they can't handle. We don't have a major employment center near here currently and we don't want to put a lot of trips further away from those. So, the rooftops you do see here are intended to support the area without more burden than necessary. So, if we kicked up the rooftops, for example, in MDR to medium high density residential or added high density residential, we would be taking away from the core and we would be adding more trips than we had intended to do. So, certainly we can take your -- take direction to look at that again, but this was all gone through with a pretty-- pretty good fine tooth comb as part of the citywide analysis with the comp plan. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor? Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor, Brian, just wanted to find out where -- where you are and maybe it hasn't even started, but on the staff -- staff interaction with Nampa and Star with folks about what their plans --future plans are for that area. I mean this could be an island out there if they put in industrial or -- or some other uses that, you know, might seem a little incompatible, but I mean we want this to be a special place, but has that started in just a discussion level to kind of find out what -- what they are thinking? McClure: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Hoaglun, yes, we have talked with them -- we talked with them as part of the Comprehensive Plan. Had a little bit better dialogue I would say Page 21 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 19 of 24 at that point. We had COMPASS and some others more regularly at some of those meetings. This plan we have talked with them several times. They have lost some of the institutional knowledge from that process, which has been a little difficult for us, but they have and are planning for this area to be developed on all sides. So, Nampa has mixed use and commercial uses on the west and south. Logan Simpson is actually working with the city of Star on some planning activities north of Chinden in their area of city impact. This area is going to develop entirely. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor, follow up? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: And I just think just in terms of a comment, if -- if Highway 16 gets built in a reasonable amount of time -- and that's a big if, in my opinion, but I really do think that's going to become a great divide and so to make this -- that thumb that sticks out there a special area and a community within a community I think is a great idea and if we do it well and it will be a wonderful area. So, I just think that road will serve just like the freeway does north and south Meridian, it makes some difficulties in transitioning from one to the other area and if we can make that kind of a self-contained four square mile area, I think that would be a good thing. But being compatible with the other areas, having the other communities involved is going to be part of the equation as well. Simison: Council Woman Strader, if I can just follow up on that, then, I'm happy to recognize you. It's -- and that's my real comments. I actually made these comments when I sat on this comp plan steering committee. We talk about making this area special, we --we --and we talk about thoughts of Bown Crossing and, then, we have major arterial roadways that bisect this area. I hope that we are taking a vastly different approach in working with ACHD about what we like to see in the roads in this area. I'm -- you know, right now McMillan does not go any further than Can Ada. I don't know how it's designed to be implemented on the other side of that, but it really allows you to stop that road even to a certain extent from being a collector right there at Star Road or moving Star Road -- you know, realign it further towards the industrial park to go around, so where we do create some of those areas around the community center. I'm just always concerned when you start putting a gathering place at the crossroads of our arterial roadways, that it does not adequately protect and, yes, we could go down to leave them at two or three lanes, it's not impossible, but at least looking at the transportation network, because it does have its own specific advancements with both Highway 16 and Chinden in that area, but how it doesn't connect on the other side -- I think we can afford to look at roads differently in this area, depending upon that. So, just encourage you to make sure that that's part of the conversation as we look at this. Council Woman Strader. Strader: Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I guess I would just say I am supportive of the concept. I remain supportive. I think it's really important for us to plan this area proactively and I'm a fan of trying to master plan anything that we can and I think that's a good approach. My questions and comments -- really it's three things I would love for us to -- I know we have done the Comprehensive Plan. I would love for us to challenge ourselves Page 22 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 20 of 24 and ask the question if there was an employment center here what would it be, what would it look like. Could it be like agritech businesses? Could it be something else that could -- is there a place along Chinden that that could go. We are trying to minimize trips across the city, so maybe we have done that already and the answer is no, but I would love for us to try to look at that. Concerned also about Highway 16 and is there a way to make sure that the Five Mile pathway connection and our other connections are possible to continue despite the future Highway 16 plans? Hope we are getting our arms around that. And, then, just a question in general. Some of the comments I guess from the consulting work made me think that the mini main street comment might not be self sustaining and I just wanted to tease that out a little bit. Do you think there is enough demographics here that it supports the mini main street? Are you saying, just being really direct, the city somehow has to subsidize that to make it happen? I just wanted to understand some of those comments. McClure: Mr. Mayor -- Meighen: Yeah. I'm happy to jump in there, Brian, if you would like me to. McClure: Go for it, Bruce. Meighen: Yeah. No, we just wanted to -- you know, in today's -- in