HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-09-21 Work Session Minutes Item#3.
Meridian City Council Work Session September 21, 2021.
A Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 4:30 p.m., Tuesday,
September 21 , 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, Dave Miles, Brian McClure, Kris Blume, Shawn
Harper, 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 the meeting to order. For the record it is Tuesday, September
21 st, at 4:30 p.m. We will begin today's City Council work session with roll call
attendance.
ADOPTION OF AGENDA
Simison: Next is the adoption of the agenda.
Bernt: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Councilman Bernt.
Bernt: Since last week I have been really anxious to make this next motion to adopt the
agenda as published, with the one amendment of adding Executive Session 74-206(1)(a)
to the -- to the Executive Session at the end of this meeting.
Hoaglun: Second the motion.
Simison: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda with including the Executive
Session. 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: ALLAYES.
CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item]
1. Approve Minutes of the September 7, 2021 City Council Work Session
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2. Approve Minutes of the September 7, 2021 City Council Regular
Meeting
3. Fallon Greens Subdivision Water Main Easement No. 1
4. Hensley Station No. 2 Sanitary Sewer Easement No. 2
5. Northpoint Recovery Center Water Main Easement
6. Sulamita Church Pedestrian Pathway Easement
7. Sulamita Evangelical Church Sanitary Sewer and Water Main
Easement No. 1
8. Full Release of Water Main Easement for South Rackham Way
9. Final Order for Apex Southeast No. 3 (FP-2021-0042) by Brighton
Development, Inc., Generally Located on the East Side of S. Locust
Grove Rd., '/4 Mile South of E. Lake Hazel Rd.
10. Final Order for Lavender Heights No. 3 (FP-2021-0041) by LH
Development, LLC, Located Approximately '/4 Mile East of S. Locust
Grove Rd. on the North Side of E. Lake Hazel Rd.
11. Final Order for TM Crossing No. 5 (FP-2021-0045) by Brighton
Development, Inc., Located at the Southeast Corner of S. Ten Mile Rd.
and S. Vanguard Way
12. Approval of Construction Contract for Digester 6 to JC Constructors
for the Not-To-Exceed amount of $8,732,000.00 and Authorize the
Procurement Manager to Sign the Contract and Resulting Purchase
Order
13. First Amendment to Subrecipient Agreement Between the City of
Meridian and NeighborWorks Boise for Program Year 2020 Community
Development Block Grant Funds for Homeowner Repair Program
14. Second Amendment to Subrecipient Agreement Between the City of
Meridian and NeighborWorks Boise for CARES Act Community
Development Block Grant Funds for Mortgage Assistance Program
15. Professional Services Agreement Between City of Meridian and
Mariachi Sol de Acapulco, Oinkari Dancers, and Malinda DeBry for
Musical Talent for Concerts on Broadway Performance on September
25, 2021
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16. Termination and Release of Impact Fee Deferral Agreement Between
City of Meridian and Ada County Highway District From 2020 Due to
Cancellation of Project
17. Resolution No. 21-2283-A: An Amended Resolution of the Mayor and
City Council of the City of Meridian to Amend the Future Land Use Map
of the 2019 Comprehensive Plan for 80.7 Acres of Land Known as
Wastewater Resource Recovery Facility, Generally Located '/4 Mile
South of W. McMillan Road, Midway Between N. Black Cat Road and
N. Ten Mile Road, in the North '/2 of Section 34, Township 4 North,
Range 1 West, Meridian, Idaho; to Update the Future Land Use Map
Symbols and Associated Map Notes; and Providing an Effective Date
18. City of Meridian Financial Report -August 2021
Simison: Next up is the Consent Agenda.
Bernt: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Councilman Bernt.
Bernt: Excited to make this next motion to adopt the Consent Agenda and for the Mayor
to sign and for the Clerk to attest.
Hoaglun: Second the motion.
Simison: I have a motion and a second to adopt the Consent Agenda. Is there any
discussion? 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]
19. Fire Department: Fiscal Year 2022 Budget Amendment in the Amount
of $127,670.00 for Over-Hire of One Firefighter Position
Simison: So, we will move on to Department/Commission Reports. First up is our first
fiscal year budget amendment, which goes to the honor of our Fire Department and ask
our Chief Blume to come forward.
