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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2007 01-23 Pre Meridian City Pre-Council Meetina January 23. 2007 The Meridian City Pre-Council meeting was called to order at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 by President Councilman Joe Borton. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, David Zaremba, Charlie Rountree and Joe Borton. Staff Present: Bill Nary, Brad Watson, Pete Friedman, Len Grady, Bob Stowe, Matt Ellsworth and Will Berg. Item 1. Roll-call Attendance: Roll call. X David Zaremba X Charlie Rountree X X Joe Borton X Keith Bird Mayor Tammy de Weerd Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Bird: Mr. President. Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we adopt the agenda as published. Rountree: Second. Borton: It has been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as published. All those in favor. ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. Item 3. Discussion with Aldape Property for Area of Impact Change: Borton: I think Ms. Ewing we might have you start off with your request and comments. We all received a January 7, 2007 letter outlining some of your questions, comments and concerns with the property location and if you could discuss those a little bit as well as your meeting with Eagle City Council last week or two weeks ago and we what transpired there. Ewing: I am Sherrie Aldape Ewing and I live at 2934 E. Lake Hazel Road and I am representing the Adalpe property, which is at 7570 Basco Lane; there is 1 ,011 acres down close to my folks in between Ten Mile and Black Cat and between the Phyllis Canal and the Boise River. I will start out with the letter. Do Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting January 23, 2007 Page 2 of 17 you want me to go through each one of the items that I had on the letter, Joe, or do you want me to just kind of start out with what happened last week at the Eagle? Borton: Start out with what happened with Eagle. Ewing: Last week there was an Eagle City Council meeting and what they did was they were going to take the upper bench part out of their comprehensive plan and so I testified at that meeting indicating that we wanted to be included in the area that was taken out of the Eagle area and joined into the Meridian area. They told me at that time that I would need to set up an appointment with Nicole Baird Spencer who is their planner and get guidance from her. So, they basically told me that I couldn't do anything at that meeting. So, today I met with her and her recommendation was for us to fill out the comprehensive plan amendment form for all of the area down there and that it was quite an intensive form to fill out, to say the least and it would cost, oh I don't know, $2,000 fill out the form, plus engineering fees and blah, blah, blah. So, I said if we did all of this would we be guaranteed that we would get out of the impact area? She said oh no. That is just the opportunity to bring it to our Council and go from there. Anyway, that just does not sound like a promising thing for us to do. I mean, if it is recommended from this Board that we do that, we would certainly do that to get out of Eagle, but it doesn't sound like - I wasn't skipping out of there. De Weerd: Mr. President. Borton: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I am sorry Sherrie to interrupt you, but when they were going through their city area of impact public hearings, were you present during those times to testify that that area was not desired to include in the area of impact? Ewing: Yes, I did. Actually May of 2005, you had your open house indicating that you were changing your impact area and at that meeting I told Nicole that we did not want to be in Eagle Impact that we wanted to be in Meridian. When Eagle went to Ada County I testified at that meeting that we did not want to be in the Eagle impact and I had all of the letters from all of the property owners and I had presented those also to Ada County and Eagle. De Weerd: So, you indicated that you did not want to be in there and now they are telling you that you have to pay an application fee to request to be taken out? Ewing: Yes, I also asked why if this was the process that we had to go through, why did the Tree Farm not have to go through this same process because my family travels up and down Basco Lane every single day and we have got three families living there and never once have we seen the poster or the sign that says they are going to have an open house indicating that they are getting out of Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting January 23, 2007 Page 3 of 17 the Eagle impact area, but we have to do that. We have to go through the whole process, but they didn't have to. So, I tried to find out what the difference was between what they were doing and what we are doing and she says oh, well, we just added them in because we were just changing a bunch of other little pieces and we just added them in. I said well why weren't we added in because I had talked to you on May of '05 and two weeks later I went in and I talked to her face to face and said we do not want to be in Eagle? I mean, I have this all documented. How many times I have indicated to Eagle and sent letters from all of the property owners down there and we are still in there. I am just real frustrated. De Weerd: We sometimes have systems that have bugs in it. Ewing: Now what do you want me to say? Borton: I appreciate that information. I think that it would be helpful - Brad can you share with us an update of service issues and some information that Lynn Moser might have shared and clarification that we might need to know? Watson: Sure. Thank you Madame Mayor, Council members as you probably know I have kept in contact with Lynn Moser the Eagle Sewer District general manager through this whole discussion since maybe last spring. He sent me in December a copy of a presentation. I think he also copied that to Mrs. Ewing that showed what his engineer estimated to be the cost for serving this general vicinity of these properties. I have that in hard copy and I guess the details of that aren't really pertinent for this discussion other than they estimated a significant amount of funding to get sewer service to that area. I talked with Lynn this afternoon just to check in and make sure we all have common information and one of the things that we discovered was that maybe he didn't understand my information that I presented to you and Eagle City Council last August on the incremental cost to Meridian for upsizing the north Black Cat Lift Station to serve this area. My intention behind those costs was that that is simply the incremental cost for the facilities up on the bench that were already designing. That has nothing to do with any cost down below the bench to convey sewage up onto the hill. It sounded like Lynn misunderstood that and I just wanted to make sure we understood that and we are all on the same page. In terms of timing, Lynn didn't really have any timing on how soon Eagle Sewer District could get to this area and I don't know that we really have great timing information. The north Slack Cat project is under design and if all goes well we could be under construction later this year, but as we said all along that thing can't be turned on until the whole wastewater treatment plant upgrade is done, which is in late 2008. That is the soonest. But, some of that trunk line north, I believe at this point is developer driven. I hope that answers everyone. Borton: It does, thank you. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting January 23, 2007 Page 4 of 17 Rountree: Mr. President. Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: The only basis I have for this comment or question is what I read in the Valley Times is kind of a synopsis of your presentation and the Mayor's response or the Council's response was something on the order that they anticipated the sewer to be there in the next couple of years as I recall and that they anticipated the ownership of the Eagle Island State Park, which I thought was a little odd, but maybe that is the direction they are going, which is quite a bit different than what we have heard in the past from Lynn and the Eagle Sewer District, so it seems that there is still that mixed message about infrastructure in that part of the county and I am pretty sure you weren't under that impression and I don't know if that was new information to you or not. Ewing: Well, what we are hearing from the Eagle Sewer District and what we are hearing from Mayor Merrill and the City Council seem to be on two different pages. I mean it doesn't seem like - well, I was told from Lynn Moser that they didn't know anything about Eagle Island State Park except what they were reading in the paper. So, that means to me that they really have no plans to go on. Even if they do get to Eagle Island State Park they have still got another mile to get - another mile and a half to get down to Duck Alley and then from Duck Alley we are still another mile and a half east - west, sorry. Whichever way that is - so that is still forever away and we are contiguous with Meridian right now with the Tree Farm, so to me there is just - I mean, they aren't even comparing apples to apples. Borton: Sherrie is seems that in the simplest sense here your question is you know this particular property is going to be developed within the Eagle impact area, Meridian's or perhaps in the County. Ewing: Or Star. Borton: Or Star. Have you had an opportunity to meet with the Star City Council? Ewing: Yes, sir. Well, not City Council. I met with Nate Mitchell and had a discussion with him and he is ready to take us on, if we can get contiguous with him. I don't have a map with me right now, but the neighbor to the west of us is Dr. Orem and he wants his land to stay that way forever because he rides his horses there, but the land west of him is actually being divided into a subdivision or they have got plans for it. Across the river they have - they are contiguous with the City of Star so they are jumping the river by being contiguous that way and they have got plans coming up the river with their sewer. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting January 23, 2007 Page 5 of 17 Borton: And you request of Council and what you are trying to gage now from us is whether or not we would be interested in applying to amend our area of impact boundary to encompass this property? Ewing: Yes or even annexation. One of the two. We are looking at all of our options right now. Borton: I have some of the same frustrations I think that Councilman Rountree has in reviewing this and seeing conflicting service time lines and conflicting cost information. It is not necessarily your fault by any means, but as far as which city can provide service quicker in a more efficient cost effective manner. It appears that the City of Meridian can do that both quicker and more cost effective. At least that is what - most credible information that I have heard. Any questions from Council on its comfort level with the options before it? Zaremba: Mr. President. Borton: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I would comment that this also has been discussed at the Planning & Zoning Commission while I was a Planning & Zoning Commissioner. My personal opinion is that well, duh, it ought to be part of Meridian, you know? The people that live there currently consider themselves as part of Meridian. The technicality of whose impact area they are in does have a major impact on what development is available. It seems to me if Eagle would resist changing their impact area that that would be a long drawn out process and even though one Councilman is in favor of you being part of Meridian that sounds like that may be more problem than it is worth. So, I guess what I am left with is a question that I would ask of Mr. Nary and that is a clarification if the Aldape's and the group around them chose to annex into Meridian, can they apply for annexation and be accepted not being in our impact area? Is that a possibility? Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, Councilman Zaremba state law does allow consensual annexation if the property is contiguous or adjacent to city boundaries. The fact that it is not within the area of impact is a different issue. It is certainly a worthy discussion, whether it is with the county or the City of Eagle, but there is no legal reason that annexation couldn't occur if requested and I think that part of the discussion, I think that Ms. Ewing is sort of seeking Council's guidance tonight as to whether that is something that they as a Council as a whole would consider at some point. And again not to put words into Ms. Ewing's mouth, but I have had a lot of conversations on this project as well. But, I think that is kind of what we are looking at, but there is no legal impediment to doing that, if it is a consensual request. De Weerd: Councilman Borton. Mr. President. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting January 23, 2007 Page 6 of 17 Borton: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Just a couple of comments. In answer to Councilman Zaremba's question, the City of Meridian has not been in the practice of annexing, number one outside of our area of impact and number two in someone else's area of impact and the Tree Farm was outside our area of impact, but we had them all of the elements of a comprehensive plan and had done the due diligence that we felt comfortable to proceed in that direction. The Adalpe piece came in during that process and we felt it was too far along, we had forged a plan and the agreements in advance that it seemed too late to include that and maybe with hindsight it probably should have had different attention. I don't know. But, so historically number one we have never proceeded in this manner. It is allowed by law. It has been done in other places. It just hasn't been done by Meridian and so that is one of the hesitancies, but I guess at this point when you have property that has never desired to be in an area of impact, who has had a historical tie to a different community, it has a tie through taxing districts to that same community and whose access is through that community. It seems that it has some logic to be in there. I would recommend now with costs in hand and Brad do I understand that the cost of what we can do to provide service to what Eagle Sewer District has said is between three and five times greater than the cost of our service? Watson: Mr. President, Madame Mayor, Council Members I have a little bit of an apples and oranges thing going on here based on my conversation with Lynn this afternoon and I apologize for - I don't think I misspoke. Our costs are simply what we would increase our existing infrastructure to be to accommodate this. It has nothing to do with the cost down below the rim. It looks like from this presentation that the Eagle Sewer District did that they are including in that roughly $3 million some of the costs over the hill to serve these properties. I don't know how to delineate that - how much of that $3 million is onsite improvements. I don't even want to speak to it because I didn't work on this study and I haven't discussed it enough with Mr. Moser. It is more. It looks like it is more by any stretch of the imagination any way that you look at it. De Weerd: Mr. President just a follow up. Borton: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Then with that and since the direction in August was to find out some of the associated costs, see if a timeline could be established to get back to those property owners that now maybe is the time for the Council President and I to meet with Eagle's Mayor and Council President to have a discussion on this and I know in our regards we need to know how to plan our services. The time is now for us and I am sure for Eagle if there is any movement with Eagle Island State Park and they need to determine sizes of their system to accommodate over 1 ,000 acres they would need that information too. However, the legislature Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting January 23, 2007 Page 7 of 17 has not designated any funding for the State Park and unless Eagle was