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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001 11-13 Roll Call: Issue #1 Issue #2 Issue #3 Issue #4 Issue #5 Issue #6 Issue #7 Issue #8 CITY OF MERIDIAN CITY COUNCIL STRA TEGIC PLANNING SESSION I WORKSHOP AGENDA ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION Tuesday, November 13, 2001, at 6:30 P.M. City Council Chambers ~Tammy deWeerd ~ Cherie McCandless ~ Ron Anderson -----K- Keith Bird ~Mayor Robert Corrie Discussion with the Meridian School District Representatives - update on projects and issues - Christine Donnelf/Wendel Bigham Presentation and discussion by Elaine Clegg with Smart Growth -- Presented Update of construction of Meridian Police Center -- Presented by Dave Bowman Discussion of alcohol and drug policy - Pauline Skeggs -- Reviewed - on CIC 11/27101 Meeting Discussion of criminal background check ordinance - Pauline Skeggs - Reviewed - on CIC 11/27101 Meeting Discussion of request of transfer information services money from contract to personnel- Stacy Kilchenmann -- Presented Discussion of Treasure Valley Loop Concept by Claire Bowman- from COMPASS and Terry Little from ACHD Discussion of status/update of fee study for possible increases for P & Z, Public Works, Parks (impact fees) and Safety Services impact fees - Brad Watson - PW, Tom Kuntz - P/R, David McKinnon - PIZ Meridian City Council Workshop Agenda - November 13,2001 Page 1 of 2 All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian, Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearings, please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 72 hours prior to the public meeting, Issue #9 Discussion of letter to send Ada County regarding subdivision in the north corridor of the area of impact (Keltic Heights -- Draft Presented - Mayor to sign Issue #10 Mayor's Comments to Council on budgeting - Purchase Orders Presented by Stacy K. Issue #11 Craig Groves request for Packard Sub No. 1 13.5 Acres - Apply to Administrator decision on clc 11/20101 Meeting Issue #12 Discussion of Future Topics - Executive Session - No decision Meridian City Council Workshop Agenda - November 13,2001 Page 2 of 2 All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian. Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearings, please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 72 hours prior to the public meeting. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13.2001 The regularly scheduled workshop of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:32 P.M. on Tuesday November 13, 2001 by President Keith Bird. Members Present: Mayor Robert Corrie, Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Ron Anderson, and Cherie McCandless. Others Present: Bill Nichols, Gary Smith, Brad Watson, Dave Bowman, Pauline Skeggs, Dave McKinnon, and Will Berg. Roll Call: ~ Tammy de Weerd ~ Cherie McCandless ~ Ron Anderson ~ Ke;th Bird ~Mayor Robert Corrie Bird: I'll call the City Council Strategic Planning Session Workshop to order at 6:32 and note that all are present. I'd like to welcome the Boy Scouts and everybody here. It's a nice turn out for a workshop. We appreciate that. Issue #1 Discussion with the Meridian School District Representatives - update on projects and issues - Bird: The first issue is discussion with the Meridian School District Representative. I think Wendell and Christine are both here. If you'd like to come up and get in the hot seat --. Yes, those are the hot seats. Have you guys got anything for us? Is everything going okay? Council, have you got anything for them? Any questions? This is nice. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Donnell: That's not a happy discussion. It wasn't a happy time for us this afternoon. We got the message that there's another (inaudible). Actually, Mr. Mayor and City Council, I would like to say that we will continue on with our projects and we're in discussions with the City in regard to that easement (inaudible) for the easement for our new middle school that you requested (inaudible). I think that we will be proceeding (inaudible). It won't come before you before it goes to P&Z but we do have, I'm not sure that we'll be before P&Z Thursday night. Bird: Which we don't want to talk about. Donnell: So, we don't talk about it. So, I can't lobby? De Weerd: No. Bird: No. I Meridian City Council Workshoi-' November 13, 2001 Page 2 Donnell: I guess I won't. Other than that we're just --. Whatever we can do for you, we'd be happy to let you know what's happening and just moving right along. Bird: Wendell, have you and our staff got together and resolved any issues we had? Bigham: Mr. Chairman, Councilman. I believe we have. We have dialogue established and we're communicating on a number of issues. I think (inaudible) the on going discussion. I would say probably the biggest thing that we're struggling with today (inaudible) is the North Meridian Planning Area. We currently have property in that area where we want a middle school but, with the upcoming bond issue we may be fortunate enough to (inaudible). Some of the things --. The discussion we'll be having will be advocating with the developers, not necessarily siding with (inaudible) but we're keenly interested in the success of some of the major developments as they relate to our acquiring land in (inaudible). Some of it may look a little strange. Some of it is strange, the high school sites, middle school sites (inaudible). (inaudible) so that we don't have to look at a bond issue to (inaudible) and finding the site (inaudible). We'll be talking to staff regularly about those. It's just a matter of where is the growth going to go (inaud ible)? De Weerd: Mr. President. Bird: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: I guess I do have a question when you talk about articles. In Sunday's paper it talked about the size of classrooms and that sort of thing in the Meridian School district. In our comments that we get from staff at the school district talks about over crowded schools but it never gives us any solid recommendation. Is there a chance that that might change? I did notice that one of your school board members testified against a development over in Eagle recently that I read about in the paper. Is the schoof board now kind of changing their views on the non- committal staff comments? Are we going to start getting some more solid direction from the school district? Donnell: I'll take one (inaudible) first. Mr. Chairman and Councilwoman de Weerd. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Donnell: I just call you Tammy most of the time. De Weerd: Tammy's good. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13. 2001 Page 3 Donnell: The class size article was an interesting one because they really targeted the Meridian School District rather than really look at the entire Treasure Valley. That was my disappointment in the article. When we talk about crowded schools, we talk about capacity versus enrollment. That changes depending on the individual's ability. Some of them lend themselves to more capacity than others do. Of course the year round ones definitely give us more but we've got a lot of issues about our multi track schools as well. If I'm answering what you asked, the school board members seem to change their stand on development based on the new members on the school board. Does this make any sense? We deal with new school board members all the time. They come in with different ideas in terms of whether we ought to take a firm stand about development or not. In the past, I think you know that our school board has been one that has said we're not into determining what ought to be developed. We'll just provide the services for whatever is developed. We'll build the schools. We've taken a pretty non-committal stance. I think this board right now and perhaps a couple of past board members would probably look at it a little bit differently and have a stronger say. We have no authority. We have no power to have much say in terms of whether development goes on or not. We just have to say this does impact us as a district in being able to provide the service. Did that answer your question? Anderson: I might add on that because that's been one of the things that I've struggled with for 4 years being on the Council a lot of times we'll have developments that they meet all of our City Ordinances but yet you know it's going to tax the roads and you know it's going to tax the school district and what have you. When we read the staff comments from those agencies, it's just like it means this but they won't come out and tell you that it is going to have a negative impact. It just says that this is how many more students it's going to be. It doesn't say whether that's good or bad. Yet, we often get chastised for approving a subdivision and sometimes it would be nice to have a little bit of help to be able to not approve something. Donnell: Again, it's just a matter of whether the board at that point that we have says you take a neutral stand or you take a stand whether it's in opposition. So, I think, we know it's frustrating for you. In our case, you know we also realize that we don't have a lot of power to say no. But it would probably be helpful. Anderson: I little bit of input would be helpful. Donnell: Yes. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bigham: Mr. Chairman. Generally those letter that you read have my signature on them. I'm currently advocating to the board, the school board, a neutral stance on development. The goal on one side of that is to work more proactively both Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 4 with regulatory staff and the City of Meridian, City of Boise, City of Eagle and the development community to appropriately locate and site school property. Once we get beyond that, it's very difficult for us to say no to a development because we don't have the capacity. I think there is actually some ordinance at the state level that places upon you that if we say we are at capacity and we have no room, you have the ability the say no to the development. I think the reality of that is that we would probably be (inaudible) some type of litigation in 24 hours after that happened. If the school district said no to the development. It's kind of a 3- prong school okay. Is our capacity issue a site related issue as in the property for the school site? If we have the property or we get the property, we may very well find ourselves in the absence of a bond issue without sufficient funds to construct the facility. If we should be fortunate which we currently are the tax base is quite good for the school district then the ability to run a bond is good (inaudible). It's still a good idea except in the state level there's not been sufficient funding to staff the schools. So, it's very hard for us to say no to the development based upon our capacity, our tax base links to the (inaudible). We're in a very awkward position. I think the best way is to be proactive to planning the sites and hopefully through some kind of a bond issue it is to get ahead of the capacity issue so that the system isn't at capacity (inaudible) funding for staff (inaudible). (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: Here, I think it was 3 or 4 years ago, enrollment in the Meridian School District about 26 percent of it was within the City of Meridian, the people that we have control over. Is it still about that? Because West Boise has grown. I mean, I think if you actually count, you've got more facilities in Boise city limits than you do in the City of Meridian. If not it's pretty close. Would 26 percent of the student body be within the City of Meridian City limits? (inaudible) Donnell: Mr. Chairman. I think it's bouncing up. Yes. We can get the number. You bet we can. Bird: Would you get that? Because about 4 years ago it was about 26 percent within the City limits of Meridian. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bigham: I'll get that information for you at the next meeting. It gets a little difficult but we have it by census track. Bird: You bet. Bigham: As long as we can get those census tracks more or less (inaudible) within the City limits or the area of impact, we can very quickly give you the numbers that are out of the census which always seem a little bit low. (inaudible) Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 5 Bird: High school still 2003, on schedule? (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Donnell: Ponderosa Elementary is coming on 2002. Bird: All right. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: Do you have any questions? De Weerd: No. Bird: Thank you guys again. We appreciate this. Donnell: Thank you for the time. We appreciate being able to talk to you. Issue #2 Presentation and discussion by Elaine Clegg with Smart Growth - Bird: Okay, I see Elaine got in here. Item NO.2 is a presentation and discussion by Elaine Clegg with the Idaho Smart Growth. Clegg: High. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Clegg: I have 15 copies of these. If you'd like to have (inaudible). Bird: Take 1 of each? Clegg: Yes. 1 of each. I thought I would leave you with lots of reading material. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Clegg: There's 1 that says Smart Growth Issues and Opportunities. I'll start on that 1 . (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Clegg: Yes, there's 3 total. Bird: We're going to start with the Smart Growth Issues? Clegg: Yes. Just sort of an overview of Smart Growth. I know a lot of you and I really appreciate it, have been coming to a lot of the educational things that Meridian City Council Workshoy November 13, 2001 Page 6 we've been partnering on with different people around the valley. Some people still have questions about really what is Smart Growth and what does it mean and how can it work? I didn't bring the whole slide show that goes with this outline because I didn't think there would be enough time. The top of it, I think the really important thing is what does Idaho Smart Growth do? What do we try to do? Our mission is to encourage vibrant communities through sensible growth. It's by accommodating growth in ways that maintains and increases social economic and environmental well being of our communities. By encouraging new development that results in more housing, transportation, and employment choices as well as opportunities for all. I think that I've heard at least from some of the Meridian City Council members that 1 of your concerns is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of different choices in Meridian. You're kind of given a one size fits all product. We really believe that maybe that is an area where the City of Meridian is at a point where they need to start looking at that. You know that's been the market for the last few years and that's why people choose to come to Meridian. Now you've got probably, J would guess some market pressures for some other choices, some town homes, some multi family, some other kinds of things that people who are entering different stages of their lives or whatever would want as a choice. The other thing that I think is really important, I hope, for everyone to remember is Smart Growth isn't a 1 size fits all kind of deal. It isn't anyone thing. What it is, is finding the mix of things and the mix of transportation choices and the kind of pattern that works for everyone. It might be a neo-traditional style. It might be a new urbanism style. It might not be, as long as the elements are there and the pattern is there to make it work. That's really what we talk about when we talk Smart Growth. J think there's a misconception if you will, that it has to look like the north end. That's not true. I'll give you an example. Boise, when they recognized about 25 years ago that there was a lot of growth coming, made a conscience decision to encourage growth in the southeast. They did that in a variety of ways. There was some private investment in a big roadway. In fact, I've been thinking about that the last couple of days as perhaps a model that we might look at for the 12 square miles north of town. It hadn't really occurred to me until then. We'll talk about that a little bit. Park Center Boulevard got built. Of course the (inaudible) was going out of business as a dairy and was getting developed. The City I think made some pretty wise choices in making sure that that didn't just all get developed the same way. In fact, it didn't. There's 4 bigger apartment complexes. There's 4 or 5 townhome developments. There's some condos. There's some other attached housing that's owner occupied. The area south of Boise Avenue, bounded by Gekeler and Apple, is actually 5.5 units per acre even though it has a 40-acre high school site, a 10-acre grade school site and a canal running through it that takes up a lot of land area out of it. They were able to achieve that because of those multi family units and because of the town homes and what have you. Yet, I don't think anyone would look at that and say that looks like the north end. It doesn't have to look like the north end. What it does have to do to really function in a Smart Growth pattern is have enough density that people can, there's enough people in the area to have a service center and to have connectivity so people can get Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 7 there in means other than cars. Southeast Boise, that part of southeast Boise, doesn't have great road connectivity, but it has decent. It does have a really good series of walking paths. You can walk from almost anywhere in that developed area to the Albertson's, K-Mart without all that much trouble. It's easily done if you want to. The other thing about it is even the people who don't walk to get their groceries, or what have you, still stay in the neighborhood. There's a trip capture there of 37 percent. That was a study done by COMPASS when Harris Ranch was built. That trip capture means that 37 percent of the trips bounded in a certain area don't leave that area but stay within it to get their needs met. That of course, reduces the need for extra capacity on surrounding bigger roads. It's helped, I think, that part of Boise really even though Broadway is crowded and Park Center is crowded, Boise Avenue is crowded. They're not frankly at the kind of gridlock that you see in a lot of west Boise where that same kind of planning wasn't done. Boise has examples of both that were built about the same time but, just the pattern was different and the density was different. When we talk about Smart Growth, I think one of the things I always try to point out to people is that it doesn't mean it has to look like the north end. Although, I love the north end. I live there by choice and it's a great place to live, it's not certainly I understand that not everybody wants to live there. That's a choice that they should be able to make. On the flip side of that, I think, municipalities and other jurisdictions need to be able to direct those choices in ways so that down the road it doesn't cost so much that we can't service it. Schools are certainly a great example of that. It would be interesting to find a mechanism so that schools and other agencies like that can report, I think, more honestly about what capacity they have down the line so that the decisions can be made in a way that is a little more transparent, has a little more information on the table if you will. Maybe that's a good lead in to the north Meridian process. Some of you have been coming to those meetings. I think that, lets see, you've got a chapter out of the tool kit called site planning. Yes, tool NO.4. How to write an area plan. I included that because I think that there are things in there that could be used in the north Meridian process that haven't been so far. I think there are things that --. There certainly are things in there that have been used. Overall, I hope that it will give you maybe a better understanding of I believe what most of the folks that are working on it are trying to accomplish. The 1, I guess concern that I have about the process so far is that the goals and visions are really fairly benign, if you will. I'm not sure that they're written strongly enough at this point or with enough detail to really drive the kind of really innovative things that most of the people have talking about including the developers. North Meridian, I think you have a great opportunity because everyone is sitting down, the school district, the highway district, the developers, and you guys who control the other infrastructure and some of those who have an outside interest to talk about the possibilities. I would hope that the outcome would be the kind of planning that happened in southeast Boise and provided service centers that help develop that trip capture that they have. Also, I think that there's a great opportunity to reduce some of the infrastructure costs down the road. Particularly I think on the roadways. I think that that is the place where, ACHD I know is feeling a big pinch. They're not sure Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 8 that if 17,000 households move into that area that they've got the money to service it because the typical pattern that we've been building in requires that every arterial get widened to 5 or 7 lanes and be 90 foot right of way and all of those things. I guess the biggest hope that I have for that area is that by accomplishing some better trip capture by accomplishing some more connectivity, that not all of those roads will have to be widened