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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-07-22 Work Session Meridian City Council Work Session July 22, 2025. A Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 22, 2025, by Mayor Robert Simison. Members Present: Robert Simison, Luke Cavener, Liz Strader, John Overton, Doug Taylor, Anne Little Roberts and Brian Whitlock. Members Absent: Liz Strader. Other Present: Tina Lomeli, Bill Nary, Tracy Basterrechea, Steve Taulbee and Dean Willis. ROLL-CALL ATTENDANCE Liz Strader X Brian Whitlock Anne Little Roberts X John Overton _X_ Doug Taylor _X_Luke Cavener X Mayor Robert E. Simison Simison: Council, we will call this meeting to order. For the record it is almost 4:30 by one clock and it's 4:32 by another. So, we are going to go with 4:30 right now. Call this -- the City Council work session to order. Start off with roll call attendance. Simison: Councilman Whitlock, are you able to hear us? So we will be without Councilman Whitlock, but we will reach out to him and try to get him re-engaged for purposes of our quorum. Clerk: And Mayor Simison. Simison: Here. ADOPTION OF AGENDA Simison: Next up is adoption of the agenda. Cavener: Mr. Mayor. Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: I move we adopt the agenda as presented. Overton: Second. Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 2 of 24 Simison: Have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? Oh, there he is. Okay. So, Councilman Whitlock is with us. All ayes and the agenda is agreed to. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] 1. Alpine Surgical Arts Water Main Easement (ESMT-2025-0080) 2. Apex Northwest Subdivision No. 6 Water Main Easement (ESMT- 2025-0081) 3. Buildings T101 & T102 Sanitary Sewer and Water Main Easement (ESMT-2025-0083) 4. Buildings T101 & T102 Water Main Easement No. 1 (ESMT-2025-0084) 5. Final Plat for Centerville Subdivision No. 3 (FP-2025-0008), by Kent Brown, Kent Brown Planning Services, located at 5200 W. Hillsdale Ave. 6. Final Plat for Horse Meadows #3 (Aka Pivot Pointe) (FP-2025-0012), by KB Homes, generally located south of W. Pine Ave., and east of N. Black Cat Rd. 7. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for PAW Subdivision (H-2024- 0073) by Kent Brown, Kent Brown Planning Services, located at 1680 W. Ustick Rd. 8. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Springday Subdivision (H- 2024-0069) by Engineering Solutions, LLP., located at North side of W. Ustick Rd., 114 mile West of N. Black Cat Rd. 9. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Virgin Mary & St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church (H-2025-0015) by Virgin Mary & St. Mark COC, located at 4383 N. Locust Grove. Rd. 10. Order for Baratza Subdivision No. 1, by The Land Group, located at the southeast corner of N. Black Cat Rd. and W. McMillan Rd. 11. Resolution No. 25-2527: A Resolution Approving Adoption of the Community Development Block Grant Program Year 2025 Action Plan and Submission to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development; Authorizing the Mayor and City Clerk to Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 3 of 24 Execute and Attest the Same on Behalf of the City of Meridian; and Providing an Effective Date Simison: Next up is the Consent Agenda. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Move we approve the Consent Agenda. For the Mayor to sign and the Clerk to attest. Overton: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the Consent Agenda is agreed to. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. ITEMS MOVED FROM THE CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] Simison: There were no items moved from the Consent Agenda. DEPARTMENT REPORTS 12. Destination Downtown Discussion Simison: So, I will move on to Item 12, Department Reports, and the first item up is Destination Downtown discussion. So, as -- it looks like -- Chris, are you coming up? But I'm going to first send this over to Councilman Taylor just for a quick introduction on this conversation. Taylor: Thank you, Mayor, colleagues and MDC board commissioners who are here as well. Just want to take a moment and kind of recap sort of where we are at and what the next steps are with the Destination Downtown plan. First off I want to thank Ashley for working with us in a way to try to work towards the goal and appreciate your memo. I think the memo she put together is pretty clear about sort of what our -- our goal is that we are striving for. As stated this is updating the -- our urban renewal agency's Destination Downtown plan with working towards the goal of -- is this something that the city can also adopt, not just our urban renewal agency, but something that the city can put our arms around. This is a draft document that has been out for a number of months. There has been a lot of work, a lot of resources put into it. There is a lot to digest. So, what we have decided to do is to divide up this plan in a number of topics and we will tackle it in a work session once a month for the next five, six months as we dive into it. This gives Council an opportunity to have a -- more of a digestible format to Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 4 of 24 get our arms around that. To be clear, I think so we understand expectations, what we are providing here is feedback, not necessarily our recommendations, but this is feedback for MDC, because this is an MDC document. So, we -- we -- the goal being to provide feedback that MDC can, then, take and modify the plan how they choose and we will see whatever the final product is when we get done. But I think the expectation from -- for us tonight is to provide our feedback. We are an important constituency for MDC in this and so not to take ownership of it, but to provide the feedback and, then, when we get to the end of -- of the process we will see where we are and -- and how that's viewed. So, there are some commissioners -- I think it would be appropriate for any of them, if they -- if we have some questions, if they want to chime in on the process as well. But with that I think we can kind of just dive into it and it's, again, a pretty -- I think we envisioned an open back and forth dialogue with providing some constructive feedback, so thank you, Mayor. Simison: Thank you, Councilman Taylor. Danley: Okay. Hopefully you can hear me well. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. Appreciate all the leadership getting us back here. It's been a minute, but we are excited to certainly start this process off and have a discussion today about parking and, then, moving forward as mentioned by Councilman Taylor other subjects as we go. As a reminder my name is Chris Danley. I am the project manager for and on behalf of MDC with respect to Destination Downtown and I have been local here for a long time and certainly have appreciated this project. It was a lot of fun, a lot of interesting things and moving parts. Online I believe it should be Owen. I -- I will let him introduce himself. Owen is with Rick Williams and Associates. Him and his team really headed up the parking effort and he is going to be instrumental in answering a lot of the questions that you all have. So, I will give him a moment. Owen, hopefully you are on with us and have a chance to introduce yourself. Ronchelli: Yes. Hello. Owen Ronchelli here with Rick Williams Consulting and -- and we were very pleased to be a part of this project. It was a lot of fun and we worked with a great committee, too, and I think we got a lot of really good input from the downtown stakeholders and, hopefully, that is well captured in kind of the recommendations and strategies that we outlined in this report. So, again, as Chris said, I'm here to answer questions that you guys might have, but I will sit in the background and let him run the show in the meantime. So, thanks very much for having me be here today. Danley: Thank you, Owen. So, my intent today is just to keep this presentation very quick and high level. It's really about you and this conversation, but I want to make sure to honor the process and give you some of that background information that I think would be important and relevant before we get into any questions. So, what is our purpose here today? I think is -- as mentioned, it's really to get your reaction and to answer any questions that you might have and also to get some suggestions with respect to the content and also set us up for next steps and I think just give us some directions on the next meeting that will be in front of you in about five or six weeks. So, real quick. So, big picture before we totally dive into the parking, just as a reminder in Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 5 of 24 terms of all the outreach and the ways in which information was gleaned and collected. We had a number of different methods to do that for all of the subjects, including parking. So, we had multiple stakeholder meetings with lots of stakeholders, whether it was council members, different commissioners from different -- your Planning and Zoning Commission, business owners, employers on and on and on in order to get good information at the outset. We participated in community events. Dairy Days and Oktoberfest being both of those. We had an opportunity to engage the public that way and -- and parking was certainly a subject that was on the forefront of a lot of people's minds and we had questions regarding parking at both events. We had online questionnaires and surveys, some of which were broader with respect to all of the ambitions of destination downtown, while others were, again, more specific to parking. But, really, again, because this was such a major task in and of itself, it really began with Owen and Rick Williams team and the creation of some subgroups. So, I will go over a little bit about what that looked like and then -- then give Owen an opportunity to add anything at the end of this slide should he want to. The creation of the subgroups was really paramount to moving forward over -- I believe it was -- I want to say about a seven or eight month process specific to parking. So, that -- that subgroup, again, compiled numerous parties, folks that were on the MDC board, folks that were on the council at the time and many others, who know downtown parking and they got together multiple times throughout the duration. I think it was four different times. Rick Williams and his team -- and their team created six different working papers. Attached to your work session documentation was the final work session -- or work paper in addition to the content that was in the actual Destination Downtown plan. So, you got two documents. The final work paper was really kind of the kit and caboodle, but if you want to see more about parking we have more for you, as that lead in as the process unfolded and really was topical in nature. Their team also did a code audit and parking operations overview. So, they got a sense of what are your policies. How do you handle parking. Interviewing staff. You know, interviewing folks who understand with the police department and others how that enforcement arm looks and so that was a very big piece of it. Then came the utilization audit and the actual survey. So, they came to town, spent several days and just canvassed the entire geography and really got a good sense of not only where all the parking is available, who owns it and how is it being used and when is it being used. So, that was very important. And, then, of course, the survey was -- was also key, which was to understand people's general sentiment around parking, where they thought it might be available, where they thought it might not be available and on and on and on. So, all of that information really went into what you saw in your final work session document, which was the plan slash recommendations. Owen, was there anything that I missed on that? Ronchelli: No. I think that -- that was a great summary. You know, I -- I think -- and just so -- putting in perspective those -- those working papers, those white papers that we did, we did a parking 101. We did a policy in code. We did the operations -- just general operations piece. And, then, understanding the current parking environment, which was, essentially, a data collection effort and the -- the summary results and, then, we talked a little bit about the parking experience, what it -- what it's like for the user as you had stated and, then, the last piece was about emerging technologies and as Chris Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 6 of 24 well stated, you know, all of these were kind of wrapped together to create the final parking master plan, which is -- is essentially what is in front of you now. So, there was a lot of work that went into it and, again, input from the stakeholders as we went along. but really kind of a thorough approach to how we can tackle parking for -- for Meridian. Danley: Thanks, Owen. And I would just say should you want any of those white papers we will certainly be happy to pass them on. A lot of great work went into them, but it's definitely a lot. So, be prepared for a lot of parking discussions. But, again, happy to -- to pass those on should you wish. In addition to all the information gathering the subgroup was, then, used to create the parking goals. Pretty straightforward. I don't think I need to read off too many of them. Just a couple worth highlighting though. The notion of -- of being convenient; right? That's one of those things where if you know sort of urban transportation you know that in a downtown environment a sizeable percentage at any given time is just circling looking for parking. So, if it's well -- you know, available, it's -- it's known, it's signed, it's clear and -- and so forth and that really is one of those ways to help mitigate some of that -- in this case the traffic issues. Safe -- you know, another one viable and -- and so forth. So, again, I'm not going to belabor the point, but at the outset there were goals established as to how this final plan looked and what it needed to address. So, reminder, here is the geography -- the visual geography to the right. Almost 4,000 available parking stalls in the study area specific for the parking element, as you -- as a quick reminder our task overall was a geography much larger than the downtown traditional city core, but this parking element was much more focused on the historic downtown if you will. How those 4,000 or so stalls are broken up you can see bulleted on the slides in front of you, but a lot of different ones, including yourself and COMPASS in the government realm with about 300 weekday and weekend use varied from about 33 percent up to about half during weekday and weekend, about 18 up to almost about a third. So, that might come as a surprise to you. That might -- that usually does. People often hear there is just no parking or there is that perception that there is no parking. Often what they mean is there is no parking directly in front of my bumper, right, as opposed to it might be a block over or, you know, it might not be as obvious. That does not mean that there aren't particular parts of downtown that are busier with respect to parking. There certainly are. You know them. You I'm sure see them, hear about them all the time. But there are a lot of other places that are not parked or used as often or turnover as often. So, the one more thing I wanted to add -- and I think this would be an appropriate place for Owen to add -- is this notion of this 85th or 85 percent goal of parking -- is something I learned in the process. Owen, can you share a little bit about what that is and why that's a general, you know, sort of bar for a city to -- to try and reach? Ronchelli: Yeah. I think, you know, the 85 percent rule is kind of an adopted industry standard that says, you know, when your parking supply becomes 85 percent or -- or greater occupied that's when it becomes -- it becomes a -- it has a negative impact on the user experience. They are -- they are coming to, you know, the parking supply and they are looking for space and they can't find it. So, they end up circling a block. It creates added congestion, creates frustration on their part and -- and kind of taints the -- the initial experience with -- within that -- that parking area and let's call it a downtown in Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 7 of 24 this case, but -- so, the idea is is that when things reach that kind of constrained level we want to look at different kind of strategies that we can use to either mitigate some of that demand or spread some of that demand to areas where there is surplus parking and so it's a little hard to see, but on the -- the maps that are on the slide in front of you we use color to demonstrate the levels of occupancy and so those red -- we have -- we have highlighted both block faces and -- and the lots shown in red are those that are 85 percent or more occupied. Then it -- it grades downward and so that orange is kind of the -- it's kind of the sweet spot. We kind of want to see parking supplies between 70 and 80 percent, 84 percent, because it shows that there is robust level of activity, but at the same time parking is still easily found by the user, but also it really does support good retail use and it's also sought after by retailers or just ground floor active uses that want to locate in those locations. You have heard about folks that stand out on a corner and -- and will do pedestrian counts in a downtown to know whether or not a business should locate in a particular area. Well, the same thing goes for a parking supply. If it's between 70 and 84 percent, that's -- that's what people really want to see, because they know there is available parking, but they also know that something really good is happening in that area to draw as many people that it is. So, that 85 percent level, as Chris alluded to, is -- is kind of the point at which we -- action should be taken or at least be considered in terms of implementing some sort of strategy to alleviate that congestion and, typically, we try to use the existing supply. We -- we don't advocate for additional parking, unless it's kind of a last result, because building parking is expensive and we would rather have active uses in our downtown, rather than vehicle storage. Danley: Great. Thank you, Owen. I don't know about you, but I can't think of too many more riveting things than to sit and stand at a parking stall to see if it's occupied, but I'm very glad that Owen and his team volunteered and got paid to do that. But, thank you, Owen. I want to point out, though, one of the things that you note here -- you might see is that if the objective is even at 70 percent on the low end -- so the peak -- during the peak at 52 percent you still have 20 roughly percent of available parking as a buffer between where it is today versus where we need -- or we want it to be even at the bottom end of it being optimally used. So, that's -- that's great. So, I'm kind of giving you a bit of a prelude to what the findings were and I think overall the findings I think were pretty darn positive. That is that while, yes, as mentioned and as -- as, again, Owen and his team saw, there are hotspots, but overall there is lots of available parking. There aren't -- there is not -- I repeat there is not a need for some of the radical actions that maybe have been in the news in the last six months with respect to parking in downtown. You probably have seen some of that. But you don't have to do that. There is other strategies and things that can be employed in the meantime for actually the foreseeable future to maintain the parking that we have, but to optimize it as much as possible and this chart on the right -- this table is I think really well done by the team in all of the different recommendations and this is just a summary. The document that you saw, that final working paper, goes into each of these recommendations with much more detail and describes exactly what it is, the general timelines, the general cost assumptions and so forth and Owen and his team's recommendation with respect to the timing of when that ought to be pursued; right? In -- in terms of trying to optimize the parking that you have available. So, all of that stuff is included. No garage. No parking Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 8 of 24 garage. No metering. A few other little elements that may be worth considering. EV parking, bike parking and other things, but this table and really, again, that document that you saw is the heart of the results of all that hard work over several months, all the sub holder or sub group work, all the survey and analysis that went into it and, really, what came out of it. So, this gets me to the point here, which is these are recommendations made by certainly parking professionals and experts that know this inside and out. That does not mean, though, that it isn't subject to possible tweaks and adjustments, how you see fit and how maybe it fits really well with what you know, of course, about the City of Meridian regarding budget, staffing, prioritization and on and on and on. So, that's really what, you know, we are here to be able to discuss questions that we can answer and ultimately if there is any adjustments that need to be made, make them and move forward and implement. So, with that I would stand for any questions or comments and probably pass many of them on to Owen. Simison: Thank you. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Chris, thank you. One of my questions I was kind of curious -- I'm intrigued by the idea of getting employees to park in places that don't intrude on the residential parking preferences for customers and things like that. When it came to who was occupying which space, did you have any sense of like where a lot of the parking spaces, especially in sort of the -- the red highlighted areas, there are a lot of employees parking in those spots? Did you have any sense of like who was actually using it? Danley: I will certainly let Owen answer this question, but real quickly I just -- knowing the downtown environments of Meridian and -- and every other downtown in the valley here, certainly the distance matters, right, in this -- that proximity from door to door. I -- as anecdotally former personal trainer would watch my clients, who were going to work out for an hour with me, try to find the closest parking stall to the front door and I just never understood that; right? Here to burn a calorie. But that's human nature; right? And so the rule of thumb often is as close as we can get is -- is typically, you know, our default. But I will certainly -- Owen, what do you have to add to that? Ronchelli: Yeah. I mean that's -- that's part of the reason why we do a turnover study and where we are actually looking at a vehicle's license plate to know how long it's actually parked there and so that is one thing that we -- based on how -- we don't know this for certain, because we don't sit and wait by a vehicle to see who is coming and going per se, but based typically on -- on the parking behavior and how long they have parked there we can make some assumptions as to whether or not that might be an employee or not. You know, one thing that I have found, we -- there is the average time stay of a user in -- in some of those non-time limited stalls is like three and a half hours and, again, this is an average, so that means that some folks are staying there quite a Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 9 of 24 bit longer, whereas some are turning over and so, typically, those tend to be the employees and so we thought that the best way of managing -- there are -- we have identified certain areas on street where it might be okay for employees to park. Ideally we would want them parking around the -- the outskirts of downtown, away from where ground level active uses are and so using timed parking we thought was a -- was a good way of doing that. We don't want to force people to -- to stay any -- what am I trying to say? We -- we didn't want to force people out of a parking stall that want to stay there longer, we want to make sure that they, too, have also good parking options available to them. But we want that downtown kind of core central area to be regularly turning over, so our -- so our business owners can have as much business as possible and have -- and our -- and our customers have the most, you know, convenient parking stalls available to them. Taylor: Mr. Mayor, quick follow up? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Kind of curious about timed parking and enforcement and I'm kind of curious from your perspective as experts in this field, which I am not, is there a way where you can put up signage about -- these are time spots without the penalty of enforcement and that behavior starts to change, because they say, oh, this is 30 minutes or this is 60 minute parking only and I'm going to self regulate or is that your guys' experience that you have to have some kind of enforcement penalty for people to actually change behavior when it comes to parking? Danley: So, great -- Ronchelli: Excellent -- Donley: -- great question. Go ahead, Owen. I was just going to immediately go to you. Ronchelli: Yeah. I was just going to say that's an excellent question and I have a -- a caveated answer for you. I would say that it -- it can work well for visitors, especially infrequent visitors to a downtown. So, if it's -- if a -- if a downtown community is -- is kind of touristed based, a lot of that signage will work pretty well. You can put up time signs and saying you can park here for three hours and people -- those visitors will mostly adhere to that. However, if it's a regular user who comes downtown often or it's an employee, they will learn that there are no repercussions for staying for four hours or five hours in that three hour stall. Or they know that they are not going to get a citation that behavior kind of deteriorates quickly and, then, you will see that over time it won't take long for -- for most folks to just ignore those posted time saves without some sort of periodic enforcement and that's why one of the strategies that we recommended here was not regular or active enforcement, but something that is periodic or infrequent where folks will go through and -- and making sure that people are complying with those posted time limits. Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 10 of 24 Danley: Follow up real quick to your -- here is just when you look at the recommendations and knowing what I have known from this project, it seems -- and, Owen, if you have anything to add on this by all means, but there is -- there are some -- I would argue sort of like specific pillars, if you will, or topics that many of these fall under and a couple of them get directly to your point, Councilman Taylor, and that is consistency and -- and time and signage and making sure that it's very clear, right, and that everybody -- everywhere in our downtown environment is known to have a certain, hey, two hours. This is all two hours. It's -- there is no ambiguity there; right? There is an occasional, you know, if it comes to it we got to enforce it somehow, whether it's warning, whether it's the next step, whatever the case may be. But, really, if you could summarize, a lot of it has a lot to do with consistency of just making sure the entire system is very consistent and all of what that can mean. Overton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Overton. Overton: Just a little -- a little background before I start. So, I was asking Ashley tonight -- I think it was about 15 years ago when I first sat on the first parking subcommittee and I was wearing a different hat back then and the city looked a lot different than it does today and we were trying to determine what we were going to do with downtown parking at that time and it wasn't a matter of not having enough, it was who was parking there. In fact, one of the biggest feuds we had ten to 15 years ago was two business owners on Idaho Street that got into battles because they each wanted to park in front of each other's business to the point it got personal and we got called many times for that. Now, we got through that, everybody matured or left -- left is a better description. But what we have had to deal with as the city's grown is we have -- we have dealt with a cultural shift from small town Meridian to bigger town Meridian and before I ask questions or go into anything else, I will tell you just a month ago my wife and I came downtown for dinner and I drove around the block and, then, I drove around another block and she asked me -- you are smiling. Why are you smiling? I said because it's full. See, I look at that as downtown is doing much better and we are starting to see it fill up in the evenings. This was dinner time and it was doing really well. And the parking spaces available to me were within a block, but you had to walk a half block to a block and we have a city that's not used to that. When you used to go to the old barber shop on Idaho Street you could park within sight of it. So, a lot of what we are dealing with is -- is training our own residents and people that come here that the city's changing and parking a block away or a block and a half away is okay. That's still not bad. When was on the parking subcommittee as this process started, I always get a little nervous when people come from bigger cities and talk about what parking should be and I was probably defensive when it first started and I will own up to that right now, because when you are coming out of Portland, Oregon, or some other cities and you start talking about Meridian, yeah, I'm going to get my hackles up right away, because this is Meridian and I knew from the onset when we looked at this that we had enough parking and I told Ashley -- I said I think the assumption was that we didn't and when it was all done and said we found out we still do have enough parking downtown for now, but Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 11 of 24 even I acknowledge that there is too many projects, whether it's the civic block, whether it's Union 93, there are still too many projects up in the air that we don't know where downtown parking is going to be and we don't know what those future answers are going to look like, but we know what we have got today, We know what we had five years ago. I think we know through an experiment that we don't have to do as a city -- we don't have to try to look at employing paid parking downtown, because we have been able to watch first hand what's happened in the neighboring city and how that thought kind of turned into a disaster. We see cities that do it successfully. I don't see it working here. I just don't see it working in our downtown. Not now, not in the next ten years. When policy was talked about -- when the subcommittee first started off there were a lot of suggestions about the policies and how we should rewrite a lot of our city code to reflect those policies in the code and, of course, I'm a big believer -- and city attorney sitting right here -- that code should be code and if we needed to write a policy for how we wanted our downtown parking to be, that should be a separate document outside of our code. I just think those need to be separate. It's enough of a process trying to change codes when that happens, that that should be a separate document talking about what you want to see downtown parking to be. We have struggled over those past -- well, 30 years 30 -- 35 years. I forget how long I have been around working with the city. So, let's say 35 years ago we had two hour parking signs in downtown, but unless you had a very bored police officer nobody was enforcing those and, generally speaking, we didn't, unless we were told to. That's just the way it was. Unless there was a problem it wasn't happening. It was mostly just Idaho Street. We have more two hour parking within our downtown. We don't put it on the backs of our police officers today. We have code enforcement. We have community service officers. We have other personnel. But we still to this day don't have dedicated parking enforcement personnel and we are still, I believe, walking around with chalk and coming back after that two hour time frame. So, at best right now you could have a two hour parking to almost a four hour parking before we are going to take any direct enforcement and as a city we have got to talk about sometime in the future when do we want to look at how we upgrade that, because that's probably our first is we can't talk about how we want to add additional parking to our downtown if we want to add more signage, if we don't also talk about -- if we don't have the folks to enforce it the right way, it doesn't matter how many signs we put up. If we are not enforcing it it doesn't take very long before they figure out that we are not following up behind them and although, Doug, I truly wish we could put signs up that would just convince people not to park there for longer than two hours. I just don't see that happening. They will park for four to five hours now in the two hour spots. I think what you guys are doing is great. think there is so much that we don't know right now about the future, about some of our biggest projects that are going to give us additional parking. That -- it's a tough time to really say what's the next step forward. When you showed the maps about red and green I couldn't help but notice that two of the red ones were the post office, which we will all agree with, because we have been trying to get them for years to give us an additional post office in our city so we just have one. And the Cole Christian School, which, of course, when you consider the school was built literally to be a very small elementary school, it was never designed to have parking to handle all those kids, so, Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 12 of 24 obviously, we have got certain areas that transform and change and are not going to have enough parking. But I think when we look at our downtown right now for the next few years I think we are going to continue to have adequate parking. It's going to fill up. We are going to have to have people that are going to have to get used to walking, but, trust me, there is a lot of people around here that could use a couple of blocks of a good walk before dinner or after dinner. I don't think that's a bad thing. So, I appreciate everything you have been doing. I will admit right up front I was a little bit hesitant when you came in from presenting ideas from a bigger city, but I look at the document today and read through it and, mind you, don't give me a 182 page document. That's -- that just kills me. Something that's much much shorter is always appreciated -- that we can get right to the point of what we need to do. What we need to look at. What we need to carry forward. And the fact that in six months we may be wanting to review downtown parking based on where we are at with these projects that are unknowns today. Danley: If I can, Mr. Mayor and Councilman Overton, a great point. Obviously, institutional knowledge goes -- goes a long way back and I think there is a lot of validity in what you said. That's probably a big reason why I like what -- the way that this document in the parking realm particularly was written, because it's almost like a menu. Really is. It's sort of pick what you want. Order what you want. Ideally I think that Owen and his team would say eventually probably the whole thing, but to your point there is a lot of unknowns and uncertain -- and uncertainties there that remain, but that there are some preliminary steps now that can be taken that don't interfere with current operations or don't necessarily have to get into the enforcement realm just yet as mentioned, but do make sure that things are standardized and things are obvious and ends -- and fulfill the very goals that you and -- and everybody else who was on that subcommittee came up with. So, certainly those timelines could change. I'm sitting here as you -- as you were talking I'm thinking about how to draw comparison. My very first meeting that I ever had 20 years ago when I was at ACHD was at the Jabil Circuit building, not for anything to do with Jabil, because Jabil was long gone. It was for the Ten Mile interchange charrette that was happening over the course of a week and I was told that that building had more power to it than any building basically in the state of Idaho, because what was thought to be needed at the time, but has since obviously changed and to your point, yes, not everything is static. So, excellent points. I certain -- I certainly think that there is room to make some strides, but maybe not, again, all of it up front or even in the next couple of years. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Curious if you could speak a little bit, Chris, about some successful strategies that you may have learned from other places about getting employees or employers to get their employees to park in lots, you know -- you know, maybe a block or two away, just so we can prioritize the customer. What kind of strategies have been proven effective, other than saying pretty please? Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 13 of 24 Danley: I think that's as teed up for Owen as we are going to get. Owen, I'm sure you have got lots of stories that -- that can be shared on that one. Ronchelli: Yeah. I mean I think that there is -- there is several different things that -- that can work. I think one of the things that is kind of as grassroots as you can get and I think it's -- it -- it works particularly well in smaller communities is we call it a customer first policy and it was -- it was first done long time ago in Plano, Texas, and -- and a lot of people have borrowed it ever since and applied it to their different communities. But the idea is that it's -- that you -- you are trying to demonstrate to the customer, so it's -- it's kind of a -- it's a goodwill policy and program, but it's also holding each other accountable and so it's business owners getting together and saying that, hey, we want to put our customers first and so they do a little promotion campaign associated with it. You put stickers in your window or little placards up by your cash register to say, you know, we -- we are a business that chooses to put our customers first and what that means is is that we are asking our employees to park in particular locations off street or on the outskirts of downtown, because we care about our customers enough to where we want to make sure that they are getting the -- the premier spaces, the ones that they are -- are parking in front of just our businesses and as part of those rules employers can self -- what do you call it? Self enforce. And so you can see, well, I couldn't help but notice that Greg's parking in front of Liza's business and, you know, you can talk to them about it and say, hey, couldn't help but notice that you are there. We really want to ask you to make sure that you are -- and, then, we go until, you know, Greg that, you know, one of his employees is parking in front of Liza's business. Can you have a conversation with them or something to that effect and it's -- it's done in -- in good faith. The idea is that the community is working together on this and that we want to have a great downtown for our customers and visitors to visit and so -- and, then, you can put up signs that -- you put signs in your window for your business, but you also can put signs on those lots and say that this is a customer first lot and you can have designated employee parking spaces for folks there or have that on street as well and so that tends to be -- it's kind of a warm fuzzy program all the way around and it's usually done through a chamber or some sort of downtown boosters group that gets folks together, rather than something that's, you know, heavily rule based and -- and heavily enforced that type of thing. It's -- it doesn't -- program doesn't really work that way. But it's been proven successful in many communities all over the country really. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Ronchelli: I know that we brought this up with a stakeholder -- the stakeholder group and we got some raised eyebrows and some curiosities with it, so, you know, that could be a -- a good possibility. Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Mr. Mayor, thank you. Chris, appreciate kind of walking us through this. It was our first -- this kind of elephant, one bite at a time each month and so I have a -- a laundry list of questions. I want to be respectful of time. We are about halfway through Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 14 of 24 the time that we have allotted. Help me understand what you, what Administrator Ford's goal is kind of coming out of today. What are you looking for from the Council, then, that will help me refrain or some questions to maybe pose versus maybe taking offline versus your point about feedback, is that about kind of the -- the goals that have been kind of proposed about maybe where all of us feel as a Council make the most sense and doesn't make sense? Help me understand what -- I want to make sure there is a good use of your time. Yes, we are being informed and educated, but there is some action that we are hoping to take at one point after this and I want to make sure that we are helping to facilitate that. Danley: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Cavener, I don't know if Ashley has anything to add. I will just take a stab at that. And I think that the big question is -- here is how does this move forward? And MDC can only do so much; right. We know that clearly specifically in arenas like parking, this is definitely going to be one that -- that the City of Meridian needs to be a bigger stakeholder in than MDC in this particular piece. So, what does it take to get comfortable for you to adopt the document, somehow, some way? By resolution? Is it more formal cited by your Comprehensive Plan? Are there action steps with respect to the code and so forth? And, then, of these recommendations what do you feel comfortable moving forward with, you know, and, again, it's not necessarily you have to commit right here right now or even in the next, you know, month or two or what have you, but it is a good discussion to prompt we -- what is it going to take to try and optimize this parking for as long as we can before it becomes a problem; right? So, that we can prevent this from being a bigger issue. So, really, the question is -- is -- and I'm not trying to deflect, but it is kind of that way is what does it take for you all to feel comfortable taking that next step? Again, maybe it's just by resolution. However it ultimately needs to be for you to be comfortable I think that's where we need to try to be. So, if there is adjustments that need to be made, if there is tweaks that you feel are important, then, I think that's important. I don't know, Ashley, do you have anything to add? You are good? Okay. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Chris, does -- does that mean that you want us kind of go through some of these strategy suggestions that are posed here on this slide? Is that where you want us to -- to begin? Help me -- help me understand kind of what you see as kind of the starting point. Danley: I don't think that we are going to have time to necessarily go through each one of these strategies. I don't recall the number, but I think there is a good thirty of them. I think the bigger question is are -- do you need us to go through these in order to take an action or is this a document that you can cite and, then, take that baton and run the next lap internally within the halls and walls of this building and, of course, with MDC and your business partners and property owners in downtown along for the ride. Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 15 of 24 Cavener: So, maybe, Mr. Mayor, just some, then, feedback, then, for discussion with Council. Many of these strategies that are proposed I'm in lockstep and agreement on. There is a handful that I'm lockstep very much not in agreement on and there are others that I think that require I think some more vetting and -- and flushing out. But I think it does speak at least to maybe where my kind of the overriding question is, because it's -- it's referenced a few times to this and -- and our other speakers referenced as well. This customer first parking approach. Is that considered a nationwide best practice? Is that something that emerged from the stakeholder meeting? Is that something that you -- that emerged from the public engagement? And certainly we want to make it easy and accessible for customers to visit, but, again, if I'm a downtown resident I would say, well, wait, wait, what about me, I should be your priority. So, help me kind of understand how -- because I think a lot of the recommendations are built on this kind of customer first approach. Danley: Right. I will -- I will -- I will have Owen answer this in a second, but I will add at least a couple of pieces before he does. I think that to your point, Commissioner Cavener, this is exactly why, for example, one of the recommendations is to explore the possibility of a residential permit, so -- and so for those neighborhood areas preserving that asphalt that's right in front of their home, so that, you know, other folks aren't clogging that up and we know what kind of contentiousness can result. So, there is a step that maybe isn't even super tight to enforcement per se, at least yet, but is an action step that addresses the issues and needs of residents, while still maintaining the customer first mentality within specifically more of that commercial and retail and government core of what we are trying to do and so I know certainly with respect to the business owners, they are wanting that turnover as much as possible, whether it's the resident from five blocks over who decides to drive or someone from out of town or passing through. So, it is that -- that turnover that is trying to be preserved. Owen, do you have anything add on that? Ronchelli: I mean that was -- that was one of the -- the purpose is -- of creating the guiding principles in the first place was to ask, you know, what is the -- what are the priority users for downtown? What -- who should we be managing our parking to support? What is the highest and best use of our on and off street parking systems? It's not to exclude anyone by any stretch, but it is to say if we are to manage this supply in a way and make it -- make it as usable as possible, who -- who should we be catering to in -- in a kind of a tiered sort of approach and that's kind of it is what a little bit set the stage for some of these strategies in here. The customer first was something that came out as a way of addressing some of that. If we -- and it was actually very similar to the question that was -- was prompted is to say if we don't have enforcement what are -- what are the other ways that we can do some sort of program where we don't have a bunch of employees parking right in front of businesses and that was one that came up as -- as a possibility and I remember voicing it at one time and it got, you know, some positive feedback there and so we -- we -- we included it in one of these strategies as an option here. I think as Chris pointed out, a lot of these strategies are not intended to be radical in any way. I think that the approach here is to create a welcoming space for -- for folks to come downtown to make sure that they have a good space, that things are Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 16 of 24 clearly marked and people have a good understanding of how they should use that space, whether it's for a certain amount of time or not. There is allowances in here we created. There are some policy elements that we did create, that we wanted to create for being able to institute a residential parking permit program, because there was a concern that there might be employee spillover in the neighborhoods and so we try to address that by -- by creating -- laying some groundwork that might be -- that is necessary for being able to start one of those programs if and when down the road that might become an issue and so the idea is that this -- this -- this strategy list is a bit of a road map to -- to say like, okay, this is where you are at now and it can hopefully address some of the issues that might be coming up next five to ten years. Beyond that, you know, you might need something more aggressive I suppose, but that's not what we did with this particular plan here. Danley: I would just add real quick, Commissioner Cavener -- or Councilman Cavener, that a couple of things on this that might be sort of amendable, if you will. If there are a handful of these recommendations that you all look at and go, you know, this is really good, this is going to work great, but a handful that you are going, man, that's just not going to fly, if there is agreement on whatever those are, if there is -- again, if there is -- especially if there is just a few of those, that's clearly something that we can go out and we can remove if it makes everybody feel more comfortable taking the next step of adopting it in whatever way that you want. The other thing that probably can be tweaked is the timing. So, if you think that there is some of these recommendations that should be moved up or down because of whatever the preference is or capacity within the city, then, again, that's something else that can certainly be tweaked and so the rest of it I think -- to Owen's point is it's really an excellent attempt at trying to give you that framework of recommendation and timelines and an expectation of cost, but, ultimately, if that's what it takes for you all to be comfortable given that you are going to be likely the implementer of many of these things, then, that's what should be done. Cavener: Mr. Mayor, if I can? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: To that point that's where I'm trying to figure out where -- where do we take the first step, because something like a -- like a residential parking permit program on the surface isn't something that I would probably be comfortable right now recommending. I think I'm concerned about it from an enforcement standpoint, from an impact on our downtown residents' life and -- and just the added bureaucracy that comes with that. However, right, if -- I was just talking to good Council Member Taylor here -- I would recognize if I live one block away from the 127 Club and I can't get in front of my house on a Saturday night, I might say, hey, that's the only solution that's available. So, it's hard -- it's hard for me to say, yes, we should do this or, no, we shouldn't without kind of hearing from my boss on that and so that's where I understand -- I appreciate this as a recommendation, but it's not something today I'm going to be like, yes, let's get moving on that. Whereas, other things, like I think the signage and the striping, like those are things that we should be doing immediately, because to your Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 17 of 24 point it doesn't appear that we have a parking problem. We have a perceived available parking problem and those are things in the short run I think that we can work to implement right away and so that's where -- I apologize if you keep coming back to this. Help me know where you want us to begin, so that we are giving you guys good feedback that -- you know, we have got many of our MDC commissioners here that are giving up your time, you have spent a significant amount of time, we want to make sure that it's valuable and rewarding for our colleagues as well. Danley: And -- and Mayor and Councilman -- oh, go ahead, Owen. I think you want to jump in. Ronchelli: Sorry. I will try to be brief and it -- points -- points well taken. One of the things in here is that we -- this -- regarding the residential parking permit program is that, again, this is -- this is groundwork for when it is needed and necessary. As a matter of fact, we have language in -- in these recommendations that it has to come from the neighborhood. If -- if -- this is not something the city would impose on a neighborhood ever, but if there is a concern with the neighborhood that they can come forward and say, hey, we have noticed that a lot of employees are parking in front of our residents, and -- but now we have this mechanism in place that we can, you know, do a study and to determine whether that's a problem and, you know, create the signage and to create the -- the permit system itself. There is nothing in here that says that this will be instituted right away or anything like that. As a matter of fact, it's a long-term strategy for implementing something like this and it would only be initiated by the residents themselves, not something that's imposed by the -- the city itself. So, that was just a little piece there. Danley: I think it would be helpful just for what it's worth, is to maybe take -- for you as a council to take this particular table and discuss when it's appropriate -- you know, it's going to -- it's going to take a little bit more time, but discuss what in here you really like and want to elevate, what you like, but it's not quite ready for prime time. What you are questionable about, so let's put that on the back burner and, then, what needs to go? What do you think that -- we are just -- this is just something that's probably not going to fly and if that is a -- that resolution works for you all, then, we can certainly take this document, adjust it as necessary to reflect those thoughts, make sure that everybody's I think on -- on -- and feels good about that and, then, if it's ready for prime time for you all to adopt, then, maybe that's the step forward. So, there is just maybe a recommendation. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Yeah. You know, I liked how you suggested this is kind of a menu of ideas to consider. I do commend the -- the work being that there is no -- there is nothing crazy recommended like, oh, build a 15 million dollar parking structure downtown -- to what end? Right? And a lot of things on here actually would fall under not the city, but I'm Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 18 of 24 thinking, for example, if you did a customer first parking program that would seem like, you know, there was some discussion about a business improvement district. Is that something that they would take on, because business owners are kind of self-regulating their self for the benefit of everybody. I -- I -- I like the idea of maybe thinking on what I would suggest taking out that I don't like. I will tell you just right off the bat, I think the license plate permitting seems -- I don't see myself ever getting around to that, because it's going to be a stretch just to get to maybe having a parking sticker in your window that says, you know, this is reserved for residential parking. I think that's -- just thinking through how to implement that seems unreasonable. Is that a DMV slash city -- I just don't see us ever getting to that. So, I think that doesn't make sense to be in there. I do agree with Councilman Cavener's suggestion about, you know, we have had a lot of discussion about small businesses who are buying homes on the edge of downtown and -- but they are also mixed with residential. So, I think we are going to have some -- a little bit of two worlds colliding where maybe it would make some sense to have that, but I just don't know -- it just seems down the road a little bit. I don't know how we put our arms around that, because that would be expensive and if we did have a permitting program for that we would have to enforce it, otherwise, it would make no sense. So, I'm -- I'm not opposed to keeping the idea in there suggested, but I agree there is -- there is things in here the city would be responsible for and there is things in here that -- a lot of things in here that are our business owners and people downtown need to get organized and coordinated and that would be totally appropriate to leave in this plan. I think as a city we have to kind of decide, you know, are there some things, you know, near term we want to take action. I think Councilman Overton's suggestion or discussion about -- you know, what is -- depending on how these projects pan out we may have a very different parking situation and we don't know what that will look like. So, we want to be open and flexible to that, but, you know, I think I will probably want to be getting back -- and we can probably -- my -- my guess would be we could even just provide this individual feedback to the MDC, you know, to that -- if there is some ideas you don't have right now that you want to digest and get back to them, so they can incorporate that -- those ideas, but there are things here for us, there is a lot of things in here not for us I think. Simison: Councilman Taylor, I think you hit that nail on the head. From my perspective depending upon where you are going to put this document determines in a lot of ways what should be in here. Put it in here purely operational things that goes into a code for development versus not. If you want people to actually -- you want the right people to look at the right stuff at the right time in order to utilize it. You know, most of this is just recommendations from the city on how we should operate. Nothing to do with development, not -- just about what we just talked about. The license plate reader has nothing to do with development. But that's an operational recommendation and, to be honest, our staff has already looked at that and, frankly, that's how we would do it. That is the cheapest, most efficient ways is to use a license plate reader system for a residential parking system. We have already done some of these things and evaluated them, just because we were anticipating that coming online across the street and the impact it was going to have on our residents, we wanted to be prepared with the information about some -- some concepts. So, we have -- we have done some of this Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 19 of 24 advanced work, but depending upon where you live this document for what purpose, think it even matters what's in here and why, you know. That's really not -- if someone's going to do a downtown development they don't need to see -- reset -- you are trying to read through to get to where the -- the meat of the issue is about what they need to know. They don't even know about a license plate reader program for residential purposes. That's the police department, you know. That's community development or that's clerks. So, what's in here and where you put it, I think it helps drive some of the conversations about feedback and if you are going to give feedback I would encourage you to give the feedback, but, then, come back and tell everyone whatever you want to tell about the feedback, so you can have a larger conversation. Because I have got some very -- yeah, we have got things. Infrastructure -- you know, charging infrastructure on -- is it on -- huh-uh. You know, that's just like -- that's the private sector if they want to do that, not on our streets, but that's my opinion. You know, that's not you know, should that be adopted by code? How is Caleb and his team going to -- going to be trying to apply that component if everything in here is just ideas and suggestions versus the things you really want to see implemented in that conversation. So, that's what I'm going to just kind of put out there, is that where -- where it lives and what your intentions are matters based on what you say should be relevant or not relevant. It's been part of my issue with this whole plan in all this, because there is -- it's got so much in here that has nothing to do with downtown developments, about how it operates in a lot of ways. Businesses, how they should do things. How a city should do things. How residents should do things. It's really, you know, where do you want to put ordinances in place and resources to staff to implement those things or ask our partners to do that. So, I will be quiet now. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Yeah. It's a really good point is -- you know, I would -- I could foresee keeping a majority of these recommendations in here as -- as goals to strive towards over the next decade; right? Like eight years from now what's downtown Meridian going to look like? I have no idea. Could look like a bunch of unfinished projects or it could be spectacular with a bunch of new projects and a really vibrant downtown and, then, we have a whole new good problem on our hands. But to that -- to the Mayor's point, if this is something that we are going to be asked to formally accept and, then, the city is committing to implementing it, that's a different sort of set of feedback for you as to what we want to see in it versus what our good recommendations to leave in there for those who -- you know, like I said that the people who are voluntarily participating in this, the business community, et cetera. So, I think it's a lot to think about. You know, I will say this. In my mind I can still provide you some specific feedback in October that's completely relevant, because we are going to be taking this on, you know, month at a time topic by topic for the next six months. So, in my mind I have not envisioned that today's the only day I'm going to talk about parking potentially. This is meant to sort of have the conversation, get the information out, provide some initial feedback, which we have Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 20 of 24 given some, but certainly think we -- we would keep the -- keep the -- keep it open for more specific feedback as we have a chance to kind of dig into it a little bit more. Danley: And I would just add, Mayor and Council, at the end of the day parking is an asset and it's real estate, just like the building that the -- you know, the site that the buildings are located and how can that asset be best maintained, maximized and -- and operated even, you know, to entice development to grow development all the ways that your comp plan downtown, this plan, you know, and the objectives that you have and the partners that you have and so this is where that needs to go; right? Is how do we get that? How does this move forward to the next -- maybe it is a five year, eight year type of a vision, because we know things are going to come online and that even our consumption behaviors have changed; right? We know that that's a big thing that has occurred over the last really five, ten years. Amazon wasn't even around 15, 20 years ago for the most part; right. So, what does that look like in those short term -- especially those short-term actions that can be had immediately, you know, to optimize that real estate and ensure that that asset is -- is grown as much as anything else, so -- Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Yeah. I know we are going to want to be wrapping up here in the next little bit. We have several MDC commissioners here. I think I would like to extend the invitation to any of them who would like to share any perspective as they have gone through all these discussions as they sort of lived it down there. Love to open it up to any of them to share anything. Also Administrator Squyres if she would like to share anything as well. I think it would be appropriate. Simison: Well, as one of them thinks about coming up, the one thing I think that would be helpful -- because I think how -- how often should you go through and look at your parking time components? You know, the -- the main complaints we have gotten about downtown is when the hair salon went in and now they want their people to have four hours of parking, you know, so when the first -- when these -- when our current standards were put in many years ago they haven't really been modified that much over the last 15 years to my knowledge. But should we be looking at it manually every three years or every time a major use changes in that area? And I think that's for our -- as with -- for our planning team to help lead those conversations. What are -- what are those best practices in terms of when to evaluate. Danley: Yeah. I -- Owen, I don't know if you have an answer on the timing of things. just think -- I know having worked in Caldwell, for example, for -- I can't even tell you how many different projects over the years and having listened to the very folks, just like yourself, Councilman Overton, about just folks who were there 30 years ago, 40 years ago, who I recall distinctly telling me how they used to count bullet holes literally in the sides of buildings, because there was just nothing going on and now as you have seen, their biggest issue is parking; right? It's in the news all the time and a lack thereof and Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 21 of 24 they probably took a couple of steps maybe too far and didn't take the steps that maybe we are trying to look at today and trying to prevent some of those steps from having to occur in years from now. So, it is something that is iterative and it's going to flex and change as projects come and go or buildings, you know, are built, but, then, as occupants leave that's going to happen, too. So, it is -- it is a moving target for sure. don't know, Owen, if you had anything you wanted to add? Ronchelli: Just that, you know, I think a lot of communities that don't have like managed parking, it's -- that's typically what you find is there you have got this smattering of different time limits and usually those are done based on, you know, the adjacent land use, whether it's -- it's -- it's a hair salon or a dry cleaners or something to that effect. Like, well, if it's out in front of a dry cleaners we need 15 minute spaces out there or we need 30 minute spaces and, then, eventually that dry cleaners will close and, then, a new business opens and all of a sudden you have got a 15 minute space in front of a restaurant and -- which is not very appropriate for that. So, unless there is some level of management, it's typically not done, is what I would -- would be my response. I think what you should do is every three to five years is -- is do a parking study and to understand how the downtown is working and -- and take a look at what the -- the inventory of your stalls look like and make sure that you are recalibrating it, you know, your desired uses and -- and how you want the system to behave, whether you have extended time limits or if you wanted to have something that's going to be a really quick turnover system. You can design it the way you want it, but it typically doesn't get done unless there is some sort of oversight afforded on a regular basis. Simison: Thank you. Overton: Mr. Mayor, one last -- one last comment. Well, two last comments. First, we have the police chief sitting here and I saw he made eye contact with me and I just want you to know that even back 30, 40 years ago we luckily didn't have to count bullet holes in the side of buildings in the City of Meridian. But secondary to that I'm very conscious of one area here, which worries me a lot and it's the one that was talked about a few times. That's the residential permit zones and I will tell you why. We have had applications come in -- in fact, not too long ago I sat down with Ashley from MDC and talked about the disappointment that it failed, but it was in the Old Town area and it was going to be a small town library and it was going to have events and it was going to be really neat and it would be such a good addition to that part of the city, but the problem was, one, they had no ADA parking, they had extremely limited parking on the street and even if they only had say 11, 13 people at that business at one time, they were parking in front of all the neighbors' houses, because that's what on their application was going to be the available parking. So, in comes an idea coming from the same group about residential parking permits and we choke a business out and send them down the road. So, we have to be cognizant as we are looking at this stuff that there is two sides of this story. What -- what do we want to see? We want to see some sort of a balance in our Old Town area. We want to see some of these old homes be redeveloped into businesses, if that's what we want to see, but at the same time if we Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 22 of 24 allow some sort of residential permit system to come in we can choke out some of those businesses that are trying to move. So, just thoughts as we move forward on those. Simison: Okay. Oh. All right. Hoaglun: Brad Hoaglun. Served on the committee. And just a quick comment. I sat here trying to think through if I'm in your shoes what would I do, you know. Anyway, Mr. Mayor and Council, there has been a lot of good comments here and what would I do? This is not a be all end all type of document. It's not here to force you to do something. A lot of study has gone into this and worked from experts and looked at other issues and how it's handled around the country. These are options and I think, Councilman Taylor, you pointed out, you know, when the neighborhood comes to you, yes, that's an option you can consider, but it may not be what you want to do. Readers, you know, for license plates might be something that staff recommends. What I see looking forward is when we get to the end of Destination Downtown and -- and I happened to be on council back in 2009 when we first did this and I think I still have the original document and Councilman Overton when -- was also participating in that. There has been a lot of research and study and ideas that go into this and it's to serve as a guide. It's -- it's a blueprint. It's options that you can consider. So, maybe the end result is you adopt a resolution that says this is a document that we can utilize and will pull ideas from because of the studies and the subcommittees that have gone into this and if a business comes to you and says, hey, Caleb, Mr. Hood, what are you guys doing about a parking plan? Well, let me point you to this guide, this Destinations Downtown, which gives us some options, but no guarantee that the Council is going to do that. But these are things that would be considered as a possibility. So, it's not something that's going to be prescriptive, but you guys will have to decide what -- what you want to do in that particular situation, because we know it will change and things will continue to change in Meridian. We know that. And so it is something that I wanted to put that in your head that moving forward with the whole document it's something that you can say, okay, we accept this document and there might be things you definitely want to take out. That's fine. But that we feel comfortable giving to people that saying, yeah, this is something you can look at and help in deciding is -- that we have ideas for, but it doesn't mean we will consider them. So, just wanted to let -- let you know about that. Thank you. Simison: All right. Council, any final comments? I know that there will be offline engagement on additional conversations between now and the next month about what will be the topic -- will be continuation of this, will be something else and I trust Councilman Taylor will continue to work with Ms. Squyres on that very topic, but I didn't know if there was anything that we need to do to wrap up this conversation today. Cavener: Mr. Mayor, just a quick question for -- for Mr. Nary. Bill, the Mayor kind of talked about, hey, if you are passing along feedback, the e-mail to kind of share that with everybody, is there any concern that if -- if I have feedback that I'm sending it to MDC, that I'm cc'ing City Council and my feedback, do we create any serial meeting risks or any concern on your end about how we -- how we best communicate feedback, so that everybody is seeing it? Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 23 of 24 Nary: Probably the best -- Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Cavener, probably the best -- I mean if we do that to at least include the clerk, if you would like to be -- Cavener: Okay. Nary: -- part of record, yeah, the -- the -- the meeting only becomes problematic if there is a lot of dialogue. I mean sharing your thoughts and talking to the -- the consultants and MDC, not concerning. It's when the group starts having more of an internal conversation. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Maybe just to kind of wrap this up and kind of -- kind of next steps, I think certainly I would envision this to continue to remain as sort of an open dialogue and we can -- you know, I can meet with Administrator Squyres, we can kind of talk about the next meeting we have, if -- if there is a desire to extend some of this discussion or if we just move on to the next one, knowing that we -- people can continue to contemplate some of these suggestions. I -- I do think as we continue along with discussion of different topics, we, as a Council, will continue to feel a greater sense of an idea of the purpose of the Destination Town document. This is just part of it. There is a lot to it. So, it's not just about parking, there is a lot more to it. So, I think I would my -- my request and sort of expectation for everyone would be that we just sort of kind of continue to feel free to provide that feedback and I like -- you know, Councilman Cavener, I appreciate you sort of helping us kind of understand a productive way to -- to provide some of that feedback. Again, keeping in mind the feedback we provide MDC can still take that and discuss and decide how they may or may not want to amend the final document. So, with that I appreciate the time everyone's spent to come here. We look forward to a few more discussions over the next few months on that. Simison: All right. With that, Councilman Cavener. Cavener: I move that we adjourn our work session. Little Roberts: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to adjourn. All in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it. We are adjourned. MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 5:44 P.M. Meridian City Council Work Session July 22,2025 Page 24 of 24 (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) g / 12 2025 MAYOR ROBERT E. SIMISON DATE APPROVED ATTEST: CHRIS JOHNSON - CITY CLERK