today's environment, especially as a point of sale and the move to digital -- you know, digital buying, we are all doing it and there is packages arriving at our house, you know, weekly and so on. People are seeking out, though, still the ability to have a sense of place, places that have retail combined with entertainment. To do that, though, the retail world has changed and so what you are seeing here and you are also seeing it in other communities, is the downscaling of retail. So, the places are getting smaller, but it's more focused on vibrancy. The other part of that equation is making sure you have enough roof -- rooftops and in this case this plan is balanced to the commercial that you see here with that high density especially being in there. That does not even include through traffic on these busy roads and people stopping. But the idea is let's create a self-sustaining community, so it's vibrant all the time, 24/7, plus others can come and visit it and spend their -- their dollars and -- and leave and -- and, then, the last thing I will mention -- and that gets to the point of will this just happen. Well, the inertia -- you know, not to speak bad about developers, but developers will tell you this as well. It's easier to build a certain product type at the intersection of two large roads and not build it exactly here and so this is creating something that, you know, again, people pointed out at the heart of the community, not at the heart of the future conception and that does make it special and different than what you see in other places. In order to ensure that it happens and we don't follow inertia, which is status quo development, the idea is to help pre-position some of the stuff that you might have already done, but do it earlier while land prices are cheaper and pre- position them in a location that helps the development community know that we are very serious about being predictable in this area, but also that -- that it helps them make the right choices, that there is a central park right here, there is an investment in the greenway that connects other communities. There is the Phyllis Canal greenway connecting up to the Star -- Star's development. That development right here makes sense. So, maybe Page 23 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 21 of 24 stuff that you might have done at a later date, concentrate efforts now and that is just one implementation idea. But it's a -- sort of an earlier win and a half less costly win over the long run. McClure: Mr. Mayor? Council Woman Strader, since you were poignant I will just likewise -- we definitely don't want to subsidize development. The conversation -- trying to characterize here is focusing city improvements that we would be doing ideally that we do all over the place, but focusing in this area where we want them and making sure that we are supporting the things we want and not wasting those opportunities by waiting too long. The other element there would be exploring other opportunities for funding, land value tax, bonding techniques, different partnerships with --with characteristics, whatever that may be that we don't already do to improve what we would normally do, because this area is special and because it is isolated. So, there is sort of two elements there, but am glad you brought that up, because it is important. Are we interested in exploring other techniques for funding and partnerships that we don't necessarily do elsewhere in the city to make this happen right. But being clear this is not subsidizing development. Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: That's a great question and I don't know if you are getting -- that's a complicated question that -- I, for sure, don't have -- understand all of the funding mechanisms that you talk about, so I would be certainly open to learn more about that and to see what that looks like, but having that further discussion tonight probably maybe a hair early, in my opinion. McClure: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Bernt, what would be -- understanding that this plan -- we don't want this plan to just be a shelf document and we want the implementation to have value and to get us to where we want to go and understanding this is sort of a high level plan still and we don't know what the partnership opportunities are there, what -- what can we provide to you that would help you to feel better about whether we should go that direction or not? Bernt: For me I don't know exactly -- I mean I have heard of-- what was the -- the CIDs, I have heard of those, and LIDs. I don't know the complexity of how those work, to be completely honest with you. I know the general way, but I would like to know in depth, you know. I think we all know how bonding works and all that type of stuff works, but I just don't know personally. Simison: Council, that--that was going to be my recommendation to this group, that, you know, as--they are not looking for a full yes or no, but to come back and have a workshop presentation on CID and LIDs, at least from just understand that concept, what it could mean prior to further direction on -- and next steps for this area's consideration. I want to make sure all Council at least has -- Councilman Borton, I don't know if you had any comments you would like to make. Otherwise, I will get to what that time frame looks like, Page 24 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 22 of 24 so we can figure out what this feels like. Councilman Borton, any comments or questions? Borton: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. No, that's -- that dovetails into that next conversation. If you are asking for what tools in the toolbox we may be open to considering, the CID is certainly one. The question would have been among the list of elements in this plan, which, if not all, are eligible for participation in that type of funding and, again, that can be answered in the next session that the Mayor is describing, perhaps, on the CID 101. You know, it's a participatory process with the landowners, so some of the open space pathway seemed more disconnected than the lift station type infrastructure investments. So, I would -- probably don't need to delve into it now, but that would be something certainly would help us provide more clear direction if we are comfortable exploring some of those