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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002 09-24 Pre Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 24, 2002 The Pre-Council Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:04 P.M. on Tuesday, September 24, 2002, by Mayor Robert Corrie. Members Present: Mayor Robert Corrie, Cherie McCandless, Bill Nary, Tammy de Weerd, and Keith Bird. Others Present: Bill Nichols, Mike Worley, Brad Watson, Ken Bowers, David McKinnon, Steve Siddoway and Will Berg. Item 1. Roll-call Attendance: X Tammy de Weerd X Bill Nary X Cherie McCandless X Keith Bird X Mayor Robert Corrie th Corrie: September the 24 at 6:04 P.M. at the Meridian City Council Chambers. This time I will have roll-call attendance Mr. Berg. All at present thank you. Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Corrie: Council Item Number 2 is adoption of the agenda. Bird: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we approve the agenda for the Pre-Council Meeting as published. McCandless: Second. Corrie: Motion been made and second to adopt the agenda as published. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 3. Discussion with Earth Tech: Item 4. Ten Mile Interchange Update – Steve Siddoway: Corrie: Item Number 3 and Number 4, discussion with Earth Tech and Ten Mile Interchange update. I believe are both very similar so we can do those at the same time. We will, Steve do you want to start and then or whoever you want to go. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 24, 2002 Page 2 of 14 Siddoway: Thank you Mayor Corrie, Members of the Council. Mayor called me about a month ago and asked me to kind of represent the City’s interest with this Ten Mile Interchange study. We’ve met probably three times and in those meetings discussion’s just been very preliminary at this point. We’ve been talking about demographics in particular and trying to nail down the projections that we are trying to build to so that we don’t under build it. We don’t really over build it but Earth Tech has come up with a series of just initial thoughts of general options that are out there for interchange design. I know one thing that they were looking for was some feedback, if there was any that the Council likes particularly or doesn’t like particularly that they think should be thrown out from the get go and not be considered. I’m going to turn some time over to Dan Thompson with Earth Tech, he’s brought some graphics, and things, which we’ll help, display so Dan. Thompson: Good evening I’m Dan Thompson I’m with the firm of Earth Tech. Our business address is 3071 East Franklin Road in Meridian. Again, I’d like to apologize, I’ve been to a couple of these Pre-Council Meetings at other jurisdictions, and they’ve been more of a sit around the table type discussion. I kind of planned it that way and didn’t bring the proper graphics for this setting and I apologize for that. As Steve said we did have a couple meetings, we’ve had meetings with the Federal Highways Administration, ITD, Ada County Highway District and City of Meridian and other interested parties. COMPASS is also at these meetings. Probably the big concern we had was what’s going to happen out there if we build an interchange. Everybody said we don’t want to build another Eagle Road and have that occur again but there was a big concern that we get the proper demographics for that area around there and there has been a lot of discussion on the so far. A lot of the demographics for the COMPASS model were sort of initialized by a gentleman by the name of John Church and he’s an economist here in Idaho he worked for Idaho Power did a lot of their demographics for many years. After a lot of discussion with COMPASS we thought it would be wise to, Mr. Davis thought it would be wise if we brought him on board here and bring in some demographics to see his expertise in predictions of the demographics. I don’t want to go in to what he did and how he did it but we did bring sort of a map of (inaudible). Basically is what, if were looking at the highways here, Ten Mile is here and they are broken up into the traffic analysis zone, which is determined by COMPASS. The area were mainly concerned with is zones 277 and 278 that’s immediately north of the highway on either side of Ten Mile. I guess one thing that concerned us is the prediction was for about 2.1 million square feet of retail another 1.2 million square feet of office as well as some industrial and housing by his projections. From our initial reaction seemed like that was kind of a high estimate there were kind of trying to look at and sport this on to FHWA and ITD and have them look at that and some of the other zones. South of the freeway I think we kind of recommended maybe a little more industrial development down there. There’s a lot of low-density housing we’ve been comparing this to your Comprehensive Plan trying to see if this fits too. I guess we are looking for a feedback from the City to see if this Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 24, 2002 Page 3 of 14 seems reasonable to the City also. This is, are probably our critical task at this point. We’re