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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-03-05 Work Session Meridian City Council Work Session March 5, 2024. A Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 5, 2023, by Mayor Robert Simison. Members Present: Robert Simison, Joe Borton, Luke Cavener, John Overton, Anne Little Roberts and Doug Taylor. Members Absent: Liz Strader. Others Present: Chris Johnson, Bill Nary, Todd Lavoie, Laurelei McVey, Caleb Hood, Berle Stokes, Kris Blume and Dean Willis. ROLL-CALL ATTENDANCE Liz Strader _X_ Joe Borton _X_ Doug Taylor _X_ John Overton _X_Anne Little Roberts _X—Luke Cavener X Mayor Robert E. Simison Simison: Council, we will call the meeting to order. For the record it is March 5th, 2024, at 4:30 p.m. We will begin this afternoon's work session with roll call attendance. ADOPTION OF AGENDA Simison: Next item up is adoption of the agenda. Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Taylor: Move we adopt the agenda as published. Cavener: Second the motion. Simison: Have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda. Is there is any discussion? if not, all favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the agenda is adopted. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] 1. Approve Minutes of the February 20, 2024 City Council Work Session Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 2 of 22 2. Approve Minutes of the February 20, 2024 City Council Regular Meeting 3. Ada County Coroner's Office Water Main Easement No. 1 (ESMT- 2024-0023) 4. Ada County Coroner Water Main Easement No. 2 (ESMT-2024-0024) 5. Prairiefire Subdivision Water Main Easement No. 1 (ESMT-2024-0039) 6. Prairiefire Subdivision Water Main Easement No. 2 (ESMT-2024-0040) 7. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Robertson Square Subdivision (SHP-2023-0006) by Tamee Crawford, Centurion Engineers, Inc., located at 588 W. Broadway Ave. 8. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Watts Meridian Medical Partners (H-2023-0075) by Rigby Watts & Co., located at 1256 S. Rackham Way 9. Millwood Subdivision Emergency Access License Agreement 10. Agreement for Crossing of Can Ada Sewer Main Line and Williams Gas Pipeline 11. Agreement for Use of Kleiner Park for Capital Community Egg Hunt Special Event by Capital Christian Center, Inc. 12. Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Amendment in the amount of $37,000.00 for Meridian Police Department Vehicle Replacement 13. Resolution No. 24-2440: A Resolution Amending the City of Meridian Comprehensive Plan to Update and/or Replace Certain Text and Graphics Associated with the Mixed-Use Sections of the Comprehensive Plan, Including Other Minor Revisions, Terms, and a New Appendix; and Providing an Effective Date 14. Resolution No. 24-2441: A Resolution Establishing the Reappointment of Shaun Muscolo to Seat 3 and Crystal Paulson to Seat 7 of the Meridian Arts Commission; and Providing an Effective Date 15. City of Meridian January 2024 Financial Report Simison: Next up is the Consent Agenda. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 3 of 22 Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: Move we approve the Consent Agenda as published, for the Mayor to sign and Clerk to attest. Cavener: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye? Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the Consent Agenda is agreed to. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. ITEMS MOVED FROM THE CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] Simison: There were no items moved from the Consent Agenda. DEPARTMENT / COMMISSION REPORTS [Action Item] 16. Fiscal Year 2023 Budget to Actual Financial Results Simison: So, we will go on to Department/Commission Reports. First item up is Item 16, Fiscal Year 2023 budget-to-actual financial results and I will turn this over to Mr. Lavoie. Lavoie: Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, again, appreciate the opportunity to present to you the fiscal year '23 financial results. Today what we will do is we will give you kind of our report card of how the city did for fiscal year '23 from what we have budgeted to what your departments did from a spend approach for the fiscal year '23 financials. We will go through the General Fund. We will go through the Enterprise Fund. We will go to the Impact Fee Fund. We will also present to you the impacts to the fund balance. So, what did we collect in revenues, what did we spend, what impact did that have to the actual fund balance at the end of fiscal year '23. These results here are audited. You are going to get the -- hopefully the audit report in the next few weeks. We are working on getting the final print by Friday. So, I will submit that to you as soon as possible. But these numbers represent what will be in your audit reports when I present that to you in a couple of weeks. So, with that we will start with the General Fund. Again, this is comparing what we budgeted to what was actually spent by the departments. So, for fiscal -- for fiscal year '23, looking at the General Fund, total revenues -- when you put it all together. So, this slide here represents the major revenue sources that we track and follow for you. In the entirety we ended up at 96.9 percent of budget. So, we missed the hundred percent by three percent. Again, these slides were presented to you in a PDF form over the last two weeks. So, nothing new from a document standpoint, but I will go through each one to kind of touch bases and allow you to engage any questions that you have. So, again, the collective 96.9 percent for the General Fund. The largest percentage difference was the 210 percent that you Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 4 of 22 see on the far right-hand corner, which is other revenue and that's because of the investment income. Strong investment opportunities for us. We did really well for fiscal '23. We continue to do very well with our investment income and I -- when we developed this budget 20 months ago I didn't foresee the great interest rates that we had. We have adjusted our budget accordingly, but we are getting great returns on that. So, that is what that is. That's a two million dollar investment difference. The biggest graph difference that you see there is going to be the intergovernmental, the 58.4 percent, and that is because we accepted an ARPA grant. So, we accepted the 12 million dollars. We just haven't spent it yet. So, as soon as we spend it you will see that the revenues and expenses will occur, but that's what that gap is. We took 12 million in, we just haven't had a chance to spend yet, but that's what that is. And, then, the one times -- what you will see in charges for service -- again we missed the target by 29.6 percent and those are mostly due to cyclical activities, one-time revenues. Again, our most important revenue is the ongoing property tax. Again, we are pretty happy with where we ended up with that one at a hundred percent. But the charges for services is more cyclical than one time, but that's what you see and missed the target -- so we missed the target by 29 percent on that one and same thing with impact fees -- is a one time in nature, driven by development in the community. So, again, we will adjust to those, but those are one time in nature, so we know that they will go up and down every single year. So, those are your General Fund dollars in review for fiscal year '23. Again, 96.9 percent from a totality. Number one revenue source is property taxes. We missed it -- you know, we got pretty close to a hundred percent on that one. So, again, at any time, please, engage me for any questions, but that is revenue in the summary. Now, we are going to go into your expenses. So, we ended up with a total for expenses. This is going to be our personnel. So, we are going to touch on personnel first. We ended up the year spending 96.2 percent of the -- what we budgeted. Our traditional historical average is 93.9, so we did very well compared to our historical average. So, that means, again, we are keeping the vacancies low, we are making that happen, so it's awesome. The largest percentage gap you will see here is community development at 76 percent. As you know and as you heard, again, we are still having some staffing issues with the inspectors there, but, again, we