Blume: Good evening, Mayor and Council. The budget amendment and the request that
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we are asking for this evening came about two weeks ago to us. On September 8th we
had a member of our department receive orders for an immediate deployment overseas
for 15 months. So, looking at the staffing model and what a deployment of a -- of one of
our members for 15 months would do adversely impacting our budget and the staffing
model, they will incur no cost for being deployed as -- as it's a protected leave status and
including their benefits with the city. There is no cost there. However, looking at a 15
month deployment, they will incur to the city about 93,000 dollars in overtime to fill that
individual's position and so the solution to that would be a request from you to authorize
a single position, single firefighter lateral paramedic, much like we did about a month and
a half ago, in order to prevent the expense of 93,000 dollars over the next 15 months.
One of the added benefits to that as well is if we get to a point in December of 2022 and
we have authorized the hiring of the staff for Station 7 and 8 that will be one less person
that we have to go through a process to hire for. We already have an eligibility list in place
with an individual that we can make the intermediate conditional offer to, so there is no
additional hiring process or fee to enact in order to get to an offer of hire for this person.
Simison: Okay. Thank you, Chief. Council, any questions?
Perreault: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Council Woman Perreault.
Perreault: Perhaps I'm not completely understanding. So, the individual who is deployed,
they --they continue to get compensated from the city during the time that they are gone?
Blume: Council Woman Perreault, no. The protected leave status of the person in the
military is they are made -- their paycheck is made whole. However, the individual's rank
in the military far surpasses their civilian rank in the fire department, so that the City of
Meridian will not be contributing to make their paycheck whole. They are already
compensated above what they would be compensated working for the city.
Perreault: Okay. Thank you.
Simison: Any further questions, comments or a motion?
Strader: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Council Woman Strader.
Strader: We would like to thank that firefighter for their service to the military and I would
like to propose that we approve the fiscal year 2022 budget amendment in the amount of
127,670 dollars for overhire of one firefighter position. Seems to make sense.
Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor, second the motion.
Simison: I have a motion and a second to approve the budget amendment. Is there any
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discussion on the motion? If not, Clerk will call the roll.
Roll call: Borton, yea; Cavener, yea; Bernt, yea; Perreault, yea; Hoaglun, yea; Strader,
yea.
Simison: All ayes. Motion carries. The item is agreed to.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Blume: Thank you very much.
20. South Meridian Neighborhood Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan Update
Presentation by Edinson Bautista of Ada County Highway District
Simison: Next item on the agenda is Item 20, the South Meridian Neighborhood Bicycle
and Pedestrian Plan update. I do see that we have Edinson from ACHD here and so I --
and I don't see anyone from Community Development, so we will just turn this over to
Edinson for this evening. Edinson, good to see you. Thank you for being here.
Bautista: Thank you, Mayor Simison. I will start by sharing my screen presentation that
I prepared for today. Good evening, Mayor Simison and City Council. My name is
Edinson Bautista, ACHD senior transportation planner. In today's meeting I wanted to
give you an update to the South Meridian Neighborhood Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan and
share with you an executive summary of the projects, including a summary of the public
involvement and the proposed project list. The South Meridian Planning Area is shown
in this slide. The light polygon delineates the planning area which generally follows the
city limits. The neighborhood plan aims to achieve the following goals. Identify and map
the biking and walking destination as it pertains to the planning area. To have robust
public outreach, to identify the needs for connectivity, transit, biking and walking facilities.
To gather a general consensus for community recommendations. Develop a plan that
communicates existing conditions and need as well. Convey proposal of projects both to
public and ACHD through analysis, technical review, and public outreach. Define,
prioritize, and invest in projects and address the need to identify. Additionally, we will
identify existing gaps in the sidewalk and bicycle network. As part of today's presentation
I wanted to provide an overview of the tools used to collect public input. In summary, the
public outreach process consists in three main components. It is public outreach, an
online comment period, and an online open house. As kickoff to the public outreach effort
in the month of March we work with the schools in the area to survey students regarding
biking and walking from and to school and this effort 300 students participate in the survey
and 25 provided comments in the interactive map. So, in this effort we answer questions
like places -- like identify places where kids like to visit in their neighborhoods. What
keeps them from walking or biking and what would make it easier for them to ride or walk
in the time in their neighborhoods. During the month of April we released an interactive
map to collect public input on locations where the public would like to see bicycle and
pedestrian projects in the area of south Meridian itself. From this effort we received a
total of 88 comments, specific to a -- specific to -- specific to a location and 30 comments
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related to a posted comment and four comments outside the planning area. After
collecting and compiling this feedback, a proposed project list was developed and shared
with the public once more through an online open house. With the use of their own --with
the use of an online story map, which allowed the public to provide further feedback on
the bicycle and pedestrian projects identified, as well as ranked their top three projects
for each of the categories. The public outreach effort was used to identify and prioritize
bicycle and pedestrian and crossing projects and develop a draft project list, which was
included as part of the Council package. This draft list consists of 96 projects where 26
are bike projects, eight sidewalk projects, 12 crossing projects and 15 major roadway
projects. The main roadway project will include both bicycle and pedestrian
improvements. As next steps on October 13th we are planning to go in front of the ACHD
commission to present a draft plan, as well as to release the -- release to the public the
-- the plan that we will be moving forward through ACHD -- our ACHD website. Then on
September 22nd we will be --we will be back in front of the commission --well, on October
27th. Sorry. We will be back in front of the Commission for adoption consideration. With
this I conclude my presentation and also stand for any questions.
Simison: Thank you, Edinson. Council, any questions?
Cavener: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Councilman Cavener.
Cavener: Edinson, thanks for the presentation. When I'm looking at these -- the maps to
kind of lay out all the -- I guess proposed projects and where there is a bike lane or
enhanced bike lane, enhanced bike-pedestrian, I noticed that kind of -- like all of that is
planned across south Meridian, except for Meridian Road, State Highway 69. That makes
a little more sense to me, because it's a state highway, but I also noticed a gap on Locust
Grove between Victory and Overland and I'm trying to understand why that -- it looks like
every other road in south Meridian is covered. Why that area is -- is omitted.
Bautista: Thank you, Mayor Simison, City Council Cavener. Thank you for your -- for
your question. In this regard -- so, at this moment I don't have the exact details behind
the reasoning, but my assumption is that it's because it's included within our planning --
in one of the planning projects currently, but I can double -- I can confirm that and if it's
not the case I will make sure that it's incorporated into the plan.
Cavener: Okay. Edinson -- Mr. Mayor? Sorry.
Simison: Councilman Cavener.
Cavener: Edinson, if you could -- mind having either you or someone circle back with us.
I mean that's -- you have got Mountain View High School that accesses off of -- off of
Locust Grove and so clearly having some type of planned connectivity -- I know that's a
spot, too, where we have got some -- some gaps in the sidewalk. So, kind of
understanding what the plan is for that mile section would be beneficial.
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Bautista: I will make sure to circle back -- circle back.
Cavener: Thanks.
Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Councilman Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor, Edinson, quick question on the list that you provided with us, the
draft bicycle-pedestrian plan, and you have high, medium, and low and the high -- you
know, high priority, of course, will be, you know, something that you identified and want
to get to first, but can you give me a time frame for when a high project might be
accomplished? Are we looking like one to three years for high, three to five for medium
and low beyond that or has that been identified yet for a time frame or is it dependent on
each individual project and what might be happening for that roadway?
Bautista: Mayor, City Council Hoaglun, so thank you for asking that question regarding
timeline. So, the process we follow after -- after adopting a neighborhood plan is going
back into the -- it's reviewing all those high priorities through the integrated five year plan,
as well as work with -- with the city to identify what -- which ones of those high priorities
they would like to move forward as --as a part of the --of the review through the integrated
five year work plan. So, we -- the time frame depends on different factors based on the
participation through the integrated five year work plan, as well as the ACHD factors.
There is not exact -- like pinpoint range of time, but there is the policy -- the process that
ACHD has established for these community programs and, then, through the integrated
five year work plan.
Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Councilman Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Follow up to that. Thank you, Edinson. Appreciate that and completely
understand, you know, it's one of those process things as things -- projects move forward,
but it sounds like we need to be prepared at some point in time for those higher priority
projects to kind of give -- provide you with input on what -- what the number one, two,
three, four, or five projects would -- would -- would be from our -- from our vantage point,
so we will -- we will be ready for that when the time comes.
Strader: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Council Woman Strader.