that much and in the end it will cost less. I think a good case and point, those of us who've been going to the workshops on north Meridian, not just the policy group meetings where a lot more of the technical stuff is being talked about. The Washington Group did a study for ACHD. When we asked about trip capture, they said they just figured 10 percent trip capture regardless except for elementary school trips. Because the school district is assuming that there will be 1 elementary school in every section, they said 100 percent trip capture on elementary school trips and 10 percent for everything else. The average of all of that is less than 20 percent. If it could approach the 37 percent that's being accomplished in southeast Boise or the 40 some percent that happens in the north end or the 40 percent that's being predicted for Harris Ranch, then the roads that they're projecting that will be needed will be much smaller than what they're projecting right now with the less than 20 percent. I think that's something that I hope all of you can kind of keep in your minds as the process goes forward. Also, I hope, keep in mind that the more specific the vision and goals that are eventually adopted in the next; and it will be a fairly short time. There's only 2 months before these alternatives get proposed. More specific those visions and goals are, the more likely you are to be able meet the innovation that's been talked about. I know you've got a pretty full agenda tonight, so I'm not going to take a whole lot of time otherwise, except to tell you that we do have this tool kit of alternative choices. I know soOme of you have it. I didn't bring extra copies for those of you who don't because we're in the process of reprinting it right now with some corrections. They're available if anyone doesn't have one and would like one. You also have a little handout that looks like this. I would like to quickly go through it and just tell you what's in the tool kit because besides specific area plans, there are some other fairly good, easy things that you might be able to consider for Meridian. Of course, the tool kit came pout of the Treasure Valley Futures Project. Most of you know that we've been working for the last couple of years. It was a fabulous project in that I think it was the first time a real diverse broad spectrum of groups have worked together in a way that forced us all to build relationships with each other. So that now we feel comfortable calling on the phone and saying, gosh can you help with this or can you help with that? Folks who didn't use to be able to do that. I think that was a really good thing. We developed an evaluation tool that we call SLAM. Sustainability, Livability, Accessibility and Mobility. If you can prove all of those things then you've probably got a pretty good chance of ending up with a project or an area of town that's going to make it in the long run. SLAM is explained in this handout if you want to do that at some point in quite a lot of detail. We also developed 5 big ideas about how to guide development. I think that you guys are trying to use those. I applaud you for that. There are kind of 2 different ideas. Development decisions in each community are decisions that all Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 9 of you make add up to something as a whole. Even though, they are all little separate decisions, the more you can think big picture as you're making them and how each of them effects the other 1, the better off you're going to be and the better off the City is going to be. In that vein, they can work for or against each other. I'm reading that there's going to be some big office development at the corner of Overland and Eagle. How is that going to effect residential development in north Meridian? Are they going to work for or against each other? Are the people who work there going to have to drive through town, across the freeway to get to this new work center? Is there a way maybe to make those work better together if that's going to be the case? It also shapes your sense of community. I think maybe a good example of that is the new project right out your door, by the Generations Plaza. That was a development decision that I think is a first in a while for new development in downtown. I think you're all ready seeing that it's sort of reviving, kind of livening up downtown and people are taking a second look, going oh gosh maybe something is going on down there. Maybe that's a good place. Things like that really can make a difference. We also discovered that good decisions really require good information. Because we've grown so fast for so long, that good information has been hard to come by. It's nobody's fault, but because the agencies have just been overwhelmed with decisions to be made and information to be gathered. I hope that the process has helped gather more information so that more good information will be available. Also, the communicating and coordinating with other agencies is key. The school district is a good example. I think north Meridian is an example. So, you guys are already doing a lot of these things and I applaud you. Keep it up. They're important. In the tool kit, there's 10 tools. They're real eclectic. They came out of the barrier's forum. We asked people in the Treasure Valley what's stopping the kind of development decisions you'd like to see and they told us. So, we gave them tools to overcome the things that they told us were stopping them. The first one is public involvement. In each of the tools, we tell you why the tool. Who's involved? How to use it. Then we also discuss the barriers in each of the tools to make this tool work. In the case of public involvement, is stuff like availability of transportation to activities. If you have a hearing at the high school and because you don't have any public transportation there will be folks who might not be able to get there. Those kinds of things. Child care sometimes at a site where you're having a meeting could be a big plus, especially in a community like this where there are so many young families. Lack of interest is a barrier. That's a tough one to overcome but the more you get word out, the more you can overcome it. those kinds of things. Nimbyism, I think the City is going to be facing that yet again in the near future on this alternative school. I don't know that I have the suggestion but I think we have a lot of fears about how those people are going to effect us. Then we have to sometimes think that those people are us. Bird: I think we better skip over that Elaine. Just go right on over the top of that 1. Clegg: Good information, how to find that information for updating comp plans. [ think your staff has actually been using a lot of this. We've been sharing it with Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 1 0 them as we've gone along. Creating circulation plans, and this is different than the kind of work that ACHD normally does. They talk about arterials but we're talking about circulation plans that get down to the neighborhood connectivity level so that people can walk and bike, so that if there is a transit stop, it's within walking distance of folks who might use it. It tells how to do that. Area plan is the one I've just shared with you. Design that supports pedestrian and bicycle. I think that this is one that hopefully you'll be looking at especially in those areas where you want the density to pop up a little bit so that you can have a transit stop. You need to design that in a way so that it's supportive of those uses. This is a tool that tells you how to do that. There's a Smart Growth checklist. It's a very simple toll. It just something to look at. So we have these? Do we not? How are our ordinances stacking up against that stuff? mixed-use financing we put in because of experiences like the developer who did the Generations Plaza building having trouble getting the financing to do mixed-use projects. It's becoming less of a barrier, the more that happens. But, it's still there. We didn't discuss in this, why mixed-use. We just talked about the financing. Certainly as we add to the tool kit, that's probably one that we could add later. Pre-application process, frankly I was going to ask and find out if you guys have one or not. If you don't, there's a very simple tool to put one in place. What a pre-ap does is, asks the developer to talk to the City staff and to the effected neighbors. It's not just the adjacent neighbors, but if there's a neighborhood asssociation or a development nearby that is obviously going to be effected by this, to meet with them before they have drawings. Before they have anything set in stone. Before they've spent a lot of money and find out what the issues are. Find out why the Nimbys are concerned and what their concerned about. Find out from the City staff that gosh, did you know that we have a pathway plan and the pathway is suppose to go right there. Could you work that into your development? Those kinds of things can happen in the pre-application process and they can make the application itself then move a lot more quickly and easier as you go along. Innovative standards are particularly, I think, here we're looking probably at stormwater drain standards. We've done a lot of detention ponds, a lot of putting these things into our groundwater without really being filtered. There's a lot of really innovative things happening now where you can do biofilters and borrow (inaudible) especially in more rural areas where you have gravel shoulders. All kinds of things like that that I think could be applicable to some parts of Meridian. it not only helps make for better groundwater but it also reduces the cost of actually putting in the infrastructure for the draniage in the first place. It's better drainage that's actually cheaper, hard to believe. Sometimes those things are hard to get in place because you have an ordinance on the books that support what's currently being built. So, this is a variance and to get a variance it's a harder procedure and nobody wants to go through the hassle. The place to look --. I know Boise, on a different subject of alleys, had to come up with whole new kinds of ordinances to supports alleys in terms of what is the trenching district with the utilities. How many stubs and where and those kinds of things. now that that's adopted as part of the ordinance, a developer can choose that as just one of the many choices rather than have to go through a variance to get it. Those are the kinds of things Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 11 that might happen with innovative standards. Site analysis impacts, this was an attempt to look at off site impacts of particularly transportation related ones. I think there's a lot of good pointers in there about how to do that so that in fill projects or projescts where it might be difficult to get approval because of those off site impacts, you can find ways to make it work. There's a Subway in Eagle that's a very small example of that. They were having trouble getting approval because it's an in fill in downtown and current standards made for suburbia --. They didn't have enough parking. They didn't have enough this, enough that. By doing this kind of an analysis they were able to find ways to let that happen. That's a quick overview of the tool kit and we'de sure be happy to come back and tell you more about it, more in depth if you're interested or specifically about one issue. I'll shut up and if you have any questions, I'd love to hear them. Bird: Do you have questions, Council? Corrie: I do. Bird: Mayor. Corrie: How do you think this north section is progressing? Clegg: I've been really pleased. I think that just the process of sharing all of the information about demographics, about projections on the arterials, about the collector study that ACHD did, about what all the developers have planned. You know looking at all of them at once and not just 1 at a time, just that process alone I think has upped the ability of people to understand why it's so important to do something in a coordinated way. The more you can do that the better. I am concerned that the goals and visions aren't detailed enough to get the kind of product that everyone's been talking about. They're fairly ambiguous. Whenever you have ambiguity of course that's, you know, which is what does it mean. We do have some suggestions that would make them more, a little more detailed, a little less ambiguous. I hope that you consider those. Anyone who went to that last meeting, they were in that packet. I didn't bring a copy of them but I can sure get them. Overall, I think it's done certainly a good process. I think that's the only other concern I have, real concern at this point is that there haven't been just regular public citizens from Meridian involved up to this point. I think that, I kow right now the only workshop prior to actually bringing forward an alternative where the public is going to be invited is on December 19th. I think it would behoove you to get your public a little more involved in that earlier, more than that one workshop if there's anyway to do that. We've actually made suggestions to Mike Wardle that I hope he'll take. I just want to make sure that the public in Meridian is going to be supportive so that if a plan does come forward and you guys have to consider it as a comp plan amendment that you're not going to get a lot of your public coming forward and saying what is this? We've never heard of it. We don't know what it is. It may not be that they think it's bad, but they need to Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 12 be informed along the way. Hopefully with the stuff in the paper, they have been but I guess I'm not completely certain that they are. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Corrie: But, you have a point. De Weerd: What were your ideas on how to accomplish that? Clegg: I think there's going to be a workshop on November 28th where the alternatives are going to be, that the developers, that Mike Wardle is actually going to come forward with some suggestions. Then there's going to be a workshop, which I assume will be in the form of kind of a (inaudible) where each of the suggestions would get tossed around. I think it would be a great place to have some public --. So that they could really make a difference. We're suggestions that that meeting be opened up a little wider, a few more people be invited. Maybe the other thing that we would suggest is that prior to any alternative being decieded on, the alternatives that have come out of it be shopped around as widely as possible, maybe put in a store window downtwon. Maybe taken to some school events where people can see them and look at them and begin to understand what they are. Any ideas you guys have, I would appreciate. Bird: [think this is a very, very good presentation (inaudible). Clegg: Thanks for inviting me. My phone rings all the time- (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Clegg: We do. It's under reconstruction right now. Bird: Okay. Clegg: If you give us like 2 weeks, it's idahosmartgrowth.org. If you give us a couple weeks it will be actually up and running. It'll be a little bit cleaner. Bird: Okay. Clegg: I'm going to go eat birthday cake, so I'm not running out because I don't want to stay. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Clegg: Thanks a lot. Bird: Thank you Elaine. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 13 Issue #3 Update of construction of Meridian Police Center-- Bird: Okay, Captain Bowman is going to update us on the construction on the Meridian Police Center. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bowman: Just about an hour ago I was going through pictures looking (inaudible). I took this about, a little over a year ago when we turned dirt out there. We've had a lot of dirt back then. Now we're starting to see a building standing there. I was talking to Buck (inaudible). He's really optimistic on what they've got going so far. (inaudible) shows much of the walls are up. The roof is just about completed. He says in his words that they'll have that roof on, like in the middle of December. Bird: It'll be dry by the middle of December? Bowman: That's what he said. This is a shot of the south side. On the end there (inaud ible). Bird: Where does that actually go, the generator, Captain? Bowman: There's a maintenance room in the southwest portion of the building. Bird: Just on top the sally port there? Bowman: Yes sir. This is 1 of the towers on the back side. You can see the type of windows that we'll use in that structre when it's finished. This is along the west side. Much of the brick work, exterior brick work is (inaudible). Bird: Is the rest of it drive it? Bowman: I believe it is. This is looking in, coming up the front door, the main entrance. I'll pass this around. This is the final color scheme on the exterior of the building, the brick and everything, the lead soffet. (inaudible). I brought some samples too. This is more interior. You can see the roof. It's a metal roof and (inaudible) (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bowman: The second floor has been poured. I was up there. This is an interior shop. (inaudible) This is 1 of the elevator shafts. Here we are on the second floor. You can see the boards. They're upstairs working right now. That'll be completely covered by like I said, early or middle of December. (inaudible). Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 14 Looking down from the second floor this is the back of the building. Actually, that's not the (inaudible). I believe that's part of the maintenance area. Bird: Oh, maintenance? Bowman: I believe so. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bowman: This is looking off the balcony area. That whole area up there just above that metal structure will be glass and have a very nice view. This is looking off to the northeast when you're standing on that balcony. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bowman: This is due east. That will all be glass right there. I have some samples I want to show you. *** End of Side One *** Bowman: This will be the bathroom. This is the grouting and the tile. I believe this is also the bathroom tile. No, excuse me this will be the lobby tile. Bird: Is the carpet going throughout that same color, Captain? Bowman: Yes. They assured us that it looks worse on the table than it does on the floor. De Weerd: I think it looks great. Bird: I like it. De Weerd: I like it a lot. Bowman: When they put it down on the floor, it changes colors. It's amazing how up here you see a lot of the purples. Down here (inaudible) Bird: The exterior carpet sample- Bowman: This is an entry flooring material. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bowman: This is a wall covering. Most police departments have like a chair rail all along the walls to keep the (inaudible) from scuffing up the walls and Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 15 everything. They're using a material that's, for lack of a better term, it's a hemp type of material. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Corrie: It's commercial grade. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bowman: This will be on the walls to protect the walls from scuff marks and so forth, moving large objects through there. These are some of the counter top materials. These are the exterior brick that you see here. This is the red brick. This portion here (inaudible). This will be the soffet (inaudible). (inaudible) Bird: It's going to be a nice little building. McCandless: I like that exterior, those colors. Bird: I do too. I like the way they did the block, or the brick. You can pretty well get a n. It's big enough up out there now that you can pretty well tell, once that gets washed down in acid wash it's going to really look nice. Bowman: I'll stand for any questions. Bird: Any questions for Captain Bowman? Just keep up the good work. Keep it moving. Bowman: By the way Buck was talking today, he's looking at being completed by the end of June. Bird: That's great. De Weerd: Fantastic. Bird: Thank you very much. I appreciate it. We expect another (inaudible) one next month. Issue #4 Discussion of alcohol and drug policy - Pauline Skeggs -- Issue #5 Discussion of criminal background check ordinance - Pauline Skeggs - Bird: Okay. Pauline, discussion of the criminal --. Okay, lets start with the background check ordinance, Pauline. Then we'll go into the alcohol and drug policy. Meridian City Council WorkshofJ November 13, 2001 Page 16 Skeggs: Okay. The background check basically, when we did the criminal background checks, we had to submit that ordinance to the Idaho State Police who forwarded it onto the FBI for review. They were reviewing all City ordinance. About after 6 months, it came back that they wanted us to revise the ordinance and reference Idaho State Code and also public law. They had specific wording that they wanted to go into the ordinance. So, we put that wording in the ordinance. I submitted it to Bill Nichols with what wording that they had wanted. When we received it back I forwarded it back on to the Idaho State Police who forwarded it on to the FBI. We recently just got it back just saying that they accepted it. basically we are just revising our policy and the only revision is that we're referring to the Idaho State Code and public law. Bird: Any questions on the criminal background check for Pauline? De Weerd: No. Corrie: No, I guess I got 2 of the same thing. Okay. Bird: Okay. Now the drug policy. We'll let Pauline start. The gentleman Kurt Anderson from ICRIMP was wanting to be here. Is he here? Okay. K. Anderson: Deputy Director, but I spend most of my time dealing with human resource issues. I wear 2 hats there. De Weerd: Poor guy. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: Do you want to start in? Skeggs: We're finally at the final stages of that and ready to implement it. basically it will be a City wide program that will include pre-employment, post accident, random testing. It will have a section for reasonable belief and also self referral. Mayor Corrie and Councilman Anderson were on the committee that helped put the policy together and finalize it. They negotiated with the union. We went back and forth several months with the union. We finally came to an agreement. Once it was approved by the union, we had a lab review it. We brought a committee together made up of employees from different departments that met with 3 labs. 3 labs did a presentation. From those labs the committee choose Winehoff & Associates. They're based in Boise and they have an office in Nampa as well. The reason they had choose Winehoff & Associates because they are certified and they are actually medical personnel, the people that will actually be doing the test. From that we had given the policy to Winehoff & Associate and they made a couple minor changes that they had recommended. 1 of the changes were amphetamines, where it, this is going to be 1 of the tests. They wanted us to either put slash meth or family. Then the other area where the Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 17 medical review officer, if it comes out positive, then what will happen is they were going to contact me and then I would contact the employee. Since the medical review officer does that, we changed HR to read MRO on the policy., of course, we had to submit it back to the union to negotiate it. It took a month for us to get it back. They did approve it and we got a memo signed off from the union saying that they had approved it. They were just questioning the amphetamines with the family they're thinking that Tylenol or Codiene or somehting would come up positive. You have to have a lot of that in your system in order to test positive. Once they talked to the lab, they were confident with that and they signed off on the memo, which I forwarded a copy to Will Berg. We're looking at doing the actual training for supervisors and employees the 28th, the 29th, and the 30th. The lab will be conducting a supervisor training and the employee awareness training along with our employee assistant program. Then at that time, employees will, they'll sign in for the training when they receive it. prior to that, this week I'll be putting together a memo and a copy of the policy that the employees will have to sign a consent form stating that they, at some point may be tested. We can put that in their personnel file. De Weerd: If they don't sign it? Skeggs: It will be required because some of them are safety sensitive positions. Some employees won't fall in that category because of safety sensitive positions are, they carry firearms, have custodial responsibility for illegal drugs, perform emergency medical life saving and or fire suppressant activities, have supervision over children, have access to homes or businesses or handle hazardous materials. If they don't fall within that, but they are going to have to sign like if they got in an accident, post accident. They would also be tested for that as well. They will have to sign it, or if they self refer themselves, there is a section. For those employees that say, I want to be drug tested. I'm not reallky sure what comments that you have in regard to that. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Skeggs: (inaudible) make sure that when we implement it that we don't deviate from it I guess. K. Anderson: Thank you first of all for inviting me. Does everybody understand (inaudible)? Will has mentioned (inaudible) your personnel policy manual and I've reviewed your background check policy as well as your alcohol and drug testing programs. Of course we support the ideas behind all of those. It would help you manage your personnel here in an effective way. Will also mentioned, I didn't have a lot of comments. I just wanted the opportunity for you all to review these policies to let you know what our biggest issues are with policies in general no matter what they are but an operational policy within a specific department unique from the overall poilcies of the City itself (inaudible). The biggest problem we run into is people not following the policy right because they don't understand Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 18 them or because they understand them wrong. I think you mentioned what, (inaudible). If they don't want to sign, you can witness saying that you offered them the opportunity sign it again, to acknowledge that refusal. I would consider it an issue (inaudible). It's not unusaul to ask them to sign. It doesn't mean that you agree with (inaudible). It just acknowledges that they work for the City of Meridian, are subject to the policy (inaudible). Pauline mentioned that, and of course, we're more concerned with the safety sensitive positions as well. They certainly need to understand the policy extremely well because they'll be the most subject to the conditions set forth in. you have a reasonable suspicion provision in the policy that allows a supervisor to mandate an employee to submit to a drug testing program if they believe they may be under the influence. That's an area that I just wanted to comment that can be a challenge. I haven't seen any court cases in Idaho but as I read materials from around the country, you have to be careful with reasonable suspicion. You have to do it on, and hopefully your trainers will come and talk to the supervisors and define what the perimeters are for reasonable suspicion. It can't be because of a person's age, race, religion or national origin. Even if a person does that inadvertantly, you know if it just so happens that your first 3 reasonable suspicion tests are aimed at hispanics, just as an example, that could raise some eyebrows (inaudible). Hopefully those people who would make those determinations are well versed in you know the issue of dialation of eyes, slurred speech, they document it, and preferrably if they could get a witness. Having an HR person is a great advantage to the City. A lot of (inaudible) don't have a trained professional HR person. That's a person that can get involved with all of these issues and be a witness to a reasonable suspicion observation (inaudible). There's just one example, when we're talking about off duty, on page 2 of your policy. I apologize. I should have got back to you a little bit earlier. You faxed this to me on October 24th, beginning the early part of November. In addition to what our country was going through, I had a lot of personal issues come up in November. (inaudible) on section B, you say employees who are aquitted will be returned to work with back pay. That might be an area where you haven't finalized this document. I would probably recommend (inaudible). There are occassions when employees may violate this policy and you may want to terminate them and not bring them back even though they are acquitted. I'm not an attorney, I don't know the difference between a reduced charge versus being acqiutted. That would give you some flexibility. It's a minor comment. You can live with it either way. (inaudible) most of the rest of them, I guess it's just a marginal comment that this is good. Skeggs: I think we had a may before and the union turned it down. K. Anderson: I can understand that. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) K. Anderson: It's hard. 1 of the challenges --. I just did some training on the family medical leave act and I began the training by saying you have 2 employees. 10f Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 19 them has been and I'll use the City's example. You have a City employee who's been with the City for 16 years. They're a stellar performer. They're in an automobile accident and become ill. They have a serious medical condition. Then you have another employee on the same day has a similar incident in their life. You don't like them. You wish they were gone. They've been a thorn in your saddle for 2 years. You haven't documented it. Who's eligible for a family medical leave? R. Anderson: Both of them. K. Anderson: That's an area where our management, if I looked across the board and struggle. When you have a policy that's exclusive it (inaudible) with that regard. There would probably some (inaudible). (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Nichols: (inaudible) so it's not a (inaudible) that is created the (inaudible). K. Anderson: In certain positions and I understand certainly that it's difficult to discipline and terminate for off duty behaviour even without a policy that stipulates that. There are some exceptions in law enforcement. We're working on one right now where the employee was terminated for the off duty behaviour. (inaudible) in law enforcement (inaudible). An irate employee (inaudible). It's just a matter of flexibility versus (inaudible). Again, our bigger concern is we go through the policies and we adopt them is that you abide by them and accept them. The only other comment I have, I look at the balance and I noticed there some language I didn't understand on page 3. (inaudible) second paragraph. (inaudible) as defined by this policy will be subject to termination (inaudible). j struggle with that one. I personally (inaudible). I'm giving my own bag of knowledge there. If you guys look at it and understand it great. Nichols: (inaudible) is they have to do the UA even if they (inaudible)- K. Anderson: Okay. Nichols: --regardless of what the discipline may be they have to participate (inaudible). K. Anderson: Okay. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) K. Anderson: Okay. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 20 Bird: It's not realy clear with me. K. Anderson: It may just be too long of a sentence. I appreciate your comments but a lot of times, I look at these (inaudible). Where you're vague, and just in our (inaudible) we get concerned about sentences like that is we spend a lot of time unfortunatley if we end up in litigation arguing over the intent of the language. As clear as it can be, if you find yourself in a situation where you have to litigate, (inaudible) or even the (inaudible) hanging on some words that are subject to interpretation which we all (inaudible). This group read that (inaudible). That's fine. (inaudible) I said last comment. I'm sorry. I have one more. Under your pre- employment testing, just (inaudible) it would be wise to post in your office where applicants come and pick up, very clearly that, a lot of the, I noticed, I shop at Home Depot, and they've got a big sign where everybody can see it that says all applicants will be subject to a pre-employment drug test. Then it might be wise to put it on your applications. Skeggs: It will be on the application. I've also got 1 that will go on the bulletin board and then 1 in our office. So, I've already got the forms from the drug lab that says that. K. Anderson: 1 of the great things with regards to that is people who are using drugs will walk away and find an employer who doesn't do that. Skeggs: Right. K. Anderson: In my 14 years of human resource management, (inaudible) the drug testing (inaudible). I went through training with 2 of the largest potato manufacturers, Simplot and Ore-Ida HR people there. One of them jumped right on the band wagon and drug tested. The other waited for a couple of years. The people who were getting fired at one were going to the other (inaudible). R. Anderson: Do we send a letter out following extneding the offer of employment and then does it have contingencies? Do all departments do that within the City? Skeggs: It's a standardized form. Applicants will have to fill out a form consenting for the drug test. Bird: Pauline, with that drug free employment pre- testing sign be in all departments or just here at City Hall and in your office? Skeggs: They come to City Hall and the applicants flow through my department so we're going to put it on the bulletin board where we have in the lobby that they can get the applications that would be posted. We'll have it posted in my office as well and then we'll have it on the application form. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 21 Skeggs: It will deter applicants that- Bird: You believe it. They'll pick 1 up and read that and you'll never see them again. Skeggs: They come in and they turn around and walk away. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Berg: They do that when they come get a Solicitor's or Peddler's License and they see that part of the background check. K. Anderson: On your voluntary random testing provisions just make sure the supervisors understand they can't put any pressure on their employees to volunteer. We have 8 out of 10 employees, you know 9 out of 10 employees volunteer to be part of the program and 1 doesn't, you can't just assume (inaudible). They may have other issues, you know personal rights, intrusion, that sort of thing. You want to be very careful if you observe any of that (inaudible). Are there any questions of myself or ICRIMP? If I can't answer them (inaudible). We appreciate the opportunity to take (inaudible). It helps us to have them on file even if, I don't know if any of you know Dave Sasser (inaudible). (inaudible) Bird: Council, any questions? Skeggs: Also by implementing the drug free work place, we're going to get a discount in our worker's compensation. Bird: Good. De Weerd: Every little bit helps. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: Thank you Pauline. Thank you Kurt for coming. We appreciate it. Good job. K. Anderson: Thank you. De Weerd: Thank you for you comments. K. Anderson: You bet. Issue #6 Discussion of request of transfer information services money from contract to personnel- Stacy Kilchenmann -- Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 22 Bird: Okay, discussion of request to transfer information service money from contract to personnel. Stacy? Anderson: There's a lot of red ink on that. Bird: Yes, a lot of red ink. Kilchenmann: I'm here representing everybody else and the Mayor. I got nominated to talk to you about this. De Weerd: Lucky you. KHchenmann: Lucky me. Did everyone read their handout? I think if you read this it pretty much goes through each of the issues. We've all talked about this quite a bit and we pretty much agreed that we are just too big to continue the way we're going, contracting our information services out. We're just at the outside edge of being able to do it with someone coming in part time during the week. 1 example, like, we discovered this week that our accounting systems have not been backed up. There is no back up. There is no off site back up. We thought it would be done. We're going to get around to doing that and we've ordered the aack up software but we had a problem and we didn't get it installed. There's absolutely no security in this whole City in our information services at all. I don't think you've got to have on site back ups but anything. You have people, that doors open, anybody could just walk in there and do anything they want to on our whole information services system. That's just one thing that immediately comes to mind because of all the security concerns. We don't have any consistency between the departments. Everybody is kind of off doing their own thing. You know you always have a (inaudible) in each area. Sort of like ours is Reta and Bruce Freckleton is for the Public Works. Those people, you'll always use them. You'll always have your (inaudible). They're getting to the point where that's becoming more of their job rather than a part of their job. Budget wise, we don't have any consistancy. You don't have any long range planning. We don't sit down and say, okay, we have 150 computers. Should we replace 5 this year? Which ones should we replace? What is our whole software, hardware, architecture going to be? Our website is basically inoperable. Nobody try to go into our website. The managers are really frustrated because they all have information that they want to update and they're not able to do that. People can't, like at the water department he has a system, it actually goes in and it monitors the water pressure for the wells. It needs all software. It needs to have upgrades and so forth. He feels really frustrated because when he tries to talk to the company that he needs to buy the software from, he's not sure. Are they selling you the right thing? Are they selling you the line? DO I have the back up? Do I have somebody that knows how to operate this? It's like, if it goes down, all the water pressure on the wells (inaudible). He feels it's both, he feels really frustrated with Caselle. They've had a lot of problems with that. I just think every manager feels really strongly about this. (inaudible) if you need to. What we're Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 23 proposing to do is take the money that we had budgeted to contract for Empire and switch it to hire a staff position. Once I know --. To be honest, one staff position is not going to end our need for outside work. I mean, one person cannot do all our hardware and all our software development. At least it's a person that can monitor the contracts that makes sure specifications are written correctly. That we're not going, you know if I decide I want to have the (inaudible) lets use the police because it would be okay jf I wanted to do it. If the police want to go into the very highest end system that somebody's responsible for the budget and says no, sorry. Operating within our constraints this what we need to hold it back. Somebody that can present all this to you. another example are your laptops. When we have the money for your laptops, but we don't have anybody that knows how to get the software on the laptops unless we go out and contract with somebody to do that. Then we don't have any consistancy. If you have a problem or if they want to upgrade. Do you have any questions? Bird: Stacy, you're telling me that you want to hire 1 person but, we're still going to have to contract out what 25, 30 percent of the work or 50 percent of the work? Kilchenmann: Well, I don't have a percent for that. I mean, things like cabling we'd have to hire --. Well, we didn't actually include the cabling in here. If somebody wanted to develop software or buy new software, we'd still --. We can't count on this person to be able to do all that. So, if I wanted to - Bird: How many computers do we have in the City? Kilchenmann: Over 150. Bird: 150 and there's probably every brand from (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Kilchenmann: Every brand you can imagine. Yes. Bird: Each department purchases at random. Kilchenmann: We have like a billion of them sitting in that warehouse. Bird: I was going to say, we've got enough to start 3 schools over there. Kilchenmann: People keep trying to reuse. Some of them spend more money trying to upgrade them than the whole computer is worth. We have them sitting all over in hidden places in this building. Some of them we probably don't --. Some areas of less need, we probably don't need to always buy new computers for. We can move computers down but we don't have --. We don't even know exactly how many computers we have in the City. ( Meridian City Council WorkshofJ November 13, 2001 Page 24 Bird: Are we still taking inventory? Kilchenmann: We have an inventory in through accounting. But we have computers that have been removed from the inventory - Bird: They're not put back in? Kilchenmann: Right. We moved accounting wise because they're considered trashed. Bird: Then you've got a new 1 that comes in. Kilchenmann: Right. Then they grow upon themselves. Like, Anita tried to find out for the purposes of this, you know what computers do we have? What servers do we have and she never did get an answer. Then email, that's a whole nother issue. Bird: Stacy, I understand where you're coming from but the problem J see is we start with one - Kilchenmann: Yes. Bird: 2 years we'll have 2. 3 years we'lJ have 4 employees. You're going to promise that this is it? Kilchenmann: No, I won't promise you this will be it because as the City grows, I mean, your need is going to grow. Anderson: I'll go out on that limb. Kilchenmann: As the City grows, you're going to have to contract for it or you're going to have to hire the people. I think we're just too big to do the contract. Everybody is really frustrated with it. Bird: As I see here, we have budgeted 143,000 for contract. Kilchenmann: That's our total budget. 21,000 are for specific items that are listed below. Bird: So, 122,OOO? Kilchenmann: Yes. Bird: What are you going to get this person for? Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 25 Kilchenmann: We have them in the proposal at 73,000 including the beneifts. That leaves 32,000 for you know various other projects. Bird: What you're telling me is, we are still going to go in about 24,25 percent of the computer work from an outside source? Kilchenmann: Those were not things --. I don't think they were all budgeted for specific projects. That was just the total amount that people put in their budgets based on what they historically spent. That can go up and down. like, Shari put in (inaudible) - (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Kilchenmann: Yes. (inaudible) access program that this person or accounting last year did a purchase order system. 