are working on getting those solid. But that's what that is. And, then, the largest dollar amount gap is also associated to community development with the vacancies as well. So, again, we are working on trying to fill these positions, so we can get the community development closer to 96 percent, just like the other departments, but that is personnel in summary. Operating. We ended the fiscal year at spending 57.7 percent of your operating. Our traditional average is 85.2. But, again, you could see the big outlier it's going to be totaling those associate ARPA. So, again, we have budgeted the money, we haven't spent it yet. We will get to spending it. There was also 1.6 million dollars in there that you approved for the Linder Road overpass. Haven't spent it yet, but you have budgeted. So, if you take those away then the number looks really good. But, unfortunately, we do have to budget what we budget. There was the fire, parks, and police looking very strong. Community Development, again, those were associated to the contracted services for inspections and so, again, kind of missed the target there, but you don't incur any expenses until you have the permit sales. So, for those expenses we are not too concerned about, because if you don't have an expense you Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 5 of 22 don't have a revenue. So, it's kind of offsetting with the profits, so we are not super concerned with the inspection services being lower than we thought. So, this operating expense, the last major category that we report to you on is our capital. For the year we spent 74.4 percent of our total capital as you have -- you have approved for us to spend. We did leave 11 million dollars on the table, but of those 11 we are carrying it all forward into fiscal '24. So, when you present it to us that budget in '23, we just haven't had time to finish the project. They asked us to carry in to '24 and those projects are going to be the two fire stations, the precinct, and Settlers Park. All projects that you know three of them are pretty much done now. So, next year when I report to you we will have spent those dollars in Settlers Park is an ongoing project. The other 11 million we left on the table. We carried all 11 into fiscal '24 to finish and complete the projects on time. So, with that those are capital and, then, this here kind of gives you that summary. Revenues we spent 96 percent of our budget. Personnel 96, operating 57, and capital 74 of what you approved for us to spend for fiscal '23. So, now the question is what did this do to our fund balance? So, if you take all your revenues, minus all your expenses -- and in this particular case the General Fund reduced their fund balance by nine million dollars and that's -- that's fantastic. Again, we knew we are ready to do this. We have been saving before we spend. We knew we were doing two fire stations. We knew we are doing a park. We knew we are doing a precinct. This is exactly what we have been planning for. We have put the money aside, so when it's there we can start reducing and drawing down from it. Again, we do have multiple funds that create what's called the General Fund impact fee and consumed 2.1 million of the fund balance. As planned Community Development generated a profit from their business activities. Capital Improvement funds went down, because we put the money in that account to build fire stations, to build police stations. So, we knew we were drawn down from it, so that's exactly what we wanted. Public Safety Fund. We put some money in there for future vehicles for the public safety agencies. Be it a ladder truck or a police truck or something like that. So, we added some money there. And, then, the General Fund -- just general operations, again, from transferring and spending on that fire station, that's why you see that reduction there. Again, all things we plan for in my opinion. So, with that -- oops. Went too far. I apologize about that. At the end of the day your total governmental fund balance will be 99.5 million dollars. So, we did reduce it by the 9.2 million. At the end of the day you will have a fund balance for the General Fund of 99.5 million dollars and that report will be available to you online on your open.gov dashboard, as we do publish out there your fund balance and different categories there. As soon as we get the audit report next week, then, I will update your open.gov report to match what's in our audit report. So, if you go on there right now it will be still the 102 number, but I will get it updated probably in the next week or two, so it shows the 99.5. So, that is General Fund fiscal year '23 results. I will do the exact same thing for the Enterprise Fund. So, the Enterprise Fund we ended the year with revenues. We spent -- we collected 116 percent of what we thought we would collect. The two largest revenue sources that we have here are water sales and sewer sales. Those are our most important revenue sources in my opinion, because those are ongoing. Those cover our base budgets and that one time in nature and you can see there we ended up with about 102 percent. So, very good to where we want to be. We want to shoot for about two percent variance on property taxes and water sales, sewers -- water sales Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 6 of 22 and sewer sales. I apologize. So, again, we are happy with that. The assessment revenues -- again, we had some assessor revenues come in higher than we expected. Fiscal '23 you guys posted the highest multi-family permit sales we have ever had. So, we didn't predict that. Again, we are not predicting that for '24 or '25 that you are going to have the highest ever on that. So, again, kind of caught us off guard. So, you will see some one-time development growth revenues outpace our projections. Multi-family was, again, the biggest -- I guess contributed to that revenue source. We just didn't predict the highest number that we have ever had there. So, when we see these development things you will see that we missed the target on those. Let's see where we got the revenue. Again the interest income on that other revenue, we have adjusted our budgets accordingly, but, again, we are doing very strong, very healthy interest income on our investments and that's what the other revenue difference is. APA compliance. '24 will be the last time you see them. '25 falls off the books. So, we will have one more year of reporting that to you. Again -- but we are pretty close to where that one should be. So, those revenues. Expenses we are spending 94.5 percent of our personnel expenses. As you can see the data there. It's pretty amazing. Pretty fantastic. So, again, not to touch too many things on that one, because it's right where we want them to be. Operating expenses. We ended the year spending 84.7 percent. Our average is 81.7. Our largest primary -- or largest value gap is going to be your water department. They left 684,000 dollars on the table. We do -- we are aware of it. It's 300,000 dollars spent on well maintenance repairs, which is, again, not a bad thing. Again, that means you have -- have to worry about repairing them and, then, water meter sales, just didn't sell as many as we thought. Again, not a bad problem, because you have offsetting revenue to those expenses. So, that's your largest dollar gap. Your largest percentage gap was Public Works at 36 percent under spent. They left 451,000 dollars on the table for consulting. Of the 451 they did ask us to carry 343 into this fiscal year. So, we carry the majority of what was unspent. So, not too concerned there. It's just timing issues. So, again, they need more time to continue the project. So, we have more concerns on our operating budgets. That gets us to capital. They spent 36.6 -- 36.7 percent of their capital. Of the 33 million dollars left on the books they did request us to carry 32 million of it. So, you can catch me next year I will say that they spent the 32 million. Just timing. These needed more time to get these projects done. But they did request us to carry 32 of the 33 on the books for next fiscal year. That gets us to fund summary. So, again, revenues, higher than budget by 16 percent. Personnel operating capital all lower than budget. So, again, it's a good problem to have. Again, the expenses were lower than