going to purchase that and I haven't heard that either, I don't think sewer to even the State Park is in the near future, but we need to have those discussions and we need to get back to you in a timely fashion. If the Council would support that approach so that we can follow up on a discussion that this body had in August, I would certainly be willing to see that that meeting is scheduled and staffs are involved and we have that dialogue. Borton: Madame Mayor before I comment, I think Pete that you raised your hand. I don't know if you wanted to throw something in after Brad. Friedman: Thank you Mr. President, Madame Mayor, and Council Members I just wanted to let you know that I was prepared to address any of the procedural issues with the possible area of impact expansion and how it relates to annexation in our comprehensive plan if you wanted to go there. Otherwise, if we take the lead from the Council President and the Mayor, we would be happy to meet with the City of Eagle and then come back and report everything back to the full Council. We would be happy to do that also. Borton: Can you give us a snapshot or timeframe if we wanted to go forward with an area of impact boundary amendment - expense? Friedman: Yes Mr. President, Madame Mayor, Council Members it would require similar to the Eagle process that Mrs. Ewing was informed of this morning. It would be an amendment to our comprehensive plan land use map and potentially our comprehensive plan. The land use map deadlines, the most recent one just passed which was December 15th; the next one is June 15th. So, that would be the earliest time that we could consider another map amendment. She would have to make an application, similar to anyone else. We would take it through Planning and Zoning and then bring it to you with a recommendation. At that point, if the determination was made by the Council to add this area to our area of impact then we would approach Ada County for an area of impact expansion request and as we know I can't begin to give you the timeline associated with that. Bird: Mr. President. Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: I agree with the Mayor that it probably wouldn't hurt for the President and the Mayor meet with Eagle's people, but as I see it these landowners want to be in Meridian impact area and Mayor is 100 percent right we have never went outside of our impact area, but we have lost millions and millions of tax dollars because of the city to the east coming into our impact area and taking it in the early 1990's. So, I have no problem with that. Whatever the taxpayers, whichever one they want to be associated with I am for - whatever it takes to get Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting January 23, 2007 Page 8 of 17 it done, let's get it done and let's not dink around and be talking about five years from now. Rountree: Mr. President. Borton: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: A couple of comments. One, I think the Ewing and Aldape family have done a great amount of work in compiling their efforts to not be part of Eagle and I think the record is very clear with that and I congratulate Sherrie on being able to pull all of this together and do all of the meetings and get us all that information. I concur with what the Mayor said. I think that it is something that we need to take the next step with Eagle, but I would say that it appears that through Sherrie's efforts that she has (inaudible) the owners in this particular piece of the world out there and they do desire something and I think we owe them at least an opportunity to explore that something. So, I think we need to go talk to Eagle and see what it is going to be like and whether Eagle at that point gets the idea that they need to move forward and maintain this property in their impact area or if we then suggest come to Meridian with an annexation request. But, I think you have done a great job of pulling all of this together and keeping your patience. Ewing: I haven't done that too well. De Weerd: Yes, you have. Borton: You have and I echo Councilman Rountree's comments to you and your family putting all this together. It is frustrating. I know you always just wanted an answer and getting an answer from local government is not always the easiest thing is my understanding. My comments along with Councilman Bird are with the situation where we have got a property where the property owners want to join the City of Meridian and provided us a list of information which supports that rationale. You have got some cost and service issues which indicate Meridian to be the best place to go and then a more philosophical sense for me is what is best for the region and the community, whether or not it goes in one city or not, really what makes sense for the area as a whole and I have had conversations about how topography falls within those concerns and to me the vast majority, almost all of the indicators that I look to support, I being within the City of Meridian while I agree with the Mayor and would be more than happy to meet with Mayor Merrill and their Council President, I wouldn't want there to be any delay in your actions and I support going forward at the very least with the area of impact amendment process, just for the fear that if we meet and set up a meeting to meet then we might meet about a meeting and then meet to prepare a meeting to talk about a meeting and then it is going to be October and you are going to be asking for our direction and I think you deserve more than that. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting January 23, 2007 Page 9 of 17 Ewing: An area of impact request through Meridian or through Eagle? What are you talking about? Rountree: Through Meridian. (Inaudible discussion) Borton: -- meet and discuss the rationale, which clearly supports your request. My guess is what we are going to have is an agreement to disagree and that happens. I don't anticipate Eagle saying oh, now I get it; okay, we understand and we relinquish this portion of our area of impact. We might agree to disagree and that let's go forward that way, but I do respect the planning process that goes with the area of impact establishment and then the comprehensive plan work that goes into that. Like the Council Members here and before us are equally reluctant to annex outside the area of impact. I think good planning requires us to go the other route or at least to give it a chance. I just hope you go forward at least from my perspective on the June 15th schedule and we will meet and report back what we find out. Bird: Mr. President. Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: I would echo that, too, Sherrie. I hope you go forward and I don't like going out of our impact area either. I would like that to be on record, but when the citizens in that impact area want to be in Meridian then I am for it. That is what government is for - for the people. Sometimes we think the people serve the government, but it isn't what it was designed for. Ewing: Thank you. Borton: Pete did you have one thing to add? Friedman: Yes, Mr. President, Madame Mayor, Council Members I actually - just so it is understood that the actual application that Mrs. Ewing would be putting forward to the city would be actually for a comprehensive plan amendment and as part of that comprehensive plan amendment, then if it is the Council's desire to pursue an area of impact expansion then of course we would follow that. But, I think that we need to set up a meeting with Mrs. Ewing and go over some of our requirements and fees and timing and that sort of thing and we are happy to do that with you whenever you are available. Ewing: Okay, thank you. De Weerd: Mr. President. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting January 23, 2007 Page 10 of 17 Borton: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess that said by Pete you might look at what different options they would have and to move forward with the kind of detail that Council would like to have. Friedman: Mr. President, Council Members we will look at that and we have got a couple of other options we have been kicking about that we will bring back to you also, possibly in preparation for a meeting you might have with the City of Eagle. Borton: That would be great. Thanks, Pete. De Weerd: Mr. President. Borton: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess one final thought is I saw in your letter that you had talked to the county and what doesn't make sense is to have a planned community sitting between two cities on an independent sewer system and that certainly is what we don't want to see happen. Borton: Thank you, Sherrie. I appreciate you coming in. Item 4. Split Corridor Status Update and Discussion: Borton: I think Pete is going to lead us off. We all have an updated map of phase one in front of us. Friedman: Thank you Mr. President, Madame Mayor, Members of the Council I have invited representatives from the Highway District here tonight to give you sort of a status update as to where the district is on the design plans for the split corridor, particularly phase one and then possibly kind of an overview of the whole project. There has been some other interesting turns of event that came to light, I believe, at the joint meeting that Council and Mayor had with the District here a couple of weeks ago and I thought the time was right just to let the Council know where the District is at. So, tonight we have invited Justin Bledsoe, who is Project Manager here and I think he will handle it. Sabrina Bowman is also here from the District and Gary Inselman is here. I don't know if Gary is here for specifically this project or some others, but I think Justin is going to be taking the lead on this one. Bledsoe: Mr. President, Madame Mayor, and Council Members we are in the design process for the phase one split corridor. As he said my name is Justin Bledsoe and have been assigned as the Project Manager. Six Mile Engineering is designing the project for us right now. We are scheduled to be complete in Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting January 23, 2007 Page 11 of 17 design around July, end of July. We are about 50 percent design at this time. You should have a map of - this was the concept that was presented to us through Six Mile. This is what have progressed to at this point, which we in the last six months we got traffic counts; we have gone off the (inaudible) study. Almost everything you see here is based off of that study except for the extension portion beyond Franklin which goes up to Idaho. The reason this portion was added into the project had to do with the traffic volumes of Franklin and Main. As you know right now there are two lanes that go through the Franklin intersection, but the right lane ends rather abruptly and the traffic studies indicate that only six percent of the