Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006 09-12 Pre Meridian City Pre-Council Meetina September 12, 2006 The Meridian City Pre-Council meeting was called to order at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, September 12, 2006 by President Councilman Shaun Wardle. Members Present: Keith Bird, Shaun Wardle, Charlie Rountree. Members Absent: Joe Borton and Tammy de Weerd. Staff Present: Bill Nary, Bill Musser and Will Berg. Item 1. Roll-call Attendance: Roll call. X Shaun Wardle X Charlie Rountree o ~Joe Borton X Keith Bird Mayor Tammy de Weerd Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Bird: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we adopt the agenda as published. Rountree: Second. Wardle: It's been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda. All in favor. THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MOTION CARRIED. Item 3. Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(d) - (to consider records that are exempt from disclosure as provided in chapter 3, title 9, Idaho Code) and (f) - (to consider and advise its legal representatives in pending litigation): Wardle: Item No. 3 is Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67- 2345(1 )(d) and (f). Bird: So moved. Rountree: Second. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 12, 2006 Page 2 of 11 Wardle: It has been moved and seconded to adjourn into Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1 )(d) and (f). I will have roll call attendance. Roll Call Vote: Bird, aye; Rountree, aye; Wardle, aye; Borton is absent. EXECUTIVE SESSION: Wardle: Council, I would accept a motion to adjourn out of Executive Session. Rountree: So moved. Bird: Second. Wardle: It has been moved and seconded to adjourn out of Executive Session. All in favor. THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MOTION CARRIED. Item 4. Discussion with Kelli Fairless of Valley Regional Transit regarding Coalition for Public Transportation: Wardle: Welcome Kelli. Fairless: I am going to walk you through the presentation and I understand that you had the packet of materials in your packet, so if you have any questions about that - basically the presentation goes over all the materials as well. Many of you are aware that we formed, along with the local chambers in the Treasure Valley a Coalition for Public Transportation and this group was designated to help us identify a funding source that they would be willing to support for public transportation. The organizational structure, it really was a group - the joint leadership group was the main body of the Coalition and they were two different groups that came together. The first group is the community leader, which included, not only included business leaders and also legislators, this was the group that was formed through the Boise Metro Chamber and the local chambers - all the regional chambers assigned people to participate in this process. There was then also the local officials group, which was primarily Valley Regional Transit Board members, plus other local elected officials. Mayor De Weerd participated on that as well as other council members and mayors from the various communities in Ada and. Canyon Counties. There was an acknowledgement early in the process that we needed to work with the community leaders group to kind of catch them up to the same education level about public transportation as our local officials. The process we used we started with Public Transportation 101 the first few months. The groups started meeting in November of 2005 and we looked at the existing plan for public transportation. We identified other regions where transit has been successful and kind of took a look at how they achieve their success. We also looked at a Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 12, 2006 Page 3 of 11 variety of funding sources and analyzed those funding sources and then the group came to their conclusions and recommendations and now we are in the outreach process. We asked the Coalition to answer three questions. The first is whether the current transportation system is sustainable and whether or not it can meet the growth demands over the next 25 to 30 years. We asked them whether or not there was a future for public transportation in the Treasure Valley and it is important to note that we did not set this Coalition up with just cheerleaders and champions. We actually wanted open minded people who are somewhat skeptical, so they would ask all the questions that needed to be asked. If the answer to the second question was yes then we were going to ask the group and we did ask the group, how should we fund public transportation and how would you support funding public transportation? In our overview of the future transportation system, there were several elements that we looked at. One is the population projections by 2030 are over a million for this region and those are even considered conservative numbers - that economic development depends on a viable transportation system and that there is especially among the business leaders a concern over air quality and how that affects people and other businesses to locate here and that the future system has to be fully integrated and provide choice. So, the next thing we did is we reviewed the regional plan. I have done that with this group before so I am not going to go into a lot of detail, but we did look at the plan and basically the plan assumes a new funding source. There are services for all the communities. It builds on our existing structure. The hours of service are expanded to a 5:00 a.m. to an 11 :00 p.m. type of service with a lot more frequency and that it would have express and commuter services. We talked about the low capacity option. This is the scenarios that we have developed in our regional plan. A low capacity option where we have service in all the communities, but the frequencies are basically 15 to 30 minutes depending on the area, specifically Meridian sees mostly our frequencies during most of the Meridian network in this scenario. These are the types of services you might see in that type of service. The high capacity option then increases the level of frequency on all the urban routes and you start seeing a 30 minute network in Meridian and you see a commuter rail line developed down the rail corridor. Again, this is to create a bookend scenario so that as we determine what funding source people are willing to support we can mix and match the coverage and the frequencies to fit the funding source. These are some of the services that you might see in that high capacity option. We also looked at the regional plan that COMPASS just recently adopted under Communities in Motion and this is a slide that is probably familiar to all of you. The difference between the level of transit that we have today and the transit that we have projected in the community choices plan. Again, more than a tenfold increase in service hours. Under research and findings with the peer analysis that the group looked at we did find some fairly common factors that made transit system successful - one is that they had a dedicated funding source and that that source was stable and was predictable, but most of the successful systems are using performance based planning for their transit system and/or are looking at performance as a way to generate services that then reflect back to better rider-ship and this is I Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 12, 2006 Page 4 of 11 guess the best way to put this is probably the Salt Lake model, which is running transit like a business. Then marketing and technology is used as key strategies to build rider-ship and that wherever in the systems that we looked at where there was an increase in services where they actually put in new service, there was an increase in rider-ship that not only met, but often exceeded the expectations. We looked at these funding sources. I will just go through them fairly quickly. Each one of these funding sources provides enough funding for the plan for both the low capacity all the way up to the high capacity in a particular increment, but there were some issues with many of them as you can guess. The gas tax and vehicle registration fees are not eligible for anything other than roadways or some public safety expenses so those aren't eligible. Even though there is a nexus between those and transportation. The personal property tax on the vehicle, we actually looked pretty seriously at that a couple of years ago in one of our planning projects and since that time the business community, I think Simplot is maybe leading this effort as well as Micron is trying to eliminate personal property tax from the Idaho Code because it is difficult for them to track all of there - they have to track their tools and equipment and everything as well. You all know how the real property tax debates have been going and that that wasn't an option that we looked at for very long given the discontent with property tax in general. I will jump to income tax and payroll tax. With this being a business lead community, there wasn't a lot of interest in looking at those two options and a concern that this would create too much of a burden for the business community to shoulder in terms of funding public transportation. So, the one that we looked at most seriously was the sales tax. The group came to some major conclusions. The first they actually came to it at their February meeting. They met from November to May, but right in the middle of the process they figured out that public transportation funding has been studied to death. I think that if you look back at all the interim committees and the planning projects that we have done, there has been a lot of study and not a lot of action. Ada and Canyon Counties are behind other communities and other regions in terms of their levels of public transportation services; that public transportation does need to be a part of the future of the Treasure Valley and that a dedicated funding source is necessary to move forward. The specific recommendation that the Coalition derived was a local option sales tax. This would require two hurdles to overcome. The first would be to get the legislature to grant the authority for our regional transit authorities to go out and then do the second hurdle which is a citizen referendum asking for support for a sales tax. The way that this local option would work - we had a variety of legislatures participating directly in the Coalition and also in meetings that we had with larger groups of our local legislatures participated and they talked a lot about what it would take for them to sell this local option to their peers and what it would take to get it through the legislature. One of the comments that they made is that this would need to have side boards, which means a very narrow focus with very specific parameters around it and the listing here are those parameters that they needed to see. One is that it would need to be in the Code under Regional Public Transportation Authority so that it would, one, be applied to the Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 12, 2006 Page 5 of 11 boundaries of a transit authority and that it would not be general to any particular city or county. That would assure that if it passed in one county of a region then it would pass in both basically. So, it can't be applied to one county and not the other. The other sideboard they wanted to see is that it would be in November elections in even years, which would assure a high voter turnout. This would be a 65 to 70 percent - this has been the average voter turnout for those typical elections where a president or a governor is on the ballot. In exchange for that because there would be a high level of participation, we are hoping to get this to be a simple majority that would pass the referendum, although that is going to be a touchy one to sell. The funding mechanism would have to be based on an approved plan, which means that it would have to go through a public process. People would have to know what it is they are paying for. It wouldn't be a matter of saying trust us, we will be good stewards of your money. They would be able to know what they are getting. After 20 years the initiative or the tax would sunset and we would have to go back for reauthorization. Again, this was important to those legislators who participated because it gives people a chance to determine if we have been successful with their tax, if we have been providing a service that they want to see. The initial amounts could be anywhere from .1 to .5 percent and that gives enough flexibility so other regions around the state might be able to also access this funding source and that any subsequent referendums, any subsequent request couldn't be any higher than a total of .75 percent. Bonding would require a two thirds majority that is based on a constitutional provision and that no more than 20 percent of the total tax could be used towards that service. The next steps that we are going to complete are stakeholder outreach. We have already got several groups signed on to say they support this recommendation for public transportation. That is both in the private sector and public sector. We are asking all of our member jurisdictions from Valley Regional Transit to consider a resolution supporting this funding source. We have completed our financial analysis and are getting ready to send that to our board. The Valley Regional Transit Board is going to look at, basically, the revised plan based on where we would land between those two operating scenarios along with the financial analysis. The one thing we found in doing the financial analysis and this came out of the Coalition process is from the legislators, especially. They wanted to see a plan that really did provide a high enough level of service that people would use it and that also had a vision for the future. We are able with a .5 percent tax increment we can get that high capacity bus system, which is primarily 15 minute frequencies on the urban networks as well as some seed money for rail corridor, preservation and also some high capacity services such as the State Street corridor, bus rapid transit and also a bus rapid transit line in the Canyon County area as well. So, it gives us the money to be able to start looking at debt service for some of those projects. The next step then is to bring all of those findings back to the Coalition and their meeting is scheduled in October to ask them to adopt their final report. We will finalize the legislation this fall and bring that to the legislator in 2007. If all goes well and it passes in 2007, we will be preparing for a November 2008 ballot referendum. Even if it doesn't pass in 2007, we could still take it to the Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 12, 2006 Page 6 of 11 legislature in 2008 and make that November 2008 ballot referendum. If we don't get that done, the next opportunity would be November 2007 if this proposal stayed the way that it is today. The one problem with that for us is that we also lose our waiver to use federal dollars for operating assistance in the Boise Transportation Management area, which unfortunately Meridian is in the middle of which means to develop any new services for Meridian, we wouldn't have the availability of federal operating dollars. So, that is one reason why that timeline is pretty critical for this particular Council. Again, if we pass it in either '07 or '08 we probably could be prepared for a November 2008 referendum. That is my formal remarks. If you have any questions, I would be happy to answer those. Wardle: Council, questions? Rountree: Mr. President just - Kelli do you have a sense of where the legislature might go? I know you had a number of legislators that participated routinely and regularly - better feeling than in the past or still a degree of hesitancy? Fairless: Mr. President, Councilman Rountree I would characterize it as we are optimistic, but it is cautiously optimistic. I think that out of all of this time where we brought different funding sources forward, we haven't had this much support before so we are making progress. I think that we have at least four local legislators who have agreed to sponsor legislation and we are really focusing on the revenue and tax committee - the House Revenue and Tax Committee and waiting to see how the leadership shakes out. There are just a lot of factors that we have no control over. The approach we are taking is we are just going to continue to go forward. There is never going to be an ideal environment to bring this legislation forward and hope that if nothing else, perseverance will pay off in the long run. Rountree: Taking any odds on whom the Revenue and Tax Committee Chair is going to be? Fairless: I have heard more people speculate about that, but I am not going to weigh in. Rountree: Me too. Wardle: Kelli I have a couple of questions. One is on your slide you mentioned that bonding requires that there is a majority. Why was that not one of the top options selected? Fairless: In terms of - I am not sure I understand your question. Wardle: Let me clarify. Valley Regional Transit has bonding authority under Idaho State Code, is that correct? Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 12,2006 Page 7 of 11 Fairless: I believe that we are restricted by the fact that we don't have a funding source. So, we can't bond anything because we have no revenue stream to bond against. Wardle: So, you could go for a referendum and ask the taxpayers for a bond, is that right? Fairless: I don't believe we can because we do not have any - there is nothing in our legislation that gives us any ability to raise revenues other than through voluntary contributions such as Meridian and all the other communities are paying right now. Wardle: So you don't have the ability? Fairless: No. I think what we could do is through - this is part of the challenges that each community could provide us with a certain amount of dedicated funding, maybe levee - a certain amount of available property tax to bond against for services, but then if you get the City of Meridian agreeing to do that, but not the City of Nampa or Caldwell it creates a very disconnected transit system. Bird: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Bird. Bird: Clarification on Shaun's deal -- Kelli that is why we have to have a district so that they would be a taxing entity, the same as Western Ada Rec District was so that they can do that and then they can get bonds because they have got whatever way of attaining assets and money, they have got that authority to do it. As Treasure Valley Partnership or Treasure Valley Regional Ride, you don't have taxing ability. Fairless: Right. That is correct. Bird: That is why they have to have the authorization for the district first. Fairless: Right. Wardle: Okay, then thank you very much for that clarification. In your presentation you note that - and let me make sure I heard this right. Under the one half percent taxing for the 20 year scenario, we would see services which would include essentially a bus system that would run in the urban areas at a peak of 15 minute intervals - Fairless: Right. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 12. 2006 Page 8 of 11 Wardle: And there could be some rail corridor preservation, but that half percent initiative does not include any type of light rail function, is that correct? Fairless: It would not include the operations. It would be the startup money for developing the service. If you look at the financials that are in your packet, the first year the revenue source raises $39 million. There would be that first year of expenditures - a lot of expenditures on capital and equipment Basically what happens is the first six years is the ramp up of the system and so you have got a lot of capital expenditures in the first few years and as you get farther out into that six year, we start operating more services. What is at the bottom, in the bottom section of that it says funds available for high capacity transit program. It has got a number of cross there. Those are dollars that are available above and beyond the needed funding for capital and operating that could be used to start developing and doing the debt service on some of those bonds for high capacity services. Wardle: Council additional questions? Rountree: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: What is your strategy for introducing this to legislation? Fairless: We are going to start with a prayer, always. Actually we are going to take it to - we will take it to Revenue and Tax. I believe there has already been a sponsor identified from Rev and Tax and I can't quite - I am not sure, but I think it was Representative Field has agreed to take it to Rev and Tax and then it will go through that committee process. We talked with the transportation committee chair in the past and she always believed that it should go there and also the leadership speaker always believed it should go to Rev and Tax first. Rountree: Well, you are not going to get it out of Joanne's committee anyway. Fairless: Yeah. Rountree: So, you do have a sponsor you think? Fairless: Yeah. Rountree: And do you have a commitment to support from - have you built a Coalition of locals as well as the business community that are committed to going down there and saying something as opposed to giving it lip service in committee and not showing up? Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 12, 2006 Page 9 of 11 Fairless: Yes, Mr. President and Councilman Rountree that has been the one piece of this that I think that is different than any previous effort is there has been this common voice or communal voice in the part of the business community and many of our local legislators acknowledging that this is needed and that they would support it. The list is growing daily of different businesses and large employers. We have, I believe, Blue Cross and some of your local businesses, Blue Cross, the Meridian Chamber have already approved this recommendation and we are just working through the list of employers and associations. Association of Idaho Cities passed the resolution. I will be talking with the County Associations next week. The County Association and also the Highway District Association is looking at it. So, that is really what this outreach has been over the summer. Our legislative advocates have been working specifically with the members of the Rev and Tax Committee through the summer trying to get all their questions answered and we will probably know by October or November the tally sheet and where people are standing. Rountree: Do you have a Coalition of folks that are non Ada, Canyon County? To me that is going to be the downfall if you don't have a significant contingent from north and east Idaho. Fairless: Yeah, we started working on that. Matt Stall and I spent two days last weekend in northern Idaho. We will be in central Idaho for most of next weekend and also working toward the eastern part of Idaho the last week of September. We have been working with the transit providers, the counties and city officials as well as legislators in those regions. Rountree: Is Ron coming around? Fairless: Pardon? Rountree: Is Ron coming around? Fairless: No, not yet. I have got to work on him a little bit. So, we are working in that direction, but - yeah. Rountree: Thank you. Wardle: Additional questions, Council? Bird: I have none. Wardle: Just a point of clarification for the Council. You don't see a resolution on your agenda this evening. There have been some questions. My discussions with Councilman Borton and individuals positions on essentially on the ability to support this Coalitions request for what would be a local option tax and so we can bring that resolution forward either as a discussion item on the end of this Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 12, 2006 Page 10 of 11 agenda. We can have that for a later date. We could, I guess, at the pleasure of the Council whether you would like to see that come forward or not. Rountree: Mr. President, my point of view is that I take a philosophical position and not just on this particular item, but any item as it relates to our ability to have a legislature protect us from ourselves and I think we ought to have the ability to do what we damn well please and not have the legislature try and protect us from ourselves. So, I think local option taxes are something that we ought to have the ability to do. We know when our constituents are asking for these things and I am hearing a lot of stuff from constituents that they want some options other than having to put up with some of the traffic they have to put up with and whether it is a local option tax to support transit in additional capacity on our system so transit will work better. I think our citizens have a right to vote for it, instead of having 105 people down at the State House saying, uggh, they don't know what they want. I guess that my philosophy is give us the option. Bird: Mr. President, I would move to bring it forward for discussion. I have a lot of the same views that Councilman Borton have as far as local option taxes. What I am hearing from people period and all over is they are tired of taxes. I am open minded on it, but I think we need to bring it forward and discuss it Wardle: Let me ask Kelli. Rountree: Well, obviously we have two positions and so it should be discussed. Wardle: I agree. I understand that we have a timeline. What would be - I know that we have pushed this a couple of times. We had the presentation and I know that you had this same presentation and discussion with Mr. Borton and so I know that both he and the Mayor are well informed. What is your timeline for, I guess, support from the City of Meridian? And is it something that you think that we should consider this evening and adding to our agenda or can it wait until next week? What would be your pleasure? Fairless: It's not going to put us behind if you make the decision next week or even sometime by the end of September. I think a lot of the smaller jurisdictions - we have been meeting only once or twice a month, so they have had to - you know I did this as an information item last month and many of them are looking at the resolution this month. I would like to point out since there are some general concerns about local option by some of your members that really what - I guess that we are not asking for you all to say you support this plan necessarily or that you support or that you would go out and vote for a local option tax. I think Councilman Rountree's points are really right on target that this just gives us the authority to ask people if they are willing to tax themselves and I want to point out too that in this process that the one other piece of information that came out of the Coalition work was that this would eliminate the need to use any property tax for publiC transportation. We would no longer come to you as the City of Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 12,2006 Page 11 of 11 Meridian and ask you to contribute to the dues or the operating expenses, so to some degree that certain communities are providing transit funding. I guess that also provides some relief on the general fund, your individual general funds as well. Wardle: Thank you. Council, what does our schedule look like next week? Bird: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Bird. Bird: My preference would be to have legal look it over good and bring it forward. This is a draft and bring it forward next week and then we can have a little discussion, if we could do that Wardle: That would be weat and it looks like it would fit well on our agenda so we will see that on the 19 h as a discussion item. Fairless: Okay thank you. Wardle: Thank you very much. Council that brings us to end of our regular scheduled agenda. Are there any additional items? If not, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Rountree: So moved. Bird: Second. Wardle: It's been moved and seconded to adjourn our Pre-Council meeting. All those in favor. THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MOTION CARRIED. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6:50 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) TAMMY !fl /.3 / tJ6 DATE APPROVED