budgeted. Revenues are higher than budgeted. Again, it's a good problem to have. At the end of the day what did this do to the Enterprise Fund balance? Revenues minus expenses, keeping it simple, they added 13.3 million dollars to the fund balance. When you get a report from me you will see that they currently have -- or they will have 110 million dollars in their fund balance. As soon as I get the audit report I will update your open.gov report, so you can see how that is distributed. But, again, they will have 110 million in their available fund balance for us to utilize for future capital needs for the Enterprise Fund. That gets us to impact fees. Our audits are -- I must pull out the impact fees and report the results. So, the revenues for -- for their total they ended up at 153 percent of what we expected. Again, that's that development -- that kind of outpaced what we expected. So, the revenues are higher Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 7 of 22 than their budget. These are all one time revenues. The revenues are associated to a capital improvement plan and impact the committee that approves this. So, you are not conservative. We have plenty of projects ready to go to spend those available dollars. do have to report to you by each division. So, the fire department -- again revenues came in at 39 percent higher and they spent 101 percent of what we budgeted. Those are just the fire stations. So, it's exactly what we wanted to happen. So, we will be drawing down some of those funds, because we have been saving up for it. The next department is the Parks Departments and it's 55 percent more with than in revenues. Again, those go into our fund -- impact fee fund balance, which we will use for future park projects. They spent 70 percent of their capital project, which is primarily to the Discovery Park, you know, the -- I think we are at phase three at the moment. So, that's what that's for. And all those dollars get carried forward in the fiscal -- next fiscal year. And, then, the final department we report on is going to be the Police Department. They collected 92 percent more with that and they have spent a majority of their budget and in this fiscal year they completed their precinct project, so that project should be a hundred percent next time I report to you and what that -- what that did -- you know, the summary is 53 percent more revenue. They spent 75 percent of their expenses. They carried all the expenses over from fiscal '23 to '24 to finish the two precinct -- sorry, not the two -- the one precinct and the two fire stations. So, what's the impact to their fund balance? When you take all the revenues minus expenses they reduced their fund balance by 2.1 million, which we expected. Save before you spend. And, again, we have more years ahead of us where we are going to be drawing down that fund balance. So, as a recap we talked about the '23 actuals to budget report card. We presented to you the changes to our fund balances. General Fund we reduced the fund balance. Impact fees we reduced the fund balance. Enterprise Fund we added to the fund balance. So, the question is next time you see me, which will be in May at my next quarterly report, if I -- again, I may just do it as a submission. I may not stand up here. We will talk about population per capita. We will talk about permit sales. Water usage. And there is contract information, just to kind of give you a heads up of what we are working with, because it ties into the budget that we will be presenting to you in the month of June. So, these numbers will kind of feed the backbone to what made our decisions for the June submission to you of your budget. So, with that stand for any questions that you have. Again, the audit report I will get it to as soon as possible. I will just give you the quick ten -- ten thousand foot summary report. The City of Meridian has a clear financial audit. Ninth year in a row. There are no findings on your financial side. We do have three findings on our grant side. We have already resolved them. They will be part of the management letter that you will receive from me and the auditor. They addressed three items within our procurement policy. We have to have certain policy words in there. We just didn't have it, i.e., there is one example we didn't have in there that we are to prioritize the acquisition of reusable goods. That wasn't in our policy, but we put it in there and they found that as a finding. I'm not going to -- I don't think it's my major. So, again, we have made that change. We have already updated the policy. Keith Watts will be presenting to you next month our policy updates, so we can get these and give them to our auditor, go, hey we are good. So, financially fantastic. I have a few administrative grant things that we have to deal with. But they Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 8 of 22 have been resolved already, so your city does have a clean audit again for -- I think the ninth year in a row. So, again, stand for any questions. Simison: Thank you, Todd. Council, any questions? Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: That's not something to gloss over. We will talk about it when it shows up. Nine years in a row. That's very impressive. Doesn't happen by chance. Your slide on impact fee revenues, budget to actual, shows the actual, obviously, has a -- has a total much greater than budgeted. Is the source of the excess revenues coming from unanticipated commercial growth or residential growth? Lavoie: Multi-family. Borton: What's that? Lavoie: Multi-family. Borton: Multi-family? Lavoie: Yeah. But, again, you did -- it beat all of our projections on -- but that was the biggest one by far, multi-family. And, then, we also had that new rate increase if you guys recall. So, yeah, it was a combination of did we get the numbers right? We missed the target. So, again, we will adjust accordingly going forward. But we had new rates that we increased and, then, we also had fantastic numbers that you guys produced for multi-family. Borton: Thanks. Simison: Seeing no further questions, I think it's -- thank you for the update. Much appreciated. Lavoie: Thank you. 17. Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Amendment in the amount of $460,500.00 for the E. Idaho Ave, N. Meridian Rd. to NE 6th St. and Sewer Main Replacement Project Simison: Have a wonderful evening. So, speaking of money, next up is fiscal year 2024 budget amendment in the amount of 460,500 dollars. We will turn this over to Director McVey. Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 9 of 22 McVey: All right. Thank you, Mayor and Council. So, I'm going to give you a little bit more of an update than we normally do for a budget amendment, but this is a really high profile project downtown and I figured you would like the update on what's going on, so -- but the purpose of our presentation tonight is seeking a budget amendment for 460,500 dollars for our East Idaho water sewer project. So, this project encompasses the replacement and relocation of water and sewer for three residential and two commercial blocks in downtown Meridian. This impacts about almost 40 residential homes and almost 20 businesses. So, this is a really critical project due to the age of the infrastructure in this area. Some of the pipes in our downtown corridor are nearing a hundred years old and some are in very poor condition with the likelihood of failure. The other benefit that we have of relocating the sewer services from the alleyways is improved maintenance and access, as well as improved future redevelopment potential. So, you will see this map here shows our two residential blocks and, essentially, just to summarize, we will be removing sewer mains from the alleys and re-hooking up those businesses and residents into the Main Street and replacing the water main. This is just directly I guess to the east and these would be the residential blocks. So, as you are aware this is a very high profile project that will have significant impacts on the residents and businesses in the area. So, I did want to let you know that we have done extensive outreach, including two open houses. We have done mailings. We have gone individually door to door. And we have also developed a project specific webpage and e-mail list and at the end of this I will include