through lane that travels north use that lane and once the phase one was done, the intersection would be over capacity. So, we tried to look at what options we had to make the Franklin, Main intersection function until phase two was built. The portion north of Franklin is just striping and signing of projects and is temporary until phase two happens or until the Ten Mile Interchange is constructed in the Ten Mile project, which is off the COMPASS models bases that traffic volume should drop in this area. We can go back out to the intersection, redo some traffic counts and determine whether the intersection would function without the two northbound lanes. We are currently working with a developer off of Waltman for participation in this project. The project currently is scheduled for construction in 2009. What they would like is a project be constructed and opened by October 2008. We are working on an agreement with them and going through construction analysis to see if that would work. We think it will work and we are working to make that happen. Phase two and our five year work program, Plan B, which is not adopted by a Commission yet. We have moved the phase two portion up from PD of construction to 2012 and then moved professional service up to 2008, 2009. The Highway District would like to get this design underway for phase two so that those developments that are coming in and off of Meridian Road we would have a better idea of what we would need for right-of-way and looking at possibilities of - getting design done would only allow us more information to lead up to the construction. So, it is kind of an overview of where we are at for the project. I thought that if there is any questions that I can try to answer those. Borton: Thank you, Justin. Council any questions? De Weerd: Mr. President. Borton: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Only what can we do to help that private partnership along? Bledsoe: Right now it is just a race - it is just racing time. We believe the October of 2008 is doable. We are working on the agreement. It is just a matter of getting through the design. There is minimal right-of-way for phase one, so we don't expect too many delays there and we think it will work and we are working Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting January 23, 2007 Page 12 of 17 to make that happen. At this time I don't see anything that the City of Meridian could do to progress that. Borton: I think Mr. Wardle with MDC has some updates which can answer some of the question. If you want to come forward with regards to any ability to speed up the public private partnership. Wardle: Thank you Mr. President, Madame Mayor and Members of the Council. Shaun Wardle, for the record I am the Administrator for the Meridian Development Corporation and would like to thank Justin for his presentation and also to thank staff Pete as well as Matt for working hard on this project. In terms of moving this project up an entire year, ACHD has been working diligently at the staff level to come to an agreement with the developer who has a 38 acre project, which is currently in your planning process. One of the things that will happen there is potentially some partnership and the Meridian Development Corporation is looking at the ability to enter into the partnership in terms of some landscaping arrangements, which are not programmed in the current construction budget. These are very preliminary discussions and I hope to generate some additional discussions with both ACHD and staff and bring that back both to the Meridian Development Corporation Board and to the City Council at such a time. I can tell you right now that none of those discussions are holding up any of the process and that ACHD is doing the best job that it can to find out if it is even feasible to meet that fall 2008 deadline. But there will be some additional discussions in terms of landscaping - some of the discussions that we have had in the past in terms of a partnership - I do not have dollar figures to bring forward today, but we will have those in the future. I will stand for any questions. I may make one additional statement on phase two. The MDC is obviously interested in moving up phase two - ACHD has moved that almost an entire year in its design phase and so one of the things that the Development Corporation is very interested in doing is making sure that it stays in that design phase and is trying to find a way through partnership or potential funding to make that not only stay, but potentially move up a little bit in the process. Zaremba: Mr. President. Borton: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Mr. Wardle in a joint meeting of the City Council and ACHD Commission, you expressed concern about the portion north of Franklin during the transition between phase one being completed before phase two was being done. They were going to do some further study and I believe you were going to be involved in that. Is what we are being shown here an improvement over what was alarming you before? Wardle: Mr. President, Councilman Zaremba the initial discussions that we had at the Highway District joint meeting - this is the follow up meeting to that - to Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting January 23, 2007 Page 13 of 17 find out what the Council's real feel is. I can tell you that the Meridian Development Corporation Board at its January meeting wanted an update