trying to get everybody to agree on this, COMPASS says they don’t want to proceed with any traffic modeling until ITD and Federal Highways are happy with what we’ve done here. The next step I think we’re going to do is we’re going to go to COMPASS and look at the demographics for other interchanges in the area. The Meridian interchange the Eagle Road interchange and probably the Gowen Road Interchange and compare that to what we have here. We believe by narrowing it down on that we can get a pretty good feel for what we think is going to be happening out there. At that point we’ll start with the traffic studies. Steve mentioned we did kind of look for some alternatives just because we want to try to envision everything that we could possibly think of that’s possible. Try to narrow it down so we don’t have to study everything in here and we did these studies without the benefit of the traffic as you know without any environmental so at this point these are concepts we don’t even know if they will work. The first thing you are going to notice is this is a typical diamond interchange that’s very normal but if you compare that to both the Eagle Road and the Meridian Road Interchange, those interchanges have a looped on ramp and that’s to handle the volume of traffic. We don’t know if we are going to need that here or not, that’s something may not make this one an option. This is a standard one, probably the biggest problem with this one is there is a lot of existing houses down there in the south west quadrant that would be severely impacted, which would probably have to be addressed. De Weerd: Steve can you show that? Thompson: Another option we looked at was basically taking the interchange and shifting Ten Mile to the east and that allows us to. This farm right here is apparently historical and allows us to miss that. It allows us to reduce the impact on the housing on there. Other than that it’s still basically a standard interchange. One of the things that was talked about was the bridge crossing highway 16 extension on down south that if this was the terminal point this sort of gives it an angle to get back over to Black Cat or Ten Mile and creates that opportunity for it. It’s basically a typical diamond interchange. One thing I mention here is that we did do what we call a comparative cost estimate on all these just so we get a feel of not budgeting numbers just which one is more expensive than the other. The first two were the most cost effective. De Weerd: The first two were the least expensive. Thompson: Least expensive. (Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members) Nary: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Nary. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 24, 2002 Page 4 of 14 Nary: Just so, we talk about the same kind of numbers. When you’re saying least expensive. Your just talking about construction costs? Thompson: Construction costs. Nary: But your not talking about the land acquisition or any of that are you? Thompson: We included a right of way acquisition cost in our numbers there. Nary: Oh okay. Thompson: Again they are comparative. For example as in right of way we would just assume and I don’t remember the numbers we used but it was 50,000 dollars an acre something like that. Matter what except for the housing assume differently. All of them will be 50,000 dollars an acre. De Weerd: Those were less then this option? Thompson: That’s correct, as you notice this one is going to have a lot of land acquisition required on that one. Basically, its similar with just the one loop and that allows us to avoid the houses in there. It does, we should all these to FHWA and they said they pretty much meet with driver expectations and they don’t see any problems and this one is actually kind of similar to the Overland off ramp down by the big movie theater down there. Bird: Spectrum. De Weerd: Edwards Theaters. Thompson: They are going to get a little more exotic though. These next two are called single point urban interchanges do you remember the diamond interchanges it had two points of connection to the roads. These ones have one point connection and that’s why they are called a single point urban interchange. They are typically installed in urban areas because they require a lot of retaining walls and structure but they don’t use much right of way. In an area where right of way is very expensive these are very effective. In this one we kind of shifted it, typically they would be located right over the freeway or something like that but we shifted it so we could avoid the residents. One other benefit if this is elevated it would act as bit of a sound wall for that, for those residences there we’ll probably end up building a little more sound walls on all of them. The one thing that might be a possibility, this option would be an option to construct it with basis. In other words we could construct the interchange and not have to replace Ten Mile Road. Again with out the benefit of the traffic study I don’t know if that one happens. It might be possible instead of having to build a Ten Mile bridge to five lines it might only need to be three or four somewhere of that nature. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 24, 2002 Page 5 of 14 Bird: Man that would be very expensive land wouldn’t it? When you have two overpasses going up over. Thompson: They get to be very long spans. It is expensive and if you can actually build it without having to replace the Ten Mile overchange it actually is reasonably priced compared to the other two. It’s very competitive to those two when you throw in the Ten Mile Road overpass and then it does go up quite a bit here. Nary: So this is the really expensive one? Thompson: Yes, these are Cadillac’s. This is a classic single point urban interchange where we are actually having our single point right over the freeway. In this one we assume that the (inaudible) would go over the top of our intersection there and pull it down. I do require a lot of retaining walls and things like that, this one by our estimate was actually twice as expensive as the first one here. This one will probably not be considered (inaudible) then what we have right now. De Weerd: But it was fun to draw. Thompson: It was yes. Nary: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Nary. Nary: Is that similar to again the Edwards area. Where basically the freeway was lowered underneath the overpass. Is that kind of the concept here? Thompson: The one at Edwards is still more of a conventional type interchange. We got the off ramps and on ramps are on either side of the highway there. Where this one is just a single point here. I guess our next schedule is to finalize our demographics and we hope to do that in the next week or so. Then we get together with COMPASS and they’ll give us some traffic numbers, we’ll do an analysis to see what we need to do to accommodate the traffic and hopefully precede with the estimating of it all. Again our goal here is to get what we hope is a good firm handle on the cost of at least one of the alternatives we prefer. We’ll probably end up with a good cost for three of them anyway maybe four and then the plan is to get in the budget for ITD and work on it from there. That’s all I have but I’d be happy to answer any questions. Corrie: Any questions. Bird: Very nice presentation. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 24, 2002 Page 6 of 14 Corrie: Very good, thank you. Siddoway: Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. I would just mention that I did meet with Charles Trainer with COMPASS last week and on the demographic projection numbers he is interested in revamping those to reflect our current Comprehensive Plan that shows mixed use and future transit station and take a look at what really those demographics in that area would have to be to support transit in the future and then run some scenarios based on that as well. Charles has agreed to take that on at least initially running the numbers for transit supportive design in the area and then we’ll be including that as well. I suppose finally Eric Davis here he’s the man behind it all. The developer that’s looking at the feasibility of that and he had some issues related to the contract that he wanted to at least touch on with the Council. Davis: Thank you. Things are going along well. I kind of back check on these guys and I placed a call to ITD and back to Federal Highway and these are both outfits that will face through the approval process but they’ve set us on our path early on and just to see how are we doing what are you hearing through the grapevine and through your staff about our study and they both had very good reports and they said you’re working with the right group and you know so I felt good because there was some pretty stiff warnings on the front end. You just don’t assume you can put an interchange anywhere you want out there. That’s all you get an A plus so far. The you know I felt like this dialog would be great I mean Steve set this up and were going to have hopefully when we come out here every month and have a report and I don’t think it will be three or four more months we’ll be done. We’ll just go in step and the process and you know we need to have that same kind of feedback or at least monthly weekly however we can to get Federal Highway, ITD and COMPASS. I mean were having these meetings kind of on an as needed basis but its rolling right along. This is not a casual step these demographics became a huge issue and we all sat in a room up at Earth Tech and said whoa okay you know how many people are going to be out here in 25 years, how do you answer that question. We polled around and used the best resources we had. COMPASS was probably the leading resource. You know we were even asked as Developers slash brokers realtors, what do we see out there in five years and it got to be whose crystal ball should we use to give our sources the backbone that they needed to say this is. COMPASS has got to sit up and say yeah we buy off ITD we buy off. The base line that these groups have used in the past was pretty much developed by John Church, I mean he is an Economist and he’s had a real hand in these numbers and updating the numbers to the 200 Census. It was almost a forgone conclusion after our first meeting that in