Strader: Thanks, Edinson. I appreciate the presentation. We just met with ACHD, you
might be aware, last evening, so maybe a follow up, but I guess I would be curious for
these crossings and enhancements, if we could get some follow up on whether the
crossings will now be recessed, because that's the direction things are going, and
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examples of whether the elevation will be changed for the crossing and maybe just some
more follow up on whether, you know, some of these pedestrian and bicycle paths will be
relocated into a multi-use pathway or if they are going to stay the same, because we had
kind of an in-depth conversation that that's the direction ACHD was heading. So, I was
just hoping if we could get some follow up on, you know, how -- whether these fit into
those categories and that consistency that we talked about last night.
Bautista: Major, City Council Strader, thank you for your question. Regarding that, the
neighborhood plan is at a high level location identification process. So, in the -- the
treatment that's going to be implemented will be determined later on through scoping and
through the project's design and you will be able to certainly review with the city to make
sure that it accommodates those new guidelines that we are implementing at the time. At
this moment where we are recommending based on the current guidelines that we have
in place, but with them keep in -- but with the mindset that it can change in the future
based on future city orACHD policy changes.
Strader: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Council Woman Strader.
Strader: Okay. Yeah. So, you are saying this is a high level overview of the locations
and I guess -- I think it would be really hard for our city staff, though, to follow up on each
project one by one. Is it possible that you will have the whole list and, then, you will be
able to give more detail just on whether it's a detached, a multi-purpose pathway or not,
and if it's going to have a recessed crossing, just because we are really focused on the
consistency of the direction. We --we really want things to be consistent with how people
are treating those crossings, so that would be my only two cents would be if it's possible,
now that you have this document, if there is a later update to update the whole list at once
for us on how you are treating those I would appreciate that.
Bautista: Mayor, Council Strader, I guess -- so, currently the number of plans it's a -- it's
a -- we can certainly work or plan for that. One thing that I would like to highlight is that
the neighborhood pedestrian and cycle process that we revisit -- this is not a one single
time that we are coming to -- to the south Meridian area. We are coming back later in the
future to certainly identify those projects and update the descriptions of this -- of the
projects that are still on the -- on the pipeline and defining those criterias. The
neighborhood plan process as it stands right now, just at a conventional high level in
which -- that we will make sure that the city has an opportunity to provide input on
whenever projects move more forward that they provide that input on what they would
like to see on the specific locations, like, for example, that multi-use pathway, which is
already planned for for those major roadways that we have identified, like the major -- 15
major roadways that we have -- we are recommending that pedestrian, bicycling
infrastructure on, which it's multi-use pathway.
Simison: Council, any additional questions? Just -- Miranda, do you have anything you
would like to add to this? Okay. All right. Thank you. We look forward to seeing you
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again, Edinson.
Bautista: Thank you, Mayor Simison.
21. COMPASS Fiscal Impact Tool Presentation by Carl Miller
Simison: All right. Next up is Item 21, COMPASS fiscal impact tool presentation. See
that we have Mr. Miller joining us from COMPASS. Carl, I will turn the time over to you.
Miller: Great. Thank you, Mayor. Good afternoon, Meridian City Council. I would like to
share a quick presentation with you about the new COMPASS fiscal impact tool that we
believe will be a really helpful tool for helping you and assisting you in your difficult
decisions that you need to make. Things jumped around on me. Are you able to see my
screen that says COMPASS Fiscal Impact Tool?
Simison: Yes.
Miller: Okay. Great. Thank you, Mayor. So, I just would like to -- to start off with just a
few rhetorical questions, just -- I would like you to have this in mind as we go through the
rest of the presentation about the benefit of a tool like this that will help us understand the
financial impacts to the -- to the city on land use decisions. But first of all think about -- if
a new subdivision is approved could you afford the new services that would be required?
How do you know if your Comprehensive Plan is financially viable? What's the impact of
House Bill 389? And can you answer these questions right now? We are introducing a
new-- brand new tool that will help answer these questions and actually many more. The
COMPASS Fiscal Impact Tool or the FIT and today I would like to cover just really briefly
who COMPASS is and, then, get into fiscal impact analysis, walk you through our tool that
will be made available to your staff and, then, talk about how we will be reporting the
financial impact of land use decisions and, then, obviously, stand for any questions that
you have at the end of this. So, I think you are already somewhat familiar with COMPASS.
We serve as the metropolitan planning organization for Ada and Canyon county and as
our -- in our role as an MPO we allocate federal transportation dollars to regionally
significant transportation projects, road widening, bridges, transit planning and other
things. But we also have a role as a council of governments and we are bringing
stakeholders together to solve regional issues that we face. Our board of directors has
grown increasingly concerned about the rate and type of growth that we are seeing in the
Treasure Valley and it really wants to be able to answer the question is growth paying for
itself. So, thus I will introduce you to the fiscal impact analysis, which is really at the
simplest it's just the calculation of -- do the expected revenues outweigh the anticipated
expenditures. So, this could be a new subdivision, a rezone, a land use plan change, but
it really looks at the types of expected revenues that we are going to see it through impact
fees, property taxes, and other variety of fees and services and expenditures. What are
the operating and capital needs for new schools, new police substations, and all the things
that we really are obligated to provide to a new area when it's developed and if those
things -- if the revenues exceed expenditures, that's a net fiscal impact for the community.
So, we are looking at a variety of different public services here. We looked at the capital
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and operating expenses of public education, public safety and emergency services,
transportation, parks, recreation and a lot of other categories. In fact, we have over a
hundred different public service categories built into this fiscal impact tool. So, that way
we can provide really an A to Z comprehensive view of what does new growth due to the
community's budgets. Now just a couple caveats. The fiscal impact tool is not an
economic impact tool, so it's not going to look at, you know, if a new business or new firm
comes into the Treasure Valley, you know, an economic impact tool would look at what
are the spillover effect, what is the increase of income or what are the new jobs generated
to, you know, for dentists and restaurants and drycleaners based on a new industry
coming into the Treasure Valley. It's not looking at the private sector side of this. It's
focused specifically on public sector financial impact. It's also not anything more than a
modeler tool. We really rely on good assumptions, so that way good information goes in
and good information comes out. We sat down with several of your departments in your
city, Public Works, Planning, Finance, to say really what is the capital improvement plans
and how does growth in one part of the city impact the community's bottom -- bottom line
maybe compared to another part of the city and, then, finally, it's not an end all be all. It
is one very important factor, but maybe not the only factor when it comes to does this new
land use proposal meet the community's goals. There is many goals that you have
outlined in your Comprehensive Plan and while we think, you know, financial sustainability
is one of them, it's not the only thing and oftentimes we -- as we develop this we would
meet with other communities that build fiscal impact tools and the default always became,
well, what does the fiscal impact tool say and while it's important, maybe it's not the only
thing and there may be other good community reasons, affordable housing or -- or other
social needs that may don't -- maybe don't pencil, but are still a benefit to the community.
So, now let me walk you through how the fiscal impact tool works. Your staff will also
have access to this -- a web based version of this tool, whereas ours is an Excel program
that we have in house. It starts with a locator map, as you can see. We have split the
region into over a hundred different geographic areas and we did that based on guidance
and feedback from your staff, but really we wanted to be able to look very granularly about
how does different locations in the city -- how does that impact a community's ability to
serve it. You also see that it's split by school districts, so that way -- you know, part of
Meridian is served by West Ada and part is served by the Boise School District. Those
have different capacity issues and different ability to serve new growth and it's also --well,
in Ada county it's one singular highway district, but we also broke out -- especially on the
Canyon county side, by the different highway districts and other agencies that have to
serve new growth. We also look at a number of different land use types, as each one
have different impacts, both to the revenues and expenditures. On the revenues different
types of, you know, residential developments will have different valuations and feed into
the revenues differently, but they also have different expenditures, different persons per
household, students per household, vehicle miles traveled, EMS and fire and police calls
all are differential based on both the location, as well as the type of growth that they have.
So, we have a number of different ways to look at different residential or employment
types or we can mix and match and look at mixed use types as well. We anticipate that
this covers about 95 percent of all development types. Almost anything that we see over
the course of the year can be plugged into this model. There are special exceptions, you
know, new baseball stadium, Expo Idaho, if those were to redevelop it might need a
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special analysis, but almost everything can be fit into this fiscal impact tool that we are
looking at. But, then, like I said, the tool considers the relevant impacts of those different
development types. So, we will looked at persons per household, students, vehicle miles
traveled, based on different land use types and price points. So, this chart is our Meridian
-- briefly, Meridian north single family detached and as you can see as the valuation of a
single family home in north Meridian goes up, actually, the students per household goes
down and so they have a different impact on the -- on the school district. We will be using
this information to report this back to you in several different ways. We can look at the
impact on a city, on a county, a school district, highway district or Valley Regional Transit
and, then, provide that information to you based on the overall amount, as well as what
is the breakeven point. So, for this hypothetical example in Kuna we are looking at a
grocery store with 50 multi-family units and we can see that it breaks even for the city
right away in the first year, but it never breaks even for the county. There is -- we are
never going to have enough revenue to exceed the amount of services that it will cost on
the county's services. So, there is a lot of different ways to look at fiscal impact, but we
think providing that information based on the service provider helps to understand how
the new proposal will impact a variety of different service providers. And, then, finally,
COMPASS will provide the official fiscal impact results. We will use our development
checklist, which you may have seen in the past. This format is a little bit different just to
reflect the Communities In Motion 2050 plan that we are working on right now, but it helps
to bridge the local decision making that you do with the regional planning that we do. So,
we are kind of working in a coordinated fashion. Along with that development checklist
you will see a supplementary page, the graphic on the right, which will show the impact
on the city, the highway district, county, the schools and others and explain why this fiscal
impact analysis was done. We will try and do this for every development proposal. The
county does, you know, lots of plans or accessory dwellings. We are really looking at
larger scale development proposals, anything with 50 residential units or more or an
equivalent amount of commercial space. But we also are currently working on a web
based tool, so we can hand to your planning staff. So, anytime you meet with a developer
at a pre-application meeting or you are looking at maybe a scenario of increasing
densities or decreasing densities or changing land use types, they will also have access
to this tool, so they can do analysis and have that ready at their fingertips. So, I put this
here because I have given you a lot to chew on, a lot to -- to consume tonight, but I also
want to put this in there to let you know that we know a tool like this takes regular care
and feeding. We worked with your staff quite a bit on developing the tool and we are
going to be working with your staff as we update the tool in the future to keep it current,
up to date, accurate, and all those things. So, anytime, you know, on an annual basis we
can reflect your budgets and any new capital improvement plans or any new planning
that goes into effect, how the services from the city or the county will be able to -- or will
change or how you will be able to serve the community down the road. So, I think that's
quite a bit for tonight, but let me, please, pause there and answer any questions that you
might have.
Simison: Thanks, Carl. Council, any questions?
Perreault: Mr. Mayor?
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Simison: Council Woman Perreault.
Perreault: Thank you. I'm curious about the data that's gathered for the cost of
infrastructure. Is that coming -- what's the source for that and how often is it going to be
updated?
Miller: A great question, Mayor Simison and Council Member. We anticipate roughly
annual updates to this tool. Your budgets have -- most community budgets are on an
annual cycle, at least full -- full changes to budgets. So, that gives us an opportunity to
update the budget based on the annual process and we got that information working with
your Finance Department and your Public Works, your Planning Department, to really
understand what are different impacts that change the way you can serve things. So, we
work with the school district to see, you know, where -- where they have capacity in their
schools versus where they don't. I think that might be a good example of say, you know,
in certain school zones you can have an extra hundred homes and still not fill up that
school district, whereas in others we are already at capacity and there will be even more
marginal cost to serve that new growth.
Strader: Mr. Mayor?
Cavener: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Council Woman Strader.
Strader: I was curious, you know, if you took into account like the sewer sheds and things
like that. I'm just -- like an example, you know, I -- my understanding is there is an area
in -- south of Meridian where the topography makes building a sewer trunk line and
additional sewer sheds more challenging. So, would this tool like reflect the cost of
building that type of infrastructure in that location or are you putting blanket assumptions
on all sewer services? For example, all water services and applying it to the whole city?
Miller: Great question, Mayor Simison, Council Member Strader. We developed this tool
with a consultant named Tischler-Bise and we really what -- we did a first phase where
we took an average cost of growth approach. We just said, you know, where ever growth
is it cost about this much. This second phase of the fiscal impact we really did more of
that marginal cost. I think the school example is a good one to show, you know,
sometimes there can be additional growth and it really doesn't impact the school all that
much, whereas at other times there is -- there is a huge margin for new capital and
operating expenses. With public utilities, like water and sewer, they more act as -- like a
business through enterprise fund and so those weren't worked into this tool, because the
cost of -- of new growth to serve in those areas really is worked into the -- the -- the
charges that are, then, fed back to the consumer. So, rather than more with a public utility
where we are obligated to provide police or fire no matter where they are, public utilities
are treated different in this model.
Strader: Mr. Mayor?
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Simison: Council Woman Strader.
Strader: I look at it a little differently, because although it's enterprise fund, right, like there
-- there are parts of south Meridian where you have already invested in the infrastructure
to build the whole sewer shed and trunk line and there are some areas we haven't, but
maybe we could rely on our own Public Works Department for additional feedback in our
priority growth areas, but my other question would be is you are getting all this great
information and you present it on March developments, are you going to aggregate the
data and, then, tell us, hey, how did we do this year? Right? Like where did we grow and
what does that mean? Are you doing something that's a big problem for one of our
partners, with the schools or with the county? How do you intend to come back with an
aggregation of that information?
Miller: Great question, Mayor Simison, Council Member Strader. I hadn't thought about
that until we had a review with the Boise City Council and they asked almost the same
question that you did and so we do an annual report based on those checklists that I send
out. You know, we map those and -- and highlight those for you. It's not going back to
that slide. But, anyway, we can do the same thing with the fiscal impact and provide more
of an analysis -- I'm thinking on an annual basis to indicate what has been the financial
impact, not just for every single development, but as a community at large. So, that's a
great suggestion. Boise had the same thought. So, I will put that on my to do list for next
year.
Strader: Thanks.
Cavener: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Councilman Cavener.
Cavener: Carl, thanks. I'm excited about this tool and you touched a little bit about, you
know, COMPASS's running it as like an Excel program at your office and a web based
portal for staff. Is it intended that this is going to be public facing, so if our citizens or
planners within the development community kind of want to prepare, that they have the
ability to access this as well or is it going to be closed off?
Miller: Very good question, Council Member Cavener and Mayor Simison. No, we are
not anticipating a public facing tool for a couple different reasons. One is that our
consultant TischlerBise, who developed this, is -- is -- has put in a lot of trade secrets into
the model and they are concerned about the kind of the reverse engineering of the tool
to kind of deconstruct the work that they do and so that's one concern. The other concern
is it does take some training to make sure that the data is put in properly and the analysis
of the results is -- is -- is vetted thoroughly. So, we are doing training with your staff. We
have done one training. We are going to do another one when the web based tool is
ready. But we found as talking to other metropolitan planning organizations in the past,
we have had a public facing document, it causes more problems than -- than it solves
and, unfortunately, we would love to be totally transparent about this and make this
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available to anybody. Without the necessary training it can cause people to misapply and
misuse and even abuse the tool to make it do things that it's really not supposed to do.
And, then, you know, it's really hard to put that genie back in the bottle. So, we are really
wanting to make sure that people that use this have gone through the proper training and
are, you know, using it as intended.
Cavener: Okay.
Borton: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Councilman Borton.
Borton: Carl, will you be able to share -- offline you can circulate it around -- the list of
assumptions that are built into it specific to Meridian?
Miller: Mayor Simison -- I apologize, I didn't catch your question. We do have a frequently
asked questions page that we are putting up on our website that will talk kind of at a high
level about what goes into the tool and -- and the input factors. It's -- it's a fairly robust
tool and so it may be -- it's somewhat difficult to kind of break it down step by step. There
is a lot of different macros and lookup tables and that kind of gets to the -- it might kind of
hit the cap on my knowledge level of Excel, but it is not a simple way to indicate every
factor that plays into other things. It's multivariate. It's a very complex tool and so I -- I
-- unfortunately, I don't think we can put that out there, other than we can put kind of high
level frequently asked questions on our website.
Borton: So, the -- an example of the question is specific to Meridian, the assumptions
built into levels of service, and if you are going to extrapolate the cost or the return on
some public safety, for example, that you must build into some assumption with a level of
service that future growth is going to obtain, then, create a cost associated with it. That's
the type of assumption that I think would be really important for us to see.