and had some specific concerns over the walk-ability of downtown. The downtown Meridian transportation study and the resulting plan, which was the split corridor that has now been split into two phases was designed to sustain the walk-ability of Main Street. If you remember the plan that is essentially why the transition happens at Ada Street and continues a five lane traffic on Meridian Road so that Main Street remains pedestrian walk-able. The concern I believe that I have heard expressed from the Council and from the Corporation Board is -- there the ability transition that traffic, that two lanes of northbound traffic -- is there the ability to transition that before it enters the railroad tracks area? Which is essentially the downtown cores - the ability to move the center lane of traffic back to a turn lane at Sauer or at Ada, which would traditionally be that split corridor crossover. I don't believe that they have run any models because none of the elected bodies have really asked that question. So, I believe that ACHD is asking for your input on that specifically. Bledsoe: Mr. President, Madame Mayor and Council Members, we did briefly take a look at that chose not to for a few reasons. One has to do with traffic patterns, typically in Idaho - when people know a lane drops that they tend to shift to the other lane, which is the whole reason of extending it. So, we wanted to get as far an extension as we could to allow traffic to taper off at the different roads. Idaho was picked as the conclusion point for a few reasons. One it has a signal that the left lanes could be trapped and then continue on and then also has the signal on Meridian so if people wanted to come back on Meridian or cross Meridian, they come into two signaled intersection. The third reason would be because Idaho is classified as a collector where Sauer would be a residential street. De Weerd: That is Pine Street, right? Bledsoe: Pine, yes. I am sorry. One of the reasons we looked at whether we could drop it earlier and we felt to make the Franklin intersection function until phase two that this would be the best option. That is how we came to the conclusion of where we are at. Borton: Thanks, Justin. Canning: Mr. President. Borton: Anna. Canning: May I comment on that a bit? Borton: Please. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting January 23, 2007 Page 14 of 17 Canning: Mr. President, Madame Mayor and Members of the Council having sat through the steering committee for that downtown transportation management plan and reviewed all those criteria and reviewed how each plan met those criteria, I really believe that this change is fundamentally in conflict with the downtown Meridian transportation plan - that pedestrian walk-ability was the basis of the plan and this negates that. Now, I know they say it is temporary, but we really considered those phase one verses phase two improvements to make sure that we weren't possibly getting ourselves into a situation where phase two never happened and then we are left with a non-workable solution for making downtown a pedestrian oriented area. Now, I know there are issues with Franklin failing, but it seems to me you are being asked make downtown fail in order to let Franklin Road intersection survive and I just wanted to reemphasize the importance of that decision. I think it's a key change to this plan. Borton: Yes, Justin. Bledsoe: Mr. President, Madame Mayor and Council Members. I understand the concern of the pedestrians. One thing I would first emphasize is that this is just a temporary measure, but in no way is phase two looked at going away or if anything we are working on moving it up and progressing it. Just to give you an idea of what the two lane (inaudible) means for the Franklin intersection. It is estimated to reduce the amount of waiting time for a vehicle by 50 percent. So, it is a substantial increase in the capacity of the intersection. As for pedestrian use, I wouldn't say it was changing anything pedestrian (inaudible) - when we look at a roadway, you really have a three lane roadway now. Just that one of them was used as a center turn lane. All we are doing is changing the center turn lane into a travel lane. Center turn lanes are not used as for pedestrians. We wouldn't be removing any sidewalks and then when phase two comes, we would chip it back, if not before that if the traffic shows that we can make the intersection function at capacity. Borton: Council, any questions, comments or concerns? De Weerd: Mr. President. Borton: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess it does raise the question - in phase two then is Main Street to remain a three lane with the center as a turn lane? Bledsoe: Correct. If you look on the third diagram, it is the one that was prepared earlier that Main Street doesn't change at all until you come down to where you have - where it splits over. That Main Street will stay the same Main Street it is now, it is the Meridian Road which would go from a two lane to a five lane section. It doesn't show anything further - there is no plans to change Main Street. At that point we would just be re-striping the way it was before. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting January 23, 2007 Page 15 of 17 Borton: Thank you Justin. Any other questions or comments? De Weerd: Mr. President. Borton: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I see we have a transportation task force member here. Did he have any questions? No, okay. Nice to see you by the way. Borton: Well, we appreciate the hard work and in particular the cooperation with ACHD - (Tape turned over) Borton: -- MDC and (inaudible) developers in trying to move this process forward. We have heard very recently lots of the challenges that ACHD is faced with financially, with its impact fee collection and projects are getting whittled down even more and more. So, the efforts that these different bodies are taking are greatly appreciated. I am sensitive and share some of the concerns that Anna has with regards to making sure downtown remains pedestrian friendly at least during the transition. I think that if we all keep that in the forefront of our attention when we have these meetings and updates and discussions and remind each other in the various bodies involved that that is a paramount concern for the City of Meridian and we could envision what the final build out of downtown is and want to make sure that we preserve that pedestrian friendly atmosphere along Main Street. But I think today that is being maintained and that concern is certainly shared by everybody. De Weerd: Mr. President. Borton: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess one last question. You are moving the light from Idaho to Broadway? All I would ask is as we work on the re-development plans that those lights are a little bit more friendly to pedestrians, which might have a certain at least offset if those two lanes are going north and that with the re-development on Broadway on both sides of the street, I think that the moving of that light on Idaho to the south to Broadway makes that more important and that the lights are a little bit more responsive when a pedestrian wants across or however the timing works on that because I will tell you what as you are standing there as a pedestrian trying to cross the street, it seems like forever to have that light turn. So, again, if the goal - you know it is a give and take and if we can figure out maybe some ways to move pedestrians across the street that would be a great help as well. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting January 23, 2007 Page 16 of 17 Zaremba: Mr. President. Borton: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Madame Mayor a comment on that. Since I have designed some transportation systems in San Francisco. I will comment on how they give preference to pedestrians. Their signalization is set so that the walk signal for the pedestrians is three seconds ahead of the green for automobiles and other vehicles, which gives the pedestrians possession of the crosswalks long before anybody can move the vehicle into them and I don't know whether that would work well here or not, but it certainly favors the pedestrians in San Francisco. Borton: To the extent that I (inaudible) at a law firm at the corner of Idaho and Main where that traffic light makes you wait and stare at the sign of our business, it is okay. I don't mind any pedestrian that loiters on that corner and looks up and might come on in and visit. De Weerd: We are not looking up; I can tell you that unless it is in prayer. Borton: Mr. Wardle. Wardle: Mr. President, if I can just get a clarification on the pedestrian traffic downtown. I know currently that pedestrians - that you know traffic is typically stopped and the pedestrians can gain access simply by walking across the street through cross traffic. Hopefully the transportation model will move a little more traffic and the one question I had for Justin is I know that the light relocation is to Broadway, but is there going to remain a pedestrian crossing at Idaho? Is that in the plan or is it considered? Bledsoe: Mr. President, Madame Mayor and Council Members what we have agreed to at this time in our traffic department is doing a signal warrant for both of those locations to determine whether, one there should be a light added and two, if the light should be removed and until those signal warrants are completed, I can't comment on what would happen. They would definitely take into account pedestrian movements across the streets. De Weerd: Mr. President. Justin with that, taking into account the developments on both sides of Broadway that will increase the pedestrian traffic. Bledsoe: I couldn't fully count - say what our traffic department looks at in their signal warrants, but I am sure they look at the surrounding areas and the need - I do know that they are currently doing traffic warrant analysis to determine if to add a signal and if to remove a signal. De Weerd: So, now I just have to go one block down to the cross the streets, so I am counted at the right intersection, huh? Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting January 23, 2007 Page 17 of 17 Bledsoe: When you see those things across the road, just drive across them a few extra times. Move the numbers up. Bird: Well, we don't have an ordinance against jaywalking - Borton: Thank you Justin, we appreciate it. If there is no other questions or comments that brings us to the end of our Pre-Council agenda. Bird: Mr. President. Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we adjourn the Pre-Council. Zaremba: Second. Borton: It has been moved and seconded to adjourn. All those in favor say aye. ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6:55 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) A TTESTED:JI dt-A WILLIAM G. BERG,