order to make COMPASS happy and feel good about these things. We needed to update their baseline with John Church’s input so we went to him. You know here’s our dilemma, what should we do, and what can you do for us and a couple weeks worth of work. Our proposal was 5,000 dollars and this is taking in another dimension for Earth Tech they didn’t expect to be going through all of this so they have given us a change Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 24, 2002 Page 7 of 14 order. I have its 8,500 dollars and I’ve got a copy of that plus it has an updated schedule in here and the schedule is enlightening cause it shows you all the steps we took to go through. (Inaudible) but were not, we have a reimbursement agreement at an 80,000 dollar limit were not there yet but were close to it were up to 78,500 dollars. It just felt like there might, I don’t want to but maybe at the time I have to come to you again and say you know they put another pick up and we got an increase and I think this reimbursement will expect (inaudible). I’m just being I think conservative but keeping you informed of where things are going. What was it, access that we talked about, demographics we talked about, there was something that you brought up that I wanted to expand on, but if I think of it, I’ll call you. Are there any questions? We had the Eastborn that was out here last week. Frank Eagan, I had him out on the site we met one of the neighbors Ralph Ross went out there and contacted him since he is probably a like full candidate for something to go across his property. We’re trying to get ourselves engrained with the landowners and over the next two or three months I will be out meeting all of them again with a proposal that in essence is the basis of the deal which was Eastborn’s willing to act as a bank on this for the private side at least a good portion of it, subject to the property owners reimbursing from their profits on the land after, you know that’s to present that. I have a package of information for everybody that updates them on where we are with the study and where we’ve gone and it’s a simple three page participation agreement that I think should be pretty easy to understand that Eastborn’s approved for our use. We’ll see, you may hear through the grapevine, the neighbors will start talking about, should I join in on this or not. It’s pretty meaningful and we want to end up at the end of December with a finished study and the ability to walk into ITD and say here is the money that we have been able to raise on this (inaudible). I’ll let you know in a month how things are going. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: Do you need any comments on what you showed us tonight. Siddoway: Council Member De Weerd. I was just going to bring up the fact that I will get all of the Council members reduced versions of all of these options and would actually really like some feedback. Especially if you have any strong reactions to any of them. Any feedback would be helpful so that I can gauge the direction the Council would like to take this as I do my part. Do that and, so first of all I’ll get those out right away and then any feedback you can get to me however you want to do by phone by email. Please do. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 24, 2002 Page 8 of 14 De Weerd: Steve I think one of the drawings that was pretty interesting that had Ten Mile kind of jogged to help with the alignment and not tearing down those houses. We really need to get ACHD’s input and feedback on that as well. Cause they are the local roads that will be connecting to it so if we could also maybe get some participation and comments back from ACHD, that would be very helpful. Siddoway: I would be glad to send a copy over too. De Weerd: Okay, they are. Siddoway: I guess the final thing is this study that we are doing right now is on a fast timeline they plan to be done by the end of November if they stay on schedule and if – so I would propose to the Council that we bring Earth Tech back in a month for some additional dialog and feedback as to where they are at that point. If the Council would like that I’ll coordinate with Mayor Corrie in getting that done. Okay that’s all I have. Bird: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Bird. Bird: Steve would you mark those drawings so and when we reply to you we can say A B C drawings. Siddoway: You bet. They are also named, you know they got the. Bird: Okay they are named then I couldn’t see. Siddoway: Right there is the typical diamond the Urban interchange the shifted, they all have names. So – Unidentified Speaker: (Inaudible) De Weerd: Yes. Siddoway: Yes if we could figure out. De Weerd: That would be very helpful. Siddoway: Prioritize, not prioritize but list them in order of cost, we can do that too. Corrie: I’m sure ITD would like that as well, (inaudible). Siddoway: Okay. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 24, 2002 Page 9 of 14 Corrie: Very good thank you I appreciate it guys. Thank you very much. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: I guess since Mr. Davis is dealing with the landowners too if there is a preference in that regard. I do know that the one that is on Ten Mile took up someone’s land that currently doesn’t have a road through it. That might be helpful to get input on that too. Davis: You’re right, there is a whole other dynamic that’s going to come to bear on this when these layouts are done. I mean we have to balance between what Earth Tech was hired to do which is the interchange and then the ACHD side of the things which is the roads that feed into this. The big element is access and you know some of the variables. I mean there is a new type four access that they call it, which restricts every half-mile to an access point. You know we have to be thinking globally about here’s this interchange but how do people get to it. And how do I go out to landowners out there and say here’s an interchange and then but you can’t get a curb cut off the highway that feeds it so the solution is frontage roads and you know that becomes well you pays for those and then how do you et easements. I’m hoping that common sense and fairness will prevail such that if you know landowner A way down here a half mile away is a guy with the first access. He gets that condition upon providing frontage road access through his frontage that backs up to everybody else along the way. We’re just touching on some of these things right now in fact that type four access is not cast in stone but its being talked about then I hear that I think well you know lets figure this out. Where that moves and all of that is huge variables and I would hope to diminish that to the greatest extent possible to keep that all private interests at bay until you can honestly say this is the one that makes the most sensible design and cost standpoint, which was our mission do be as objective as we can be. That solves the rest of those problems in a fair way with our local jurisdictions. I don’t know that’s what I’m thinking about. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: We kind of had that conversation with the north Meridian Planning and the Comprehensive Plan up on Chinden. Looked at frontage roads or I can’t remember the term of it but where we have a road with just a single development strip so you could have just one side that would have the – or a local road on one side, Chinden then on the other side. That was one of the options that were talked about but some of that. Davis: Which side? Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 24, 2002 Page 10 of 14 De Weerd: Well you would have it – you would almost have a development strip in between what you would call your frontage road and the highway. Davis: Oh I see it would be on both sides of the road. It’s an even level playing field for everybody. When this came up that was the first place they started to talk about was Chinden State Highway. It’s a state regulation ITD was in the wrong talking about this. It’s interesting as it evolves but you know. Corrie: Thank you. We have no more discussion on that. Item 5. Discussion of Waltman Lane and Corporate Drive Intersection – Mark Canfield: Corrie: We have Item Number 5 is the discussion of Waltman Lane and Corporate Drive intersection with Mike Canfield. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Yes, Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: That was a miscommunication when Mr. Canfield called. It wasn’t on st the agenda so we put in on October 1 and somehow it showed up on this st agenda so this needs to be tabled to October 1. Bird: Second. Corrie: Okay, so a motion and second. All those in favor say aye. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES st Corrie: Mr. Clerk if you would put that on the October 1 agenda then. Item 6. Tabled from September 17, 2002 City Council Regular Meeting: Transportation Task Force Committee Report: Corrie: We have tabled from September 17, 2002 City Council Regular Meeting, Transportation Task Force Committee Report. I believe, who is doing that Dave. No. Is there anybody here that is doing that one? I didn’t notice anybody. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: I think last week we asked that we be provided it in a format similar to how it needs to be submitted to COMPASS in a chart form. That in addition at Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 24, 2002 Page 11 of 14 the Ten Mile interchange be placed on there so Gary had noted at that time that he would work on that and it doesn’t look like we’ve received it. Corrie: He’s on vacation. Steve. Siddoway: I do remember that conversation from the last meeting and Gary Smith was going to be making sure that Ten Mile got shown but I haven’t heard anything specific from him. I don’t have anything to report tonight. Nary: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Nary. Nary: Can we just move that for a couple weeks, that way it gives Gary time to th get back. I move that we table that to October 8. McCandless: Second. th Corrie: Okay. Move to hear that to be tabled to October the 8 meeting for Gary. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES Item 7. Discussion of Sewer Service East Border – Gary Smith Corrie: Discussion of Sewer Service East Border. I think that’s, yeah he’s here. I know he’s here. Nary: We got maps. Corrie: So somebody’s here. De Weerd: Yes Brad’s doing that. (Inaudible discussion amongst Council members) Corrie: Okay Brad. Watson: I apologize. Did we skip a couple? Corrie: Yes. Watson: Thank you Mr. Mayor, Council Members. I think the only discussion to have on this has to do with the handout that I put on the table around your counter there before the meeting. Gary and I met with Boise City Public Works last week and went from the north along the eastern boundary of the area of Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 24, 2002 Page 12 of 14 impact from Chinden to the southern end of the existing area of impact and actually we went even farther then that although it doesn’t show it on the map you have. As you may recall our sewer planning area extends beyond the area of impact south of the city. We identified I believe nine potential areas that could be traded back and forth between Boise City and the City of Meridian based solely on sewer ability. Two of those nine we discussed at the previous Council meeting with the Commissioners tonight. There are a couple that are really, really small that are just sort of cleanup items. The first of those is between Ustick Road McMillan Roads it’s identified as a B. This one, even this one is an ideal, the line is simply shifting to the back of an existing property line but then it still splits a flag lot or something that looks similar to a flag lot. One of the other clean up ones is on the second sheet its immediately, well it fronts Franklin Road east of Eagle Road, its identified as a B that means there is a small sliver that would be going into Boise City. We just simply shifted the proposed line to an existing property line instead of splitting the parcel. There are a couple others on sheet three that are fairly minor. In fact two of them simply reflect existing boundaries of some existing subdivisions. The two major ones are the one that’s noted on sheet three as A and a little notation that says must be de-annexed by Boise City. It sounded like there was more to the story then Boise City Public Works was wanting to give us at the time. It can be sewered by Meridian City and in fact I think was had been there plan for quite awhile but for some reason it was annexed by Boise. Then the second major one, it can be you can see it on either sheet one or at the top of sheet two. It is it fronts Ustick Road, I think you’ve received some correspondence in the recent past from the developers or the proposed developers of those properties. I had another discussion with Boise City Public Works this afternoon and they have some concern about being able to sewer the southern half of what I have included in this map. We agreed, I agreed with Boise City that both they and I need to look into that a little further make sure we can provide sewer service. The difficult part of that will be probably not the sewer issue but if it comes in as one project how to handle that. So that in my mind that seems to be the most difficult one to resolve. I would be happy to answer any questions if you have any. Bird: I have none. De Weerd: I have none. Corrie: Okay any other discussion? Bird: Nice job Brad. De Weerd: Thank you. Nary: Thank you Brad. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 24, 2002 Page 13 of 14 Watson: Your welcome, thank you. I’m sorry I should’ve mentioned this the one thing that Boise City Public Works wanted to very strenuously point out is that they want to run this by their other departments. Fire, police because these may not make the most sense to those departments and I need to do the same with our respected chiefs as well. Corrie: Okay, any other thing. I guess that’s the last on the agenda. We got about 20 minutes before the other meeting starts if the Council would like we could take item 12 off the regular agenda and do an executive session. It’s not going to take a whole lot of time I’ll tell you that. If you want to do that, I’ll entertain a motion to do so. Bird: Mr. Mayor Corrie: Go ahead Mr. Bird. Bird: We’ll take it off when we take it up but I move that we go into Executive Session per Idaho Code 67-2345 (1) (b). Corrie: Do I hear a second? McCandless: Second. Corrie: Roll-call vote Mr. Berg. Roll-call vote: Bird, aye; McCandless, aye; De Weerd, aye; Nary, aye. All ayes. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. (Enter Executive Session) (Return Executive Session) Corrie: Come out of Executive Session. McCandless: So moved. Bird: Second. Corrie: All those in favor say aye. Let the record show that no decision was made in the executive session. Then I’ll also entertain a motion to come out of the special Pre-Council Meeting. Bird: So moved. McCandless: Second. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting September 24, 2002 Page 14 of 14 Corrie: Motion made and seconded to come out of the Pre-Council Meeting at 6:00 meeting. All those in favor say aye. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:05 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: / / ROBERT D. CORRIE, MAYOR DATE ATTESTED: WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK