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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-11-05 Work Session Meridian City Council Work Session November 5, 2025. A Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, November 5, 2025, by Mayor Robert Simison. Members Present: Robert Simison, Luke Cavener, Liz Strader, John Overton, Doug Taylor, Anne Little Roberts and Brian Whitlock. Other Present: Chris Johnson, Bill Nary, Todd Lavoie, Jenny Fields, Steve Siddoway, Garrett White, Caleb Hood, Berle Stokes and Dean Willis. ROLL-CALL ATTENDANCE X Liz Strader X Brian Whitlock Anne Little Roberts X John Overton _X_ Doug Taylor _X_Luke Cavener X Mayor Robert E. Simison Simison: Council, we will call this meeting to order. For the record it is November 5th, 2025, at 4:30 p.m. We will begin this afternoon's work session with roll call attendance. ADOPTION OF AGENDA Simison: Next item up is adoption of the agenda. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Not seeing any changes to today's agenda, so I'm going to move we adopt the agenda as published. Overton: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as published. Is there any discussion? If not, all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the agenda is agreed to. MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES. CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] 1. Approve Minutes of the October 21, 2025 City Council Work Session 2. Approve Minutes of the October 21, 2025 City Council Regular Meeting Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 2 of 36 3. Southridge South Subdivision Phase 2 Pedestrian Pathway Easement (ESMT-2025-0124) 4. Pollard North Subdivision No. 1 Alley Sewer Easement No.1 (ESMT- 2025-0128) 5. Pollard North Subdivision No.1 Sanitary Sewer Easement No. 1 (ESMT-2025-0129) 6. Baratza Subdivision Phase 1 Sanitary Sewer and Water Main Easement No. 13 (ESMT-2025-0130) 7. Windrow Subdivision Water Main Easement No. 1 (ESMT-2025-0131) 8. Windrow Subdivision Sanitary Sewer and Water Main Easement No. 1 (ESMT-2025-0132) 9. Skybreak Subdivision No. 4 Water Main Easement No. 1 (ESMT-2025- 0133) 10. Skybreak Subdivision No. 4 Sanitary Sewer and Water Main Easement No.1 (ESMT-2025-0134) 11. Skybreak Subdivision No. 4 Sanitary Sewer and Water Main Easement No. 2 (ESMT-2025-0135) 12. Addison Circle Subdivision Water Main Easement (ESMT-2025-0142) 13. First Amendment to Addendum to Development Agreement (Gramercy Townhomes H-2025-0019) Between City of Meridian and Intermountain Pacific LLC for Property Located at 1873, 1925, and 2069 Wells Ave. 14. Approve Task Order to JUB Engineers, Inc. for the Not-to-Exceed amount of $230,800.00 for the Well 34 Pumping Facility Design Project 15. Subrecipient Agreement Between City of Meridian and NeighborWorks Boise in the amount of $193,868 for Program Year 2025 Community Development Block Grant Funds for Homeowner Repairs 16. Subrecipient Agreement Between City of Meridian and The Boys & Girls Club of Ada County in the amount of $35,000 for Program Year 2025 Community Development Block Grant Funds for Youth Scholarships Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 3 of 36 17. License Agreement with the Nampa & Meridian Irrigation District for Pedestrian Pathway in Southridge South Subdivision, Phase 2 Simison: Up next is the Consent Agenda. Little Roberts: 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? Ayes have it and the Consent Agenda is agreed to. MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES. ITEMS MOVED FROM THE CONSENT AGENDA [Action Item] Simison: There were no items moved from the Consent Agenda. DEPARTMENT REPORTS [Action Item] 18. Fiscal Year 2026 Proposed Fee Increase Update Simison: So, we will go on to our Department Reports. First item up is Item 18, which is fiscal year 2026 proposed fee increase update. Turn this over to Jenny. Johnson: Mr. Mayor? Mr. Mayor? Just want to point out Council Woman -- Council Woman Strader is now here. Simison: Okay. Thank you. Fields: Good evening, Mayor, Council. I'm going to share a file on the screen. So, tonight we are going to be discussing continuing our discussion of our fee updates. The numbers in front of you are the fees that we have taken out of our proposed public hearing at the 6:00 o'clock meeting. These are the nine fees that were exceeding the 130 percent change in our proposed fees versus our current. So, today's discussion is -- we are going to -- we have subject matter experts here to answer any of the questions that you have, but it's -- we are trying to figure out what the desire is of Council to -- on each of these fees where we want to go as far as the fully loaded or full cost recovery or a different value of recovering these costs. So, for -- with that we are going to start -- should we start one by one and, then, ask Council -- see if we have a consensus or Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 4 of 36 where you want to go with each of these fees. Does that sound okay? Okay. So, the first one on the list is city clerk's mobile sales unit licenses. So, right now it is a proposal of 148 dollar increase. Included in this fee is the 33 dollars of our background check fee that -- or that we remit to ISP. Simison: All right. So, Mr. Clerk is our subject matter expert on this one. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, I can try to be. So, this is one of the only licenses we are unable to move online at this point just because of the required background check. As Jenny said, 33.25 of that goes to Idaho State Police. It's a pass-through cost. So, our cost initially was 40 dollars to do that. We do have a considerable amount of time involved with that in my office, taking that application, entering the information and, then, police has to review background checks as well. So, that's where we got to the hours for that and that's just the full cost recovery Finance proposed. I can tell you along with this we did recently bring in-house fingerprinting, so we are able to do that now. That was an additional ten dollars the applicant paid directly to Idaho State Police. So, we have reduced the cost by ten dollars out of pocket for them to another entity and that will actually also reduce our cost. So, this may -- may fluctuate a bit. I think it brings down our cost to 28.25, but I'm not exactly sure on that. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Chris, could you just -- when we are saying mobile sales unit license, are we talking food trucks? Are we talking about a mobile vendor? I mean give me a little finer point exactly what this license is. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Taylor, that is door-to-door sales, as well as food trucks. So, food trucks, food carts, anyone that is selling in a public area has this license. Both door to door and public area. Whitlock: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Whitlock. Whitlock: Chris, this is an annual license, then, good for a year? Johnson: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Whitlock, it is an annual license, so it's not renewable, but it's a one year license from the date of issue. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 5 of 36 Cavener: Chris, is the time associated the same for -- for your department to execute this? Have there been added regulatory requirements from either the state or another branch of government that requires additional time? Johnson: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Cavener, there has not been. This is the same process since -- since I started in 2018. Cavener: Okay. Thank you. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Chris, is there any -- does this look like it's going to move online anytime in the future? It sounds like it hasn't changed. Maybe it won't. Is this just like a very manually intensive process for the city? Johnson: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Taylor, we would love to move it online, but because of the fingerprinting requirement we do require applicant to come in and pay in person and pick that up. We explored doing that. We explored doing an online background check, but it did not meet the requirements police wanted to have in reviewing those applications. Taylor: Mr. Mayor, quick follow up. Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Are we talking a dozen, 50, 200? Do you have any sense of how many -- Johnson: I'm looking right now to see how many licenses we issued. Fields: I show 152 units was sold in fiscal year '24. Johnson: Thank you, Jenny. Fields: Uh-huh. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Speak to this particular one. I just -- I also want to commend the clerk's department. They have moved online, so we can see who has licenses, as opposed to hasn't, and not that my neighborhood is any barometer, but we are at a -- a hundred percent of door solicitors that have come to my neighborhood have not had their mobile sales license and it's -- it also serves as a great deterrent when someone is soliciting Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 6 of 36 you to ask if they have a sales license, they don't, and they quickly move out of the neighborhood. So, want to commend the clerk's department for having that available. Overton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Overton. Overton: A little history as we worked through this. Years ago, implementing this, I was tasked -- and the police department were doing the background checks on the mobile sales unit licenses. We had a little group within the city, included legal and the city clerk's office, determining what that cost would be and one of the overwhelming factors is we as a city are deciding who we are going to allow to go to your door and how important that was and those background checks sometimes can take a lot longer than you would normally think, because we are dealing with some interesting individuals at times. Most people it's not a problem we go through them. But this is the one that always rolls back that I think is so important to look at from the vantage point that we as a city are approving these people that come door to door to be driving their ice cream trucks, to be doing all these other jobs and there is a lot of time and effort to go into every one of these. Simison: I don't know if it matters in this case, but I know more and more people put up no soliciting signs on their doors. I think people are generally not supportive of having a lot of sales people -- not all. Some -- some don't -- don't mind it through that. If this is one where the full cost of the fee makes sense and if it -- if it deters people who maybe don't have a product that's worthy of that fee to go door to door -- I don't know. It's just like -- in some regards I'm torn, because I know a lot of our community doesn't really like the door-to-door sales people to begin with, but if we are going to do it we have to -- we should do it correctly, so -- Cavener: And Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: I think that's the -- I tend to agree with you. That challenge is this fee I only assume was going to continue to increase and I think with every dollar it increases it, you know, de-incentivizes people from doing the right thing. I look at -- you know, when the city moved from unlimited trash cleanup to limited, we saw a lot of rogue dumping throughout our city, because people didn't want to pay the extra fee. You have got to keep it affordable enough from a public safety standpoint that people, you know, do get that license, but I think at least for now I'm supportive of this increase, understanding, you know, it is just a reflection on the labor cost and the fee from ISP that it takes for us to be able to operate the service. I appreciate the good explanation. Simison: Anything else on this one at this time? Jenny, next one. Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 7 of 36 Fields: Okay. So, the next four is related. So, it's our TUP, temporary use permit, and they are in the various categories that we are proposing the change. These, again, are our costs of doing each of these with the various departments that manages this and, again, we have our subject matter experts here. Cavener: So -- I didn't know if you were done. Fields: Yes. Cavener: Okay. Mr. Mayor, I do have a question that just would maybe help me understand what the administrative cost or time differences about doing these events in a park versus not in a park. Simison: I'm sure our subject matter experts can come up and explain that. I believe I know what the answer is, but I'm willing to hear what they say. White: When it's not in a park I don't -- our Parks Department definitely doesn't touch it -- or our staff doesn't have to deal with any of the stuff to my understanding on that. Simison: That's what my guess and belief was. White: Yeah. In a park it's more labor intensive. We have more people involved and we kind of know where it's -- we meet with them on site several times to kind of make sure it's all said and done there. Also if there is several different vendors and things we have to have -- our park staff also visits with them and talks to them about where to -- if they drive in, sprinkler boxes -- flagging sprinkler boxes, those types of things. So, that makes some of the difference. But when they are outside of a park we really don't touch them, so -- hope that answers that. Cavener: Yeah. And then -- I'm not quite sure who to ask this. You know, we recognize a special event in a park. We are not wanting to meet at the full cost recovery, recognizing that the proposed fee is only three dollars more than a temporary use permit for an outdoor market in a park, I'm just also trying to understand what is the -- what is the difference between -- and what is the time element that requires more administrative time to do an outdoor market in a park versus a special event in a park? White: It probably just really depends on the logistics of each event really in the time around it and the average of each of them. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Would it be the person -- person's wage who reviews the different -- two different items? White: Yeah. I would have -- yes. When that -- when we work with Finance they do factor in how much time I particularly use -- you know, review an application to where Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 8 of 36 Skyler reviews an application or park our staff is on site and things like that on average of how much time it is per event. Simison: So, it could be any -- any person in any department who is a different level -- who has a different hourly wage that creates that difference. Cavener: Mr. Mayor -- and I apologize. Is that the reason -- or we think that's the reason? I guess I'm a little challenged. We have had this for a few weeks and I'm not looking forward -- Simison: Todd. Lavoie: Mr. Mayor, Mr. Cavener, great question. The 245 you will see that it's been adjusted down. You will see the cost recovery has been reduced. The true cost recovery that you would have seen two or three weeks ago, it's 299 dollars. Between that meeting and this meeting it was requested to reduce it down to that number. Cavener: Okay. Lavoie: So, if you want a true cost -- the true cost is 299 versus 245 and we can get you exactly which hours by each department by each individual, but the true full-full is actually about 50 dollars between the two. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: I'm still looking for a why. Why is it different? What is the cost difference? What is the time? Is it a market in a park takes five hours from Garrett and a special event takes ten hours with five hours from the clerk and five hours from Garrett? Fields: So, our -- when we are doing our calculation it signifies that we spent 60 minutes from our recreation coordinator to do a special events in the park versus the outdoor market did not require that 60 minute time allocation. Cavener: Perfect. That's the exact answer that I'm looking for. Thank you, Jenny. I appreciate that. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Could I just get a little bit of a really basic -- what's this process for when you are -- when you receive one of these requests for the parks department it comes in -- can you just give me the step by step as it's kind of going through the review process and whatnot. Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 9 of 36 White: Yeah. Councilman Taylor, Mr. Mayor. So, basically, say if you called our office wanted to know about a special event, you typically talk to one of our receptionists first and, then, they will send you over to myself and/or Skyler. Primarily Skyler deals with these types of things, and, then, Skyler has the ability to determine whether it needs to be a large scale event, small scale event, TUP reservation, those types of things to make these things work. A lot of times when it becomes a TUP Skyler will, then, get it all booked through Rec One, our scheduling software. Talk to them over the phone. Send an e-mail follow up with all the conditions that are with the TUP process and how to set up the TUP and how to turn in the TUP and kind of walk them through and hold their hand through the whole process. With that -- once all that TUP is said and done, then, Skyler will meet with them on site. Even if it's a returning event every year we meet with them on site. That way we can kind of go over what went wrong last year or what we liked last year, what worked well, what didn't work well, those types of things with each event organizer and we walk the whole park and we talk to them about what they are going to do to increase-decrease some of the parking needs or maybe -- or if they are planning on promoting it more and grow in the event and we kind of work through those conditions with them on site with some of our park staff sometimes. Does that answer that? Cavener: Yeah. Little Roberts: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Council Woman Little Roberts. Little Roberts: Mr. Mayor. Garrett, with an ongoing event like a market is that fee charged like every weekend, because the staff puts forth more effort having that event there, even though you don't have to go through all of the process each time? White: Councilman -- Council Woman Little Roberts. Mr. Mayor. So, typically -- and Chris may be able to help answer this question before me, but, typically, if it's an ongoing event like a market type of thing we do check in on them periodically, but we don't have to do the fee every time, that it's kind of grouped in it -- I want to say it's like 30 days or -- Chris may be able to answer question. Johnson: Mr. Mayor, Council, yes, I -- it's 30 or 60 days depending on the license type, but it's -- it's one license that covers the duration of it. Perreault: Thank you. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 10 of 36 Cavener: This is for either Chris or Garrett. Are there any other governmental requirements that we are adhering to as a result of these fees, anything from the county, health district, state or anything that requires any reporting from us? Johnson: There is nothing from my office that we have gotten mandated to do. There could be something with police or fire that I'm not aware of. Taylor: Yeah. I do know that police and fire do review some of these TUPs and special events and things like that. We do work with Harper to determine what we need for parking plans, safety plans. I know that the fire department does look at these as well. I don't know how much time they put into it in particular, but when it comes to the parks stuff we kind of stick to the parks side. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Finance team, are we accounting for that time, then, in this fee as well? Fields: Yeah. Lavoie: Mr. Mayor -- apologies. Mr. Mayor, to follow up on that, we don't have any notes of any state, federal or other governmental agencies imposing a fee on this to answer that question on our side. So, what you see is just true costs. And we do have think five different departments that are participating in your calculation of this fee. Is that -- and we can tell you exactly what departments -- how many minutes were given by every department that we interviewed. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Today or at a later time I would like to understand kind of the basis for how we determined what application requires X amount of time. Like what that process was. And to me making sure that if -- are these taking the same amount of time today that they took five years ago? Are they taking more time? I hope they would take maybe less time as we become more efficient with ourselves, but I don't know the answer to that. Lavoie: Mr. Mayor, I know that when we conduct our interviews those are the questions that we asked the subject matter experts. Go, one, do we need to do this? How much time are you spending? We ask them to use the 80 percent rule, because we know that Garrett -- and Garrett market event they have got down in two minutes. The Todd and Todd market event, on that takes 87 minutes. We have asked on 80 percent of the time what feels right to you and that's kind of the general question, kind of like where you are going, it is like are we doing what we are doing because we got to do it. But, again, if Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 11 of 36 there is any specific questions we can definitely work with your subject matter experts, go can you give us a detail of details and try to get you that answer. Simison: I think this goes back to my comments before. These are all self imposed. Lavoie: Yes. Simison: So, we have determined that these are things that we want to have done or that our departments think are important to have done to have a successful event and these are the costs that they feel are appropriate. We could charge zero for these and just ask people to do them if cost recovery is not important. Nary: Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council, Councilman Cavener, to help add to your question. So, there is a group, a committee, that's made up of the different departments and, then, if it is a special event that requires a temporary use permit we do have meetings of that group. It also does include other agencies and we don't charge the fees for them, but they do, so if it impacts the roadway ACHD is involved, there is a fee for those that they charge for -- for special events, that they will tell them that. We do have both Ada County Highway District there, as well as Ada County EMS to go over any safety plans or concerns that might be had. There is also an internal discussion on whether or not planning is involved and whether any planning permits are needed or any other building permits are needed, depending on what type of event they are, if they have certain types of tents or buildings or structures or stages and things that require building permits or electrical permits and other ones and that's part of that conversation and those folks are part of that meeting as well. Legal is there, too, Because oftentimes we create contracts between them and the city for reimbursement. So, there is a number of people that are involved in that discussion and even -- as Todd said, even on recurring events we are also looking at, again, what has -- things have changed, circumstances have changed, even though the event feels the same, it isn't always the same because of changing -- traffic changing in the area, change in the traffic patterns. The -- in the area with more apartments, more houses and they plan to grow the event. So, there is a lot of staff time and that's kind of what those net fees come from. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Thank you. That is very very enlightening and very helpful and what I'm hearing from that is unlike the background check for mobile sales license where we are collecting a fee on behalf of another agency, with these we are not collecting fees. If other fees exist those agencies will pass those fees along through their own mechanism to the city. White: Yes. Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 12 of 36 Cavener: Thank you. Whitlock: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Whitlock. Whitlock: Jenny, could you just scroll to the right? The document in our packet didn't have the number of sales or units sold for each of those. So, we are talking about one, eight, 30 and 57. Okay. That's helpful. Simison: Council, any additional questions on these items? Okay. Move on to the next two. Fields: Okay. Our next two is with our police department and they are part of our impound fees and in your packet today is the two that is exceeding the 130 for dogs and livestock. There is also two that I want to bring to your attention that is below the 130. So, if we are going to make any changes we should also consider the other animals that is in this group. The reason why is because this is part of our Idaho Humane Society agreement that we have to modify as a package. Strader: I have a question. Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Thanks. So, why would the proposed fee for the cats, then, Jenny, go to zero? Help me understand that. Fields: When we did our cost evaluation it was that we didn't have any labor costs associated with cat impound. Strader: Is that just because we weren't rounding up any cats that year or like help me understand that. Sorry. I don't know how to put that, but -- Lavoie: Mr. Mayor, Council Member Strader, it's a fair question. These are the -- these are the inputs that we get back from our interviews when we work with your department subject matter experts, we ask them that today -- what are you doing today with X fee and at that moment in time when we had the interview they were conducting -- they said they were not spending any time for this and we are happy to dive into that more if you want the exact -- something in more detail, but that is the answer we got from our subject matter experts between dog and cats. Strader: Okay. I just -- to me it doesn't make any sense -- just rationally doesn't make any sense to be charging 145 bucks for a dog and zero for a cat. I feel like there -- there needs to be some kind of rationale among the various creatures that we are, you know, dealing with to -- like it just should sort of go together; right? I get it. A dog is more work than a cat. Maybe it happens more often. So, maybe with the dogs you Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 13 of 36 think it's 145. Sort of seems like you need some kind of a fee for a cat, because maybe we are not spending time, but if we did have to, right, if we are rounding up a bunch of cats all of a sudden, then -- then we are spending time and we should charge something, so -- I don't know. That -- that's all I would say. Like I just want to see some sort of like consistency of -- like we should be charging something. I assume that livestock -- yeah, that makes sense. I bet it's very challenging if we are dealing with livestock to -- to do so. Anyway, I would recommend charging something for the cats and some of -- I'm sure -- I think this is ground you guys have already treaded, but one comment I have is just -- and I think I have made this comment to Finance directly as well, just like going forward let's review these fees more frequently, so we don't have these kinds of dramatic increases, because I think that's what sets people off. Like if we wait too long and, then, we are stuck like tripling fees. I think that's frustrating for the public. So, I'm sure you have heard that, but just reiterating that. I think we should charge something for the cats. The livestock one I don't -- I don't really know how to wrap my head around that and what's involved there. Anyway. Simison: I want to ask Captain. You -- does Idaho Humane Society actually pick up cats? That's -- that's -- that's what my general rationale is. I don't think that anybody picks up cats on anybody's behalf. Stokes: So, I -- knowing this might come up, Mayor and Council, I reached out to them yesterday for some stats and in 2024 they -- they collected redemption fees on 230 animals, 185 of those were dogs, 25 were cats. So -- well, through October of this year there are 204 animals, being 174 dogs and 40 cats. No livestock recovered in the last two years and there is already a note here on the presentation and legal had reached out to them. They are -- I think the Humane Society is in favor of some increase on -- on dogs, but is worried that making it too high people just won't come get their dogs. I don't know how much that helps you, but they do collect some cats and collect some fees. Nary: Mr. Mayor, I think part of the disconnect is is because -- I don't believe they will go out and get cats. Simison: Like impounding. Nary: I think people will turn them in and that's where they have them is people will turn them in and I think from our -- our department's conversation with them is, again, the concern is is that, again, they want people to come get them, rather than -- and so I think they are willing -- that's why they were willing to say no cost for taking the cats -- recovering the cats. They would rather people came and got them. But dogs -- most people will come and get them unless the dogs are sick or the dogs are -- are too difficult. But they were also concerned, again, of the fees to why people won't come back for them either. But they do at least go out to impound dogs and they do go out and do that. We have a leash law for dogs, not for cats, so we do actually go out and round those up. But that's I think where the difference is. Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 14 of 36 Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Is any portion of this fee, then, paid to the Humane Society separate from our contract or is this fees that go to the city? Lavoie: A great question. This is all, as Robert said, us self-created fee. We get to determine how much we want to charge. Cavener: Mr. Mayor, follow up. Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Based on the amount of time we think it would take to recover each of these specific animals. Fields: Yes. Lavoie: You are correct. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: From an operations standpoint do you foresee directing our police department to go round up cats? Simison: Directing? Cavener: Yeah. I mean if this is -- if this is a fee based on the amount of time that our employees are going to spend on these items and we are not -- not the cat police, I mean I see -- I see it being zero, but I just would say, then, we should just eliminate this asa -- Simison: I look at the word impound. You know, to me impound means you are taking possession of because somebody else has -- that cat has done something that it needs to be relieved of its location, as compared to it's loose in the neighborhood or hurt and the Humane Society, they will respond to animals that are hurt or whatnot, but impound is the big word. I mean if -- if there was a -- I'm thinking a case at someone's house, the cat somehow needs to be impounded for police reasons. Are we going to charge them that fee through that process? I don't know any other way that we would -- why we would impound a cat. Cavener: I guess that's my -- I realize that's kind of a farcical question, Mr. Mayor, but if these are based on time for our employees to respond and they are not the ones that Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 15 of 36 are responding I have a disconnect. If we are not responding, but we are using the response time to base our fee, how can we base a fee on a response time if we are not responding? Simison: I will turn to those that put this together. I can understand they are anticipating what the cost might be if they have to go out and do the work, either because they have experience or otherwise. I think a livestock is a very subjective one. You know, got to go rent a trailer, which we don't have, in order to do that. I'm just guessing that's part of that money, but I don't know through that process, so -- thank you. Save me. Stokes: I'm not saying we never recover an animal depending on the situation, but we are always calling the Humane Society to come take the animal for us. I think that these fees are collected on their end and, then, my understanding -- and Finance could clarify this -- those fees that are collected are sent back to the city to somewhat offset our contract. So, the Humane Society is doing all of this work probably with rare exception and that money is coming back to the city. As far as cats go I think Bill is right on that, these are cats that probably are primarily turned in and they are collecting a fee and somebody's actually coming and redeeming the cat. Cavener: I apologize I'm being challenging -- sorry, Mr. Mayor. Simison: Mr. Cavener. Cavener: I apologize for being challenging on these. Just trying to follow what I understood is our decision about these is to base them on what we think the actual costs will be. We are not actually going to accrue cost doing this and so I'm okay if we are -- we just need to say, hey, we are just being subjective on this one and it's not based on actuals, it's based on -- Simison: I think the cat is -- that's why that's zero recommendation is -- I don't think we are going out and doing this as a general rule and I will give you 15 bucks if you can catch my cat. Cavener: And, Mr. Mayor, again, I know we are being partial, but, again, what I would want is I would want to -- I wouldn't want the Humane Society to be overrun with cats or with dogs because the fee is so high that people are not coming in collecting them -- that's a separate conversation. But the thought is that these fees are based on what our cost is as a city to provide the service and we are not providing the service, why are we charging it? I mean if we are going to have a fee for water slides, we don't have any water slides in the city, so why are we charging eight bucks to ride a water slide when we don't actually have any water slides. If we are not doing these services why are we creating fees for a service that we are not providing? Simison: If they would give us a discount off the contract for them collecting the fees -- and that's essentially what we are doing. We are -- Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 16 of 36 Cavener: Okay. Simison: -- we are essentially giving their cost to do this work for us or our costs if they are not available. Cavener: As it pertains to these particular fees these are largely, then, subjective. We are just kind of making an educated guess as to what we think the market can bear versus what other cities are charging for the Humane Society to collect on our behalf. Perfect. That gives me greater clarity. Thank you. Strader: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Yes, Council Woman Strader. Strader: Thanks, Mr. Mayor. So, did the Humane Society have feedback or recommendation on the dog fee specifically, like what they think is the sweet spot where we are not, you know, going to have an issue of just people abandoning their pets? Fields: Mayor, Council Woman Strader, I did not hear back a recommendation, but we did obtain some market comparables between us and the surrounding cities and areas from IHS. So, in front of you is what we -- our current fee is at this moment in time and, then, the surrounding cities. It is not apples to apples, because they -- it depends on the neuter versus non-neutered and there are different types of dogs that different entities have various fees on. So, for us we have a simple -- more simplified approach in our IHS agreement, whereas the other ones in front of you, you will see the rate it ranges drastically by the animal. Don't know if that helps, but I -- we did not receive a recommendation of an amount from IHS. Nary: Mr. Mayor, I know our department reached out to the Humane Society as well and they were fine with those -- two of those fees. They thought those were reasonable for what the market is for those two. The two they didn't were the ones that were there on the bottom, the cat and the other -- the other it was a vicious dog -- I can't remember what it was. The other two that you had on here, yeah, the impound fee for the vicious dog they just felt were a little too high, but I think those were the only ones they had comment on. The other two for impound fee for dog and livestock, they didn't have a concern with is what I understood. Simison: Again, we can just leave the fees as they are if that's what Council would prefer. Yeah. Because I can almost guarantee you it's not going to cost $549.41 to get a livestock. It might be 3,000, it might be 125 dollars of time. If the chief is nearby with his dog -- I mean, honestly, that thing can be rounded up and put back into a field by that dog probably pretty easily with very little cost. Nary: I think, Mr. Mayor -- I think the livestock could be anything from a horse to a peacock. So, I don't think there is really a lot of secrets. So, I think you are right, I don't Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 17 of 36 think it's that, I think it's the others -- and, again, the dog was the one that they have the most on, so -- Simison: And I would hate to spend a lot of time on something that is highly likely never probable or a one time in five years expense. Can we move on to the planning ones? Fields: Okay. So, in our planning group the two that exceeds 130 is our planned unit development and, then, our surety reduction fee. In addition to that I have noted on your screen that there are two others that we kind of talked about in a previous meeting that we had a change from a per lot basis to now a flat per application fee and that is why these two percent changes are very high. They are not apples to apples. These are per plat, per lot and this is a flat application fee. So, if we want to talk about planning fees, we have our subject matter expert here to discuss any operational questions you may have. Simison: I assume that's Mr. Hood. Caleb, do you have anything you would like to add to these fees specifically for perspective on planned unit developments maybe specifically? Hood: Mr. Mayor, Council, yeah, I would be happy to if you would like me to. Regarding the PUDs -- and this goes for all of ours and I think you have said it with the few you just discussed already, just operating on the hundred percent cost recovery. So, again, your discretion. If you don't want to charge it, but it is what it takes on average for our team to process these. For the PUD use exceptions it is eight hours. Those are all planning department hours. No clerks. No legal. No fire. It is just a hundred percent planning -- associate planner rate hours. There are two hearings for each one of those, so Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council. There is also standalone findings for that exception. So, there is a little bit more writing that goes into that. You got to make the findings if you are going to grant those exceptions, so it does take a little bit more -- it's an add on, basically, to the PUD-CUP application. So, there is an additional fee. Unlike what Jenny just described, this one is a tag along additional fee per exception and it can be tedious, so you want to research to see which ones we have approved in the past. If something like lot size is going to be variable throughout a project you have got to verify each one of the lots, for example. So, it can be time intensive. On average, though, eight hours per. Typically there is also multiple pre- apps with the applicant walking them through that. Hey, you have got to lead us to the water, so we can make the findings to support your application. Usually PUDs are larger projects, too. So, again, a little more time intensive even on the front end laid out for them what's expected to get -- get through the process. So, I can't -- we are herding a bunch of cats there with that. So -- no, I couldn't help myself. Sorry. And, then, we also will just consult amongst ourselves with these two; right? Kind of poll the team. What do you think about this request? Does this seem reasonable with what's being requested for the exception. So, that's -- that's kind of our methodology for the PUDs. I can run through -- there is some mapping also typically involved. About a half hour is what we have got allocated. So, these are all averages. Maybe I will just -- if you don't mind, Mr. Mayor, I will step back just a little bit. Our -- our process in planning is we are Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 18 of 36 on a three year rotation for fees. So, it -- once every three years we basically take our fees in the thirds. So, we are not doing all the time, because we have a lot of fees. So, if we are tracking each application every time it's pretty intensive. So, every three years we look at our fees to see how long it's taking us to do it and, then, we work with Finance to adjust the fees that we have looked at if they need adjusting. So, that's kind of our cycle and our process. We also obviously coordinate with the clerk, fire, police -- most of the departments are actually involved in our processes, so I send them a spreadsheet, hey, for three months can you track these applications, a third of all of our application types, give us your average that it takes and, then, Finance does all the back end math with, you know, fully loaded costs or whatever their rate is that they assign to the legal team or assistant versus associate versus planning director and that's how you get the fee, so -- anyways, that's PUD and just a higher level our process for looking at fees. Currently anyways. Simison: And the increase in surety reduction -- Hood: Yeah. So that one I will just -- I got to walk you through the process a little bit to understand. It is three hours is what that is. Two of them are on planning. So, let me just even explain what a surety reduction is. So, there is some things that developers post a surety for or a guarantee that things will be improved. Fencing, landscaping are pretty common ones that will be -- a surety will be posted for. Sometimes weather will get bad and you can't plant landscaping or they ran out of something or you just can't get on the calendar for a contractor or whatever. So, we will have them post a surety. But what they have to do, then, is we have to go out there and inspect what they have done. So, they have done some of the work, but not a hundred percent of the work. So, we have to review the plans. They tell us what they have done. If there is a hundred trees, they got 50 of them in, we can reduce that, but we have to go out there, we have to verify that, we have to get a new letter of credit or cash or whatever that is. Kelly Ready on our -- on our surety team, then, has to write up a whole new agreement for that to reduce the amount -- let's just say 50 percent or whatever that cost is. So, on average it's about three hours. With site -- site visits, reviewing the plans and all the paperwork to actually update that agreement that says that they will finish the work. So, that's -- that's what that -- we were short changed before. That one has been basically an hour. That's what it takes to do the paperwork, but the inspection and all those other things were never really accounted for. So, that's -- that's why the fee is higher than just your three or four or five percent kind of inflation rate. Simison: Council, questions. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Compliment, Caleb. Thank you. I appreciate a very thorough explanation taking this seriously and giving Council a better understanding as to the why behind this. So, I just want to commend you. Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 19 of 36 Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Caleb, while you are at the podium do you mind just touching base -- or touching on the two others listed on here? I know just describing, again, sort of the changing sort of concept about how you are going to do that. Hood: Yeah. So, I'm -- 14 and 15 I'm going to take together, because it's the same concept for both of them. Jenny kind of mentioned it, but our -- our past practice -- our current practice until -- or if this gets adopted is we have a separate -- and we thought it was easier for accounting purposes to have fire -- you know, we charge a fee and that goes right into their account instead of us collecting a big fee and, then, taking it out for whatever there -- our contract fire inspectors. We did the same thing, though, and basically the -- the cost is still about the same. It's actually a little less, taking a 40 lot subdivision average, that's about the size of an average final plat is around 40 lots. So, it's actually a little bit less with this fee, although it shows a 2,000 percent increase or whatever it is -- yeah. Almost 3,000 percent increase. But that's -- that's what we have done is really -- it's -- it's just the accounting of it. If you roll those two fees into the actual plat it's actually going to be on average less. It's a simplification. Easier for developers. Easier for us. I think Finance has been like where does this go in fire? And it's like we will just collect and put in the General Fund, so -- Simison: If it's a ten lot subdivision it's going to be more. If it's a 200 lot subdivision it's going to be less. If it's an average subdivision it's going to be -- Hood: And that's where we come up with, again, on average it's 40, yes, it's -- it is going to be a little bit more if you are a smaller subdivision, but on average -- and that's what this is is an average. That's the average cost. Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: I guess I'm just wondering anytime we go from a per unit fee to a blanket fee, like what is the net fiscal impact expected from this change would be my question for your department. So, yeah, because that's what I -- that's what I was concerned about. Like I -- I actually think it might make sense to continue with more of a per unit approach, unless we put the same exact amount of work into every single application; right? Like that's what I need to understand. Because we are -- we have a department that I think is in kind of a challenging environment right now and I just want to make sure we are trying to recover as much of our cost as possible in community development just generally. Hood: So, Mr. Mayor, Council Woman Strader, yeah, I will be honest with you on this one, you know, relatively new fire marshal and I couldn't explain the methodology to him or to Finance on this, because this, again, is something for -- since 2007 we have been shipping off to fire to say you tell us how much time it takes and they came up with a per Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 20 of 36 lot average. That's why we thought it would be best to just go to a flat fee, because it really doesn't -- as I understand it -- take them any more time to look at a ten lot subdivision versus a 40 lot subdivision. So, that's why they came up with this average cost for both fire and, then, Public Works as well. There really wasn't much difference to look at a larger subdivision or -- there is nothing on an individual per lot basis that Public Works is looking at anymore, so just a flat fee made sense for them. That's about as well as I can explain it, because it's not my -- my fee, but that's some of the conversations that I have been privy to anyways. Strader: So, I'm just -- it looks like if we pass all these changes that there would be no expected change. Like if I net out the PUD exception fee, the surety fee and, then, these two final and preliminary plat fees, like we are kind of just reshuffling. We are not really -- I guess this is a question for Jenny. There is really not a big fiscal impact either way; right? Fields: Mayor, Council Woman Strader, yes, that's correct. Strader: Okay. So, I guess I'm okay -- if you all feel like this is more accurate I'm okay with it. If it better reflects what you are actually doing and you think this is simplifying things I'm okay with it on my end, but -- yeah. Simison: Council, any additional questions for Mr. Hood on these items? Okay. Thank you. So, Council, I guess the question is we could take this information and you could think about it and e-mail in your thoughts on each one of these, whether or not you leave it, take it up, we could do a heads up, you know, leave it where it is. Leave it where it's proposed. Something different. Or you can just talk generally if you want to say let's do a five year ramp up to any of these changes. Three years. I think some of them would be hard to do -- you know, to do that, but if you are concerned about the use permit increases, you know, you could do those over time, just however you want to -- think you want to approach these either individually, separately, or take a week or two to think about what you may or may not want to do. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Some thoughts. I might still want to mull it over for a little bit. I really appreciate, though, the staff for giving us some understanding of the process and very helpful context. The only -- the only fees here that I think I have a hard time saying, yes, let's move ahead as it is are just the temporary use permits. Those are -- those are -- still see those as -- and I envision people in our community who are asking them to do events and different things. I know sometimes it's the Chamber groups -- church groups maybe, different things. So, I'm probably more comfortable personally getting there over a little bit of a period of time, as opposed to one year. It's just my -- those are the only ones that really bother me here just to see that increase. But I'm open to thinking about it and some -- some consideration -- understanding we have been subsidizing this Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 21 of 36 for years and years and years and, then, in year one having -- you know, getting to full cost recovery. What's another year or two to get to full cost recovery. That doesn't bother me as much, because I see those as more things we are imposing on -- on groups that we want to encourage them to use our parks and to do it the right way, like we want to encourage that instead of giving them a perverse incentive to not do that because of the cost and I do think going from 50 dollars to 200 dollars and 85 to 245 you will have some people say, okay, never mind, I'm not going to do that. So, I don't want to see that. I think that adds to the vibrancy of the city and enjoyment. So, that's what I think about those. The rest of the fees I can probably say I understand the justification. It makes sense. I can probably say okay. The temporary use permit I'm probably not there. Simison: Maybe to piggyback on the temporary use permits, because these are our quality of life permits. You know, these are the things that people come and get -- like say, get to enjoy and get to experience and, frankly, a lot of ways we want to encourage through that. I have no issue with personally leaving them where they are at -- or they are all relatively close. Or if you want to save a hundred dollars is the cost for -- you want to do an event that's your general costs and we leave it at that. But I'm not -- when we are self-imposing the costs based upon what we think is important, I get it, it does take time, but at the end of the day would we rather have an event in Meridian or not have an event in Meridian? And so I'm fine to not adjust them or maybe set one -- one fee for all events irregardless of them and as a consideration. Council Woman Strader. Strader: Thanks, Mayor. I tend to agree. I think that the event fees can really add up just based on my experience with like the Meridian Hanukkah celebration, for example. Like you have a TUP and, then, you have amplified sound and you have a bunch of other stuff going on, like it can really add up. So, I would be supportive of just like a flat fee for all of them that's higher, like a hundred dollars or something or maybe like a two year ramp or something like that. That would be okay. The dog fee feels high. Like I think it's a little off compared to the neighboring cities. I think that would make more sense at like 125. You got to charge something for cats even if you have to round up a cat maybe that should be 50 bucks. It seems weird to not. It -- like hypo -- we don't do it. Hypothetically if we had to we should charge something. I don't know. That -- that's my thought. I mean if it's a bite case that seems more involved and more dangerous and -- I don't know. So, maybe that's higher. I don't have any issue either with the planning fees as long as the net fiscal impact is pretty much neutral, which is what I'm seeing. So, I guess that's my feedback on all of it on my end. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Well, the good conversation -- lots of good ideas here. I think when it comes to temporary use permits we have just got to make a decision about if we want a hundred percent of cost recovery or we don't. I'm of the mindset that we should be Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 22 of 36 working towards a hundred percent cost recovery on all fees that impact our city employees, but I agree with Council Member Taylor and Strader that a flipping of the switch on some of these doesn't make sense. If I -- if I remember correctly, Finance staff, you guys are going to evaluate these every five years. Lavoie: Mr. Mayor, Mr. Cavener, what was that? Cavener: You evaluate all fees every five years. Every three years? Lavoie: The Finance Department has imposed that we are trying to deploy an annualized update to all fees that we can account for. Cavener: Okay. Lavoie: Like you have heard from Mr. Hood, he wants to go on three -- three year -- or every three -- third and we will respect the director's decision, but we want to present to you an annualized approach that we touch, talk and do something with fees on -- for you every year. Simison: And I think I would add you will see all these change every year at a minimum, because the costs of our employees and our base rate change will impact these every single year. It's just matter of do we -- how much further do we go into it. But we will ask them to -- they can eye test it every year and they know something has changed. They will make that adjustment. If they want to track it the way planning does every three years they will do that. Cavener: That is helpful, Mr. Mayor. So, I -- you know, I would suggest -- I think kind of something that has already been shared is a -- probably a three year ramp up on the TUPs, recognizing -- I don't know what that dollar amount is, because it's going to shift from year to year, but the hope would be that three years from now we would have a hundred percent cost recovery for our TUPs. When it comes to the stuff related to the Humane Society, I mean I'm going to look to our police department, our partner in the Humane Society to share what that fee needs to be and I think it's important -- it shouldn't cost more to dispose of a dog in Meridian than it does in Boise. It shouldn't also cost less. And recognize everybody's city does it differently, but as much as we can work in trying to provide that consistency I think that's a good opportunity for the City of Meridian to lead on. Those would be my suggestions. I think Council Member Taylor has a good point, though, to maybe let this sit for another week or two and contemplate and have follow-up conversations if need be with department directors or our finance team. 19. Park and Shelter Fee Schedule Discussion Simison: Does that work? See head nods. All right. Thank you very much. Moving on -- we will move on to Item 19, which is our parking shelter fee schedule. Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 23 of 36 White: All right. Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, thanks for having me tonight. Here to talk about shelter fees and park fees and the discussion around that. Really objective tonight is maybe just to kind of show you guys the proposal, get feedback from you guys. If you guys are all comfortable with it, the proposal, then I will post the fees and we will come back a couple weeks later for the public hearing for approval if possible. So, that being said, over the past few months been working with the Finance Department to kind of go over all these fees like we have just heard and discussed. The last time these park fees and shelter fees were updated was 2018. So, it's time for us to come back and kind of review them and go from there. So, our proposal is basically a 30 percent increase and where we got that 30 percent is the based in the CPI, the inflationary rate between 2018 and 2025 was 30 -- or 29 percent and some change. So, we just said just round it to 30 percent and that was where we came up with the proposal. In doing that the majority of our shelters and stuff like that came in right at our cost recovery philosophy level and there is a couple that were actually on the higher end and those were our two -- or the big shelters at Kleiner that are super -- super nice, barbecue grills, all the above with them, as well as the Discovery Park green shelter. So, they are on the higher end, but they still do fall within our cost recovery philosophy that we are going through right now. Some of the actual park fees themselves -- we kind of looked at them separately and rounded to the nearest whole dollar, but they were based on the cost recovery philosophy for each one of them. So, I hope that all makes sense. The shelters were 30 percent increase and the other ones were kind of hit and miss. On the bottom of my memo here I did write some notes and, hopefully, those were helpful. Some of the ones that were just a huge jumps -- and use the example of the baseball field prep fee. Right now it's $12.50 if we have the ability to prep a field. Well, a full cost recovery is 45 dollars per prep. That's a huge jump. That's a 260 percent increase. So, we are proposing to jump it up a hundred percent to make it 25 dollars per prep and, then, phase it over the next few years to get up to the full cost recovery, kind of like Mr. Cavener just said regarding some of the other fees. Same goes with the on-site event staff. Right now it's 20 dollars per hour. Full cost of recovery is 60. Same type of proposal. We are trying to ratchet that up. And what that does is allows us to work with those event organizers that do use our parks and kind of helps them plan over the next couple of years for a potential increase with that. So, that's kind of the philosophy we went with some of those park fees on that. And, then, you will see -- like I did call out the baseball and softball field rentals, as well as just the field rentals. The difference is diamonds, rectangles, that makes sense, soccer fields, baseball field, softball fields. Full cost recovery on those are a little different. It's a little bit more expensive to do a softball field than an actual rectangle field, just because of the dirt and the sprinklers and all the above with that. But we are proposing to raise those a little bit to 15 dollars, mainly because the majority of the people that use those are the volunteer coaches, the MYBs, the 1-9 sports and those types of things to make sure they have the field reserved. So, like I said before, really I'm just looking for feedback, Head nods, thumbs up for us to come back in a couple weeks. So, at this point I will stand for questions. Simison: Thank you, Garrett. Council, questions? Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 24 of 36 Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Garrett, appreciate the memo, especially the notes. Very helpful for me. I remember that 2018 council meeting where we were talking about this and if I recall at the time the department was proposing charging fees kind of based on desirability of shelter. So, a more desirable shelter we would charge more or less desirable we would charge less. I didn't particularly care for that idea at the time and it looks like what I'm seeing here tonight is a more uniform approach, which is a -- a big shelter costs this. A smaller shelter costs that. That being said, help me understand on a Saturday in the summer what's the -- what's the occupancy or vacancy of our shelters? I mean are all of our shelters getting booked up every -- every Saturday in the summer? Is it 50 percent? I mean maybe give Council a flavor about what the usage is. Maybe not just even during the summer, but throughout the year. White: Sure. Mr. Mayor, Councilman Cavener, great question. Thanks for asking that. I -- I don't know the exact number per detail whatever, but I can say that all of our big parks, like Settlers, Discovery, Kleiner, the majority of our shelters are booked. It is so hard to find a spot. We open our registration for shelters -- the shelter season I would say -- shelter season doesn't start until April -- mid-April right around Easter through middle of October. But we open that season the first Monday in February at 9:00 a.m. and our phones are lit up and online is happening. So, if you don't book something in that first couple days -- or the first day it's super hard to get something on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday at Settlers, Kleiner, Discovery, Storey Park, those types of parks. So, I hope that answers that question. Cavener: Yes. White: So -- Cavener: Mr. Mayor, if I may. Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Your recommendation for a ramp up period for the field prep, I think that makes sense. I'm in agreement on that and so I recognize right -- not like tonight, probably not a high utilization of our shelters and, you know, likely people aren't going to reserve. They still may use them, but they are not necessarily reserving them. Talk to me a little bit about -- Cavener family goes and does a picnic tonight before City Council meeting and we clean up, you know, we take care of business, but we leave, it still will require some response from the department to observe, maintenance -- I know we can't capture that cost, but is there -- has the department looked at what that unanticipated loss of -- the unanticipated cost associated with unreserved shelters and how much that costs the city? Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 25 of 36 White: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Cavener, I'm sure we could come up with a number for you on that, but the reality of it is -- I mean parks are used all the time and regardless we still mow the grass, we still, you know, blow off the shelters, clean the shelters, fix the tables, move some of the tables, paint shelters, make those repairs. We all still got to change the trash. So, it would be very tough for us to narrow down to just shelters itself, if that makes any sense. Cavener: It does. More -- sorry, Mr. Mayor. I was more curious about what those -- White: Yeah. Cavener: And, again, there are residents, they pay for the parks, we want them to use them and -- White: Yeah. Cavener: -- the point is to provide this as an amenity and to recover the cost of offering that amenity -- White: Exactly. Cavener: -- is the explanation. Thanks. White: You can ask our park staff. Our parks have been heavily used. I mean it just continues to grow. But yeah. Good. Thank you. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Yeah. Garrett, I appreciate the -- kind of the detail here. Some of the notes on those fees at the end are kind of -- warrant maybe some little discussion, but I think for me this is a little bit of a philosophical view when I look at the fees, because we provide these parks for everybody. All taxpayers are contributing monies to provide this park; right? We don't say, you know, pay to use it as from a sort of philosophical point of view with parks and we want to have people out there and they are busy. I mean I go to parks quite a bit. It's one of the -- it's great. I had a friend that moved here from Pennsylvania about six years ago and he just couldn't believe the parks and he hadn't -- he hadn't even been down south of the freeway to check out the parks down there yet. So, I said you got to go check them out and he just thought this was -- you know, Meridian was amazing and it's a great -- you know, it is great foresight by our previous council members, the park staff that have done a great job. Here is my problem. I don't think I'm going to support any cost recovery on any of the fees, because I think it's okay to say on something like this we are subsidizing it already. I don't want to create a burden on people who want to rent a shelter or something. I -- because what if -- what we are trying to say is we are -- we are trying to recover the cost. We are paying for it Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 26 of 36 anyway, so we are going to either pay for it from just the monies that we give to parks for salary and staff and all that versus the monies we collect through the fees. I just -- I just don't like that as a philosophical argument for myself. Don't mind if anyone has a different point of view. That's just kind of where -- what I'm thinking is -- I just see that and I'm just seeing families, kids, small groups and, you know, again, not massive increases on some of these -- these shelter fees, but 8th Street Park -- I actually go to that park a lot. I used to go coach Meridian PAL football there for about seven years, because they had a big big tree and in September when it was hot that tree gave a shelter and it was quiet and there was a bathroom, there was a park and it was great. Forty dollars to 52 dollars to get that shelter. Not massive, but you know what, it adds up. It adds up. So, I think we should consider, as Council, philosophically when it comes to our parks and use of the park, do we really want to pursue a full cost recovery philosophy or do we want to say, hey, we are already subsidizing this anyway. We are providing the service. So, how do we want to pay for it? Do we really want to impose a cost on groups that we -- we do want them to come to the parks. Or do we just want to say, hey, this is a service we provide to the city, because this is just a really good city and this is what we are going to do. So, that said I think there is a couple of these nuanced fees at the end that I might be open to some discussion about making some -- some changes there, that makes some sense, but the other ones kind of listed in the table I don't think I would support any -- any changes on that. But you did a good job. That's just my philosophy. White: Thank you. Whitlock: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Whitlock. Whitlock: I appreciate Councilman Taylor's position on that, but I just -- you know, think of whether it's a state park, a county park or a city park, like Garrett said, I think the demand is pretty high. I mean I remember trying to rent a campsite at Ponderosa State Park and if you didn't do it January 1st by 12:02 in the morning you were out of luck. It didn't matter if it was ten bucks a site or 50 bucks a site, they were going. They were in high demand. Now, philosophically should -- should it be ten bucks? Should it be free? I would be happy to engage in that conversation. But I think where there is a demand and we are seeing it and we do have costs to maintain, we ought to recover something from that and I -- these haven't been touched since 2018. 1 think we ought to look at, you know, what is reasonable in 2025 or soon to be 2026. 1 don't think we have overstepped the bounds with the increases here. So, again, I appreciate the philosophical position, but I also recognize that they are in high demand. There is a cost associated with it and we probably ought to get close, even though it's not full cost recovery we ought to make some adjustments probably every seven or eight years. Taylor: Mr. Mayor, to kind of respond to that. And I should -- maybe I should clarify. On the shelters itself that number is a 30 percent increase, we still don't do a full cost recovery on the shelters, so that makes sense. Some of the other ones, like the ball Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 27 of 36 field prep and things that, that's a -- that's a direct benefit to that -- maybe an individual or group, so we want to do cost -- full cost recovery. That -- that's kind of where I was on that and so just to clarify. But, yeah, thank you. Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: You know, I wish we had a way to differentiate -- and I wanted to check, Garrett. So, you don't have to be a Meridian resident to -- do you have to be a Meridian resident to reserve a shelter? I think the answer is no. White: No is correct. Strader: Yeah. So, I think that -- that's kind of where -- I think Councilman Taylor makes a good point, but I think we have to think that through. So, you know, I would love it that -- if you are -- if you are a family in Meridian and you are a Meridian resident and you want to like have a family gathering at a shelter, I really don't want to charge for that if we don't need to. The same thing is true for like nonprofits and things like that based out of Meridian. But if you are -- if you are an interloper from Star, you know, and you are coming -- pretty soon you are coming to Meridian because we don't charge any fees on our shelter, like I don't think we want that; right? So, I -- I kind of maybe like the golf course, you know, how like at the golf course we have like lower fees for Meridian residents. Maybe we need a similar approach to this. I'm not sure we have landed on the right -- on the right approach. I mean we have always charged something. I'm just nervous about charging nothing and, then, being overrun by people from outside of our city. White: Mr. Mayor. Council Woman Strader, thank you for the comments. Really some of the fees are really just a fee to let a group have some skin in the game to show up if they make a reservation. If that makes sense. We didn't want to make these super high, but we want to make them good. Like I have used our shelters before for my kid's birthday in May; right? Because indoor spaces are tough to come by and are more expensive. But a park and a shelter super great. So, we tried to make those to where people have some skin in the game. We found that if we make things free people may not show up and, then, it's reserved and looks reserved when it comes to the resident, non-resident thing, that's something that we can look into and we would have to look into if our software can do that when it comes to online registrations, if that makes sense. Or reservations. But that's a -- that's a good -- good point. Thank you. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: Just a quick point. You know, getting some good feedback from my neighbor here. Wasn't suggesting we get rid of the fees. I was fine with what we have, because, I agree, having some skin in the game, but reminds me like when I express something to my wife and I know I'm really clear and she comes back and says that's not how I Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 28 of 36 heard it. So, to be clear I'm okay with the fees we have and I could accept some increase. I just want to be very sensitive to that. I wouldn't support a 30 percent increase, even though I understand the rationale, but maybe some small tweaks. But think it's important for me that we keep these -- keep these low. So, I wasn't suggesting no fees. I do get that we want to have some skin in the game, people pay and I'm perfectly fine with that. Overton: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Overton. Overton: I tend to most closely align with where Councilman Whitlock was coming from. You know, I am constantly reminded, whether it's one of our shelters, one of our parks, our golf course, our swimming pool, that we keep those in incredible condition and we pride ourselves on keeping all of our facilities in incredible condition and I think we don't want to ever come to a position where we start losing that edge that we have over a lot of different facilities across this valley. These fees haven't been changed since 2018? White: Correct. Overton: And some of these are 30 percent change. That means we are talking about a four percent change year over year. I don't think that's outrageous. I think that's pretty fair. I think we need to do whatever we can to continue to support our facilities to keep them top notch, because I think that's why they are so busy. The one thing I would like to see added when we look at these is if you could give us a usage year by year, so we knew as -- as we are raising fees are we seeing a reduction in the amount of these that are being rented or are we seeing an increase or no change and we are still having a high degree of usage. White: Mr. Mayor, I think Jenny may be able to come up with those numbers. Siddoway: Jenny's helping me with data over here, but I have that data in front of me now. In terms of total reservations -- now, it varies by shelter and location. So, you know, the park -- the shelters in Kleiner Park are reserved way more than the shelter in 8th Street Park, so -- but total reservations -- 2015 was 12,129. Okay? In 2024 -- have them year by year if you want interim years, but it goes up to 1 ,537 and I don't know why 2023 was so much higher, but 2023 looks like our peak at 2,225 shelter reservations. So, some in the neighborhood of -- currently our most recent year is 1,500 total reservations. But they are not -- they fluctuate year by year, but there is not a big fluctuation and they are not decreasing or, you know, increasing every year. They are in the 1 ,500 to 1,200 to 2,200 range every year for the last eight years. Overton: Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Steve. I appreciate that and I realize it's been seven years since we have looked at raising them. So, looking at these numbers fluctuating -- they are not fluctuating based on the cost, they are fluctuating on factors that we may not be able to grab today. Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 29 of 36 White: Weather. Smoke. All the above kind of factor. Overton: So, I'm definitely in support of what you are trying to do. I think there -- these are reasonable fee increases. I think -- especially since we are looking at seven years since we have done this, I don't want to see anything jeopardize the quality of the park facilities in the parks that we have and how we take care of them and us coming down to a point where we are paying a higher and higher percentage of the cost to maintain these shelters and maintain these parks, because the last time I was over parks and started talking about the costs of the equipment just to mow the grass, I was a little blown away at how expensive this equipment is, not to mention how expensive it is to staff the Parks Department and maintain all these facilities. I'm in support of this. I understand everyone else's situation on this, but I think this is a very reasonable four percent a year increase over the past seven years. White: Mr. Mayor, so what I have kind of heard kind of a mixed bag here whether should post these or not or if they need more discussion. I'm happy to come back and do more discussion. We are not in a major rush to do this. I know that Skyler would like to start getting stuff ready for next year already as soon as possible, but there is no reason why we can't come back. I'm having shoulder surgery on my other shoulder this year, so I won't be back until December 2nd. So, I think that's the next available meeting really is anyways after -- if we did post these. But I don't know if I should post these at this point, come back for discussion or what's the flavor. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: We got really good consensus to post and move forward for a decision, public hearing, and we may hear other feedback from our patrons about what does and doesn't make sense being I think that's an important piece to take in before we render a decision. So, I'm -- I'm supportive of moving forward. I don't see anybody saying let's not move forward. So, I think we should be good to go. White: awesome. Simison: Council Woman Strader. Strader: Totally fine with that. Separately I would really like you to research the feasibility of either differentiating the fees, resident to non-resident, or just charging some kind of non-resident reservation fee, because I don't think that's fair. That -- that's just a general comment. But that could come later. Like I don't think that that -- that that needs to be an impediment to what you are doing, but I just -- it doesn't strike me as fair how we are approaching it currently. Siddoway: Mr. Mayor? Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 30 of 36 Simison: Mr. Siddoway. Siddoway: If I could address that question for Council Woman Strader. I would -- personally I get the draw to wanting to differentiate those. I would recommend against that, simply because our cost in taking each reservation would be much higher if we have to be the ones verifying residency. Now, if we are willing to accept an honor system, then, so be it. I mean, then, it doesn't add any staff time. But we are creating a huge incentive for people to just check the box that they are a Meridian resident whether or not they are, because there is no checks or balances on that unless we are verifying driver's licenses. So, I just put that out there for your consideration. Simison: Steve, where do we currently have resident versus non-resident in the parks department? And how do we do that? Siddoway: We have resident, non-resident fees on sports and at Home Court and we do have a very time intensive process for the sport. We do have to go through checks for their -- well, I guess it starts off with an honor system at sports. Garrett -- you can correct me if I'm wrong. I will -- but at any point during -- on a sports play a team can -- can call for a roster check and, then, if the roster gets checked and they are incorrect, then, it gets -- then you have to -- help me out. What happens there? White: Yeah. The people that are playing illegally are obviously removed from the game and the manager gets like a two or three game suspension to my understanding. So, that's how they kind of check the resident, non-resident comes to player fees when -- in sports in the random -- in the random checks that we do. At Home Court we have a resident, non-resident for the day passes and the point of sale stuff and they have to show an ID, show them, then, we give them the resident, non-resident rate or discount. Siddoway: And those are in person. Simison: Right. But it's not onerous. It is just a checking of an ID at the end of the day. I mean it's -- White: At Home Court, yes. Simison: And I thought it was a ten dollar resident versus non-resident difference in our sports leagues, if I -- correct? Siddoway: We would require everyone to contact us for a shelter reservation, whereas right now the -- almost all of them are online. Simison: Right. White: And, Mr. Mayor -- and just -- just to add on to that -- and Council Woman Strader's point when I said earlier we would have to check our recreation software. Some softwares -- I don't know -- I don't think ours does this -- has like a geo fence Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 31 of 36 around it and they have to -- we have to -- honor system, they input when they create their account the right address, not just a random Meridian address, to where the software can, then, automatically do that. I don't think our software does that, unless we up the package that we get through Rec One to be more expensive. I need to look into it to see and that's -- was kind of my response to Council Woman Strader is I need to research a little bit more before I really say yes or no to that or whatever. Simison: I think she was open to you spending the time to examine those issues. White: Exactly. Simison: I think we can think of ten different ways to do it. Which way is technology friendly if we want to do it. White: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Simison: Councilman Whitlock. Whitlock: Just one final question. Garrett, these are hope to go into effect January 1 or what's the effective date of these proposed changes? White: Mr. Mayor, Councilman Whitlock, yeah, right now we wouldn't open our shelter seasons or -- until the first Monday in February. So, this is the time to promote it, put it online, advertise it. So, in theory, it would take place right when we get it approved. That makes sense. The very next day. But we -- we don't book anything or charge anything for fields and those types of things until realistically February -- I think it's 3rd or 4th this year, so -- I hope that makes sense. Siddoway: Mr. Mayor, I would also say that it does help earlier for team sports that are booking field reservations to know in advance what their field reservation fees are going to be. White: Correct. Yeah. And Skyler is already inputting stuff for next year, so, yeah, the sooner we know the better, but the reality of it is we wouldn't take place until next -- next spring. Simison: So, we will have this back on the 2nd of December. If there is any other conversations, please, follow up directly with the team, if you have any concerns about what's being proposed at that point in time. White: Mr. Mayor, Council, thank you. Appreciate it. Simison: And as a reminder this will be the highest fee, but it can be reduced if that's the will of Council on any of these items at that time. 20. Meridian Youth Baseball/Softball Partnership Agreement Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 32 of 36 Simison: All right. Next Item 20, Meridian Youth Baseball, Softball Partnership Agreement. Mr. White. White: All right. Let's stop talking about fees and start talking about Meridian Youth Baseball. So, really the objective tonight is for me to provide you, as Council, the information to where we can approve the agreement that's in front of you tonight. Over the past couple -- I would say couple years I feel like it's -- I have been really heavily involved with more of the MYB operations and being invited to board meetings and those types of things over the past three or four years and I -- just last January -- January '25 -- January 14th to 2025, MYB came and gave you guys a presentation. Like I had said that night they had came and gave a presentation to our commission that was just awesome and I -- I didn't realize the full breadth of what they do until they start explaining these things and kind of tell us the internal operations of it and that's when we decided, hey, we need to come and have them talk to you guys. So, that night they talked about all the kids that they have, 2,200 plus kids involved in their program. They never turn kids away. They are very competitive. They have great competitive teams, but they never turn kids away. They actually help on a scholarship program based on last year's stuff, about 15 to 20 families that can't afford it, they still get those kids involved. They don't say no, which is an awesome thing. You hear about how good they are, but you never -- they have a great rec program, too, in that. They have dealt with programs like the umpire and training program, which I had no idea about; right? They had their kids -- and that's another way for them to actually pay for some of their fees is those kids go and work -- work for them and help them, so -- and it's just an overall great -- great program and with the new community center and park expansion coming up we felt that this was good to partner again with them to increase their -- their field usage. So, the original agreement was done back in 2006, just over 20 years ago, to build that and the original agreement ends March 1 st of 2029, which in theory that's the start of their '29 -- '29 season, so that basically goes to the 2028 season. So, we know that there is a parking need over there. So, we decided to start working with MYB and we talked -- we have been talking about 500,000 dollars now for a little bit and the agreement basically is structured very similar to what PAL's agreement was with Heroes