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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-04-01 Regular Meridian City Council April 1, 2025. A Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:01 p.m. Tuesday, April 1, 2025, by Mayor Robert Simison. Members Present: Robert Simison, Luke Cavener, Liz Strader, John Overton, Doug Taylor, Anne Little Roberts and Brian Whitlock. Other Present: Chris Johnson, Bill Nary, Linda Ritter, Kyle Ludwig, Steve Taulbee and Dean Willis. ROLL-CALL ATTENDANCE X Liz Strader X Brian Whitlock Anne Little Roberts X John Overton _X_ Doug Taylor _X_Luke Cavener X Mayor Robert E. Simison Simison: We will call the meeting to order. For the record it is April 1 st, 2025, at 6:01 p.m. We will begin this City Council meeting with roll call attendance. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Simison: Next item up is the Pledge of Allegiance. (Pledge of Allegiance recited.) COMMUNITY INVOCATION Simison: So, no one signed up under the community invocation. ADOPTION OF AGENDA Simison: So, we will move right into adoption of the agenda. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: I think some of our friends might be running a tad late, so I'm going to amend the agenda. We are going to move Item 8 to the end of our agenda and with that I see no other needed changes, so I move that we approve the agenda as amended. Strader: Second. Meridian City Council April 1,2025 Page 2 of 12 Simison: Have a motion and a second to approve -- adopt the agenda as amended. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the agenda is agreed to as amended. MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES. CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] 1. Approve Minutes of the March 18, 2025 City Council Work Session 2. Everbrook Academy -Amity Partial Release of Sanitary Sewer and Water Main Easement (ESMT-2025-0026) 3. Everbrook Academy Water Main Easement (ESMT-2025-0025) 4. Southridge South Subdivision Phase 1 Sanitary Sewer and Water Main Easement No. 2 (ESMT-2025-0028) 5. Brundage Estates Subdivision No. 1 Sanitary Sewer and Water Main Easement No. 1 (ESMT-2025-0029) 6. Brundage Estates Subdivision No. 1 Sanitary Sewer and Water Main Easement No. 2 (ESMT-2025-0030) 7. Final Order for Brundage Estates Subdivision No. 1 (FP-2024-0024) by L.C. Development, generally located east of S. Linder Rd. midway between W. Victory Rd. and W. Amity Rd. Simison: Next up is the Consent Agenda. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Move we approve the Consent Agenda as presented. For the Mayor to sign and the Clerk to attest. Strader: 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: ALLAYES. Meridian City Council April 1,2025 Page 3 of 12 ITEMS MOVED FROM THE CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] Simison: There were no items moved from the Consent Agenda and Item 8 was moved down. PUBLIC FORUM — Future Meeting Topics DEPARTMENT / COMMISSION REPORTS [Action Item] 9. Solid Waste Commission Update to City Council Simison: So, we will go on to Item 9, which is the Solid Waste Commission update to City Council. Introduce Commission President Steve Cory. Cory: Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, I'm Steve Cory, chair of the Solid Waste Advisory Commission. I'm here representing SWAC and I bring you their greetings and thanks. The Commission is currently fully staffed and we do appreciate your support. One of the primary responsibilities is the community recycling fund program. The CRFP balance is roughly 100,000 dollars. SWAC continues to refine a proposal for the use of these funds. Another responsibility is monitoring supplemental services. Some of our ratepayer support by subscription, these services -- and we deter -- monitor them to determine if they reach a point where they should be incorporated into basic services. In 2024 glass and grass subscriptions grew, but did not reach a tipping point. We have no recommendations on either of these programs right now. SWAC participating in all of their Legacy activities. At the Public Works Expo we received some 75 visitors. As normal there were questions about what was okay to recycle and how to get rid of various other materials. And recycle a bicycle. We had great interest. We brought 26 bikes to hand out and gave them all away at the event. I want to take this moment to thank Republic Services and Timber Creek for helping to make this a great success. In other activities SWAC attended the County Solid Waste Advisory Committee meetings. I chair that committee. Conversation drifted toward the life of the landfill and the cost of operating the landfill, which likely will dominate discussions this year, too. We also attend the household hazardous waste meetings to be informed on changes to that program. The rate review was mostly automatic, except for an additional bump for labor costs. SWAC received numerous presentations, which boil down to monitoring waste and recycling. CRFP management, outreach and monitoring flow rates of waste and recyclable materials. While the annual report details how SWAC plans to proceed, our plans boil down to improving and protecting the city's waste and recycling practices and systems, while being mindful of the rate payers and with that that's my presentation and I would be happy to receive comments or questions. Simison: Thank you, Mr. Cory. Council, any questions? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Meridian City Council April 1,2025 Page 4 of 12 Cavener: President Cory, it's always great having you before us and I appreciate your leadership and -- and I really appreciate the impact that SWAC makes. Thanks for putting together the update and keeping us updated about all things that are happening. Two questions. First, back to recycle a bicycle. I have a garage full of bicycles that I would love to recycle. How do I go about getting those donated or sent over to Republic? What's the way if the public has a bike that they want to make available, that they -- they get it to the right parties? Cory: One of the easiest ways is to go to the Meridian Transfer Station. Actually, I may want to go ahead and have Rachele Klein come up here and talk about where they need to be dropped off and maybe she would make some other commitments, too. Klein: Mayor and Council, Rachele Klein with Republic Services. The easiest thing is if you have just some that can fit in the back of your car or back of a truck to drop them off. If you go into the transfer station there is a big bicycle drop site right there. But also if you don't have a big car we go pick them up. I shuttle bikes at least -- it's probably six to eight bikes a week I go pick up from people's houses and get them -- if they don't have a way to transport them, but want them to be donated. So, either way works. And if you call customer service they just forward you to me anyway to go get them. So, I run a bike shuttle service on the side. So, we want to make sure anyone who wants to donate a bike it's easy for them to donate it. Cavener: Great. Thank you. Klein: Yeah. Thanks. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Cory: I didn't want to make the commitment for her, but I knew she was that helpful. Cavener: Have a pickup truck and we will be happy to free up other space for Rachele's bike transfer service. President Cory, one additional question if I may, Mr. Mayor. Cavener: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: What do you think is important for the Council to know on SWAC's behalf? What are the things that we should be thinking about that you and your commission are discussing, mulling, concerns -- anything that needs to be on our radar? Cory: I think the two things that I would highlight first would be to watch what the landfill is doing. They have had a change in management and management -- and this has been over a year ago -- is very proactive. Has gone back and looked at some of the things that have been done in the past that worked and they are reinstituting them. They are making some other changes up there that are going to facilitate people using the landfill and it's all very exciting, but we will be looking at the cost of services over the Meridian City Council April 1,2025 Page 5 of 12 next days, effectively, and so that's going to be coming up and being made public very soon. So, we certainly would recommend that you be aware of the cost they feel they need to cover to be made whole. And for recycling I want to go ahead and call out Republic Services again. They have retooled the recycling center over there. It is -- it looks like it's going to be in a position to better sort materials, making the waste stream -- the recyclable material streams more clean and hopefully increase the value up there. But I suspect from recycling that may give us some things that we need to communicate to the public. So, those are the two things I would recommend you watch. Cavener: Thank you. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Thanks. Nice to see you. One just piece of feedback. So, I know we are not quite at that tipping point with like the grass, the glass and the squishy water bottles, but, you know, one thing I noticed in my own household, signing up for some of those extra services, is just there is a little bit of friction trying to do that, right, because you actually get billed separately by Republic, instead of having just like a one stop place to sign up for all of the things that you want and I just think anytime we are adding that level of friction it just makes it harder for people to subscribe to those extra services. So, I would just encourage just a general comment, maybe, you know, SWAC, but certainly the city staff and Republic to try to work together to come up with an easier way for people to sign up for those extra services, so that they can just do it through their account, they don't have to be billed separately. I think that would make more sense, you know, and that might help increase the number of people that -- that are signing up for those. I did have a question. You know, I -- the recycling fund balance continues to go up and up and up. What is the ETA on hearing about some ideas for that? Cory: Thank you. It's growing at about a thousand dollars a month, by the way. We had worked on this hard last year, putting together a procedure and a program. The commissioner that I had working on it, though, reached a point where they needed to resign from the commission and so I need to go ahead and backtrack on that, get a copy of the markup of the procedure and we will go ahead and bring that back up to speed pretty fast. I am afraid that we are late enough now in April we need to go ahead and effectively do that as a budget change and it may be a little difficult to accomplish something this fiscal year and calendar year, but I do believe if we circle back, pick up what had been done, we can get moving on a grant program soon. Strader: Thank you. Cory: And if I may, one of the things that Republic has done in taking over the recycling facility is that for the squishy water bottles -- now they can go into the single stream and the equipment and the personnel over there are able to go ahead and handle that. So, Meridian City Council April 1,2025 Page 6 of 12 hopefully, that change, which occurred months ago, is convenient for people and it seems to be working quite well. As a result of that there is no longer the special delivery of that bin from the transfer station to the recycling facility and it's added another bin over there for plastics materials, so -- but your comments on glass and grass are appreciated. Certainly we got some good input from the city survey and it's a subject that's very close to us. Strader: Thank you. Whitlock: Mr. Mayor? Simison: If I could follow up on that, maybe for Republic, but do we yet know -- have we seen any measurable impact in changes to the amount of recyclable material coming through the system with the switch over to being able to accept other types of stuff or too early yet? Steve, if you want to repeat that on the record for Rachele. If it's just too early, Steve, that's fine. Klein: So, it just opened on -- a week ago Monday, so we are only -- we don't have enough data yet to really say, because we are working through the backlog of what was captured before, so we were shut down, so all of the material coming from Meridian was bailed and stored and now that we are open we are taking new stuff, but we are working through the backlog of stuff that was -- that kind of predated the changes. So, once we get through that, you know, what people are recycling will be able to measure it more accurately. So, probably by mid May I would guess we will have -- May numbers we will be really happy. Simison: Maybe some, but maybe six months to a year -- Klein: Yeah. Simison: -- where we actually have a real idea right. Klein: Right. Right. Yeah. Simison: Okay. Klein: We are excited about it. Simison: Councilman Whitlock. Whitlock: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. President Cory, thanks for the presentation and update. You mentioned county wide discussions and the life of the landfill has been one of those topics of discussion. Can you just give me a sense if we were to project out as fast as we are growing as a valley what does the Ada County Landfill lifespan look like? Meridian City Council April 1,2025 Page 7 of 12 Cory: Thank you, Councilman. Yes, I'm really excited to go ahead and talk about that and it may be more than one sentence. To go ahead and frame this, when the landfill was opened back right after the turn of the century back around 2003, 2005, something like that, the expectation was that it would be able to receive a hundred years' worth of waste materials. There were some difficulties early on in insistence on putting daily cover up there and other things and, then, there is the growth that you mentioned and between the two of them the expected fill date for that -- for the landfill moved all the way up to 2065. So, we are about 30 years away from that. However, with the new management that's up there they are looking at things like rearranging how they build the support structure around there and in that process they are going to actually be able to create more airspace to fill. They are also looking at some other activities while they are going back to a process that was used 15 years ago using tarps instead of putting soil over the waste for the daily cover so to speak and as a result of reducing the amount of material there that adds more air space and what I'm hearing back from county commissioners and from the landfill is they hope to be able to create another five to 15 years of life up there. So, yeah, it's kind of exciting what they are trying to do up there and, like I say, follow what's going on up there. But, yeah, their current statements are about 30 years of life, but they think they know how to maybe get us some more. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Quick question. Have you had any discussions with your fellow commissioners about the idea that I have heard some discussion about with a private landfill in Elmore county with Republic Services and the -- maybe diverting some of the -- the waste that might go to the county landfill to that. That's been -- is that something that's come on your radar at all? Cory: Thank you, Councilman. We have not needed a subject for the city commission yet. Certainly it's been a major issue in the legislature. We have had some discussions about it at the county advisory committee, so I'm versed in it. Maybe I would suggest you maybe want to have some particular aspects of that that you want to discuss or if you want to talk offline that's great, too. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Maybe just a comment. I'm just kind of curious if that's risen to your level of discussion where it may inform the city on -- on that. I don't know if that's a decision we have to really weigh in on one way or the other, I'm just kind of curious if -- how it might affect some of the things that are under consideration by your commission and what that might mean for -- I think there is implications for the city and the county at large, so just more of a curiosity and just curious if it's something that you guys are discussing. Meridian City Council April 1,2025 Page 8 of 12 Cory: I totally agree. As I was kind of indicating in 30 or 45 years they are going to need to look for a new landfill. Certainly it's open how that actually is structured. So, it's a conversation we need to have and it needs to happen much before that, because it takes about 20 years to finalize the design. Go ahead and take care of all of the land use permits. Go ahead and acquire the land, all kinds of things like that. So, even if we can extend this the time for making these decisions is coming soon and we would be more than happy to open up a conversation with the commission to go ahead and kind of air the facts that are associated with this at this point. I think we are probably in a position where there is no reason for us to make any recommendations, but I can certainly put it on our agenda, so that, you know, it's there for people to review based on our minutes. Simison: And maybe a very -- another similar that I know this last year house -- household hazardous waste had some question marks. Can you just let us know where that is in case someone has some old gasoline in their storage shed that they need to get rid of before the lawn season starts? Cory: I'm happy to say that the household hazardous waste program is back up and running and is working quite well. Yeah. There were some issues with the previous contractor and there was a need to go ahead and solidify the contract and various other activities and that contracting was a little rough, so to speak, but it was completed by the end of the calendar year and so, yes, it's still at the traditional location at the Meridian Transfer Station in their parking lot starting at noon -- noon to 7:00. When you go into that parking lot it's rather clear, they go ahead and route you around their collection truck and you stop between the two collection trucks and their staff go ahead and empty your vehicle, so you don't even have to exit the vehicle. So, any particular other questions that might be helpful? Simison: No. Just, you know, we knew that there was a little hiccup this year. Just wanted to get an update on where it currently stood, so -- Cory: Like I say, it's come back together stronger than it was. Simison: All right. Seeing no other questions, just thank you, Steve, to you and the rest of the Commission for all you are doing and we know that this is an ever changing growing daunting task that is required upon market forces, as well as regulatory requirements and so we appreciate you guys trying to work your way through that as best you can. Cory: Thank you all. ACTION ITEMS 10. Public Hearing for Sky Mesa Commons Subdivision No. 5 (TECC- 2025-0002) by Boise Hunter Homes, located West of S. Eagle Rd., midway between E. Taconic Dr. and E. Lake Hazel Rd. Meridian City Council April 1,2025 Page 9 of 12 A. Request: Second time extension request for the final plat of Sky Mesa Commons Subdivision No. 5, in order to obtain the City Engineer's signature Simison: Thank you. Okay. With that we will move on to Item 10, which is a public hearing for Sky Mesa Subdivision No. 5, TECC-2025-0002. We will open this public hearing with staff comments. Ritter: Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. So, my first trick for April is you can see the aerial map, but you can see it. So, April Fool. So, tonight we are here for a request for two year time extension on Sky Mesa preliminary plat in order to obtain the city engineer's signature on Sky Mesa Commons No. 5 final plat. It's located west of South Eagle Road midway between the East Taconic Drive and East Lake Hazel Road. The final plat consists of 13 buildable lots and one common lot on four acres of land in the R-8 zoning district for the fifth and final phase of the Sky Mesa Subdivision. On March 23rd, 2021 , the city approved the final plat for Sky Mesa Commons No. 5, which was found to be consistent with the approved preliminary plat and, then, on March 1st, 2023, a two year time extension was approved for Sky Mesa Commons No. 5 as requested by the applicant due to economic recession and the developer needed additional time to complete the fifth phase of the subdivision. So, the applicant has now requested an additional two year time extension in order to obtain the city engineer's signature on the approved final plat due to the construction of Eagle Road. The reconstruction of Eagle Road per the applicant -- this additional time will allow ACHD to complete the reconstruction of Eagle Road, which will alleviate the access, marketing and pricing issues caused by the construction. The Sky Mesa Subdivision is a total of 98.35 acres and it's located within two different zoning destinations R-4, which has about 63.85 acres, and R-8, which has 34.50 acres. The R-4 zoning district requires 12 percent open space and the R-8 zoning district requires 15 percent open space for combined total of 12.837 acres of qualified open space. So, when the Sky Mesa Subdivision was originally approved the UDC only required ten percent open space for the entire development. Currently 94.36 acres have been developed and 15.296 acres, which is like 16.2 percent of open space, has been provided, which is 2.459 acres more open space than what was required by the new code. Because the overall Sky Mesa Subdivision has already provided more open space than what is required under the current code additional open space is not required to be provided with the final phase of the development. So, with what has come before staff, staff is recommending approval of this. We had no written testimony on this, but I think we do have someone online that wanted to speak on this tonight. So, with that if you have any questions staff will be more than happy to answer any questions you have. Simison: Thank you, Linda. Council, any questions for staff? All right. Thank you. Would the applicant like to come forward. Tucker: Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council. My name is Todd Tucker and I represent Boise Hunter Homes. Our business address is 923 South Bridgeway Place, Eagle, Idaho. 83616. As Linda explained, this is an application for a time extension for Meridian City Council April 1,2025 Page 10 of 12 the final plat of Sky Mesa Commons No. 5 Subdivision. I had contemplated, since it's April Fool's Day, throw in some sort of joke, especially since Jim Hunter is out of town and won't be able to see this, but I thought I would try to be a little bit more professional, so I didn't. The final plat was approved by the City Council in March of 2021 , then, later we requested a time extension in 2023 due to the economy at the time and the slow market that we had in this area. So, we are -- and, then, we learned of the -- the Eagle Road construction project coming online and just decided to take a time out and wait for that to be finished. It affected some of our sales and some prices of our homes in the area and so we thought it would be best to just take a break. But the project -- Eagle Road is -- is -- is now scheduled to be completed by October of this year. So, we are -- we are excited for -- for that to be finished. This phase of the plat is approximately 3.99 acres in size. It has 13 buildable lots and one common lot. This is an aerial photo just showing where the property lies in relation to the surrounding development and Eagle Road and you can see Eagle Road is still under construction and, then, as you can see Eagle Road that's under construction from Taconic to Lake Hazel. It's completely gone at this point. This picture was taken last week in the bottom left-hand corner. The work is supposed to be completed in June of this year -- towards the end of June, then, work will begin on reconstructing the roundabout at Taconic and Eagle Road and building the north leg up to Amity and that -- that -- that work is supposed to be, according to ACHD, completed around the end of October of this year, which will be begin perfect timing for us really. We have -- we -- we have --just in conclusion, we have submitted drawings to ACHD, our construction drawings. They have been approved. We are in our third review of construction drawings to the City of Meridian. As soon as those plans are approved we plan on beginning construction of the subdivision and getting the final plat routed and recorded, hopefully all built before the -- the end of the year. So, we think this will be kind of perfect timing to -- as soon as the construction on Eagle Road is completed, then, we will be ready to start building homes and have a great marketing window and access to the property to be able to sell them. So, that concludes my presentation. I can answer any questions that you all might have. Simison: Thank you, Todd. Council, any questions? Anything you would like to share about any adjacent properties as well that would -- might be relative, just so Council is aware? Tucker: Sure. The -- the -- the property located directly to the east of us, the -- it's roughly nine and a half acres of property, the McKay Farm Subdivision, we have purchased that property and plan on developing that in conjunction with -- with the Sky Mesa -- the last phase that we have of Sky Mesa. I have -- the final plat application has been submitted for that. I just need to upload all the drawings and finish the process of the application. But we have acquired that property and we will be developing that hopefully in conjunction with this Sky Mesa project as well. Simison: Yeah. I know it's not part of the application, but I also thought it was relevant for the time extension conversation as well, so -- all right. Thank you very much. Mr. Clerk, do we have anybody signed up for this item? Meridian City Council April 1,2025 Page 11 of 12 Johnson: Mr. Mayor, we do. Brian Bolt. And, Brian, you should be able to unmute yourself. Bolt: Good evening, Mr. Mayor and City Council Members. Are you able to hear me? Simison: We are. Can you state your name and address for the record, please. Bolt: Brian Bolt. 6092 South Cubola Way, Meridian, Idaho. Simison: Thank you. Bolt: So, this evening I was prepared to talk about the two year extension and the reason for -- or the rationale for it being extended out and the McKay Subdivision being dependent on the -- the utilities being provided as part of Sky Mesa Commons Five. But since I just recently learned just a few minutes ago that the McKay Farm Subdivision was purchased by Boise Hunter Homes I don't have any further comments. Simison: Okay. Thank you very much. Council, any questions? Appreciate you being here, Brian. Bolt: Thank you. Simison: Is there anybody else present who would like to provide testimony on this item? Would the applicant like to make any final comments? Okay. Applicant waives. Council? Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Move we close the public hearing on Item 10. Strader: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to close the public hearing. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the public hearing is closed. MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: I move we approve TECC-2025-0002 as presented and include all staff, applicant and public testimony. Meridian City Council April 1,2025 Page 12 of 12 Strader: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to approve Item TECC-2025-0002. Is there discussion on the motion? If not, Clerk call the roll. Roll Call: Cavener, yea; Strader, yea; Overton, yea; Little Roberts, yea; Taylor, yea; Whitlock, yea. Simison: All ayes. Motion carries and the item is agreed to. MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES. PROCLAMATIONS [Action Item] 8. Owyhee High School Girls Basketball State Champions Day Simison: So, Council, if -- we will reach back out to the high school and maybe the lines were crossed or something came up, but we will try to get that rescheduled, so they can come back. So, if we can just not do that this evening, that will work. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Let the record reflect that our fine mayor of the city of Star perhaps may have pulled a prank and told them to go to the wrong location. Happy April Fool's, Mayor Chadwick. With that, Mr. Mayor, I move we adjourn the meeting. Strader: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to adjourn the meeting. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it. We are adjourned. MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6.32 P.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) MAYOR ROBERT E. SIMISON 4-8-2025 ATTEST: CHRIS JOHNSON - CITY CLERK 4-8-2025