Miller: I see and I think I understand your question a little bit better. So, we have
developed memos regarding the land use types, as well as the impacts of different -- like
that chart that I showed you on single family development at different price points and the
impact on schools and transportation. Those we could certainly put up on our website so
people could look into what is the assumptions we made. I can't put the tool out there,
but I think I understand your question some more and -- and we can put those types of
memos out and make those available.
McClure: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Would you like to add on to that?
McClure: Yeah. Two things. So, you asked about sort of public awareness of this earlier.
This tool, as mentioned, would be available to staff. For example, during a pre-application
meeting this can be shared with an applicant, so it doesn't necessarily need to be
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something that catches them off guard and that could be discussed well in advance of
any sort of application submittal and, then, as Carl just mentioned, the assumptions.
There is a memo their -- financial provided the vast bulk of that information and it comes
directly out of sources like the capital financial plan and, then, directly from police and fire
regarding services. So, it's all driven by our data and that pdf -- that memo can be
admitted available with Chrome Books and so some of the stuff is sort of a problem to
probably transmit. Some -- some information is a bit of a black box, but what -- what is
Meridian is all staff data.
Borton: Mr. Mayor? Brian, did that -- to that point I assume that we have an internal list
of assumptions that we provide for the model to develop that are Meridian specific matrix.
McClure: Yeah. So, we didn't develop the list per se. We just gave the consultant a
matrix kind of information, but TischlerBise did submit a memo back to us that
summarized information they gave us that they were going to use and so that is all
available and that will be reviewed yearly. So, as our capital improvement plans change,
nonenterprise -- that may affect our services -- an example removed from the police
substation, the fire station, the staffing, can all be reflected in the tool with those updates.
Borton: Thanks.
Strader: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Council Woman Strader.
Strader: Has there been any historical or backward looking validation of the tool or has
there been a test of the tool to see if it's accurate, you know, with some examples.
Miller: There -- there hasn't been a backward validation of the tool as of yet. That's
something that we are considering with the next update. We kind of have to get our feet
underneath us a little bit. Some of it is very difficult to backward validate, like the vehicle
miles traveled. Even if a new subdivision comes in we know that trips are going to go up
on the surrounding arterials, but it's not always a one-for-one relationship between that
subdivision and the new trips that go in on the surrounding arterial. So, it can be a very
difficult, time consuming, expensive procedure. I definitely think it's worth it, but it's
something that we will have to do kind after we get our feet underneath us and use this
tool a little bit.
Strader: Okay. Thanks.
Simison: Council, any additional questions? Okay. Thank you, Carl. Thank you, Brian.
Miller: Thank you. Appreciate it.
EXECUTIVE SESSION
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22. Per Idaho Code 74-206(1)(d) To consider records that are exempt from
disclosure as provided in chapter 1, title 74, Idaho Code.
Added Executive Session 74-206(1) A: To consider hiring a public
officer, employee, staff member or individual agent, wherein the
respective qualities of individuals are to be evaluated in order to fill a
particular vacancy or need.
Simison: Council, next item is Executive Session.
Bernt: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Councilman Bernt.
Bernt: I move that we go into Executive Session per Idaho Code 74-206(1)(d) and 74-
206(1)(a).
Hoaglun: Second the motion.
Simison: I have a motion and a second to go into Executive Session. Is there any
discussion? If not, Clerk will call the roll.
Roll call: Borton, yea; Cavener, yea; Bernt, yea; Perreault, yea; Hoaglun, yea; Strader,
yea.
Simison: All ayes. Motion carries and we will move into Executive Session.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
EXECUTIVE SESSION: (5:14 p.m. to 5:47 p.m.)
Simison: Council, do I have a motion?
Bernt: Mr. Mayor?
Simison: Councilman Bernt.
Bernt: I move that we come out of Executive Session.
Hoaglun: Second the motion.
Simison: I have a motion and a second to come out of Executive Session. All in favor
signify by saying aye. Opposed nay.
MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES.
Bernt: Mr. Mayor?
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Simison: Councilman Bernt.
Bernt: I move that we adjourn the meeting.
Hoaglun: Second the motion.
Simison: I have a motion and a second -- I have a motion to adjourn. All in favor signify
by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it. We are adjourned.
MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 5:47 P.M.
(AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
MAYOR ROBERT SIMISON DATE APPROVED
ATTEST:
CHRIS JOHNSON - CITY CLERK
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