tools, knowing what components can be assisted with it and what can't. Bernt: Right. And Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: And maybe how the park fits in with all of that, because, you know, that's certainly a paramount part of what this whole thing looks like. I mean to be honest with you and -- and is that something that we need to look at now before it gets too expensive or do we wait -- I have no idea. But those -- that's -- we need to talk about as well. McClure: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Bernt, to be the sacrificial planner, absolutely we need -- we need to look at that park out there. We don't have one -- you look at Ten Mile, we don't have a school, we don't have a park, it's the highest densities we have in the city going on right now. They have some open space, but there is nowhere to play soccer, there is nowhere to play baseball, there is nowhere to do any of that sort of stuff. It's not disconnected, though. They have easier access there to the city. They have other services. This area doesn't have that. I think a park is crucial. I think parks is interested in having a park out here, but they don't have any funding. They have other priorities and other needs. We have prioritized other services out here, but not that and if we can find a way to option, hold on to, purchase, come up with a deal, get a donation, whatever that may be, but identifying where that goes is pretty important to me. Simison: So, here would be my recommendation to Council is that we try to bring back a CID, LID 101 to Council in the next -- up to two weeks, look at what makes sense and, then, we can follow that conversation a week or two later with any additional feedback on this before it would move forward. Does that work from a time frame, Brian? So, about a month'ish or are you looking to try to move something forward quicker? Is there a time element at this point that we are concerned about? McClure: Mr. Mayor, time has not been favorable for us with this project so far and that's -- that's partly on us, but I think two weeks to a month is fine, if I heard you correct. We do have the -- Leland did some work with Logan Simpson as part of this project and they have a white paper of sorts that outlines a number of tools and we can certainly discuss some of the preferred methods and find out whether you are interested in that or not. Page 25 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 23 of 24 Simison: Councilman Cavener, it looks like you were wanting to say something. Cavener: Yeah. Mr. Mayor, just I guess maybe a couple of other pieces along that is to the best of staffs ability to bring us kind of what anticipated costs are. I mean back of the napkin math, you know. It's hard to say general fund versus CID when I don't know if we are talking about a dollar or a hundred million bucks. I'm sure it's somewhere in between. So, give us -- give us a sense about what we are thinking costwise. And, then, potentially think for that conversation at the -- at the month point is if you could bring us, Brian, just some -- with the land uses of the municipalities that kind of touch us in this area, so we can get a better insight on that particular piece and, then, the other piece, Mr. Mayor, think a suggestion is maybe a conversation for Council and the Parks Department about park priorities. I know we have got, you know, Aldape Park that's kind of out in this area that's planned. With what we are talking about is that still the priority of the Council? Does something here in this neck of the woods that's kind of master planned, does that move up on the priority? I think -- I think it's important for the Parks Department to -- to hear from Council on that as well. So, again, maybe here is what's planned, here is what's forecasted, so that the Council can at least understand what the roadmap is from the Parks Department's perspective. McClure: Okay. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: I just -- I think I would love to see what a fully loaded number three enhanced participation looks like and, then, it's easier to take things out of it. If you -- if you show us like really going for it, then, we can tell you like, whoa, you have gone too far, your back of the envelope on that is too far. That's just my two cents. But I think number three I feel like there is a lot of openness I'm hearing to number three. I'm open to number three. But I think -- like show us what that looks like, what the timetable milestones and tools are. We can read the white papers; right? But what does that look like? If you can look at the employment center thing, if that's just not viable that's okay, but that -- really from my perspective if we had some employment center, even if it was limited, that would help me feel a little bit better about -- about it. Thank you. Simison: Okay. Thank you very much, Bruce, Megan, Brian. We will see this coming back for further conversation. Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Meighen: Thank you very much. It has been a great conversation and great -- great -- great area. Congrats on -- on having this part of the city, so -- 13. Mayor's Office: Fiscal Year 2021 Budget Amendment in the Amount of $2.5 Million for the Design and Construction of the Linder Road Page 26 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. April 20,2021 Page 24 of 24 Overpass Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: I move that we strike number 13 from tonight's workshop agenda. We actually have that listed at our 6:00 o'clock meeting and so we will get to it, just not at this -- at the -- during this meeting. Simison: Do I have a second to that motion? Hoaglun: Second the motion. Simison: I have a motion and a second to remove Item 13 from the agenda. Is there discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it and the item is removed. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: I move that we adjourn the meeting. Hoaglun: Second the motion. Simison: I have a motion and a second to adjourn the meeting. All in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it and the meeting is adjourned. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 5:55 P.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) 5 / 4 / 2021 MAYOR ROBERT E. SIMISON DATE APPROVED ATTEST: CHRIS JOHNSON - CITY CLERK Page 27