the info of how you can get on that. We have also included several elements into this project to help minimize the impacts, especially in the business blocks. So, this project is going to have phasing in it. You will see on this map here this was provided to the businesses and residents. So, essentially, what it will do is it requires the contractor to bring the road back up to grade and reopen it. It won't necessarily be paved, but it reopens the road before starting on the next section. Normally when we do water, sewer projects the whole road gets closed down. They do it. The whole thing is closed down. We said, nope, we need to get those business blocks back open. So, it includes that phasing. They are required to maintain business access and have alternative parking plans and signs and we have been working with each of the individual business owners to make the actual building plumbing work as minimally invasive as possible. Some of that includes boring under their businesses where there is not basements or crawl spaces, rather than tearing through their slab, which would be really invasive. So, we have done extensive preconstruction investigation work to ensure the soil conditions are what we expect and we will also be doing vibration monitoring through construction to mitigate some of the concerns about the age and the material of the buildings downtown. Another thing that was added to the project -- we worked with ACHD at the request of some of the business owners to have a full width street repaving and grading included in this project and, essentially, what that will do is once this project is done it's repaved, this area should be good for a while, which is kind of the message that we heard from -- from the businesses down there, that people understand that this is going to be an impact. No one's super excited, but they are excited to have it done and have us out of the way. We have been very aware of key important downtown dates, such as Dairy Days and Oktoberfest, and those have been incorporated and considered in the construction schedule. So, it's not to say that we won't have some frustration and inconvenience in Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 10 of 22 this project. We know we absolutely will. But we have taken some extra effort and included extra items in the project and contract knowing that this is not our average water-sewer project. Just as a side note, I did want you to know that there is likely going to be a couple of weeks of overlap between this project and the Hunter Lateral project. Those are one street apart in the downtown. The Hunter Lateral project does have a hard deadline to finish because of the irrigation season, but there will just be this very short overlap in the beginning where there will be both of those shut down, so -- but as soon as Hunter Lateral is done that street will reopen. So, with that -- oh. This is -- so, we have -- you can either do this QR code or you can go to our website and on it we will post updates of the project and you can also sign up to receive e-mail updates, too. So, anytime that web page is updated you will get an e-mail and we encouraged all of the businesses and residents in that area to get signed up, so that they are most up to date on the information. So, with that we are slightly short on the budget based on the bids that were received. So, we received three bids on this project ranging from 4.23 to 5.8 million and, again, this is an important project for us to get completed due to the age and condition of the infrastructure. So, we with that are requesting the budget amendment to be able to complete the project. Simison: Thank you, Laurelei. Council, questions? Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: Laurelei, who gets to have the pleasure of walking up and down Idaho Street knocking on doors and -- as much as I love the e-mail and the website, some of those residents certainly aren't probably as active. Who -- who did all that? McVey: It's a great question, Councilman Borton. That was one of our staff engineers Tyson Glock. So, he's received -- Borton: Is he here? McVey: He is. He has received great feedback from residents and business owners downtown. So, he's -- he's done a lot of extra work on this. Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: So, thanks for doing that. When you say great, I'm sure some of it's a little hostile or difficult, just because it's just hard. It's change. So, it probably all wasn't happy. Are there -- are there plans to kind of continue supplementing the -- the website, but they continue to go up and down as you get closer and kind of check in on people and -- maybe that's a little antiquated and old fashioned, but it seems to be maybe the Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 11 of 22 best way to communicate with some of the folks on Idaho Street. Is there a plan to continue that? McVey: Yeah. We certainly -- one of the great things, too, is because it's so close -- Morton: Yeah. McVey: -- it's -- it's a block away and we can easily be down there for any -- any type of issue and communication. Borton: If -- Mr. Mayor. And, Tyson, if you think on any of those efforts that there is a council member that wants to walk with you and knock on the door and -- give us a heads up and maybe you grab a volunteer and someone will go with you, because that's tough to do. I have talked to quite a few of them. I went to the open house, dropped into that, too. So, I know it's really stressful. But if that helps at all -- the end result is definitely worth it. Give us a heads up. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: To your point, Councilman Borton, I -- I -- it's my district and I had offered to do some door knocking, but I do think it would make some sense with some updates halfway through, things like that. So, maybe we can be door knocking buddies here in the near future. But I do want to commend Laurelei and her staff. I think one of the best parts as I was kind of reviewing this and walking through it was the level of effort to accommodate the business owners, to work with our partner agencies to figure out how to be as least intrusive as possible. So, it's -- it's a good project. I do intend to make a motion to approve it. I do want to make a couple of quick comments, though. I think one thing to be -- and I made this comment a couple of weeks ago. I just -- I think it's worth making again as we look at these projects. You know, in the last month or so we have approved almost 800,000 in budget amendments. A lot of it not entirely -- a lot of it is due to the fact of costs that have gone into engineering, labor, materials and supplies, things that we couldn't really anticipate and couldn't really project what those would be and I made the -- connected in the -- there is just a lot of infrastructure projects going on. So, I think -- you know, if you look at the amount of money, that's equivalent to about half of the three percent we could take each year in budget amendments that we weren't forecasting. So, I think it would behoove the city -- City Council, all the departments, to look at are their capital projects related to infrastructure that could wait a year or two until we see the market maybe come back more in line with what would be normal. It feels a little abnormal right now with all the money spent on infrastructure with -- especially in the water -- wastewater and drinking water. The state of Idaho has since spent hundreds of millions of dollars that were given to us by the federal government. States all around us are all competing for the same rare resources. So, think as we look at this next year I think it would behoove us to look at -- is there a project or two that could wait a year, so that we can see that -- that come. Because, Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 12 of 22 again, we are talking almost 800,000 dollars in budget amendments that we are approving and they are needed, right? I'm not arguing that at all. I think they are necessary. It's -- it's what's needed to be done and it's no reflection on any of the procurement efforts at all. It's just a market that is a little bit distorted from what we know. So, I think that would be something for us to be mindful of this next year and Laurelei and I have talked a little bit about that and we will continue to talk about some of the projects in Public Works that maybe make some sense to look at that. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Laurelei, a couple of comments and, then, a couple of questions and just want to echo the proactive multi-faceted public communication approach. I just applaud you and hope that we continue to do that with all Public Works projects. To Council Member Borton's point, some people love the computer, some people hate the computer, some people love face to face, other people avoid face to face. So, appreciate we are trying to meet people where they are. Questions are -- we talk about impacts; right? This is kind of a lot of antiquated, old, expired infrastructure that we are working around. For a resident, for a business, we are talking about down time in terms of being able to access those services. Is it -- I know it's not the case of we are going to turn off water here and, then, turn it right back on with our new system, but how are we communicating to the public what their absence of service is going to be and what are you guys kind of shooting for for benchmarks? McVey: Great question, Councilman Cavener. So, once we get the contractor under contract they will start working directly with each of the businesses and residents to figure out a time that works best. So, essentially, what they will do is they will run the new services up to as close as they can to make the connection and, then, you know, especially on the businesses there might be a time of the day or a day of the week that the switchover is less impactful and so we will try to do that. But, you know, we would hope to be able to make those switches in, you know, less than half a day what -- of actually service being out. So, they will try to do as much work in tandem before. So, it's not days that people will be without service. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: I appreciate that sometimes there is a -- government says this is how we are going to do things, plan ahead and, again, credit to you and your department, we are calling on our residents or businesses saying give us a flavor for what works for you and let's see if we can try and accommodate that. So, I appreciate that. I just -- my other question is a lot of expired infrastructure that we are abandoning does that pose any risk for future work that we are just kind of leaving a lot of old pipe in the ground, any operational concerns or environmental concerns that we need to be aware of? Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 13 of 22 McVey: Councilman Cavener, I don't believe so. Depending on the size of a pipe, sometimes when we abandon it we do have to fill it in. I don't think that's the case with -- with these. I stand corrected, so -- but with this one they would just be abandoned in place. Cavener: Thank you. Appreciate -- appreciate you and your team's great work on this. Simison: Maybe some of the bigger issues will be if we find abandoned tunnels from prohibition in this area. How do we address those? Another budget amendment, but -- McVey: That -- that is one of the unknowns when you get into the old downtown you find some surprises. Simison: Council, any additional questions or comments? Then do I have a motion? . Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: I move that we approve the fiscal year 2024 budget amendment in the amount of 460,500 dollars for the East Idaho sewer main replacement project. Cavener: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to approve Item 17, budget amendment in the amount of 460,500. Is there any discussion? If not, Clerk will call the roll. Roll Call- Borton, yea; Cavener, yea; Strader, absent; Overton, yea; Little Roberts, yea; Taylor, yea. Simison: All ayes. Motion carries and the item is agreed to. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. 18. Approval of Construction Contract to Cougar Excavation, Inc. for the E. Idaho Water & Sewer Main Replacements — Meridian Rd. to NE 6th St. project for the Not-To-Exceed amount of $4,230,432.69 Simison: Next item up is Item 18, which was approval of the construction contract. McVey: I should have stayed up here. So, this is the construction contract with Cougar for this project. Simison: Council, any discussion? If not, do I have a motion? Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 14 of 22 Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: I move that we approve the construction contract to Cougar Excavation for the East Idaho water and sewer main replacement project for the not to exceed amount of $4,230,432.69. Cavener: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to approve Item 18. Is there discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the item is agreed to. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. 19. 2024 Roadway, Intersection and Community Program Prioritization Simison: All right. Next item up is Item 19, which is our 2024 roadway intersection community program privatization. Turn this over to Mr. Hood. Hood: Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, I'm back and I have some information to share with you. Thank you to Chris for handing out the updated priorities list. I will touch on that in just a second. So, since I was before you last week the Meridian Transportation Commission did have a meeting. That was yesterday. Appreciate Councilman Overton attending, hearing that discussion. So, please, feel free to fill in any gaps that I may leave out here. It's been a little fast and furious for the last 24 hours, but I think with some help from Heather, what you see before you is the updated consolidated -- consolidated unified list with all of our projects for roadways and intersections, all the first 62 -- 63 and, then, committee programs right behind that. I will spend a little bit more time on the -- on that spreadsheet in a minute. I know everyone wants to see that and you certainly can look at it. I do want to run through some maps and some graphics, though, first to give you a little more context and some background information to also fill in some of the direction I was given last week. So, I'm trying to pull those up and, then, again, I will run through the copies of the spreadsheet and I will touch on some of the other things that you -- that we had a discussion about last week that you asked me to -- to gather some more information on, so -- and, then, finally, for today -- I'm already on the draft agenda for next week, so I'm hopeful that today we can kind of get through the list potentially. Historically we also put a cover letter on this. So, I would like to talk, if there is time permitting today, on some of those things that you are hopeful that we can put in our cover letter to ACHD, so -- but I think I want to -- let's start with the priorities first and so staff did -- like I just mentioned, presented the draft lists to the Transportation Commission again yesterday and tried to summarize the meeting I had with Council on the 27th during the workshop -- February 27th during the workshop. So, one of the first things we talked about was their approach as far as corridor improvements go with the two lists and how our corridor improvements are considered, so I believe that was Councilman Strader that largely asked that question, but I did pose it to them. Excuse me. In the past it seemed like corridors were maybe valued more. Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 15 of 22 So, the first -- the first -- and I appreciate Kristy Inselman being here today, too. She was actually at the Transportation Commission yesterday. So, very helpful to, again, fill in any things that I forget, so -- but she also sent to me -- and this is where I'm going to start to share there -- one of the questions Council has was how do you -- not only the Transportation Commission consider priority corridors, but what's the status of ACHD. So, this map does, then, show the priority corridors as designated by the Ada County Highway District Board of Commissioners. So, you can see for Cherry, sections that. Ustick. Ten Mile Road. Victory. Locust Grove. So, yes, priorities still are a thing. Priority corridors are a thing at ACHD. Regarding the Transportation Commission, though, and how they considered them, they didn't consider them very much this year for the fact they didn't really move projects around than they considered last year. So, that's essentially what they told me to tell you is we didn't really move any projects around from where we did this last year and considered what our priority corridors are. So, we are aware of them, but we didn't really gauge what we were doing with the list against them this year, because they weren't reinventing the wheel. That's -- that's largely what I heard them say. Not -- not verbatim, in other words, but that's -- that's the feedback I got. To put a finer point on the ACHD side of priority corridors, when a project is on one of these intersections or mile segments it gets a bonus five points. So, it does matter to be a priority corridor at ACHD, but in the -- in the scheme of things you get the five percent for those types of projects and to put that in -- in perspective a little bit, our list of priority projects are considered 15 percent of that pool of a hundred -- hundred percentage points. So, it's important, but it's not the most important component. Not like congestion or -- or being a priority corridor -- or an agency support corridor. So, sort of related. You also asked last week if -- if -- and that's the preposition to this -- if we can't have both, did, can or should the city consider prioritizing a north- south arterial, i.e., Meridian or Locust Grove? So, I posed that question to them and they did concur that Meridian made more sense to be a priority corridor than Locust Grove for the primary reason of it being an interchange at 1-84, recognizing that it essentially terminates at Chinden. It does feed the neighborhoods to the north, but doesn't go across down the rim and over across the river. But it does continue certainly further the south of Kuna and is a major arterial that way. So, it made sense as being, you know -- again, if pitted against each other Meridian Road made sense as a higher priority for the city than Locust Grove. If we can't have both of them right away, do Meridian first. So, that was the answer to that question and I will say to feel free to jump in at any time if this summary is not adequate, you want to talk more about it, I can try, but I'm relaying what I heard anyways. And, then, Black Cat and the railroad tracks, I think the spreadsheet -- I'm going to leave that one to put a pin in that, but we did talk about that a little bit yesterday. I got some more insight into that one that I will share with you. And, then, the McMillan intersections are also I think best covered as I walk you through the spreadsheet. Just one more map that I want to share I think before we jump into the spreadsheet. Real quick this one I think helps a little bit, too, and this kind of comes full circle. The disclaimer with this -- this is a draft. It says it over on the right- hand side. So, Kristy actually hasn't even talked to the ACHD commission about this. On the 20th of this month. So, a couple of weeks in the workshop. But this I thought was important to show you some of the feedback and the discussion you had with the ACHD commission on January 29th during the joint meeting. So, you see here the Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 16 of 22 purple -- scroll over there real quick. The purple is preserving a roadway up to a hundred feet -- a hundred feet right of way can accommodate a five lane roadway. So, in years past currently adopted McMillan is not purple, it is green. So, this is, again, draft, not adopted, not official, but some of the feedback given is already being considered at ACHD and remember that as we talk about the intersections on McMillan, because some of these things haven't been adopted and the dominoes -- the first domino hasn't fallen over officially yet. Some of what the Transportation Commission said, hey, let's talk about this next year and see how this pans out with master street map changes, with CIP changes and, then, we will prioritize -- oh, I just -- that was supposed to be the punch line and I just ruined it. We are at the end of the list. They are on there, but throughout the end. You can move them around if you want, but that's what the Transportation Commission wanted to do is wait for this process to play out at ACHD and, then, next year consider maybe different homes or rankings for the intersections along with McMillan. But, I won't dwell on this. I do have some feedback for Kristy, so we will talk about some things. For example, this has Fairview being planned for seven lanes west of Meridian Road and I think that may be problematic. So, I want to have some of those conversations and vet that through the Transportation Commission. That's actually on their agenda for next month. So, in April. So, some iterations of this I think will be forthcoming, but I wanted to flash this in front of you real quick again just to show some progress. McMillan was the headliner, but even some sections of Locust Grove that we talked about now are at least draft shown as being five lane. Same with Meridian and like, so -- I do appreciate ACHD considering that thus far. And then -- this is getting in the way. Sorry. Let me just go to the spreadsheet then. All right. Again, this is very recent. There may still be a few -- some typos. I will definitely clean it up, look at it a time or two before we send it to ACHD. In fact, with that I will -- I'm going to remove these three columns I'm hovering over from '23 -- actually, '20 -- this '24 one will go away and there will be two lists. I envision giving ACHD what they have asked us for. I think we can do this. I'm giving you what you asked for, I believe, in the 2022 overall ranking, but I will split that apart and you can kind of see what that looks like and we will send it to ACHD with programed and not programed list. So, unless there is any questions, I think I'm going to run through this and, again, I have some things just to call to your attention. It's largely what you saw in two lists last week, but it -- again, it's been combined and it's -- 2023 was sort of used as the foundation. Again, shout out to Heather, she -- she helped put this back together. So I'm going to try to get this all on one sheet. Read the notes. Okay. I didn't have anything to call out until we get to numbers 11 and 12. So, those ones were inadvertently flip flopped with some other projects. So, McMillan should have showed up last week as higher. It should -- they should have been one, two on our not programmed, instead of 5, 6 -- 6, 7. So, somehow it got in front of all these Cherry, Fairview Lane projects -- or Fairview Avenue, Cherry Lane projects. So, not necessarily a change if you look at our 2023 ranks, though. McMillan was higher than -- than Cherry-Fairview, but somehow it got -- they got flipped or leapfrog inadvertently. So, the Transportation Commission does believe what you see in this order is the correct order. So, overall these two mile segments of McMillan would be 11 and 12. Next one I want to highlight is 18 and this is where we will talk about Black Cat, Franklin to Cherry. So, discussions about this one -- and, again, some of the conversation previously from the Transportation Commission. Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 17 of 22 scoring prioritization committee and the -- their full -- full body was to not have any throwaway costs or interim improvements. Not sure how that would work even with the railroad and -- and without getting in it today -- and I know this was part of the question for Councilman Cavener and I think we can have that all. I'm still in the mode of learning and understanding. It's very convoluted. There was a -- if you want -- so, maybe I will just pause right there. A quick aside. I did mention when I sent the packet out for the transportation commissioners to watch your meeting last week, I would encourage you to maybe watch their meeting from yesterday. So, particularly as it pertains to the railroad, ITD, ACHD and everybody doing this. So, that's long story short, we will figure it out. We will get there. There have been meetings. It is moving forward, but no one really wants to take it. So, we will ground truth out a little bit more. Part of the conversation, though, yesterday was -- in more particularly was, you know, maybe getting something done sooner rather than waiting to how long it's going to take and I -- and I will take this -- you know, seriously I don't think he actually has what -- to what level of analysis, but Stephen Lewis, I will call him out, he does this type of thing for a living. So, when he says it would be approximately 400,000 dollars, I tend to say he is probably in the right ballpark. Again, I don't know, but that's what he said yesterday. He is like that's one of the reasons I didn't support having an interim thing here. It really just needs to be done once and right and you can't reuse a lot of the pieces and parts. It's going to largely be throw away. The arms, everything pulled -- everything's got to be redone. So, again, at the end of the day they said we like where this is at and sort of justified in their minds why they weren't proposing to you to have something higher on a community programs list, just for Black Cat near Compass Charter School. So, that is -- some of the description says, you know, an interim help could be some improvements, but that's not necessarily the requested. It's the widen Black Cat the entire mile. So, still in our project description that there is a need there and if they could do something to make it better and, then, we are not going to turn that away, but what we are really asking for is full blown Black Cat, including the railroad crossing. I can pause or keep going if you want to talk about that. I will keep -- keep going and we will come back to it. So, a couple more just to call to your attention. I think on this one -- so, this one was actually one that Council discussed throughout the last 12 months or so. I don't remember exactly what month it was. We did have a project -- Brighton, St. Al's or St. Luke's -- I can't remember now. At Venable and Ustick by Settlers Park -- had a project and now that -- that intersection there at the convenience store and some of those other services was talked needing a signal. So, this one is new this year and it's scored pretty well; right? Thirty-one overall. That's -- that's pretty good for a newcomer to the list. So, I just want to call that one out, that this is one of the few -- aside from the four intersections on McMillan new to our list this year and, then, 32, just to call this one out. So, Fairview Avenue corridor moved down to -- this is the very last project on our programed list. So, this is kind of where -- everything below this is now an unprogramed -- not programed side of the world. So -- I think I had something else to -- oh. I should have -- I'm going to jump back up to the top real quick. So, Heather came up with this to just sort of orient you just at a glance, right, with the -- with the shading of the cells. So, anything in green moved up from priority. This lighter shade of green moved up in priority, but it's still not programed; right? It's on -- it's going up, but it's still not -- doesn't have any dollars or effort really assigned to it yet at ACHD. Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 18 of 22 Yellow has moved up in priority and, then, red, which we didn't have a pink -- moved down in priority, which there isn't a whole lot of red. Some of this -- when your number two project gets constructed everything moves up. So, there is a lot of green, because everything --just not been anything radically advanced, it just filled the gaps left by your number two project being done and, then, not too far down the road our number 14 project, which was associated with number two, also got completed. So, a lot of these projects are jumping two spots, right, because the two ahead of it are done, so -- but, again, year over not a whole lot of change. If you look side by side at what's going on here in the first column and the fourth column, not a whole lot of change. But that's how you can kind of compare where something was last year versus this year in one unified list, so -- okay. So, I left off here. I don't know that I have too much more. This is where I will pause. Again I kind of spilled the beans earlier. These are the four new -- Councilman Taylor, I appreciate you bringing that up. I have had a conversation, too, with -- Councilman Overton is my liaison, so I talk with him more than any other council member. We also briefly talked about some of these intersections and if it makes sense to have -- if we just kept a roadway on wouldn't ACHD do the intersection? They would figure that out, but it still makes sense to have that listed as a project; right? You got to do both. You can't just do the road or can't just do the intersection, you want to have both. So, my -- I think it's good to have them on the list. I prodded somewhat -- encouraged them to find homes for this yesterday and they said let's wait. We hear you, but let's -- we will put them on the list, but let's not knee jerk here and start putting things in order -- almost to the question of what do you do with priority corridors? They didn't want to sort of get out of and leapfrog something else. I'm like, yeah, you know what, that was a priority and what did we just do by moving it up there. So, again, your prerogative. If Council wants to move this around you can, but that was some of the thought process they had yesterday. And, then, we are into the community programs side of the world. Most of the changes you see here are, again, mainly from just segments of projects being combined. There were some -- there was some movement amongst some of these projects. I didn't have too many of them. Any of them are really listed to highlight for you. You can read some of the status updates here. Largely the same. No big movers and shakers necessarily on this list. There is our Ustick-Venable. This one was listed as just a pedestrian crossing and we took that out and said, no, it needs to be a full signal pedestrian crossing, not -- and there is one at 3rd or 4th Street there as you saw right before you get to Meridian. There is actually one between Venable and Meridian, a pedestrian only crossing, and needs to be a full signal. Duplicate request. So, just going to double check my notes to make sure I covered everything. CIP. Priority corridors. Yeah. Mr. Mayor, I believe that is mainly what wanted to share -- report out to you. Again, I plan on being back here next week. So, I'm going to take this, sleep on it. I will take feedback now. I have -- I will have conversations now. Simison: Councilman Overton, you are recognized. Overton: Mr. Mayor, thank you and thank you, Caleb. I appreciate being invited to and being able to attend the Transportation Commission meeting yesterday. It was eye opening to see the depth that they take on all of this. I really need to give just a little Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 19 of 22 historical background and Caleb was nice to mention it to the Commission yesterday, but I was one of the first people assigned to the traffic safety committee back in the days when we first started that whole idea. When we were looking at these five year plans -- one of the first things everybody needs to understand is take the number five out, because that's a misnomer when you say it's a five year plan, because when these things are on the programed list you will see a lot of them that can be anywhere from that one year to actually up to seven years and sometimes you will see them marked as future and future means they are not even there. So, it's beyond seven years. And these almost become sometimes legacy projects where they have been on for long amounts of time and I will finish with a couple of those legacy projects that we are working on now. So, it's hard to understand when you look at this that it's really not five years and here we go. One of the things that caused a little bit of confusion -- and I was so glad to talk to Kristy for a little bit yesterday -- was the idea of the five lane preservation of right of way and that shouldn't be confused with we are going to build that to five lanes now, because that's what got us into the discussion on are we going to need those intersections rebuilt. If the build now is a three lane road and the intersection doesn't have to be rebuilt, but we want to preserve five lanes for the future, we have it and if we don't preserve them all we may never have them if we go to build those to a five lane road. I have a question for Caleb, because I remember sitting on a committee with Caleb and Brian back in 2018, 2019, when we