1 person is not going to be able to do all the software development. Bird: Okay. What department does the purchase order come out? Kilchenmann: Mine. We have a (inaudible). McCandless: This save the City some money in the long run? Kilchenmann: I think so. Corrie: Yes, we're spending a lot of money on maintenance. Actually it's 3 days a week. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Corrie: Yes. I think you're going to save probably (inaudible). If you can get that maintenance under 1 person and get them working all the time (inaudible). Kilchenmann: We're just not doing any planning. We don't have --. This person would at least be accountable to you guys because when it came budget time, they would need to present our hardware, software budget to you and justify what we're doing and why are we doing it and help us prioritize. We could all spend a fortune on technology. We would all like to and we're all going to try to. We need some way to prioritize it. I don't think we have anyone that can do that. De Weerd: Who's going to prioritize their time? What's to say that this person won't be dominated by a certain department that has a huge need? Kilchenmann: I guess that's going to be the responsibility of that person and then would be my responsibility too. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 26 Anderson: I have a little different view on this because I work in a City that now has an IS department that has 4 people in it. the problems that you're listing in here, things not being backed up, being able to advise you on specialty software, poor maintenance, all those types of things, that doesn't go away because you have your own IS department. I can tell you example after example. I mean, we found things of ours werent being backed up and stuff like that. You're kidding yourself if you think it's going to be a perfect world that when you hire an IS person that all of this stuff is going to be done. I think there are a few advantages. Some of that might be standardization as far as some of the equipment that you purchase. I don't think the City will see any savings at all in the amount of money that you spend on service or anything else because this person is going to be doing just as much maintenance and just as much purchasing and all those kind of things as the people that you're contracting with now. I'm like Keith, I mean, I think you'll never find somebody that's an expert in software and in hardware. Kilchenmann: No. Anderson: You're still going to either, even if you hire somebody, you're going to have to sub one of those things out. Within a couple years this will be a 2 or a 3 person department. As your City grows, for example, in Nampa, one of these IS guys works at the police department full time. The rest of the City then has the other 3 that we share for all the other City departments. The only thing that it does for us is that we have standardized equipment. Just like the software that you're talking about to run the water system and keep the pressures equal, these guys don't know specialty software. They don't know the software that we use the fire station. They don't know the software they use in the police station. They don't know the software that the water department uses. They can install it on the computer for you but you're the ones that use it so you're going to know it much better than they do. The only thing they're going to know is the operating systems and those types of things. They can do cleaning. They can do routine maintenance. There is no savings. I guess the part that I struggle with here is we're a month and a half into the new budget year. If we're going to put together a IS department, then it needs to come at budge time and it needs to be set up right. We all need to go into it with understanding that there is no savings of money any way around in any of the departments. It's going to end up probably at least a 2 or 3 person department within a couple of years. They're going to need office space. They're going to need equipment to work the computers and all those types of things. I think by going into this halfway through a budget year and trying to rob money that somebody has already budgeted for other things in their budget, you're going to be back asking for additional money to finish this out. Kilchenmann: I'll tell you why we're asking. First of all, I've never worked anywhere that didn't have an information services staff. The comparisons for me are the definite disadvantage --. I mean, it's a disadvantage to not have an Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 27 information services staff. The staff I worked at, in the department I was before, they were very good. We didn't have these kinds of problems. Bird: How many did you have? Kilchenmann: We had (inaudible) employees and we had 14 information services staff including the staff of programmers that (inaudible). When I worked at Simplot, I was in a division that probably had 300 employees and we had one person. The reason we're doing it now is because the contract is up for renewal. We got ready to renew the contract and there were a lot of issues and we discovered that nobody on our staff has the expertise to actually write the (inaudible) you know to even renew the contract. I guess that's why we're doing it now versus at the break of the budget year. This is kind of like doing, do we take everybody's staff time and we try to hammer this out. We did do that. We just said, you know this is beyond all of our individual capabilities to even do this. So, we just said, well maybe we should just try to get the person. That's why we're doing it now. Anderson: The only thing I'm trying to point out is you guys are using all the same arguments that I used to the city a few years ago to start an IS department. I can tell you from experience, I've still got a whole bunch of the same problems. Go try to log onto Nampa's webpage. Try to get into the fire department's. It's been under construction fro 4 years. There has never been a single piece of information on there. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Anderson: I guarentee you you'll be sitting here a couple years from now, you'll be complaining about your IS department. The same (inaudible). You're not going to get the perfect situation. You're going to have a lot of those same problems. McCandless: I hear a lot of the reasons why we shouldn't do this. But, what are your solutions? These are problems. Anderson: Here's my solution. Attack it at budget time. Do it right. Set up a department that can be properly funded and properly ran with the equipment and the personnel that's needed. But, go into it with the expectation that you're not going to have everything magically solve, that you're still going to have a lot of these same issues. The only thing that you're going to gain out of it, is you're going to have more control of that IS and you're going to have better control of standardizing purchases and software and making of a compatible system. That's my solution. Nichols: Stacy, has anyone (inaudible), any other City regardless of size or irrigation district or rural fire district, anybody that put forth a request for Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 28 proposals (inaudible)? get it out and then get those responses back and select a contract? Kilchenmann: You mean just 1 (inaudible)? Nichols: (inaudible) see if that would help you do this through a contract as opposed to an individual? Councilman Anderson's point (inaudible) for the next budget year perhaps but this is an immediate problem that we have now. We have, we already have a budgeted contract services so I fyou have- Kilchenmann: We can't find anybody of our size that has, that doesn't have a staff. I don't know what (inaudible) last year. I think it sort of just fell into being. Corrie: What is the software personnel? What are they charging now? (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Corrie: Empire is $78.00. Bird: What do you think this employee is costing you? Kilchenmann: We put it at about, I think 52. Bird: (inaudible) Anderson: It would have to be a City that's in like in size or just somebody (inaudible) (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Anderson: -- the same type of services regardless of size. Then you just model the contract. Kilchenmann: It has to be somebody --. I mean, if you have a really tiny City like Kuna, they don't have the same needs that we do. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) De Weerd: Do you have any idea what kind of break down you'll have, how much percentage of their time on the web? How much percentage of their time on software, hardware? Purchase programs? Anderson: I don't think until you establish a department - Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 29 De Weerd: You can lift your consulting hours. How many times you've come and called out on a software issue. How many times you called out. How Jong it's taking on hardware. Kilchenmann: Well, it would be pretty much --. All the Empire is hardware or operating system usually. Then all the like, Shari or us, that's software development. This person wouldn't do --. They probably could do some of it but not all of it. De Weerd: They wouldn't do the development but just help with the iunstallation and the application. Kilchenmann: We have the job description but I just don't know enough. I don't think any of us know enough to know, you without asking somebody that worked for a like size, we can ask somebody that did the same job for about the same size city. Ask them how their time breaks out. Bird: You know Stacy, the problem, and don't get me wrong, I understand where you're coming from. I have no problem with supporting it to a degree but, it wasn't a year ago that we was told that the contractor was the greatest thing that ever happened to us. Corrie: It was - Bird: I have no doubt about that but, like Ron has said. He has dealt with this on the deal. I dont know how, what kind of person you're going to hire because I'm so computer dfumb that I wouldn't know how to turn it on if I had it. I don't think you're going to --. I just know public entities, if you start with 1 today, within 4 you'll have 5 or 6 in that department. You'll be here hitting up for it. The Council might not give it to you but you'll be here hitting it up. Kilchenmann: I think it's definitely a staff (inaudible) that it's going to grow when the City grows. It's either that or you have a bigger contract. They just really have anybody, I dont think we have anybody that's qualified to manage the contract. Birde: Is this person going to be capable of doing that? Hes going to have to help manage a contract too according to what you're saying. Kilchenmann: Yes, that would be one of those person's responsibility- *** End of Side Two *** Bird: -- before the budget year and come in with the budget year. J'm like Ron. If we've got a contract coming up, we don't have anybody that knows how to write the request for contract - Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 30 Kilchenmann: We can renew the contract (inaudible). Nichols: Does the contract have a (inaudible)? Corrie: Yes. Nichols: How much more is left? Kilchenmann: 30 days. Corrie: 30 days I think. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Nichols: They charge per bill and they'll tell you this is what's on it. This is what you have. They'll actually write the proposal (inaudible) when they come in (inaud ible). Kilchenmann: Yes. We don't even exactly have --. I don't think any of that's --. That's not in our contract now. Nichols: It's just an as needed when called (inaudible). Corrie: My question I guess, to Ron, how many did you say you have, IT? Anderson: 4. Corrie: 4? Okay. There's 4, what is it 51 ,OOO? How many employees? Bird: How many employees? (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Corrie: 500 employees? Anderson: Yes. Bird: What do we have? Corrie: 180. 180 per 40,000 and 500 for 51,000. somebody needs a reality check (inaudible) Bird: Thay have road and everything. They've got quite a bit more. Corrie: That's right. I keep forgetting that. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 31 Bird: We've only got 36,000. we've got 36 and they had 54 in their deal. Corrie: I'm not going to argue that point with you. Anderson: They have a much higher mill levy, just to point that out. Bird: They have a mich higher mill levy. Corrie: They do? McCandless: Doesn't everybody? Bird: About 3 times. Kilchenmann: Everybody has a higher mill levy Bird: What do you guys --? Go ahead. Corrie: I was going to say we need to find out your source of what, as far as (inaudible) what we're looking at. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) De Weerd: Mr. President. Bird: Yes? De Weerd: What is the time element on the contract? Kilchenmann: It has expired. De Weerd: It has? Bird: When did it expire? Kilchenmann: It expired at the end of October, November first. De Weerd: If you hired this person, you know it looks like we're creating a whole new layer of responsibilities that is absorbed right now. That is really not being out sourced to a consultant area. Kilchenmann: Yes, part of it is and part of it isnt. De Weerd: But, will you be able to do it with this budget? Have the person and also have the consultant time necessary to do the business that the City needs? Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 32 Kilchenmann: I think so. That's the proposed column. De Weerd: I see that. So, you can work with only $32,000 for out sourcing? Kilchenmann: Yes. We probably won't spend that much. Bird: Plus you've got the 21,000 that's already budgeted. Kilchenmann: Yes, but those are for things that people have- De Weerd: That's hard costs. Kilchenmann: You know it would be better to do it at the beginning of the budget year because like Ron said, it just isnt going to be the whole thing. Anderson: Our IS department had vehicles that they provide because they've got to go different departments. They can't haul the computers in just a car, it rips up the seats. They have vans. They've got cell phones. They've got office equipment. De Weerd: We don't have your mill levy. Anderson: There's a lot more to this than just saying here's the salary we need. You've got to establish a whole department. I think you need to take the time and do it right. Kilchenmann: The problem is now just like we're adrift and in (inaudible). I'm not sure how I actually got to be responsible for writing the contract. You know, we really just --. The contract expired and we don't --. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: Everybody wants a new computer? Corrie: Not so much that. Kilchenmann: We just have problems because we keep having them come out. I mean, personally for us, we went to upgrade to our newest version of our accounting software. Then we discovered that the operating system wasn't upgraded and that the water department was like 7 upgrades behind. That ate up a lot of --. Then they just haven't been upgrading them. They had to be upgraded and then we had to upgrade the servers, get our upgrade to work. In doing that, they neglected to put on the back up software. It was just - Anderson: Wait until you hire an IS guy because your budget for software and hardware needs that first year are going to go through the roof. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 33 Kilchenmann: I'm going to find that- Anderson: He's going to find all those things that you're talking about and he's going to be coming in here. if you hire somebody now he's going to be in here in 2 months going we need to upgrade this computer, this one, this software- Kilchenmann: It comes up anyway because it all crashes. Anderson: I guess what I'm saying though, is we need to make it work through the end of this year and plan on it next fiscal year. Bird: Get it all ready and get everything in line. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Kilchenmann: I want to know who works for (inaudible). (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: I beg your pardon? (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: Well, lets do that. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) unidentified Speaker: -- we had to upgrade to Windows 2000. They immediately purchased it. they upgraded it. I found out that they didn't pull (inaudible) data off the internet to finalize the upgrade. (inaudible). Actually what we found out is (inaudible). As far as I knew they did everything they were suppose to. I wouldn't have known that. I'm not a computer expert. Corrie: They upgraded one and then it wasn't compatible. Unidentified Speaker: They tried to tell us that we (inaudible). he told me well, you're deleting it. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: That's something that we can definitely look into Mayor. Bill, get that person here to write something. Kilchenmann: We do have 2 contract vendors and 1 that is good. Meridian City Council WorkshofJ November 13, 2001 Page 34 Bird: Lets get through this and then work on next years. Kilchenmann: Okay, I've already done budget presentation for next year. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) De Weerd: Yes you did. Bird: Thanks Stacy. Thank you very much. Issue #7 Discussion of Treasure Valley Loop Concept by Claire Bowman- Bird: Item No.7 is a discussion of the Treasure Valley Loop Concept by Claire Bowman from COMPASS. I think Mr. Little from ACHD is going to come. C. Bowman: Good evening sir (inaudible). (inaudible discussion amongst Council) C. Bowman: Actually, I laid down and let him do it to me. I had kind of an exchange of voice mail with the Mayor today. J was asked to come to the Ada County Planning and Zoning Commission last Thursday evening to give a little bit of back ground very similar to what I anticipate doing here this evening. As it became more and more apparent that some members of the Planning and Zoning Commission wanted to debate the merits of a Treasure Valley Loop Concept, it was pretty clear I should not be there because the executive committee last week acted to esatblish a meeting on January ih that will be a special meeting of the COMPASS board. It will be scheduled for the entire afternoon and the goal adopted by the total board is that we review from several perspectives what components there could be in such a concept and what ones of those components could be unanimously supported by the COMPASS board for moving forward. It's quite clear from Boise City's response over the last month and a half that they do not wish to have COMPASS involved in any portion of a new roadway south of the airport. That's part of what Terri will tell you about. The Highway District is seeing and doing out there. What I thought I could tell you tonight and stay consistent with what the executive direction and kind of the board's direction (inaudible). how we got to where we are today. ['I[ try to do this in my 3 minute version here. about 10 years ago, I had occasion to look into the need for a connection from the south end of Highway 69 at Kuna to the east somewhat. We were at that point, looking at Kuna (inaudible) road or something like that because Issaac's Canyon interchange did not exist at that point. There was a good deal of discussion about it. the idea ultimately dropped. Then about 6 years ago, right after Isaac's Canyon interchange was under construction, almost open, the Lope Family Enterprises, one of the top 2 or 3 largest home building companies in the country took an option along several thousand acres of land between Cole Road and the Issac's Canyon interchange. Looking at the Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 35 possibility of creating an extremely large, we're talking about several thousand acres here, mixed-use development. They came within a hairs breath of picking up that option and moving forward with that project. In part because they would get to control where the right of way for a connecting road would go. That was their perception. They would essentially dictate the alignment of that road from Cole Road all the way to the east. That prompted me to get back in the parade again and go looking for some dollars to try to do a study at the public sector level. My belief all along has been that that connection parralell to the interstate south of the interstate is needed at some piont and if the public sector does not, is not (inaudible) identify the alignment for it, then the private sector will do that. We simply don't have the same gaurantees of connectivity across the county, into Canyon County if that is being done wholly by the private sector. This time, we found some money for the project. The COMPASS executive, Ada Planning Association executive committee directed me not to use any members dues to pay the match on the federal grant. They specifically asked me to get participation from private developers, private landowners, people like that. I had been involved in the discussions earlier with the landowners out there when this large subedivsion was under consideration. I went to 2 of the primary landowners a few days later and said, looks to me if this is going to happen, we have to have private capital for the matching grant. 