Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-10-05 Work Session Minutes Item#1. Meridian City Council Work Session October 5, 2021. A Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, October 5, 2021, by Mayor Robert Simison. Members Present: Robert Simison, Joe Borton, Luke Cavener, Treg Bernt, Jessica Perreault and Brad Hoaglun. Members Absent: Liz Strader. Also present: Chris Johnson, Bill Nary, Dave Tiede, Sahand Keshavarz, Tori Cleary, Karie Glenn, Berle Stokes, 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, we will call the meeting to order. For the record it is October 5th, 2021, at 4:30 p.m. We will begin today's City Council work session with roll call attendance. ADOPTION OF AGENDA Simison: Next item up is adoption of the agenda. Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: It is my distinct honor to be able to adopt the agenda as published. Hoaglun: Second the motion. Simison: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as published. 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: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] 1. Approve Minutes of the September 20, 2021 City Council Joint Meeting with Ada County Highway District Commissioners Page 5 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 2 of 19 2. Columbia Trust Limited Liability Company (Sawtooth Landing) Full Release of Water and Sewer Easements 3. Gander Creek North No. 1 Pedestrian Pathway Easement No. 1 4. Mile High Pines Offsite Water Main Easement 5. Ridenbaugh at Southerland Farms No. 4 Pedestrian Pathway Easement 6. Final Plat for Edington Commons No. 2 (FP-2021-0048) by Conger Group, Located on the East Side of N. Linder Rd., North of W. Ustick Rd. 7. Final Plat for Inglewood Subdivision No. 2 (FP-2021-0037) by McNeil Engineering, Located at 3220 E. Victory Rd. 8. Approval of Customer Service Agreement Renewal Between the City of Meridian and Billing Document Specialists and Purchase Order#22- 0005 for the Not-to-Exceed Amount of $346,100.00 9. Approval of Task Order 11281 to Stantec Consulting Services for WRRF Tertiary Filtration Facilities for the Not-to-Exceed amount of $797,946.00 10. Resolution No. 21-2288: A Resolution Adopting New, Increasing, and Decreasing Fees; Authorizing Deletion of Fees From Fee Schedule; Superseding All Previously Adopted Fees and Fee Schedules, with the Exception of Recreational Programming Fees; Authorizing City Departments to Collect Such Fees; and Providing an Effective Date 11. Resolution No. 21-2289: A Resolution by the Mayor and the Council of the City of Meridian, Idaho, Accepting that Certain Report on Eligibility for the Linder District Area as an Urban Renewal Area and Revenue Allocation Area and Justification for Designating the Area as Appropriate for an Urban Renewal Project; Determining the Area Identified in the Report and Within the City or Within the City's Area of Operation, to be a Deteriorated Area or a Deteriorating Area, or Combination Thereof, as Defined by Idaho Code Sections 50-2018(9) and 50-2903(8); Directing the Urban Renewal Agency of Meridian, Idaho, Also Known as the Meridian Development Corporation, to Commence the Preparation of an Urban Renewal Plan Subject to Certain Conditions, Which Plan May Include Revenue Allocation Provisions For All or Part of the Area; and Providing an Effective Date Simison: Next up is the Consent Agenda. Page 6 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 3 of 19 Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: Grateful for the opportunity to make a motion to adopt 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 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 adopted. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. ITEMS MOVED FROM THE CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] Simison: There were no items removed from the Consent Agenda. PROCLAMATIONS 12. Cyber Security Awareness Month Simison: So, we will move on to Item 12, which is a proclamation for Cyber Security Awareness Month and we will do that. If Mr. Tiede can join me at the podium. Council, like many things we do we like to do the proclamations for the month for many of the activities of the various city departments and activities and I think one that continues to grow in its importance to cyber security, not only for the city, but for our employees and for our residents and businesses. So, with that we are going to do a proclamation and I will ask Director Tiede to make a few comments and remarks. Whereas the City of Meridian recognizes it has a vital role in identifying, protecting its citizens from and responding to cyber security threats that may have significant impact to our community and whereas cyber security education and awareness is crucial for everyone, including large corporations, small businesses, financial institutions, schools, government agencies, the home user and anyone who connects to the internet and whereas you can protect yourself by monitoring your accounts, being conscientious of what you share online. Keeping computer software up to date and creating unique passwords and changing them regularly. Installing antivirus programs and firewalls and using mobile devices safely and whereas the do your part hashtag be cyber smart campaign serves as the National Cyber Security public awareness campaign implement through a coalition of working together to increase the public's understanding of cyber threats and empowering Americans to be safe and secure online and whereas maintaining the security of cyberspace is a shared responsibility in which each of us has a critical role to play and awareness of computer security essentials will improve the security of the City of Meridian's information infrastructure and economy. Therefore, I'm Mayor Robert E. Simison, hereby proclaim the month of October 2021 as Cyber Security Awareness Month Page 7 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 4 of 19 in the City of Meridian and call upon the community to join me in recognizing how serious cyber security is and the steps each of us can take to protect ourselves and our community, dated this 5th day of October 2021 . Dave, this is for you. Tiede: Thank you. With the evolving threat landscape over the last year and the things that we have seen happen in the -- in critical infrastructure and other sectors, this is more important than ever. As Mayor Simison mentioned, this month's theme is do your part, be cyber smart and the theme empowers individuals and organizations to own their role in protecting their part of cyberspace. If everyone does their part, including implementing good security practices, raising awareness, educating people, including training employees, but also educating our community our connected world that's connected by these things, things we use every day, it will be a safer and more resilient place for everyone. So, thank you. Borton: Mr. Mayor, while you are walking up, I --just a quick comment to Dave. Among the many great things you do, we really appreciate the constant training that you do send out. Little video clips and the tests you have got to take. It's mandatory. You can't skip it. We always learn something and we have also caught your department trying to fish us, which is great, which we probably only know because we do the training that you make us do, so -- you hear about the bad stuff, but things that get caught that don't blow up to disasters you don't hear about. Thank you for being so vigilant and requiring that of us and all of the departments, because it has saved so much headache. It certainly would have happened if you weren't diligent on this cyber security. So, much appreciated. DEPARTMENT / COMMISSION REPORTS [Action Item] 13. Mayor's Youth Advisory Council Update Simison: And I think Dave would say just remember that when you see the FY-23 budget request come rolling along. Okay. With that, thank you, Dave. Appreciate that. We will move on to our Department/Commission Reports. First up is the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council update. So, Dave, I will turn this over to you and let you introduce the rest from there. Miles: Thank you, Mayor, Members of Council. I just wanted to take two seconds, because Sahand Keshavarz is new to us and I wanted to welcome him all to you and introduce him as well. He has been a great addition to the team. Proud of the team, proud of the work he's done. He jumped right in feet first. As you can see he is here already. Has been doing a lot of volunteer work on the weekends as well. So, just wanted to officially welcome him aboard and say thank you for his efforts and I will have him come up and take it from there. Keshavarz: Mr. Mayor, Council Members, good afternoon. I'm delighted to be here with you today for your work session and I want to thank you for making time for us in your agenda today and thank you, Dave, for that wonderful introduction. As the new lead advisor for the Meridian Mayor's Youth Advisory Council it has been my absolute pleasure Page 8 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 5 of 19 and honor to get to know over the past five weeks some of the amazing, inspiring and really committed high school students who are a part of this year's cohort. MYAC has already started and hit the ground running with a number of events ever since the school year has started and they have got a number of other events that are coming up in the near future. So, without further ado I do want to turn it over to two of MYAC's leaders who are here today to share some information about what MYAC has been up to and what they are planning to do in the near future. So, we have with us today Joseph Leckie, a senior from Kuna High School. Joseph is a MYAC vice-chair of government affairs. We also have Caitlin Holdeman, a sophomore at Compass Charter High School, and Caitlin is the vice-chair for community service. So, I will welcome them to come up and talk to you all now. Leckie: Mayor, Members of the Council. Thanks for having us today. As Sahand said I'm Joseph Leckie and I serve as the government affairs vice-chair for MYAC. Holdeman: Yes. And I'm Caitlin Holdeman. I am the community service vice-chair for MYAC. Leckie: And we put together a presentation with pictures and some of the stuff that MYAC's been up to over the past couple -- sorry, technical difficulty. So, starting with some of our regular business that we have gone to to get started. Holdeman: So, we have heard -- we have held our first general council meetings of the year. We have held two so far and so we have organized icebreakers to kind of break the ice and get people into the meetings and start -- start our brainstorming and we work to like gauge interest, both for government affairs and community service activities and for guest speakers, so we really want to know like what the youth want and so we can strive to get that done, like guest speakers that -- to talk about relevant topics that they actually want to hear about. Leckie: Another big goal for MYAC recently has been recruiting new members. As you guys were aware, the COVID pandemic shut down a lot of events and MYAC was one of those and we lost a lot of our active members during that. So, we have been trying to organize events intentionally, so that we can bring in more people. We put in this plus one system at many of our events where you can just bring a friend and, you know, hopefully, the exciting event gets people to bring more people in and if they are interested in MYAC, then, we provide information and let them join from here and so far we have held a few events that we will get to here in the presentation. Holdeman: And now we have some major events that we have done so far. So, we have the MYAC kickoff. This was held -- held on the 30th of August at Wahooz. So, we had an ice breaker activity, again, just to kind of get things rolling and getting everyone kind of like more comfortable and so we kind of introduced MYAC to youth and their parents that came there and we also use this event to invite people to the next event, the Treasure Valley Youth Safety Summit. And, then, we finished it off with bowling, because youth like bowling and having actual fun times after a lot of information is thrown at them. Page 9 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 6 of 19 Leckie: I can confirm that. So, one of our biggest events of the year was the Treasure Valley Youth Safety Summit, which we planned recently. Mid September. So, MYAC, as our part, helped organize the event. We ran the check-in and answered any questions people would have of where we are going, how this is going to work and, then, we were able to actually participate in the event ourselves and it was really insightful. Another thing that MYAC did was we got to host and even some of us got to moderate a panel of local law enforcement. They were able to talk about some of the issues they thought were pertinent for the youth today and that was really good and in addition we had some guest speakers talk about pertinent issues to youth. The two main ones being mental health and safe driving. And, then, we -- plus in addition to the speakers, we had two main activities that are really meant to engage the youth. We had -- if you have seen those inebriated goggles to try mimic what it's like being drunk. We did mini golfing with those, which was surprisingly really pretty difficult and, then, we did texting and driving while on the go karts and I know that was a lot of fun and it was really eye opening to see, you know, just how distracted you can be while you are on your phone while driving. Holdeman: And, then, most recent -- one of the most recent ones that we had was the Walk To End Alzheimer's. So, this is an event they hold every year and so I -- so I was able to reach out to the director of the walk and so this was our first community service event of the year and we use like Google Forum to gather information about potential MYAC members that would be interested in the event and, then, we were able to coordinate with the director of the walk and get out there on Saturday and just have a good time cheering people on and helping set up. And, then, most most recently -- yesterday -- we went to the Farmstead for about three hours. It was kind of our-- our first attempt at team building slash bonding events, so we can kind of, you know, recruit new members and kind of just get to know general council, because it can be kind of hard from executive council to interact with the newer members and so we were there from 4:00 to 7.00 and because there was no regular MYAC meeting it was kind of a good opportunity to still get together and that unstructured time kind of made it a little more fun for everyone. Leckie: So, for our up and coming events that we have in the works, as some of you guys are aware, we are going to be doing our City Council and, then, afterwards the school board forum and that's coming up October 18th. MYAC is helping to run that and to get the questions together and just put it on. Then a little bit later on the 21 st we are going to set up a booth for the Trunk or Treat event that Meridian puts on. I don't think we have fully decided yet, but we are thinking either a lost kid booth or a voter registration, just giving out some information to people and, then, we are going to help with Rake Up Meridian. I think the dates have been nailed down to a few dates at the end of October, but we are going to help put that together and volunteer for it. Yeah. That's all the big events that we have put on so far and what we are looking to do and would stand for any questions if there are any. Simison: Thank you. Council, any questions or comments? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Page 10 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 7 of 19 Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Nice to see both of you. Thanks for the update. It sounds like a lot is going on and as you guys are kind of capitalizing on this new environment to recruit and grow and I applaud you for it. Council, I just -- Joseph is a humble guy, but I just also want to let everybody know in addition to his work on the youth council Joseph also serves on our Transportation Commission and is just a great commissioner. He rode -- he and I rode the bus out together when we did the ribbon cutting for these new electric buses. I just think it's great that our students are getting engaged in using public transit and learning more about our city. So, I appreciate the update. And, then, I just want to say I was at the Alzheimer's walk on Saturday and you were spot on, the youth council members that were there were incredibly kind and polite and encouraging and really made the event great. So, nice work on that as well. Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: Mr. Cavener, I think you would have been in trouble if you didn't show up to that event. One last thing. Great -- great job, guys. Honestly, I -- we are huge supporters of MYAC and I am -- we are so grateful that -- you know, maybe COVID isn't quite an issue as it was before as it relates to getting together and having activities and making a difference in community. So, it's a -- it's an amazing deal when kiddos get together and they --they brainstorm and they think of wonderful ways to impact community and I would argue that most of the time you do it better than us and so great work. And one last thing. We are going to be doing a Rake Up for Meridian as well as a Council, so great minds think alike. Simison: And, Council, if I could just add on, I mean with COVID last year, you know, MYAC struggled with ways to stay engaged and involved in the remote and I want to applaud those that did and, then, the team that really stepped in this at the end of the last year school year and at the start of this school year to work on -- on finding new members. MYAC has been really Renaissance heavy. You know, it just happens we have two non- Renaissance members here presenting, but we have -- they have made some outreach, they showed up. The things that weren't in here they showed up at registration this year for West Ada and we are really working and encouraging kids to get in get involved and I think that show -- was showcased in some of the people that showed up at some of the things. So, now it's just finding ways to keep them engaged and moving forward, but want to applaud those that are really committed to building MYAC back into it, but we have also said it's not about the numbers, it's about the quality and what -- and the engagement and the activities. So, just -- you know, this is a -- this is one of the things we want to get back to doing was having regular interaction with Council as well. So, appreciate that. Thank you. Appreciate it. 14. Community Match Agreement Between the City of Meridian and JST Page 11 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 8 of 19 Manufacturing, Inc. Supporting the Idaho Tax Reimbursement Incentive Act and Providing for the Reimbursement of $27,000 for Completed Public Infrastructure Improvements Simison: Okay. Next item on the agenda is Item 14 Community Match Agreement from the city of Meridian and JST Manufacturing and I will turn this over to Tori. Cleary: Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council. Since you are six feet away from me I'm going to go ahead and take this off during my presentation. Before you this afternoon we have our community match agreement for your consideration between the City of Meridian and JST Manufacturing. This agreement is in support of JST's Idaho tax reimbursement incentive agreement. First I will talk a little bit about JST. They are a 40 year old Treasure Valley manufacturer of specialty machinery in the semiconductor, optoelectronics, biomedical, food processing and other clean industries. They first approached city staff in fall of 2019 looking to consolidate three different locations here in Meridian. Eventually they decided upon a location over on Lanark just east of Eagle and we connected them with Idaho commerce and letting them know that this tax reimbursement incentive agreement was available for companies in the region. It's a performance base agreement that they have with Idaho commerce and they are required to create a minimum of 50 new jobs. So, part of the TRA requirement that's in the state statute is for local communities to provide a community match, demonstrating the local support for this company coming to their community. So, this community match agreement is a little bit different from others that the city has done in the past. While the city does certainly value and it's one of our priorities to create new family wage jobs and, of course, it's nice to see new -- new consistent property tax revenue stream come in, we do need to make a direct nexus to public purpose and that would be an expenditure that that company or contribution that that company is making that serves the general public. In this instance JST was required to provide an extended water line and a new fire hydrant. Those are considered contributed capital improvements that are documented by a surety agreement and a bond and those eventually do become city assets. So, those, in fact, really do serve the general public and, again, these are above and beyond what's required to serve their facility. JST's operations align with one of our four target industry sectors that we have identified for the city and just as a reminder in case you don't know or for anybody out there, our four target industry sectors are professional services, healthcare, technology and advanced manufacturing and where JST falls into is advanced manufacturing. They also tangentially serve the technology industry as well. So, one of the requirements, as I said, is 50 new jobs and those 50 new jobs have to -- the wages for those have to average at or above the county average wage, which at the time of JST's agreement was 50,464 dollars. That has -- as of July that's been increased to I think around 56,400. But their agreement was approved by the state prior to that, but just kind of an FYI going forward. But their average wage is 58,138 dollars. So, they will be creating 50 new jobs. Capital investment of 4.7 million dollars. We estimate that that annual real property tax increase -- and that's on the land and building -- will exceed 25,000 dollars a year. In addition to the property value they do have their assessed personal property tax and that's on their equipment in their facility and that exceeds two million dollars. They have paid 126,000 dollars in fees for development of the facility. Page 12 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 9 of 19 Just want to also point out in your staff report these efforts do align with the economic development action plan and also the citywide strategic plan. Specifically, our community a match is proposed to be 27,000 dollars distributed over two years and that is following confirmation that they met all their performance obligations with Idaho commerce under that master TRI agreement and with that I will stand for any questions. Simison: Thank you, Tori, for that thorough explanation. Council, any questions? Okay. Thank you very much. Cleary: Thank you. 15. Finance Department: Third-Party Billing Process Proposal Action Simison: Final item on the agenda is Finance Department third-party billing process proposal action. I will turn this over to Karie for a reminder of where we were and Council discussion. Glenn: Mayor and Council, appreciate you putting me back on the docket. I wanted to circle back around for the third-party process disband request. Simison: Karie, can you get a little closer to the mic. Glenn: I didn't want to, you know, rehash the whole entire thing. If you have any other questions. If there were things that you needed me to clarify. But we are at this point in time looking for direction on do we proceed, do we disband, do you want us to go a certain direction. Simison: Council, questions, comments, discussion? Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: Karie, I just had a question as you go through the numbers and appreciate the -- the thorough document that you put together on this and, you know, we have been -- we have been doing this process here for several years now for third-party billing and looking at a couple other communities around us. You know, looking at their write-off percentage, you know, 5.882 for one community. The other one is .4407 and -- which both are high and we are -- we are in the low category and is there going to be -- are we going to be chasing credit -- you know, people who owe their bill or are -- will that not happen? Glenn: With the debt staying with the property we should not see that increase, because regardless of who we are sending the bills to, regardless of what documents we are chasing, the debt in Meridian stays with the property. So, the owner is ultimately liable for that debt regardless. Those other communities that you are saying in the documents, Page 13 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 10 of 19 they chase the person. So, if the renter moves out and even moves out of state, one -- once they go so far you can't -- you can't follow them . So, that's where the -- that's why the increase in write-offs. Hoaglun: Okay. Mr. Mayor, to follow up. Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: Yeah. So, since we are after the owner -- the other communities don't do that. They are collecting whoever was there? Glenn: Yes. They chase the person. Hoaglun: They chase the person, so -- okay. Just wanted to make sure I understood that. So thank you. Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: Karie, remind me, was it your department's recommendation that we get rid of it and that we grandfather the existing ones and -- Glenn: We would basically get rid of it, but we would phase it out. Rather than just as of Monday morning we are no longer going to deal with it. We would phase it out. As -- as renters, excuse me, move out we would just not update them back into a renter, it would just get updated either into the owner or the property manager at that level and that's where it would stay. Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: Karie, did you reach out to some of the larger -- the larger clients, maybe some property management companies, to get their feedback on this change? Glenn: Not just as a kind of call of arms type thing. We have just have kind of tickled a little bit. Bernt: Okay. Glenn: Of course they--they don't want us to do that. It is easy to use the City of Meridian as a collection agency on their behalf, rather than them kind of keeping track and acting as the true property manager. Bernt: Got it. Page 14 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 11 of 19 Perreault: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Perreault. Perreault: So, just as kind of a procedural question. Will the tenant or whoever is occupying the property receive copies of the bill or is -- I mean are they able to look at their usage? Are they -- do they -- you had mentioned last time that they can go online, I believe, and take a look at the information; is that correct? Glenn: Yes. If they have got -- if the property owner has given them the account number and some basic information, they can go online and take a look at the usage and the bill and the billings themselves. Perreault: Okay. Glenn: Yeah. Perreault: Do we anticipate that the larger property management companies, for example, will have the ability to answer those questions for the resident? Oftentimes the owners aren't directly involved. Glenn: And I think the reason they are not involved or they are not getting the information is because they have offset at their -- they are telling us to send the information somewhere else. So, if the -- if the owner or the property manager is getting the information on a regular basis, then, yes, they -- we can help them understand it to where they can learn it, rather than relying on us to know all the information. Perreault: Okay. Glenn: Did that -- and I'm not sure if that answered your question. Perreault: Well, I just -- I think for a while it's -- it's not going to relieve staff time if tenants are calling in saying I don't have a way to access my account and I can't get ahold of anybody, because the property manager doesn't give -- have authorization to give me access to the account numbers, et cetera. Glenn: And I would -- I would agree with that. There will be a transition period. Perreault: Okay. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: Karie, somewhere in here you mentioned that, you know, there will be water turnoffs. Can you -- can you give me some update on that, how that works in terms of -- Page 15 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 12 of 19 if the property owner does not pay the bill, if we move to this, what's -- what's our process for that tenant at the place that's going to get the water turned off? Glenn: There would be no change. We send the bills out. You get your -- your monthly bill, your second monthly bill, a third delinquent notice. If the -- if the utility bills are still not paid the water would get shut off. We have -- we do have situations right now where the tenant will call and say I pay my rent. The landlord is supposed to pay my bill. Unfortunately, you need to talk to your landlord. Hoaglun: Follow up, Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: And that's my concern if -- so, if we do away with it -- because it does occur now. If that increases it just adds more of that situation where people will be calling in and whatnot and, you know, in those -- sometimes it's unfortunate situations in which family with small kids and different things like that and people are in a very difficult situation -- no win, because their-- their owner is not -- not being responsive -- or property owner is not being responsive, so -- is this -- to follow up again, Mr. Mayor. Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: I mean is this a revenue situation? You know, when you talk about 1.25 FTEs -- that 79,000. Water Department has, you know, some money invested, approximately 10,000 dollars for doing those meter reads for -- for the last time when -- when the bill is owed. Because, you know, one way to do that, instead of just a 20 dollar fee for setup, we could be charging them 20 dollars annually, which would raise 110 -- based on 5,500 accounts, that's -- that's 110,000 dollars, easily covering the cost of the -- of the program. If we just go to 20 dollars every year there is an annual fee. Glenn: Yeah. It was not -- the proposal was not brought forward to resolve revenue issues or anything like that, it literally was brought to the table based on results of our innovation team asking for process improvement requests. We did the whole sticky notes all over the wall and in those trainings the rules were you did not throw money at it and you did not throw staff at it. So, in order to meet those requirements of our innovation training, the total disband is where we landed. Hoaglun: Okay. Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: I guess, Karie, where -- where I'm having the conflict in my mind is the innovation training and, then, we have the Meridian Way, you know, where we provide outstanding public service and that's kind of the dilemma where I'm like, okay, are we providing a service that's outstanding and maybe above and beyond to some degree and that's why I look at, okay, if we are let's not have the rest of the ratepayers pay for it, but Page 16 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 13 of 19 have that being funded. So, that's kind of just the situation where I have this little mental struggle. Glenn: And I get that. I totally understand where you are coming from. I think as far as the -- those of us that are dealing with it every day, we are feeling like it's not this great excellent service. We are truly struggling to keep up with it. Just because of the -- the interest in between every single property and the situations that arise with that property each and every day. Simison: So, Karie, to that point if you had more resources to deal with it and we were charging adequately for the resources would that -- that's -- you know, personally I don't want to see this go away. I think we should charge for what the cost is and if it takes more people and we got to charge more. Eventually we are going to find out where the market will or won't bear the service or it's always going to be passed on to the renter and the landlords won't care what the cost is, because to them it's a value and if you want to rent that's how they get -- that's how they are going to do it. But it's clear that we have not been recouping our costs and maybe we were not putting enough staff resources into it if that's what it is and the cost should be higher. You know, that's -- Glenn: There is definitely room for changes, implementations of different things. I mean we -- I'm not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. So, if the order is we will not disband, we will continue, I'm back to the drawing board to keep -- keep things going and make them better, so -- Perreault: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Perreault. Perreault: It seems to me, based on at least what's been shared, that there are -- and -- and the information that --that you -- or that Todd e-mailed to us, which thank you for that. That was very thorough -- that there is pros and cons on either side and it sounds like the pros of disbanding it and are outweighing the cons from the staff's perspective and I appreciate that you come and say, hey, we want to do ourjob really well and we don't feel like we are. Thank you for coming and talking to us about that, because we very much appreciate that staff has a desire to do that. I agree with -- with the Mayor that I would like to see this continue for a number of reasons and so are you able to -- help me -- help us understand more what the -- what the cons are that you are -- what the tradeoff is in terms of -- you are, obviously, experiencing some -- some frustration with the process. So, if this goes away what is it that is improving and -- and how did you all balance that with -- within not having that service? So, in other words, I'm under the impression and the assumption that this is just going to create other challenges. Like we are just trading off issues and we have to kind of decide which are the most manageable. Is that correct? Glenn: If -- yes, you are correct. If it goes away we will have tons less paperwork that we are trying to chase and even validate, because --just because the paper is turned in or the form is turned in does not mean the information on that piece of paper is correct, Page 17 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 14 of 19 so we have to validate documents from all the tenants, all the renters -- or I mean all the tenants, all the owners. We have to make sure there is a property management agreement in place. This could mean one to -- anywhere from one to three final reads just to get ready for the renter to move in, because somebody has messed up -- messed up a date, you know, they are -- the tenant -- the tenant says they are moving in on one day, the owner says, no, they are moving in on this day and now you have got these two arguing over the date after we have already sent the water guys out to do, you know, three final reads -- or three reads and prep. Then once they do move out, then, you have got more final reads, more final bills. Well, I didn't move on -- out on this day. I don't want to pay that$2.15 -- and that was a conversation we had last week. The final bill the renter thought that was $2.15 higher than what it should have been based on the fact that the owner told us that he moved out on this day, when he actually says he moved out the next day. So, it's -- it's things like that that is becoming more and more and more and more burdensome. If they go away, the owner or the property manager gets the bill, it's up to them to keep track of who moved in when and disperse that bill however you see fit. Perreault: Thank you. That's helpful. Hoaglun: So, Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: I just want to kind of follow up on your line of thinking and -- and I certainly don't want to have staff that's frustrated and it's -- it's -- that's not a good working deal and so that's why I just want to explore further. You know, if -- if you go to a 50 dollar annually per account that they have to pay, you know, if it stayed at 5,500 customers there is 275,000 dollars. You can hire additional people to service -- well, we hope we can hire additional people. It's kind of hard to hire people these days and knowing full well the market would adjust, there will be people going, no, we are not paying 50 dollars. So, even if you drop that down to 5,000 that's 200,000 -- you half it, let's say you go to 2,500, which is less than half here -- 125,000 dollars. But I guess where I'm going with this -- throwing these numbers out is more staff the solution or is it truly that point where it doesn't matter if you have more staff, the issues and frustrations will still remain, it's just the new person that has to deal with them? Glenn: I would agree with that. I would agree with that statement-- is that you are adding more staff to the mix. It's just that many more people that are upset. Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: Just for clarification, is it a yearly fee or is it just a turnover of rental fee? Glenn: We were anticipating that it would just be a turnover fee. Page 18 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 15 of 19 Bernt: Yeah. Glenn: Basically an application fee and the way we have kind of laid it out as far as -- if we go that route, we would actually charge that up front at the time of the direct -- the billing directive, which would mean that would be the owner's responsibility, not keep shifting the burden to the tenant. Simison: And at the end of the day the fee has got to be the cost of the service. However that is. So, it's going to be equal to whatever we decide the needs are to provide that service. Glenn: And that is something that Todd did commit to is that if -- if we went with the additional application fee we would reevaluate that every year and adjust. Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: I appreciate this dialogue. I -- from the data that we were presented before, part of what makes me like your recommendation is the process that goes into it. I'm a process guy and -- and your department thoroughly vetted pros and cons that we are all wrestling with right now. So, I'm leaning towards going forward with what's being recommended from the department. We are going to have data to track. If it blows up we can -- there is nothing that says you couldn't pivot back and adjust policy again. So, in light of how you got to this conclusion for me it seems worth giving it a shot if the pros outweigh the cons. Certainly there is -- there is two sides to it, but it makes sense to give it a shot. Glenn: With that statement, Councilman, the recommendation on the table being disband or increasingly--our request was to disband. But the discussion has led towards increase the fee. Borton: Mr. Mayor, my -- the thought would be the recommendation to disband. Glenn: Okay. Borton: Going forward; right? (Technical audio problems.) Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: Are we good? So -- so, I look at what we have done in the past with the innovation team and the -- and what we have been able to accomplish and resources that we have been able save and the efficiency that we have been able to better, especially -- I think there was one situation in the Planning Department where we did an innovation project, it really helped out with the processes that we were dealing with and so I think that we Page 19 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 16 of 19 have these processes in place for a reason and as a Council Member -- and I know we are all different, I'm one of six, we all have our own opinions, but rely heavily on staff and what they feel is correct and what they recommend and most of the time I agree, sometimes not, but in this case I do, so I would support your recommendation. Perreault: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Perreault. And for the record we can save a lot of time, resources, and processes by eliminating a lot of things. Bernt: What are we waiting for? Simison: Well, we may not like a lot of those things if we wanted to just for that point, but -- yeah. Council Woman Perreault. Perreault: So, I -- I echo the concerns that Councilman Hoaglun has presented. I have a lot of -- I realize that we are probably not doing shutoffs frequently. I mean we usually get notified when there is a shutoff, so I know it's not really frequent, but would it be possible to implement a notice to the -- to the address that's being -- that's receiving the warnings? So, if there warnings go to the owner or where ever that address -- mailing address is, is it possible to also make sure notice goes to the property address? Glenn: I could take a look at that, yes. Perreault: I -- I -- that would make me significantly more comfortable that it goes out with the first notice that's sent to the property, because -- and in some situations notices have to be posted to the property itself if utilities are going to be shut off, so I think it would be good to make sure that there is some sort of mailing to the resident -- to the property itself and the other thing I want to mention is that we have approved quite a bit of -- of multi- family and so I anticipate that this -- if we keep the program it's only going to get bigger and more challenging, so -- Glenn: Multi-families are a non-issue because the multi-family -- that 32 unit building, that bill goes to one person of-- the property manager of that building. So, those 32 units are not getting notified of anything. Perreault: Is it one bill for all the units or are they sent separately and managed separately by the property management companies? Glenn: One -- one bill per building per water meter. Perreault: Are all new multi-families required to be set up that way or can they meter them separately so the tenants pay them? Glenn: They can do sub meters, but I believe City of Meridian typically has one large meter for the entire building and, then, it would be up to the property manager to put sub Page 20 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 17 of 19 meters on them to where they would get their bill for the hundred -- hundred thousand gallons and, then, they would be able to look at their own meters and determine. But, no, we -- the City of Meridian wouldn't go down that far. Perreault: Okay. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Nary: Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, this will require a change in ordinance, because it is -- third party billing directives are ordinance -- I don't know if -- Johnson: Mr. Mayor. That's your microphone. We have informed IT that it's getting some feedback from the cord. Nary: So, you would likely have a public hearing. We have done it -- as we have done in the past and we haven't really vetted it with the other agency -- or the other users of the system. The property management might disagree that -- on whether and how that -- their feelings about it. So, you can take the step that this is the directive and we will draft a repeal and, then, we can notice it up for a public hearing and at least get some feedback that way. But we can't just stop doing it. We can't just turn it off, because it is an ordinance. Simison: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have struggled with this one. I appreciate, Karie, you and Todd making time to kind of walk me through some of this. I think the conflict for me has been -- I want to be really sympathetic to our staff to bring in what I think is a real valid concern versus maintaining a program that seems to get a lot of use. But I met with Finance, I kind of said that my philosophy is the user is ultimately the one that should be worried about paying for it, not just the person who owns the building, but the person who is using the product. So, I'm still struggling that -- because we are only presented really right now with two options, either keep it as is or do away with it, to be supportive of either one I think that -- we have kind of touched on this a little bit, that maybe there is some opportunity for some modification -- appropriate, you know, fees and cost recovery that would cover additional staff to help with that. Appreciate the --the challenge that you took upon yourself to say we want to solve this problem without spending more money and hiring more people and when you look at that with an issue like this there is only kind of one solution that presents itself. To the question about an ordinance, I mean I have talked to some property managers, much to like Karie said, they all are for the most part going to be opposed to this. I don't think we are going to have any property managers that are going to say that they think this is a good idea. But I'm certainly open to a public hearing if we want to bring a revised change. I don't think I'm going to be supportive of it, but from a -- from a process standpoint to allow for a public hearing for Council to gain additional feedback before we render a decision, I wouldn't be opposed to that. Hoaglun: Mr. Mayor? Page 21 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 18 of 19 Simison: Councilman Hoaglun. Hoaglun: And one thing I have learned over the years, not just working for the city, but in other jobs is you listen to people down in the trenches, because they are the ones doing the battle, doing the work, and -- and when you learn more about what they do and the situations they face, you know, it's -- it's something that you have to pay attention to and need to listen to and -- and I appreciate, Karie, the -- you know, the dialogue and let me kind of think out loud on some of these things and looking at options. I think following, you know, Council saying we need to come back with an ordinance, I -- I can be supportive of -- of coming back with an ordinance, seeing what people have to say, looking at the numbers. I think Councilman Borton brings up a good point about, you know, we can always -- if we do go that route, the route that you are recommending, to disband third- party billing, we can always pivot later on if it -- if it doesn't work and one of the matrix I would look at is that write-off percentage rate. You know, it's one of the things I'm concerned about, because that -- that is -- you know, people aren't paying their bills and somebody's going to have to pay for it and it will be the other ratepayers. So, I think if we go to -- to that ordinance, have that drafted up, I'm good with that and have a hearing and, then, go forward from there. So, that's my two cents. Simison: Okay. We will bring it back in that forum for public hearing. Glenn: Thank you so much. Simison: Council, we reached the end of our meeting. Do I have a motion? Bernt: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Bernt. Bernt: I move that we adjourn this meeting. 14. Community Match Agreement Between the City of Meridian and JST Manufacturing, Inc. Supporting the Idaho Tax Reimbursement Incentive Act and Providing for the Reimbursement of $27,000 for Completed Public Infrastructure Improvements Johnson: Mr. Mayor? My apologies. Item 14. Bernt: Yes. We need to approve. Sorry. Forgot. Simison: Okay. All right. Bernt: Thanks for that reminder. Borton: Mr. Mayor? Page 22 Meridian City Council Work Session Item#1. October 5,2021 Page 19 of 19 Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: As to Item 14, 1 move that we approve the community match agreement between the City of Meridian and JST Manufacturing as presented regarding the Idaho Tax Reimbursement Incentive in the amount of 27,000 dollars. Bernt: Second the motion. Simison: I have a motion and a second to approve the agreement. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it. The agreement item is agreed to. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Simison: Now do I have a motion? Bernt: Thank you, Chris, for that reminder. I forgot. Mr. Mayor, I move that we at this time for sure, one hundred percent, adjourn the meeting. Simison: I have a motion to adjourn the meeting. All in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. The ayes have it. We are adjourned. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 5:20 P.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) 10-19-2021 MAYOR ROBERT E. SIMISON DATE APPROVED ATTEST: CHRIS JOHNSON - CITY CLERK Page 23