were redoing the comp plan and we were -- we were adjusting our roadways based on density of development and it was a brilliant idea at the time and I asked them -- I says we are not really doing that now, why are we? And the philosophy changed and the only way I can explain this is you have to think about a bicycle wheel and Meridian's the center and the cities around us are the end of those spokes. Because everything seems to come through our city. All the cities feed into Meridian. It's doesn't matter which one we are talking about and once you really understand that you understand why some of these roads that were initially only going to be built out to three lanes, we are now having to look at five lanes. I will go -- I got to give you this, because in 2005 the City Council at the time put together the list, so you know what was on the list in 2005 -- we are talking 19 years ago -- the Linder Road overpass, State Highway 16 extension, and East 3rd from Carleton to Fairview. Nineteen years they have sat on that list, but for various reasons we are seeing them built now. They stay on. Things happen, things change, other priorities come into play. Sometimes it's about money. Some of these are extremely expensive and grant opportunities and cooperating agreements between ITD and ACHD come together. With the item that we talked about multiple times -- last year and this year, which was Black Cat, Franklin to Cherry Lane, it's got a nasty sticking point, which is the railroad crossing. That sticking point came out -- and I will say what Caleb hasn't really said -- there was a determination to be made on whose responsibility this is and in reality it's going to have to be ACHD, ITD, Union Pacific and us to sit down and get this done. One of the members of the Transportation Commission was very astute at pulling out the state code that says ITD is responsible for all crossings of railroads, but it's an ACHD road and that's a Union Pacific railroad track. So, the three of them are married at the hip and by I think April 1st, the next meeting, they are supposed to have -- ITD and ACHD are supposed to have some sort of a working solution on where we go from here to get a path forward on just that aspect, because as we all look at this, the only Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 20 of 22 way to do this right and for the least amount of money is to do the entire segment with that piece included. So, I think that makes sense. But it has a special problem that we have got to resolve and get worked into this. The discussion was made about priority corridors and I thought it was interesting, because I had a piece of information sitting in the meeting that most people didn't have. When the commission picked Meridian Road and said that they believe that should be our main corridor, I was pretty happy, because what a lot of people don't know it was just presented at the Compass board meeting this last month is the city of Kuna has just done a Meridian Road extension corridor study of taking Meridian Road all the way out to Kings Road, crossing the creek, crossing the railroad tracks and continuing it south, rebuilding the entire intersection at the end, which would open that entire area up for development, which would do what? Put an awful lot more traffic on Meridian Road coming our way. So, when we look at all these projects and how they affect us, we can't miss the fact that we are affected by all the communities around us. I like the list. I appreciate the fact that they put it on one. have always been used to looking at one, not looking at a split set. So, this was -- this was much easier for me to understand. It made more sense. There is a lot of confusion and frustration with this, but I think a lot of the frustration and confusion is going to continue to increase as we have -- we are building more and more projects with a limited budget to start knocking them off and until there is some other type of a funding solution or additional funding that can be found, I think we are going to continue to have frustration as we look for how do we get all these done across the city. But I appreciate what they have done. I won't be here next week and I want to make it known tonight approve of this as it's drafted now. It makes more sense to me. I understand it. support what they have been doing. I think the Transportation Commission has done a fantastic job and just wanted to make sure I had a chance to say that this week. Simison: Thank you, Council. Council, additional questions, comments or -- you -- would you like to sit on it or are you happy with it and look forward to transmitting to ACHD? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: If I recall correctly I think last week we had kind of said we wanted it this week and next week. So, I don't see any reason why we would want to deviate from that, unless there is a compelling reason. I know we have got a -- kind of an arbitrary clock, but a clock that we want to meet. So, I'm supportive of leaving it on our agenda for next week. Simison: Okay. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 21 of 22 Taylor: Thank you. And, Caleb, I really appreciate the insight here. Last week I was a little confused on where things were, probably because I'm new, but this is good to see. I appreciate some of the new additions, including the intersections. I think the transportation corridor discussion is good and, Councilman Overton, appreciate your -- your filling in the gaps and I think that all makes a lot of sense and I also feel like a great appreciation for the Transportation Commission, for all the good work that they do and the amount of effort they put into their thoughts on that. I like all the additions to it here. Even some of the small details. I think it makes a lot of sense. So, I just want to express my appreciation to you for your good work. Simison: All right. So, Council, I will leave it to you -- next week it will be you bringing forward any changes or recommendations or making motions. Staff will be there for questions, but there will be no presentation or expectation. So, that will be the intention for next week. If you do have any -- need additional information, then, come in off week, please, so that we don't have any delays next week. Hood: So, if I can just highlight that. We do have March 15th deadline. So, you have one meeting next week we have to -- it has to be done, so -- not my deadline. She's the bad guy. But -- no. Just a reminder. Simison: All right. Thank you all. Heather, thank you for your work putting this in. Getting your feet wet in week one, so appreciate that. EXECUTIVE SESSION per Idaho Code 74-206(1)(f) to communicate with legal counsel for the public agency to discuss the legal ramifications of and legal options for pending litigation, or controversies not yet being litigated but imminently likely to be litigated. Simison: So, with that, Council, we have reached the end of our agenda. Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: I move we go into Executive Session pursuant to Idaho State Code 74- 206(1)(f). Cavener: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to go into Executive Session. Do I have any discussion? If not, Clerk will call the roll. Roll Call: Borton, yea; Cavener, yea; Strader, absent; Overton, yea; Little Roberts, yea; Taylor, yea. Simison: All ayes. Motion carries and we will go into Executive Session. Meridian City Council Work Session March 5,2024 Page 22 of 22 MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. EXECUTIVE SESSION: (5:35 p.m. to 6:05 p.m.) Simison: Council, do I have a motion? Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: Move we come out of Executive Session. Overton: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to come out of Executive Session. All in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and we are out of Executive Session. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. Borton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Borton. Borton: Move that we adjourn. Simison: Motion to adjourn. All in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it. We are adjourned. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6.05 P.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) 3 / 26 / 24 MAYOR ROBERT E. SIMISON DATE APPROVED ATTEST: CHRIS JOHNSON - CITY CLERK