3 minutes later I had their promise that we would have the dollars for that. I took that back to the COMPASS board shortly after (inaudible). Boise City effectively took that item off the table. They were successful in a motion to take the dollars, the federal dollars that they had, use them to supplement what we were doing with the 1-84 corridor study and essentially direct me to layoff the (inaudible). Over the last 18 months since that action was taken, there have been a number of other components of a loop concept discussed and brought forward, The City of Nampa and the Nampa Highway District are intensely (inaudible) something that would link the south end of Highway 69 to south Nampa, perhaps on to Marsing, but certainly somewhere back up on the west side of Nampa, or the west side of Caldwell to the interstate. Star and a couple, the City of Star, and a couple of the Ada County Legislators are very interested in seeing Highway 69 get across the river connected to the interstate. The Mayor of Boise, several other folks are interested in preserving the right of way of the railroad line for potential future use either first as a bus way, or later on as light rail, something like that. There is a need to solve a problem in the foothills of Boise traffic (inaudible). early last summer Judy Peavey-Derr in a series of meetings that she's involved in in Washington with our congressional delegation, in conjunction with the Boise area Chamber simply asked for the congressional delegation to provide some seed money to get us to take all these (inaudible) ideas and pull them together into a single conceptual project. Then go after ear-marked funding from congress for that. I participated in a couple of meetings about that proposal last summer. Latter part of August, this summer, I was at the point of putting together a final budget for COMPASS for FY 2002. I needed to know whether that seed money was going to be available. I contacted Senator Crapo's office. They said essentially this is going to take some time. You better get somebody on your end Meridian City Council Workshol-' November 13, 2001 Page 36 to do the work. So, I contracted with an individual who is a Washington Lobbyist, total expense of about (inaudible) to find out whether that $200,000 that had been promised was in deed available. That's what has kicked off that effort of mine in August and September. It's what kicked off the most recent round of concern to Boise City that I had in fact (inaudible) some kind of proposal (inaudible). I did make the proposal for the COMPASS board at it's last meeting. that the 200,000 be added to both the revenue and expense side of our budget in case it became available because (inaudible) not know the answer to the question of whether the dollars were available. By the time of the board meeting we were aware that Senator Crapo's office had simply said, I think we quote to staff was the chances are slim to none and none left town on the railroad last Friday, or slim left town on the railroad last Friday. Excuse me. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) C. Bowman: We all understand that a lot has happened since September 11 th to change priorities and things like that. The action of the COMPASS board was to table that item. They did not approve. They didn't even act on whether or not to put that into the budget. They simply tabled the item. They directed that the executive committee establish a meeting of the whole body to review and consider this. We then go forward to Senator Crapo's office only with the components of a loop concept of any roadway projects that all of the COMPASS board could unanimously or very close to unanimously support. That's kind of where we stand right now. I think that's the sum of my report. (inaudible) That's my piece of it. Bird: Don't want to go ahead before we start asking questions? Little: Yes, I would. Let me just give a little background from a planning perspective. When I talk loop road, I'm talking something bigger than road that ACHD would do. The 2015 plan had some concepts for studies. You know something around Lake Lowell or something north of Nampa and coming down through Garrity, somewhere in there, Black Cat, in that area. Then doing a figure 8 north of Kuna, the other 1 was south --. It just lines on a map. To do a study, those never got done. That was the 2015 plan approved in 96. In the 2020 plan it didn't even show those as a study. 2015 plan showed a local arterial, a south county arterial which was called Deer Flat. It showed it on the Deer Flat section line. There are no roads out in the eastern part of the county other than Pleasant Valley which goes north south. There are no east west between Kuna-Mora and the airport, there's virtually Gowen which is going to be disturbed by the airport expansion. It doesn't go east --. It goes to the east but it doesn't really connect west. It comes back to the north. There1s really no roads out there to speak of. We had a 54 hole golf course come in right strapped across the Deer Flat alignment. So, we took a look at that and did a study which we unfortunately called the Deer Flat Study, which immediately got us some stakeholders. All with addresses on Deer Flat. We had a tiger by the tail. That study came up with a Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 37 number of alignments that come into Isaac's Canyon interchange and didn't look at a real far south road. Kuna-Mora pretty well did that over to Kuna. But it did look at some alternatives. Basically we ended up with saying well, with the topography, and there's a lot of topography out there. It's not like this area here where you can build the roads where you need to. Topography wise, we ended up with not needing that section line but some of the routes are up along north of Hubbard Reservoir or down on Kuna Road. Then out here there were several alignments. So, we've got our answer. We kind of dropped it at that point. Then we had another one come on top of this. This was the Isaac's Canyon interchange. It's jammed up in the canyon. We told Micron, we'd have to have something to connect behind you as well. You can't have the whole interchange. So, they said, well, we don't want roads going through our site. They wanted it as far south and east as possible. You can see the topography line. It's right here where you've got the hill right here. So we laid out Eisenman Road plan and got right of way. The state had to buy right of way for Eisenman Road in order to get the feds to approve an interchange. They werent going to give them a T interchange. So, they got the right of way. We planned to come east from there with a connector so we could provide some, or excuse me come west so we could provide some stubs out to this area. You've got the area out here with. Like I said, very little in the way of roads. Airport here, Gowen interchange is terrible. It's never going to be a great interchange even if they can expand it adequately you've got such a concentration from Highway 21 and Columbia Village and another Columbia Village will happen south of Gowen and Micron, it's just attracted to it. this is so far out of the way fro Micron people that a lot of them won't use it now. Most of them don't use it now. We needed something to stub across the railroad and Boise City was proposed a redevelopment plan which comes right to the toe of the foothills. Right from the mobile home park to the toe. So. We have to get an alignment through there. We're starting a study now to get some kind of alignment through here. we need to go at least to Pleasant Valley with our study so we have a logical hookup because we need to know for sure where we go over the railroad tracks. That could be a matter of millions of dollars if we can go over at the place that's short versus having to go up and over a grade. Although this is not really fixed out here. we just need to know so we can preserve a stub here and buy the property over which it develops. There's nothing in the 2020 plan to build that. It's just to preserve (inaudible). I just don't want the bigger picture thing to get confused with the study we're doing, I guess is what I'm n. I mean, you get the baby thrown out with the bathwater essentially. We're trying to preserve stubs and alternatives for the future which could be very long term. Depending on what happens with the airport and what's approved land use wise. I think Ada County and Boise City may re-Iook at boundaries and things to the south (inaudible). (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: -- already passed the deal and got the (inaudible)? Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 38 (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Little: 1 other thing I'd like to mention, is we developed Charles Trainer, your staff (inaudible) with myself a concept for like a rural arterial that would be 2 lanes, set back pathways, that sort of thing so that people don't have it in mind as 5 lanes of pavement out in their rural farm. It's such a scary thing to talk about arterial because they visualize Fairview or something like that. Initial roadway would probably be something like that. It wouldn't need to be a big roadway. It wouldn't need to be an urban type of facility. So, we're looking at something that we can work, when we do develop a roadway through there that it can be something that can be compatible with more the rural area there. Of course, you know there's a lot of issue happen. Somebody says, we'll build you the road type of thing. So, I can tell you what's in the plan, what we're looking at as staff trying to determine alignment but really happens (inaudible) the long range planning process which we follow. Sometimes we build a local road in an arterial corridor that will serve for quite a while. You may have some out in this area where we've done that kind of thing, like Pine Street for instance. I guess the school built basically what's serving as a local road and what's a major collector connection (inaudible) that sort of thing. That's about where it at from a local standpoint. We're willing to work with you guys in seeing where the executive committee wants to go with that if anywhere, a bigger loop. Or it could perhaps be some of this alignment. Possibly another 1 could come over that hill but it's going to be more expensive and it would serve an area that is south of that bench. You've got this area up here, they have a railroad course takes this loop because of the topography. So, you've got this ridge in here. This is that Birds of Prey and it comes out here. you know how that's up on the roost. So, this would serve the area here. something could come over the hill and serve this and come back to the interchange. 1 thing for sure, the interchange is almost 3 mile apart. We need to be able to get them with the roads, preserve those options. Bird: Any questions for either 1 of the gentlemen? De Weerd: No. I just felt it was important that Meridian know kind of what the will of the Council and the Mayor is before we go into the conferences at COMPASS so that we can adequately reflect what our City really uses. I think there's different pictures depending on who you ask on COMPASS. Is it going to be another 1-84? Or is it going to be a local road? Will it effect the rural density? Is it going to effect the land use out in that area? What kind of impacts does it have on our commercial and economic means in our municipality? There's a lot of different things going around that I really want a strong sense of what Meridian feels when we go into these conversations. That's the reason we asked that this be placed on our workshops, so we can start that dialogue. I had hoped to have the Chamber here tonight. It doesn't look like anyone made it. I know their chamber definitely has a strong stand in at least the [-84 alternative. They're not even talking, just the local rural road type of idea. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 39 Bird: This is a pretty --. I've always understood, and this has been on the table for years. I understood it was going to be like 1-84. (inaudible). [ had a real concern if it was going to be another 1-84. I had real concerns for our business people. I'm sure Boise does. What I've heard, Nampa and Caldwell would love it because they could be part of it. it would take off on the east side of Nampa and wind up over towards Mountain Home. That's what I've heard. [ heard it's going to be an 1-84. (inaudible) C. Bowman: Mr. President. I think you have the 2 people sitting here telling you never, ever been any of that level of discussion. Bird: Good. That makes me feel better. Little: I'd like to have a Chinden or State Street on that part of the town, not a - Bird: Okay, but not an 1-84? Little: No. Bird: I think that's a concept Terry that's been going around. I think that's where the chamber and the little people have become quite concerned over. I understand why. De Weerd: Yes. Little: 1 thing that's different about this area that we found out in the 1-84 study that was done in the corridor, there's very little pass by traffic. It just isnt like in a big urban area, those bigger cities where there's a big city here and a big city here and there's a lot of people that want to go around. Most people that come in here --. There is a certain amount but the amount that would divert off, there isnt the potential and there certainly isnt the money to build something like that. We've got so many leads that --. What we do is we never get any impact fee on that, we can buy that right of way to preserve it when they develop it. If they want to build a local road in it and use it for development that's kind of how it occurs. Corrie: I know that's the concept that Boise has said that it would be another 1-84 bypass. [ didn't see it at that point. It's good to hear the 2 comments here. Bird: Yes. Corrie: I'm like you, I thought that's what it was going to be, an 1-84 bypass. We're cutting our own throat. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 40 Bird: Cutting our businsess people's throats and everything else. I'm serious, that's always been the impression I've had, that we were going to have an 1-84 bypass. You just cleared that up for me. Little: 1 road there is in here that may come up, and it would be good for you to understand what's behind it and what it does. That is a Kuna-Mora to 69 type of connection. The county P&Z was excited about that. That would give us something so that trucks in this area going east, this is signed 1-84, instead of going over and jogging down Cloverdale Road through here. we'd have something, coming down along the railroad tracks to Kuna-Mora east into this area. We don't see it as a freeway bypass but we've got Iowa Beef Packers down here looking for a way to get. They're up Cloverdale and around. Just something that we could extend Kuna-Mora into Kuna-Meridian, highway 69 and get them up here to the freeway because they're getting there anyway. It's just the roads they're using are - Bird: Something like that, I have no problems with. Little: That's in the 2020 plan. Bird: Very good. Okay. Any more comments, questions? Thank you very much. Little: Thanks for having us. De Weerd: Thank you. Issue #8 Discussion of statuslupdate of fee study for possible increases for P & Z, Public Works, Parks (impact fees) and Safety Services impact fees - Bird: Discussion of the status update on the possible increases for P&Z, Public Works, Parks, Safety Service Impact Fees. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Anderson: I make a motion we take a short break. Bird: Do I hear a second? De Weerd: Second. Bird: All in favor say aye. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 41 Bird: Meeting back to order. Brad Watson will take off here and start with the fees. Watson: Thank you Mr. President, Council Members, Mayor. We're to the point, at least Public works is where we're going to take into (inaudible) this month inspection review fees (inaudible). They should be all right. I've updated water and sewer rates and feeling really comfortable with the water rates, where those are. We ended up getting the raw, very raw data from the (inaudible) department a couple weeks ago. We're digesting that, (inaudible). that helped a lot on this water. The sewer, I've still got some questions and a little bit of a bust in calculations. The water rates, I don't have copies of this but I will get them to your boxes. The water rates, it's hard to explain. You'll have to see it but they've been kind of --. Overall they go up of course. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Watson: What they call the commodity charge, the price per thousand actually drops from 123 to 122 (inaudible). It will drive it up. It's about the same with the sewer although the sewer is going to increase more than the water. (inaudible). we started to accumulate, up to date data in the assessment fees. I did break the work up a year ago. In February it got finalized. (inaudible) Bird: Brad, I've got 1 question. I know that this has been a real headache for our accounting department, is the latecomer's fees and stuff that we have with the sewer. I believe that if we look at the other municipalities around here that have a trunk line fee like Bvoise and that, they have no latecomer's fee because they threw everything through their comp plan. Everybody that builds buys a building permit, pays for a trunk line fee regardless of where you're at. Watson: Yes, it works a little differently than what we have. I would like to go into that sort of system where they're not latecomer's agreements, they're reimbursement agreements. Everyone pays a trunk fee. If you're developing a subdivision it you wouldn't be getting reimbursed from the fees (inaudible) subd ivision (inaudible). Bird: If we have those on line, we pay for it. then we get reimbursed. The developer don't get reimbursed. Watson: Well, if he did a lot of off site work under our current system deserve a latecomer. Bird: I agree there under our current system. I think we need, before this North Corridor and stuff breaks loose and all these other ones, I think we need to have a trunk line fee in like that. Then lets get rid of the latecomer fee. Pay for everything up front ourselves. Because that latecomer fee, and you know Gary and you, I don't have to tell you what a paing they are. They're a nightmare with Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 42 accounting. It's taken, [ think it's probably taken up a lot more of your time, Gary's time, and accountings time just to come in with those. If we could get a trunk line fee, everybody that buys a buildsing permit is paying for the development of the trunk line. Watson: Right, but what I envision is a system is we're never going to be to the point where we build all water and sewer directly. There's always going to be developers that build off site sewer or over size sewer through the development that deserve reimbursement. A portion of that --. They deserve it if they build something oversized or off site, they will recoop that money. (inaudible) for what we've built somewhere else. The question, the little thing that I put together a year ago, (inaudible). there's going to be a question that comes up before the Council as to if we want to buyout existing latecomer agreements and (inaudible). that's just something (inaudible). Bird: Payoff and forget about them. Watson: Pay them off, all the agreements and start collecting (inaudible). It's an accounting thing. (inaudible) (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Nichols: When you say pre-pay it, I'd say you might buy and assign their right to the City (inaudible). You've got to be careful how you do it. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: That's something we can discuss (inaudible) Anderson: Before Brad, you'd had concern about a trunkline fee. Have you figured out a way to charge a fee? Watson: I don't know that (inaudible) and I ever resolved that. (inaudible) the legalities of the system development (inaudible). Nichols: We would treat it like a, like you had mentioned (inaudible). (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Watson: I don't have any problems with us going for something that was already constructed. (inaudible). Anderson: We hope that we can get there at some point. Whether we can answer your questions or whether Bill feels comfortable enough that he can defend it if somebody challenged it. we need to be able to put sewer lines where we want them when we want them. We have to control our own destiny and right Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 43 now we're at the whims of the developer. Wherever they decide they want to extend the sewer lines that's where we have to go and when they want to do it. we've got to get to a position where we have the funds and the fees to be able to say we want development to go this direction. We're going to extend the services there and you can hook onto it. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: We need to make sure that each 1 of these building permits, just like Boise does, every time you pick up a building permit you pay for trunkline. It's not old trunkline. It's future trunkJines. That way, they have put up trunklines and stuff where they wanted to. J think Boise is probably (inaudible). Nampa I believe has the same thing. Nampa don't have latecomer's fees and to my knowledge, Boise don't have latecomer's fees because of that. That's something that we can look at. Nichols: Nampa may have some latecomer fees as a result of the major west area (inaudible). (inaudible) reimbursement issues for the participation (inaudible). Anderson: Yes and I'm not privy to the details. J know the City is funding the bulk of the extension down Middleton. It's so much easier from a planning standpoint. If you're trying to plan where you're going to put future fire stations or schools or whatever. I mean, if you can plan the growth and where you're going to go other than letting the developers plan that for you. De Weerd: But, the problem is we can't do it in a very timely manner. We've seen that with --. We've seen it. we've seen it with parks. We've seen it with sewer lines. The developer wants to put it in, they get those easements and they get it done. When we do it, it takes years. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Anderson: Part of that problem was because of our easements were on private property instead of the public right of way. That's where Brad's saying is that he's looking more at some other things. Bird: Yes. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: Anywhere possible. Corrie: Okay. Bird: Any questions on Brad's other fees (inaudible)? Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 44 De Weerd: That's good. McKinnon: Mr. Chairman, Mayor Corrie, Members of the Council. Like Brad said, we've already had the opportunity to talk to the BCA about raising our prices. They didn't raise any hackles to it. They actually understood the reason behind that. That we need to recoop the cost that we're spending to these projects from our office. They didn't have any problems with that. Made copies of the changes for each one of you. Shari had emailed these but we made ahead and made some copies for everybody. We made an X on the 1 spot. This is where the information differs a little bit from what we presented to the BCA. We've had an opportunity to talk a little bit Bill Nichols concerning this project with Gary. I'm just going to give you a brief overview and then I'IJ let Bill address that. Currently under the City Ordinance, people can request outside of the City water, City water and sewer services. However, when they do that they sign an agreement that says when they bcoem contiguous to the City they have to be annexed into the City. At this time, we're not receiving any fees for that, when they're brought into the City. According to my understanding is the idea behind that is so as soon as they do become contiguous, staff would create the way for them to be annexed. We would actually prepare the annexation document for that, (inaudible), publish it and not receive any funding for that. It does cost some money in order to do that. That's the reason why we put in the $1100 to cover the cost of the record of survey so that the state tax department will actually accept the annexation into the City. We need to have some money for that in addition to the money for the publishing in the newspaper for the public notices. Anderson: Do we have some way of setting up a particular file or something to remind us when a piece of property does fall into that category that we've gone out 10 years earlier and provided them services. Now they're contiguous. Or are we going to some how let it slip through the crack? McKinnon: We do now. We talked a little bit breifly --. We kind of touched on it a little bit earlier. We've had somebody doing a program for us in Access that allows us that opportunity to create tickler files to say this is when this is due. We're going to start using that more often and start seeing the new Planned Development Ordinance, the 18 month time limit on Conditional Use Permits so we can set up the same, a similar tickler file to the (inaudible). We can do that. Nichols: This particular fee structure, we (inaudible) since Gary emailed me not too long ago and said, we've got 5 outside of the City sewer and water hookups where they need annexed and we haven't done it yet. They're hooked up and receiving City water and sewer. I went back and looked at the agreement. The agreement that we have them sign, essentially becomes their petition for annexation. But it's not really enough for the Planning and Zoning department to process. There needs to be an actual application and the rest of it. I told Shari, (inaudible) proposed fee schedule as to what it's going to cost. For example, Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 45 when somebody come in and they say I've got this fourplex and it needs to be hooked up because the sewer system has failed. Gary can say okay, you've got to pay this, you've got to pay this, you've got to pay this, and you've got to put this much money up for the annexation. Then that can be put in the set aside account if they're not contiguous at the time, or it can be used to pay the deal to process it or it could be used to get all the work done that needs to go into the application. You might work out a credit against that but there needs to be --, What we were worried about is - ***End of Side Three*** Nichols: -- probably going to have to take the ones that we've got and process them. Figure out a way to process the 1 to 5 that we have already. Bird: Are they contiguous now, Bill? Nichols: Some of them are. Bird: They haven't come in? Nichols: Well, but they may not have really understood that they had to do any more other than (inaudible) this sign to consent. 1 out of those 5 hasn't even signed the agreement. That one's going to get (inaudible). If the letter goes out after we (inaudible) then we can say oh, by the way this is the (inaudible). McKinnon: If those properties are contiguous they can actually put up an annexation application themselves and not have to worry about that. Nichols: Yes, but Shari's concern was, where it's not an engineer doing it, it's a homeowner doing it, or the landlord of a rental doing it or some church doing it, it's not professionally prepared and all of the stuff is not there that needs to be there to get it all done. That's one of the reasons for having a fee. If you're going to have to do the work, this is the fee. If somebody else is going to do the work, there's a lower fee. That way, there's some incentive for them to go out and get it done. (inaudible) gives them the option but if they dump it off on the department to do it, they're going to pay for it. Smith: Mr. President, Mayor and Council. Bird: Yes, Gary. Smith: The preparation of the legal description has to be the biggest problem in annexations when it's not properly done. Then we end up with an amended annexation ordinance. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 46 Bird: Is there anyway that we can make them when they come in, give us the legal description? Smith: Yes, it's our ordinance, now requires that it be prepared by a registered land surveyor. Bird: Good. Okay. (inaudible) Any questions on P&Z's? These will go before a public hearing won't they? McKinnon: November 27th. Bird: November 2ih Public Hearing on them. Okay. So, probably in December we go on a Public Hearing on it? (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: Any questions? De Weerd: No. Bird: Very nice, guys. Looks very, very good. I don't know if we've got any updates on the park impact fees or the safety service impact fees. Tom, do you have an update on the park impact fees? Kuntz: Did everyone get this memo? Bird: We sure did. Kuntz: Okay. Bird: Or, at least I did. I thought everybody got it. De Weerd: What is it? Kuntz: It's the capital improvement plan. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: Yes, I think we just (inaudible) today. Kuntz: I don't want to take a lot of your time. I would really appreciate it if you would go through this because I do want to come back in December with this. What I've done is a follow up from our last meeting is J've had a further discussion with the director of the BCA. J met with Boise City Parks because they are going to BCA asking for an increase in their impact fees. They have given me their calculations on their development costs. Currently we are at 530 on the very Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 47 back page. If we were to increase our single family impact fees $200 from 530 to 730, which is approximately what Boise City is right now. We would increase our annual revenue $155,000 a year. Instead of $400,000 a year which has been our average over the last 2 to 3 years, we increase that to $555,000. Our 6 year capital inprovement plan, would be about 3.3 million. Corrie: Tom, does that fall in line with the guidelines increasing impact fees? Kuntz: There are no guidelines as far as set percentages and stuff. De Weerd: You just have to justify it with a capital improvement plan. Corrie: Okay. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Kuntz: There's a formula but there's not a percentage. Now, what Boise is hearing from the BCA is that they're not going to approve anything over 10 percent for Boise. But, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me why we should get 530 and Boise gets 730. We're all in the Treasure Valley. We're all using the same contractors. Our costs are about the same. It's a matter of selling the BCA and the Realtor's Association on that. Our true costs to develop and acre of park --. Excuse me, our true costs that we ran for you about a month ago is about $15000 per lot, single family lot. That's land aqcuisition and development. We know there's no way we can ask for that. Corrie: Why? Natural question I always ask of everything. Kuntz: Because I don't --. 1, I don't think the BCA would support us. 2, it would raise the prices of houses in Meridian possibly where they wouldn't be competetive with western Boise. It's certainly something to show developers when we start talking about building infrastructure and partnering in that North Ten Mile Corridor. This is the final segment end of our action plan. I plan on sending it to Jerry DeGrue and having him send a final draft that we will then start taking out to the BCA, realtors and the public, and I believe the Planning and Zoning Commission. It needs to go before them. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Kuntz: I certainly don't want to put something out there that the Council is not comfortable with. Bird: Any questions? Anderson: What are all these C's? These are proposed parks that were on that master plan? Is this all of them? Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 48 Kuntz: No sir. Anderson: Why have you selected just these? Are they in a certain geographical area? (inaudible) Kuntz: We put a small committee together, the Parks and Recreation Commission Members and myself. We tried to look at where the growth is going and where there's deficiencies right now. We prioritized what we felt like and potential partnerships and prioritized those based upon those 3 things. All those parks are identified in our new City Comprehensive Plan. It was a combination of what developments are close? What landowners do we know are out there that want to come forward with some kind of an in kind comtribution. Where the potential growth is going to be, especially in that North Corridor. I can go through those with you real breifly if you or I can get you a map to go with this memo so you can see where they're at. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: Tom, how are we doing on the impact area fees? Have we heard anything from the Commissioners on (inaudible) for the impact fees in our impact area like Boise gets. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) De Weerd: They need this capital improvement plan. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Kuntz: (inaudible) attorney called me about 2 weeks ago and said, well there's 3 things we need. 1 is your capital improvement plan. I said, well we're trying to get that buttoned up. 2 is you've got to make sure that on your Parks Commission and your impact fee commission, you have a representative that lives in the area of impact at least 1. So, we've gone through and we've got 2 on the Parks Commission and I've got about in that impact. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Kuntz: I know this is a high priority (inaudible). Bird: Any questions? Kuntz: Would be a good time to bring this back to you? Meridian City Council Workshop November 13. 2001 Page 49 Bird: You can come back next month at this time. I would like to see it decided before that if you're going to time. But, you've got to get with your Parks and Recreation Commission. Kuntz: They actually approved it last night. Bird: They approved this? Kuntz: Yes. Bird: Okay. Kuntz: I think the only issue that seemed to be floating at the end of the meeting last night was are we going to do any partnering with the school district to renovate some of the existing property? That's not in here. it would be easy enough to make some modification. Again this is a plan, it's not that it can't change. If we don't realize the revnue that we're expecting over the next 6 years, obviously we're not going to build some of these things or buy some. That's the only thing I can think is not addressed in here. We've got the adventure playground, the 58 acre park which I think is an important project but we've got that citizen's committee that would like to know that we are serious about being a partner in that. The only thing that's missing in the 6 year plan is if we're going to do any partnerign with the schol district on field improvements. I could certainly address that if the Council would like to see that happen. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Kuntz: Pardon me? Corrie: How's the school feel about it? Kuntz: I Think they're open. Tammy doesn't think they're open to any kind of partnerships to improve what they've got. De Weerd: That's for the Council. Bird: (inaudible) partner with Boise Parks. (inaudible) De Weerd: I think they're very pleased with (inaudible) and Cecil B. Andrus Elementary worked out. That's not really the partnership. Tom's talking about, more improving existing facilities. For example, Meridian Middle School or Linder Elementary. You could go to any of those and try to kick a ball straight across the field, you know it doesn't go straight. It certainly doesn't stay level. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Meridian City Council WorksholJ November 13, 2001 Page 50 Kuntz: I Think staff's got --. Looking at both sides of that. If we put money into the school facilities one is we done have land costs. Then if we do that, who's going to maintain them? If we're not going to maintain them, are they going to end up in the same condition they are now in 5 years? To where if maybe if we take an approach to where we're going to try and secure some of these new properties, especially where we've got 1 who wants to donate parcel. All we do is green it up to start with, get the sprinkling systems in and get the grass on there. I don't know. I've got mixed feelings about, every time I drove by the high school, (inaudible) and said we've got to help get that thing (inaudible). Bird: No you don't. Kuntz: I know we don't but it's - Bird: That's another subject that we need to address as tax payers to the school district. That's something else. Mayor just hit it on the deal. If you don't maintain it --. Walking around the last 2 weeks handing out brochures, you know the biggest thing is people would like to see some green in the 58 acres. I don't care because really --. I for one this (inaudible). any other questions? Anderson: No questions, just a comment. I'm glad to see a plan. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Kuntz: Yes. Those aren't (inaudible). We're finding that if we want to go passed where we are now, we've got to have some place to hold classes. That's the only thing that's holding us back. I know the old fire station is probably out but we would not be opposed to taking that, renovating it to where it's feasible. It doesn't sound like it is because (inaudible). I don't know but, I mean, we could certainly- -. That would (inaudible). I know parking would be a concern. Tammy brought that up last night. We do have that 1 big lot that's never used over here behind the Shell station. I don't know what the Council's plans are about that. What are you laughing about? (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: Any other questions? McCandless: Is there a reason why the skateboard park is not in there? Kuntz: I've not purposely listed those capital improvement projects that are budgeted for this year. I could certainly do that but, checking with some of the professionals in the area, they said you could go either way. It's probably better not to put it in if it's already funded. McCandless: Have you gotten any more bids on that? Meridian City Council Workshop November 13. 2001 Page 51 Kuntz: The second bid go around closes December 3rd. At that point, if they're still high, then we're going to come back to Council and recommend that we manage the project ourselves. I know that Council Member Bird has met with some different contractors who specialize in some of the area of excavation. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Kuntz: We think we can build it if we manage it ourselves for what we've got budgeted. Corrie: You know what I said in the staff meeting today. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Corrie: About that skateboard park. Kuntz: Yes, that's why we'll build it ourselves if we have to. Corrie: Okay. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) McCandless: It's got to be built. I think the kids expected it to be done this fall. Bird: Anything else? (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Kuntz: I had checked with the Land Group today and they did follow through on what they said in sending the packets out to other construction companies outside the area who build skate parks. At least they followed through (inaudible). Bird: Thanks Tom. Kuntz: You bet. Issue #9 Discussion of letter to send Ada County regarding subdivision in the north corridor of the area of impact (Keltic Heights -- Bird: Okay. The letter to Ada County regarding subdivision in North Corridor. De Weerd: Keith. Bird: Yes? Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 52 De Weerd: Where are we on safety services impact fee? Bird: Safety services impact fees? Who's heading that up? De Weerd: Not me. Bird: Not me. Corrie: All eyes look this way. We're trying to get a committee together. Safety committee -- . You're okay. If I could just get my secretary here, we've got things going again. Right now it's a mess. I haven't got anybody to talk to you. it's coming but we do have to have a special committee for the police and fire, public safety. It'll be done. Anderson: Would you do me a favor and get some of your staff members to work on hitting it a little bit harder, putting together a capital improvement plan similar to what Tom has done. I've indicated to him several times that needs to happen but have yet to see anything on paper. I think it's really important, like Keith said, that (inaudible) on this North Meridian thing. We need to have a public safety impact fee in place. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Corrie: Do we have everything going with the police department and CIP with that as well? (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: Okay. Are you the gentleman that's going --? McKinnon: I am. Bird: Okay. Tell us about this letter. McKinnon: All right, Mr. Chairman. this is really actually a very similar letter to what you say in the Powder River packets (inaudible). There's a few changes that we made to it. They're actually addressed to the site specific for this actual application. Notice in the first 2 paragraphs, that there's actually 2 different applications that are addressed. 1 is Keltic Heights with the apartments and some minor commercial and the second which is addressed to the second paragraph concerning the 40 acre commercial development. Those are 2 separate applications that are before the Ada County Commissioners. That's why they're addressed separately in this letter. I talked with Brad Watson about public works. You'll notice that there's a highlighted area (inaudible) on the second page. I don't know if the highlight came across. The key elements reasons for denial, number 1 the water and sewer environmental. Public Works department Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 53 is working on updating that to be acccurate. Other than that, there's really not a whole lot of major issues that we saw on the public works side. We did go through the Comprehensive Plan. That's why it's rather lengthy. Attachemnt A goes through 12 pages of the Comprehensive Plan analysis and how it doesn't apply to our Comprehensive Plan. It's not in compliance with that. We've given them plenty of reasons to deny it based on a recommendation from us. If you'd like to see stronger language, or other language made to this, I'd be happy to accommodate that. Bird: I haven't had a chance to read it word for word but it looks pretty good skimming through it. McKinnon: The issues are very similar to Powder River, parks, police, fire protection. De Weerd: Mr. President. Bird: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: I guess what I would still like to see in here is the commitment from Ada County, ACHD, the City of Meridian and the development community in the efforts in the planning of the North Corridor and that this would have a hige impact in that corridor and should be a partner in that planning process. That that should be kind of our lead off sentence. Everyone is going into this in good faith. I believe that this development, or developer, is too. Anderson: Is this developer actively --? Bird: Yes. Anderson: -- participating in that north planning process? Bird: As I recall. De Weerd: I believe so. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) De Weerd: Keltic Heights. Corrie: Oh, yes. Bird: I don't blame him. Some of the history we've got, if I had my money down, I'd pressure through too. I'd push it through. He is a main player in the deal. (inaudible). we can do what we do. (inaudible). Meridian City Council Workshop November 13. 2001 Page 54 McCandless: I do too. This kind of (inaudible). Bird: It addresses our concerns. De Weerd : Yes, but how many people are going to get to page 4 or 5? Bird: What? De Weerd: Or 6? McCandless: Well, the fact is, it's there. I think it's a very good letter. De Weerd: Me too, but I would like to see that in the opening remarks because it is important to keep in front of them. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: I think they're coming to the - (inaudible). De Weerd: Not their Planning and Zoning Commission. Bird: Their staff is. Their staff will (inaudible). Corrie: I really wonder after getting contacted and then calling Scott and then him conversing with somebody else and they converse back with me and it's a different story. So, I call him again, oh yes, I remember that. I have my doubts (inaudible ). De Weerd: I just think if it's important to keep in front of people that we need to do it and not count on someone elses staff that doesn't have the buy in that certainly we do into this process. They mayor may not but we need to emphasis it ourselves. Anderson: Nobody feels as passionate about an issue as you do if it's your cause. I think this letter going to the P&Z Commission and even when some of our own staff from the fire department or P&Z attend some of these meetings (inaudible) that has mor impact because we're going to argue our case a lot better than trying to rely upon Ada County's staff to argue our case for us. Bird: Yes, but we've already done that. Tammy's wanting to say that- Anderson: No, but I think we need to continue to do that on all these applications. Bird: I agree. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 55 Nichols: Mr. President, Members of the Council. To emphasis what Councilman de Weerd said, 1 of the strongest arguments the City has is this application is (inaudible) and it's a little early, maybe a lot early. I understand Mr. Johnson's financial considerations. From the City's perspective, it's a premature application because it's not inside out growth. The thing that Council Woman de Weerd raises is very much a part of that. That is that as part of this North Area planning process to be examining these specific applications --. This is just a sketch plat. This is not a preliminary plat. Bird: Yes. Nichols: So, he doesn't have the same amount of engineering costs and the rest of it into it, that he would in a formal preliminary plat application. (inaudible) emphasis that this is a premature application and would not be (inaudible). there's no evidence that it's premature (inaudible). (inaudible discussion amongst Council) De Weerd: that's my only comment. I think the rest of it is --. Corrie: It's surely not going to hurt to include that to the front of it. (inaudible). McKinnon: That's the first paragraph too, if you added that to the front, it's yet another (inaudible) development. De Weerd: Yes, 1- McKinnon: (inaudible) to soften it. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Corrie: When I read that first paragraph, I knew who wrote it immediately. Bird: When do we have to turn this in? McKinnon: November 20th. Bird; I suggest you get it changed. McKinnon: We'll do that. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: Soften it, give it to the Mayor and we'll get it signed. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 56 McKinnon: Okay. De Weerd: Can you maybe like, wordsmith that first sentence in that paragraph? McKinnon: Absolutely. What I'll do is we'll take item NO.3 from page 6- McCandless: Yes. McKinnon: -- and form it into a paragraph, soften up the language so it's not written like a bullet paragraph. Then put that in the first paragraph. Then we can soften up the wording in the second paragraph. De Weerd: Yes. McKinnon: So, I'll just start a new paragraph there. Bird; You've got your instructions. De Weerd: Thank you David. Bird: Thank you. McKinnon: You're welcome. Issue #10 Mayor's Comments to Council on budgeting- Issue #11 Craig Groves request for Packard Sub No. 1- 13.5 Acres - Bird: Okay, item No. 10 we're going to put in item No. 11 here so Craig can get home to his family one of these days. Mr. Groves? Corrie: Okay. We've got a situation here where we have our public works director and our attorney wants to give us some advice on this 13.5 acres. This wasn't annexed in the original plat. Is that correct so far? (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Nichols: 13.5 foot strip, isnt it Mr. Groves? Corrie: It's strip, not acres? Groves: Yes. A 13 and a half strip. It's not really the whole 13 and a half feet. We're talking about 80 or 100 square feet. 8500 square feet total. Corrie: Okay. We'll let you talk and we'll let our attorney --. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 57 Groves: Mayor, Council Members. Thank you for granting us permission to hear our request. I wanted to just pass out what we turned in for our application. I'm sorry, Bill I didn't have an extra copy. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Nichols: You're all need to disclose, when this comes up in front (inaudible) for public hearing on annexation and zoning, you're all going to have to disclose that Mr. Groves made a presentation to you on this issue. That's not to say that's bad. You just have to say he did and what it was and it's on tape. If anybody wants to look at it, go look at it. Corrie: I'm particularly cognicent that there's a party that's looking very closely at all of this. Groves: I appreciate that. Again, thank you for granting permission to hear our request. Our request is specifically to grant a building permit to Scott Hahn and his family so they can start construction on the home that's going to take, you know nearly 150 days to build. The City has already granted 2 building permits along this 13 and a half foot strip. Those homes have been under construction since August. There were some terms and conditions that were acceptible to those homeowners and the contractors that purchased the homesites that we had them sign that those terms and conditions are also acceptible here to Mr. Hahn. Before we get into that, I just want to explain to you that, I'm really sorry that we're in this situation. I certainly did not want the City to be in question on this issue. But it really is, in my opinion, a very minor issue. I want to explain what it is. Some time in 96 or 97, the City annexed this phase of this development. At that time, our engineer made the City a legal description for the annexation. He had completed or pulled off a public record. I don't believe he had actually done a boundary survey at the time. But we had a legal description that was submitted. That's what was annexed. In 1999, I purchased half interest in this subdivision. I got a title policy when I purchased it. in going through all the approval documents and the process of getting the plat approved in, I guess it was February, January of 2000, we got permission to put in gravity irrigation. We put in the gravity irrigation exactly where the gravity irrigation had been for many, many years. Okay. In looking back through my closing documents, and the files, we came across a statement that was dated back in 1982 that makes reference to a boundary line agreement. It was signed in 1982, we provided this all to the City. It was signed in 1982 but it makes reference to a boundary line agreement dating back to 1956. we started looking at it and I said you know we buried our gravity irrigation in this 13 and a half feet because that's where it's been since 1956 when they had an agreement. I got to looking at it and saying well you know we don't have an official deed to that property!. So, I met with the next door neighbors and explained the problem. We reached an agreement wherein he quick claimed that 13 and a half feet to us, and we included it in our final plat. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13,2001 Page 58 Where the City has an issue is that my engineer nor I disclosed that to the City or to Gary before the plat was recorded. I didn't do it out of ignorance. I mean, I didn't know we had an issue. I mean, I own the ground. I bought it, I cleared it up. I didn't know we had an issue. For that I really apologize. In any event, we've had 2 hojmeowners that have started out there now. We granted building permits to them. Both those homeowners and their contractors signed an agreement that states that should this 13 and a half foot annexation not be accepted by the City, that those homeowners would agree to amend the final plat and delete that 13 and a half feet. I can't imagine why it wouldn't be accepted but if that were the case, these homeowners have agreed to do that. It's based on that situation that I'm asking for an issuance of one more building permit so Scott and his family can start construction. That's pretty much the situation. I certainly would try to answer any questions you might have. Anderson: What's the contention on this issue? You said that somebody's going to fight this. Why would it be contended? (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Nichols: Mr. President, Mayor and Members of Council. If I could inject some additional items in here. Mr. Groves has the unfortunate distinction of everything that's done (inaudible). it's been viewed with a very sharp eye. Not necessarily from anybody's standpoint (inaudible). With regard to the building permits that were issued. Those 2 permits were issued before this discreptency was discovered by the City. The City (inaudible) building permits had been issued and there was this discreptency had not been caught. Those permits were issued. Since they were already issused and construction was already under way, rather than to stop construction, until the 13 and a half foot annexation was complete, it was appropriate to go ahead and let those folks continue with those 2 particular homes while this was being cleared up. As I understand is what happened was the prelimnary plat application had a legal description (inaudible) when the final plat came through, the legal description (inaudible). So, that you have in effect the back 13 and a half feet of all of those lots are on the other side of that subdivision. (inaudible). My advice to public works, Planning and Zoning department is go ahead and not issue stop work orders, or maybe they did. But, to rescind the stop work orders on these 2 (inaudible) allow those constructions (inaudible) because we have the --. The lots were sold. The builders have their construction (inaudible) and already have product on site. (inaudible) both of them already have the foundation poured and the rest of it. As far as any of the rest of the lots, along there my advice was no more building permits until this whole thing gets done. (inaudible) on Mr. Groves but the engineer should have told Gary Smith, oh by the way, this disciption (inaudible). Now as a result of that, for the first time in Gary's career he now has to from here on out, Brad, Gary , somebody has to check the legal descriptions on every single final plat to make sure they (inaudible). It's not Mr. Grove's fault but (inaudible). It's a consequence of Mr. (inaudible) decision to include that. That's where my advice has been. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 59 Rather than to --. I don't expect that there's going (inaudible) annexation to be denied. From my perspective, I didn't have no authority to say go ahead and issue a building permit on the other 13 and a half foot strip on each one of those lots that wasn't annexed. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Nichols: 4. Bird: 4 lots and we've got 2 building permits. This is the third one? De Weerd: Do you need it for setbacks? Groves: No. If I could draw you just a quick (inaudible). They're actually in your packet. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Groves: This drawing right here, okay? De Weerd: Yes. Groves: I don't know. The gravity irrigation for this subdivision, there is a gravity irrigation ditch that runs right down here. That ditch along this boundary line was established like I said, back in 1956. That's what we tiled, back in January or February of 2000. Believe me, it took us 3 months just to get the approval to tile that. We had to get all the neighbors down here and the downstream users to sign off on the agreement just so we could say we'll build it and get it built before water came in. Then we actually started construction of the subdivision improvements back in August I think of that year, of 2000. In any event, we had our gravity irrigation within that 13 and a half feet. I was trying to make a written statement that established a boundary line back in 56, actually become a, you know get a deed transfer on it. that's what I did. I guess 1- De Weerd: Where are the lots on there? Groves: These lots? They back up --. There's an open drainage lot that's all landscaped quite nice there. There's 1,2, 1,2, 3,4 lots basically. Those 4. De Weerd: They don't need it for setback? Groves: They don't need it for setbacks. Most of those homeowners don't even care if they have that 13 and a half feet. Well, I shouldn't speak for them. I mean, the lots are very big. The lots are very, very deep. They're deep. You know, I've told the builder --. We sold this 1 lot to a builder and he does not have a homeowner. I've told him, I said under no circumstance will you even represent Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 60 that lot for sale. But, Scott and his family they've been waiting --. They're buying this lot right here. the building permits have been issued here and here. scott and his family, they bought that lot back in June or February, I guess. February of 2001. If I didn't have to come here for this request I wouldn't. He's been waiting an awful long time. It's a very nice home. These 2 permits here were issued --. This one was issued on the 23rd of August. I think this one was issued on the 26th or ih of August. We turned in our request, this stuff here on the 29th of August. We've been delayed once already on, just on our P&Z hearing for this request. Based on timing, I don't see us getting an annexation until some time in February. I'm sorry. Anderson: We can't take any official action tonight anyway. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Corrie: What are the ramifications, legal ramifications? Nichols: Well, I think --. Assuming Mr. Hahn (inaudible). that's where (inaudible) as long as the construction (inaudible). I don't know if the City has any liability issues to really worry about there. But there are (inaudible) sort of a cursed development in the sense that (inaudible). Not because it's a bad development. Not because Mr. Groves puts up a junky place but it seems like there have been little things go wrong from the contractors not obeying the directed (inaudible) to other issues. I mean, that's why staff didn't feel like they could say go ahead and do this under these circumstances. Bird: Back up to Wingate --. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Groves: Since you brought that up, I do want to say that you know from my perspective, I have really bent over backwards to accommodate every single person on Wingate Lane. I've met with everyone more than once. I feel like I'm living up to our agreement. Conversely, you know, I've got Jacked gates out there. I've got concerns of my liability for public safety and our agreement doesn't say we have locked gates. Our agreement says that we have pedestrian access. I'm just going with the flow but I own a house on that lane. The only way I can access my house is to drive from Ustick Road, half a mile down that lane, Now, I'm here to tell you at some point in time, I'm going to say, I don't want to drive down Ustick Road. I don't want to drive down that lane anymore. I want to access my house from that public street and I'm going to make a request for it. I think it's in my right. At some point in time it's going to be --. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Meridian City Council WorkshoJ.l November 13, 2001 Page 61 Corrie: Okay. What can we do now? Can we have it come back through the Council at a regular meeting? Make his request? It has to be done that way. It can't be done --. I mean, I just want everybody to know what's happening here. again, we're going to have to make note that we've had an explanation of what's happening and he's going to have to come back and talk to the Council. Nichols: Yes. That's particularly true in case Mrs. Sharp shows up and what's to know what was discussed. She can listen to the tape or (inaudible). it has to be a formal request for the Council. I put it in terms of an appeal of an administrative decision, the decision not to allow a building permit on any of these other lots (inaudible ). Corrie: Does the Council want to hear the appeal if he makes the appeal? Bird: Sure. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Corrie: What's the time table? What's the next meeting, the 20th? The 2yth? Nichols: But it's a land use matter so it's the 4 th of December. Corrie: The 4th of December, okay. Do we still have one land use meeting yet? De Weerd: Next week. Bird: Push it forward, this poor guys (inaudible). Corrie: He's going to have to get the letter to me. ***End of Side Four*** Corrie: So, a land use would be the 20th, and have an administrative appeal, correct? Nichols: That's correct. It would also, it's going to be heard on Thursday night on the Planning and Zoning Commission (inaudible) a formal recommendation (inaudible) recommendation from the P&Z Commission as part of the basis for granting the appeal but you would actually have a recommendation whether or not there was any (inaudible). Bird: Okay. Hahn: If I could just tell you my situation now. My family, we've been in the rental home for over a month now. My house plans have been delivered to the City for approval. That should be ready to go. (inaudible) Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 62 (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Groves: I'll be here Thursday night. Do you want it before the (inaudible) on Thursday? (inaudible discussion amongst Council) McKinnon: Mr. Groves you need to come and get an application from our office. I can fax 1 to you. Groves: I have it (inaudible), I'll drop by first thing in the morning. We'll get it filled out Thursday or maybe tomorrow afternoon. De Weerd: So, it will be scheduled on the 20th? Bird: Thank youCraig. Groves: Thank you for your consideration. Issue #10 Mayor's Comments to Council on budgeting - Bird: Okay, Mayor. Corrie: Okay. Stacy step up. Stacy and I and accounting have been trying to see how it can be done on invoices and approvals of invoices. We're running into a lot of problems with having to, something that's already approved, in the budget. Then we (inaudible). City invoices are reveiwed by accounting and also reviewed by department heads and then financial statements every month are reviewed again. Stacy and I thought we would work up a proposition for any other (inaudible). We might present to the Council and whereas approval of invoices at $1,000 needs a signature, Most of these signatures are coming in on PO's or after the fact anyway. We thought we could maybe stop some of this invoicing that's coming to us when we don't pay it on time and they charge us extra money. So, I'm going to kind of let Stacy fill you in on the particulars of it. that's one of the things that I wanted to do was kind of alert you that this is coming to you for your edification. You want to look at it, tear it apart, whatever you want to do. This approving budget items that have been approved by you once. I set up a protocol of what we need to do if the Council would like to have us do, as far as purchase orders and money. Stacy. Kilchenmann: Basically what we thinking of doing is revising the (inaudible) so that you wouldn't sign. Right now it would really be effective. You have to sign the purchase before they actually place the order. I think now that you sign invoices for $1,000 or more, or purchase orders. I don't know how many people actually sign the purchase order before it's ordered or they sign it after but don't Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 63 tell me. We're just basically wanting to know if anyone would be violently opposed if we don't do that. If we have you review variance reports and so forth at the end of the month and like, we would have our accounts payable review, the bidding requirements for 5,000 to 25,000 and I would review 25,000 or more. Of course you approve those contracts. Most of those are contracts. Before I spend a lot of time coming up with that procedure I wanted to get input from everybody on what they feel comfortable with and the whole purchase process. I'd just like to get that input before I change the procedure or write a procedure. Bird: Stacy, I do have a problem. A big problem. If I'm signing my --. There's 4 people responsible for the money of the City. It's us 4 right here. not another one of you, unless we can prove something or do something can it come back on you. they would come back on us. I have. If I'm signing my name to a PO, I want to see the invoice. I do see my invoices. I see the invoices and I want to see the invoices because I have seen PO's that the invoice and the PO don't match up. Kilchenmann: Then you need to sign the purchase order before the person actually orders it. Bird: That's fine. Just because we budget something in a line item, we budget $1,000 for paper clips, that don't mean you run out and buy $1,000 worth of paper clips if you only need 200. I for 1, as long as my, I'm going to see my invoices that are over $1,000. Kilchenmann: So, do you want to see- Bird:Then I'll sign it. Kilchenmann: But you'll need to see the purchase order before they order it. Bird: I have no problem with that. They've got plenty of time. I don't believe there's been a day that I've been 2 days after what my department head has signed it, has ever signed a PO. His is like, he signed today, I'll have it signed by the 15th. Kilchenmann: We don't have a problem with the Council's timing. We need to do some internal shifting because they're not getting back to accounting. Before we started that whole process, (inaudible). Bird: I'm willing to look at some form. I just, something has come up in the last 4 years that if I'm signing my name, I'm seeing the invoice with the PO. Kilchenmann: So, you want to sign the purchase order first and then sign again on the invoice? Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 64 Bird: I want to see the invoice. I don't see anything wrong with right now. They can sign the PO. I want to sign the --. I want to see the invoice. Then I'll sign it then to approve to pay it. If I don't agree with the invoice at that point, I don't care who signed to PO. (inaudible). That's when I bring up my (inaudible). Anderson: I think what Kieth is saying, I mean you can still hold that department head accountable. If he purchased something that he shouldn't have been purchasing, at that point, even though he's already signed the PO, I mean, I'll send whatever that product is back or I'm going to hold that department head accountable if he made a purchase that he shouldn't have made. If you don't ever see the invoice, you don't ever see the PO. We're just all assuming that that was budgeted, that's what was bought. I don't like that assumption because I'm like Keith, I've seen some that the purchase orders didn't match the invoice. Bird: That's right. Corrie: In those conditions, [ don't have any problem with the invoices with the PO's. I guess my problem comes in is that 1 Council person can refuse to pay a bill without the whole Council's approval to not pay that bill. I think that's the Council's decision, not a Iiason's decision not to pay a bill. Bird: Mayor, we can - Corrie: I may be wrong. Bird: I mean, if that ever happens and I'm the Council person that refuses to pay a bill, you bring it before the whole Council. Corrie: Absolutely. Bird: Let me have my say why I'm not wanting to pay it. Corrie: Absolutely. Bird: If the other 3 say you're wrong, hey it's over with. Corrie: You're missing my point. Bird: Okay. Corrie: I'm saying yes, if you have something like you said you don't agree with it then it should go to the Council to whether they agree with you or not. You can't just stop a payment that's already been approved by budget form. But, you should bring it to the full Council so they can hear it. they will probably agree or disagree. I don't really care about- Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 65 Bird: I think we can stop the payment whether it's budgeted or not, unless it is a contract. Corrie: That's legal. Bird: You can actually, by Idaho State Code, we can actually set every meeting and approve of the weekly deal if we wanted to go that way on it. All we do on a budget item is say you've got this amount of money to do this. Nichols: I think the way you're doing it though, somebody signing the purchase order to obligate the City for this item. Kilchenmann: Are you signing the purchase orders or are you signing the invoices. Bird: I am signing the purchase order with the invoice attached to it. McCandless: I'm signing the invoice. Bird: Before I sign that invoice, that purchase order, I look at the invoice. Is that not right Gary? Kilchenmann: See once you have the invoice, basically, the City is already obligated. I think it would be hard --. I mean, you can refuse payment in the (inaudible) department head but it's not right. Legally we're probably obligated. Nichols: Except this though, if the purchase order is the 1 (inaudible) the vendor has sold goods or services that were not authorized by the (inaudible). Bird: That's right. Nichols: If they're not authorized by the written purchase order, then you're not obligated to pay them. Kilchenmann: Yes, but I don't think we have a (inaudible). Bird: This is 1 thing I don't understand when you go through this much money. Why a purchase order is not written and sent at the time of purchase. Kilchenmann: It should be. Bird: That should be written up first before a purchase is done. The only thing you don't need that on is a contract. Kilchenmann: Right. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 66 Bird: Our purchase orders, everybody --. I mean, I don't buy a screw without writing a purchase order up and we're just a tinkly, winkly little company. Kilchenmann: I agree with you. Bird: How do you control things? Kilchenmann: Not very good. Bird: This is where you get an invoice that says this and a porchase order that says this. They're stapled together. Kilchenmann: Yes. It's definitely in internal purchasing issue that needs to be addressed. Bird: We discussed it Stacy that we've got to set up a thing where purchase orders go first. They know what they're going to purchase. It takes a phone call and they've all got time to call Joe Blow and say how much is it going to cost to get this X amount of things? Here's my purchase order number. It's right on the invoice. Half the time, the purchase order number isnt on the invoice except when we put it in. Kilchenmann: Yes because the purchase order is written up with the purchase --. Bird: After the invoice comes in. That's being lazy on their part. Asking us to forfeit our deal and sticking our rear ends out on the line isnt going to pass the thing. Kilchenmann: I think the main thing that you'll need to do is sign the purchase order and not sign the invoice. Bird: No, no, I'm going to see the invoice. Kilchenmann: Then that'll be 2 steps for you. Bird: The department head can sign that purchase order but that purchase order should be given when they do your --. If you're writing or if you're faxing, everybody's got a fax machine here right? All you have to do is stick a fax in there to whoever you're buying it from. On that invoice, that purchase order should show in their writing, not in ours. Kilchenmann: Yes. Bird: That's our problem is the purcahse order should go before the invoices. Now, we're writing up purchase order after we see the invoices. That's not the way you do purchase orders. Meridian City Council WorksholJ November 13, 2001 Page 67 Corrie: Then we need a policy. Bird: We'll have a policy. De Weerd: Yes because we don't want him doing one thing and - Bird: You're not sticking my rear end out on the line. Corrie: That's not what I'm asking you to do. Bird: I know you]re not Bob. McCandless: For instance, today I signed the Chevron bill for the police department. I sign it every month. It's 2 $3,000 and I]ve got all the charge slips in there but no purchase order for it. Kilchenmann: Yes. Bird: You should have. I always have purchase order on top. But there was everything there to sign. I agree. Gary brings everything to me and it's the purchase order and the deal but the purchase order should go first. Do you give your suppliers a purchase order or do you wait until you get the invoice? Smith: A little of both. Sometimes the vendor will ask for a PO number. (inaudible). Some purchases we don't know what the bill is going to be (inaud ible). Bird: But you can give them a PO. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: You can give them a PO number and as soon as you pick it up, they've got it invoiced. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) McCandless: We don't have a purchase order for that. Bird: What? McCandless: For fuel. I mean, they go in and they fill up their patrol cars. You don't have a purchase order- Bird: You're talking about a different thing. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 68 De Weerd: That's what I said. Bird: You're talking about a different deal. If you're at like the Stinker Station or you've got a house account, our supplier every month sends me out a bill and says this truck used this many gallons and purchased this, this, and this at this time. They got so many gallons per mile or whatever it is. You get credit cards. Anderson: (inaudible) purchase orders (inaudible). Bird: That's when you do the purchase order. If I call Kowallis and Richards and I need a barrell, 2 inch by number 10's panhead screws, they can give me a price right there. I give them the purchase order, write the price right on the purchase order, and send it. There's no problem. We're done. McCandless: You're buying a product though. I can understand that. Bird: Well, half the things we're, more than half is products here. McCandless: I'm talking aobut - Bird: Like I say on a contract I don't worry about it. Gary's got contracts and Tom's got contracts. Every one of the departments got contracts. Those are something that we've already approved and signed. McCandless: Exactly. Bird: But the day to day purchases need to have a purchase order generated when they make the order, not after you've received the invoice. Corrie: (inaudible). I agree. I have for the last- Bird: I know you have. Corrie: -- 7 years. We've had the discussion before. I still think they should have a purchase order number on anything that goes out of here. We can tie it up with the invoice when it comes back and you've got numbers right on it. As far as the amount that you see and everything else, when you see all the invoices that's entirely different. I think we should really sit down and set a policy and then it's got to follow it. It's a hit and miss and it has been for the last, (inaudible). (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Kilchenmann: I don't think they --. Bird: They didn't go away from PO's. They went away from us signing it. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 69 De Weerd: From us personally signing it. Bird: Personally signing it. Kilchenmann: Each department has an internal system where they, because we don't have on line accounting where if they put the purchase order they know how much money they have. The City went to the expense of purchasing that and installing it. So, if everyone doesn't use purchase orders, then it doesn't do any good. Bird: We need to make a policy and the Mayor will make sure it happens. I'm with him. We've discussed this for the 4 years I've been on here about the PO's should go out. I don't care if it's a $2 item, it should have a PO. We don't need to see it. We made that agreeement that anything up to, --. It has to be $1,000 or more before I ever care about seeing it. Then you give us that list every month that we go through of the small purchases. De Weerd: Then if we want to see something on that - Bird: Then if we want to see something in that all we have to is come ask you. That purchase order should be generated at the time of the order. Kilchenmann: Yes. Bird: It should show up on every invoice coming from our purchasers. Corrie: That's one of the reasons we need this discussion. What do want? This is your ballgame, not mine. What do you want? Lets set the policy and then go follow it ever after. If you want $1,000 PO that you sign that's what we'll do. However you want to do it but we need to have - Kilchenmann: Keith's made it really clear what he wants. I won't be sitting down and writing this until the audit's over with. De Weerd: I think it has to be consistant. It can't be Keith wants this and - Kilchenmann: No. De Weerd: -- and Ron wants that. Corrie: We know that but we want the input from everybody to make sure that we're all together so that we can write up this policy. You can take a look at it. if that's what you want then we'll put it into a policy. There's some other things that need to be changed anyway. There's an ordinance that says that all PO's have to be signed. We need to (inaudible) besides that ordinance again. I need you to take a look at that ordinance which is --. I've got it here but I'll make you all --. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 70 Bird: We've got them in our books. Yes? Smith: Mayor and Council. It's my understanding that we changed this procedure on purchase orders to a requirement that anytime we had a department head had a purchase exceeding $1,000 we were required to generate a purchase order for it that was attached to the invoice that was signed by the department head and signed by the Council Liason. If it was Jess than $1,000 then we were provided with a stamp from accounting. Invoices stamped with that stamp (inaudible). Certain information is required on that stamp on the invoice. Then that invoice is sent toaccounting. There is no purchase order attached to it. Kilchenmann: The purpose of a purchase order is to get approval for the purchase. So, if you buy the thing, you have invoice and then you do a purchase order. The purchase order isnt going to mean anything. Other than you can enter into your own accounting system. Smith: I understand that but (inaudible) (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: Now, I'm surprised. I never realized that up to this $1,000 that we werent generating PO's. I did not understand that. I've seen your stamp, Gary that you stamp. It does give your item number and all that kind of stuff. But I still feel --. I mean, very rarely do we purchase 4 or $5 worth of stuff. I mean, you know, you very rarely buy that small stuff. I don't know. I feel you have to have a purchase order - Kilchenmann: He's using it as an approval and as a pricing mechanism. If you have the purchase order and you have your receiving slip and the invoice and they match when you get them (inaudible). Bird: Gary, if you stamp that, what if you get an invoice in and they've over charged $10.00 from what they've quoted you? If you're like me, I wouldn't have remembered what they quote me. But if I have a PO that told me what it was, I could check that and I could say I was over charged. I didn't know when we did this that we had changed this. I did not understand that we got rid of the PO's. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: Anything less than $1,00.00. I did not realize that we got rid of the PO's. I was not aware of that. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: In the cost? Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 71 (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Smith: I don't recall if that stamp has a space (inaudible). Bird: I thought it did Gary, the 1 you stamped. Kilchenmann: It probably does. I think it does. Bird: I think it does have a PO because the one you (inaudible). Smith: They're all the same. They're suppose to be all the same stamp. The stamp was provided by accounting. (inaudible). We have not generated, physically a piece of paper that says purchase order on it for anything less than $1,000.00 (inaudible). Bird: I misunderstood. (inaudible). I did not realize that we did. Smith: I think the reason was because we had such a volumn of purchase orders. Kilchenmann: Yes, there's definitely a cost- Smith: (inaudible). There was a delay getting all the bills into accounting and processed through accounting for payment. This way, the invoice was simply stamped the date it was received by the department. As quick as the department head could approve of it, sign off and date it. It was sent to accounting. They then (inaudible). So that when they did run checks, they had a pile of invoices that were ready to go. Bird: The only thing I can say Gary, is when you order that thing that you're not going to get a PO for, how much longer does it take to get a PO number up there. I'm like Tom, if you're say, Tom at Idaho Sporting Goods or McCue's is purchasing 40, $50.00 items throughout the month. Well, he can give one, as far as I'm concerned, he can give 1 PO number under this thing. Then when it comes back, he's got a PO to each 1 of these invoices that he can look up and find a running PO. Now, I've done that. (inaudible). Smith: Yes, I guess we could talk about this. The decision is ultimately yours but my understanding is that the City (inaudible). Bird: I'm not saying your not wrong. I'm saying you're not- (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 72 Bird: I misunderstood then because I thought we were generating PO's regardless of what the size was. I might have misunderstood. Kilchenmann: I guess the Mayor and I were just trying to get feedback before we addressed the internal issues of whether you wanted just to sign all the (inaudible ). Anderson: My understanding of what we did 6 months ago or whatever was similar to Gary's. I use to sit down with Kenny and he would have a PO for every item. I would sign every PO every month. Then we decided to go to the $1,000.00. Then you would only do a purchase order if there was going to be $1,000.00 or more. The rest of it we got from our monthly printout that we got from you guys and we would compare that to what was budgeted. That's what we talked to you a couple weeks ago about that. If somehow you could put that report what the budgeted amount was and what the year to date expenditures have been. Kilchenmann: On those vendor reports. Anderson: Then there's the little place on the top of those where we signed and approved those. I'm under kind of the same impression as Gary. Only over $1,000.00 that we were still requiring them to do the- Bird: I could have misunderstood. Like I said --. I have no problem with that. Anything else has to have a PO. Corrie: See, it makes our internal a lot easier if everybody does the same thing and all agree to the same because it's a nightmare for me and here. she comes to me and says can do this, can I do that? I don't know what I really what you want. I do know that the signing of the $1,000.00. The same thing comes along as purchasing cars, police cars. We've got a line item for $120,000.00. We've got a PO for $20,000.00. She's got to folow up and make sure they got the bids and everything else on it. Then it comes back. You've signed that. You see the PO. You can sign it. my question is does the police Chief have to come back every time he wants to buy a car, other than the PO? McCandless: If it's budgeted, no. Bird: If it's in the budget, no. Corrie: But, we used to do that. It was confusing. That was 1 of the things that we wanted to put together, give it to you. you look at it, say okay this is what we want. Yes. Then we can follow it, I can follow it, and she can follow. This is the policy that the Council has set. This is what we're going to be doing. Bird: Why don't you guys write what you have planned? Let us know. Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 73 Corrie: Tonight, we just wanted to get an idea. It's not going to be done over night. I can tell you that now. We do want to make sure that --. I mean, you're the policy makers. I'm not but I need to follow what you want. Bird: I was going to say, you've got to (inaudible). McCandless: But, we don't do a lot of duplication of effort either. De Weerd: No. McCandless: It's Stacy's job to make sure that everything stays under budget. De Weerd: I know what Keith is saying on --, I don't like the fact that you have to generate a PO for anything under 1,000 but I do agree with the basic accounting principle of getting a number assigned, not a piece of paper. We used to keep a log so you had your price quoted, what number you asssigned to it. So when you did stamp, you already had all that information and you are checking quotes and making sure. That's just fiscal responsibility. Corrie: (inaudible) De Weerd: You don't need a PO, piece of paper assigned to it to assure that. But if you have some kind of an accounting log to do that that's the key to it. (inaudible discussion amongst Council) Bird: You guys will bring something back to us in writing in stuff that we can look at? Corrie: Yes. Bird: Okay, no problem. Stacy thank you. Issue #12 Discussion of Future Topics - Executive Session - Bird: Okay, Council, with your permission, I'd like to entertain a motion to go into executive session as per Idaho State Code 67-2345 (c) [ believe it is. Anderson: So moved. Bird: Okay. McCandless: Reluctantly, I'll second. Bird: All in favor? Meridian City Council Workshop November 13, 2001 Page 74 MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES Go into executive session at 10:17 P.M. Bird: We've come out of executive session. Nothing was decided. 1'[ entertain a motion to come out of executive session. McCandless: So moved. De Weerd: Second. Bird: All in favor? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES Bird: Now, I'll take a motion to adjourn. De Weerd: I so move. McCandless: Second. Bird: All in favor? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES MEETING ADJOURNED AT 10:55 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: ~ ROBERT D. CORRIE, MAYOR (2-/ (fJ/ Of DATE APPROVED ;";\sTED:A~R04'O $ WILLIAM G. BERG, JR.rCrry CLERK