Park, on Pal. Paying for about half of the parking lot there. So, MYB, this agreement, some of the highlights of it -- or the talking points of it is MYB would pay 500,000 over the course of 20 years, which is approximately 25,000 dollars per year. The -- it's structured a 20 year agreement, although it's really structured every five years it renews. We took some feedback from specific Council Members on that and wanted to make sure it was in there and it's a great idea, we loved it, so we decided to throw that in there. They start paying the 25,000 starting in the spring of 2028 and it comes in two different chunks. Was it 1,250, 1,250. So, it kind of aligns with their registration seasons if that makes sense. So, we try to do that for them. It specifically calls out the schedule between Meridian Youth Baseball Softball, the city and the public. In the previous agreement that was never really established and we really never knew when MYB could use it or they were using it all the time, because they have so many kids and when the city could use it, when the public can use it, so we wanted to address that. So, we are -- when people call myself or Skyler or department like, well, when can we use it? So, we just try to establish those dates and times in there with that as long as -- Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 33 of 36 as well as the batting cages. It requires quarterly meetings and I have to give Travis and Nick -- I should have introduced those guys before. Those are -- Travis is the MYB president and Nick is the new vice-president, but, Nick, you were the treasurer before, if I remember right. So, very familiar with those guys. But those guys have invited me to meetings over the last four or five years. I have been there on Sunday nights. They meet every -- the first Sunday of every month we meet and talk. They have -- they have shared their stuff. I have shared our stuff. It's really been a great partnership over the last couple years that I have experienced and I really appreciate those guys including us in anything they do. But it requires quarterly meetings and the previous didn't. It was just kind of -- when are we going to talk. So, this has been great. We established that. Other things it establishes is when we meet we talk about projects, scheduling, future needs, major projects that come up to where, you know, if we have to close a field down we try to schedule that with them. It's just a communication tool on that. It establishes who is responsible for specific maintenance duties. If you remember when they came and talked in January they do a lot on those fields for us and really help our parks staff out quite a bit when it comes to just painting projects, repair projects, field prep projects, all the above. They have been extremely helpful with that and put a lot of time and effort into that stuff. Doesn't allow for subleasing the fields. Because of MYB and S -- softball -- add softball on there. Because of the popularity and how good a job they do, they are very well known for the tournaments that they host here and a lot of it is the facility that they put a lot of time -- blood, sweat and tears into, too. They have grown over a couple of years. So, it's been a huge -- it's a great thing, but it also puts a lot of stress on our parks staff, too, to be running around cleaning restrooms, trash cans, all the above during those days. So, we tried to establish some things in there and MYB had some of these suggestions, too, on what it would take to help our staff with that. So, it's been a good thing there, as well as, obviously, parking. It's part of the parking lot that we are talking about, 500,000 over 20 years will help go to that. But it also establishes what we feel that they should do and what they feel they should do to help with the parking. Right now there is lots of parking in Settlers Park. The design of Settlers Park isn't very convenient for the ball fields, if that makes sense, but there is plenty of parking. It's people just park because it's convenient; right? And they don't want to have to walk very far. This new parking lot will help with the convenience of it. We have -- wanting to build there and we have always -- already told the neighbors that parking is going to get worse before it gets better, because that overflow parking lot that -- that is over next to the MYB complex, the softball and baseball complex right now is going to be under construction. So, we will do some things to schedule our parks differently then. But overall this agreement -- we have been working on this agreement for about 18 months to two years now and we are kind of here to get your guys' blessing and feedback and for that I will stand for questions. If you do have questions from MYB Travis and Nick are here to answer questions if needed. Simison: Thank you, Garrett. Council, any questions for staff? Whitlock: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Whitlock. Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 34 of 36 Whitlock: More a comment. Garrett, thanks for bringing this forward and having the conversation here. I will make a comment or a statement to start things off. I mean my children are who they are today because of youth sports programs, so I don't think we can dismiss the value that they bring to families, to these kids themselves and to our community. So, thank you for spending the time and working with Meridian Youth Baseball. Our community is going to be better for it and our kids will be better adults. I can directly tie some of their success to, again, participation in youth sports programs. So, this is critically important to me. Thank you for the clarity in the memo where you walk through really the who, what, where, how, when and why of how we are going to operate these -- these fields for the next 20 years. I appreciate that clarity being called out here and, on top of that, being able to -- to get 25,000 dollars a year to help offset the cost -- the cost of building a parking lot that is needed, both at the park and ultimately will help with our community center that will be there as well. So, again, more a comment than a question. So, I appreciate all of that and I appreciate the comparison with what we did with PAL. I think it is important that -- that these programs participate in enhancing their ability to operate, as well as enhancing the value of our parks. So, thank you. White: Thank you. Taylor: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Taylor. Taylor: I will just take this opportunity to acknowledge Meridian Youth Baseball as well with them being here. My daughter started softball this year. I had a son that played baseball. So, to Councilman Whitlock's point, my kids are -- you know, done PAL. Meridian Youth Baseball is an excellent organization and the other day I was -- it was a Sunday morning, I think it was like 8.30 and there were some games going on out there. This is a couple weeks ago. And, then, later that week in the middle of the day I went home and I was leaving and there was a bunch of older gentlemen out there playing softball, too, and they had a fantastic surface to play on and I thought this is a great partnership where both sides are really benefiting from the facilities. They are fantastic facilities. When I was 12 and I went and I slid into home base at Fairview Elementary I got up injured, because it was just terrible -- just a terrible field. But these are fantastic fields. So, today I just want to -- I really like the memo. I like the creativity. I think it's a really interesting way to go about creating this really mutually beneficial partnership. So, I like what I saw and, again, just want to take a chance publicly to thank you for all you guys do for our community as well. White: Thank you. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 35 of 36 Cavener: Garrett, first I want to start by talking about you. This theme for this year I have been talking a lot about leveling up and I think you are somebody who is always leveling up and, you know, it's really easy. It's often in vogue for the public to criticize government employees, that they just kind of sit behind a desk and don't do a whole lot and anybody who feels that way I want to introduce them to Garrett White, because you go outside of regular business hours to connect with our partners, to connect with our community and those organizations are better for it and the city is better for it and so I want to start there and just thank you for your efforts. Leveling up, leveling up the city as you engage. White: Thank you. Cavener: I don't think there is another organization -- other rec organization the city's had a longer relationship with than MYB and, Council, full disclosure, I'm a -- I was an MYB -- not anymore -- an MYB kid and I have great appreciation for what MYBS does for our community and you really have to look at this relationship as -- as long standing and I have struggled a little bit with this agreement, because we want to make sure that it is a win for our residents and it's a win for the patrons and if MYBS would just quit being so dang successful we wouldn't have to have these types of conversations. But they are continuing to make a big impact in our community and to Council Member Whitlock's point, making a big impact on kids' lives. So, I'm in support of this agreement as it's kind of been presented. I appreciate the memo. I know we will bring it forth I think at a later point in time for ratification, but just thank you for the effort. MYBS, thanks for welcoming us into your house on a Sunday night so we can work through this together. This agreement is way better than the agreement we put together 25 years ago and that agreement was way better than what we were working with before and I like, Garrett and MYBS, that you guys are going to continue to meet collaboratively so we don't have to wait 25 years to fix these problems as they emerge. We can solve them when they are small and be responsive to our community and to this great organization's needs. So, just thanks for bringing this and thanks for proactive work. Often so much we are -- we are responding to this at the 11th hour. It's like, oh, the year's coming to a close, the year's getting ready to begin, we got to put something together and commend you for getting out way ahead of this and giving us a long runway, so that this can be a long-term successful agreement. So, appreciate your good work and appreciate MYBS being here tonight. White: Thanks. Appreciate the comments. Simison: Well, I will just add my kudos to everyone engaged in this process. I know -- I know it has been a lot of work, but it's also going to be a long-term benefit for everybody working together. So, kudos to everybody. We look forward to seeing this back in front of Council. Sorry. White: Can we approve it tonight or -- Whitlock: Mr. Mayor? Meridian City Council Work Session November 5,2025 Page 36 of 36 Simison: Councilman Whitlock. Whitlock: I would move that we approve Agenda Item No. 20, the Meridian Youth Baseball Softball partnership agreement as presented. Cavener: Second. Simison: Have a motion and a second to approve the Meridian Youth Baseball Softball Partnership Agreement. Is there discussion on the motion? If not all in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it and the agreement is agreed to. MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES. White: Thank you guys very much. Appreciate it. Little Roberts: Thank you. Simison: Thank you. Council, we have reached the end of our meeting. Cavener: Mr. Mayor? Simison: Councilman Cavener. Cavener: Move that we adjourn the work session. Simison: Motion to adjourn the work session. All in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay? The ayes have it. We are adjourned. MOTION CARRIED: ALLAYES. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6.05 P.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) 11 / 18 / 25 MAYGIR oGBERT SA1+1GS(GD�' DATE APPROVED By Luke Cavener, Council President ATTEST: CHRIS JOHNSON - CITY CLERK