HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002 05-29
Meridian City Council Meeting May 29, 2002
The regularly scheduled meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order
at 6:50 P.M. on Wednesday, May 29, 2002, by Mayor Robert D. Corrie.
Members Present: Mayor Robert Corrie, Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Bill Nary,
Cherie McCandless.
Others Present: Gary Smith, Brad Watkins, Shari Stiles, Stacy Kilchenmann, Bill
Nichols, Mike Worley, Ken Bowers 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
Corrie: Okay, I’m going to open the City Council regular meeting on Wednesday,
May 29, 2002 at 6:50 P.M. Please have roll-call attendance please, Mr. Berg.
Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda:
Corrie: Okay. I apologize to the public. We got a little late start. We had a
meeting with the ACHD. Council, Item Number 2 is Adoption of the Agenda.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I’d like to move that we move Item 3 to Item 11 towards the end of the
meeting. I was also going to request and I don’t know if this is the right spot, but
on Item number 9, the ordinance number, ask if we table that matter to our June
th
11 meeting to give the Police Department and the City Clerk’s Department an
opportunity to discuss some of the changes and how they may affect their
departments and comment if they need to.
Corrie: Okay.
Nary: Oh, and on the finance report, too. I think Miss Kilchenmann requested
that we basically change the order of that to take up Item 3, the Woodbridge
Latecomers Payment Agreement first and then the finance report and then the
purchasing policy.
De Weerd: Second.
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May 29, 2002
Page 2 of 52
Corrie: Okay. Any other additions or corrections? Council. Okay. Motion has
been made and second. Would you have roll-call, please – this is the adoption of
this agenda. All in favor say aye. Motion carried. Item 4, Consent Agenda.
4. Consent Agenda:
A. May 7, 2002
Approve minutes from City Council Regular Meeting:
B. May 14, 2002
Approve minutes from City Council Special Joint
Meeting / Workshop with Meridian Rural Fire Protection District
Commission:
C. Easement for Touchmark Phase 1-B:
D. Temporary Sewer and Water Easement for Bridgetower
Crossing No. 1:
E. Waterline Easement for Storage Cubby’s Project:
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I would move that we approve the Consent Agenda and all proper papers
to authorize the Mayor to sign and the Clerk to attest.
Nary: Second.
Corrie: Motion been made and second to approve the Consent Agenda. Any
further discussion? Hearing none. Roll call vote Mr. Berg.
Roll Call: Bird, aye; Nary, aye; de Weerd, aye; McCandless, aye. All ayes.
Corrie: Okay. All ayes. Motion is approved. Item Number 5 is Assessment
Briefing by Ada County Assessor Bob McQuade. So we will have—Bob. Glad to
have you here. Name and address please, Bob. Just for the record.
5. Assessment Briefing by Ada County Assessor Bob McQuade:
McQuade: Mr. Mayor, thank you. I’m Bob McQuade, the Ada County Assessor.
200 West Front Street. That’s our new address. Just wanted to stop by and tell
you what’s going on with the assessed values. It might be a bit anti-climatic
because there was a big article in the Statesman on Monday, which was talking
about the assessed values. But I’m going to have some specific information for
you as well as some total market values so you can get started on your budget
process, if you haven’t already. The total market value in Meridian this year is
the 2002 assessment year is $2.6 billion dollars. That’s up 16½%. That’s the
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May 29, 2002
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total market value. That’s what we would expect the properties to sell for. That
is different than the taxable value. The taxable value is the market value minus
any exemptions. In Meridian, we’re talking about homeowner’s exemption and
agricultural exemption. The taxable value is $2.1 billion. That’s up 18% over last
year. Just kind of (inaudible)the taxable value is 81% of the total value. In other
words, 19% of the total market value is exempt. Your residential parcel count is
14,675. That’s up 6½% on the counted number of parcels, residential parcels.
Market value $1.7 billion dollars. That’s up 13%. The median increase is 3.7%.
We like using the median rather than the average because there’s such a range
of change on existing property. For example, you would have a residential
property that a house burned on January first or January fifth. Anytime after the
first. If it was a $150,000 parcel, a $50,000 lot, we’re going to take $100,000 off.
So, that’s going to show a significant decrease in value from the previous year.
On the other hand, if you have a (inaudible) parcel that you put a $300,000-
$400,000 house on, there’s going to be a large increase there. So, we’re trying
to nail down the change on existing property. That’s really tough to deal with.
So, that’s why we like to use the median because it really is a middle number.
That’s where most of them tend to be improving. The median again is 3.7% over
here. Last year, the median increase was 1.3%. Just as a side note, why we
have to be so careful when we’re talking about the averages, I called Emily
(inaudible) over at the Statesman the other day and told her about what a great
article she had written. She had just received a storm of phone calls complaining
about how their assessed value was up a lot more than the 3.4% that was said in
the article. It’s just a nice figure to know but I think people need to look at that in
the context that there’s going to be a lot of variation around the mean or the
median. Your commercial count is 1,947. That’s up 5.3%. That’s the number of
commercial parcels. The market value is $858 million. That’s up 24% over the
previous year. The increase—I’m going to make sure I’ve got this right—I just
got a phone call about 4:30—the (inaudible) on the commercial is 6.3%. The
median is 3.4% increase. I really don’t see a lot of (inaudible) increase. I don’t
see a lot of problems over in Meridian. I think we really have a handle on what’s
going on over here in values and we’re not seeing a lot of large increases. On
the average, again, specifically, we might have a parcel that will go up 300-
400%. We’ll take an ag parcel, for example, that had a $1,000 on it. We take the
ag exemption off. That’s now going to be $5,000 or $10,000 or $50,000 or
$60,000 for that parcel. That’s going to have a significant increase. The new
construction, this is important to you because your budget increase is going to be
3% over last year’s value plus the value of new construction and that is the new
construction, the value of new construction times the last year levy. That’s going
to give you a dollar figure. You add that to last year’s budget and that’s going to
tell you what your budget can be this year. Residential, you had 670 residential
parcels this year compared to 758. That’s a 12% decrease. That doesn’t mean
it’s going down, it’s just increasing at a slower rate than the previous year.
Commercial, you had 19 parcels. This year, 63. That’s a 70% decrease. That’s
fairly typical throughout Ada County. Everyone is seeing that. The new
construction has slowed down considerably. Market value is $105 million. That’s
down from $151 million or a 30% decrease. Again, you still can add—take your
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May 29, 2002
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levy—last year I don’t know what it was in Meridian—multiply it times 105 million.
That is, approximately, what you can add to last year’s budget. The market value
of new construction was $63 million. That’s down 15% over the previous year
and the commercial is down about 77% over the previous year. The last thing I
want to—I think this is an interesting number because I there’s a lot of confusion
throughout the whole state and that is who pays the largest burden in property
tax. The commercial property owners, I’ve heard them say that they pay 65, as
high as 70% of the property tax bill. In Meridian, it’s 59%, is borne by the
residential property tax owners, or the residential property owners are paying
59%. Commercial is paying 41%. Boise it’s just the opposite. It’s Commercial
really is paying more because you have Micron and Hewlett-Packard and some
other ones. But, in Meridian, your residential property owners are picking up just
about 60% of the property tax tab. Mr. Mayor, that brings to a close my
presentation. I would be happy to answer any questions that you might have. I
think this all tells us something and, to me, that is that we are really feeling the
effects. The economy is really slowing down. We at the County, we are subject
to the same budgetary constraints that you are. We are budgeting less because
our new construction value is down.
Corrie: Okay. Thank you, Bob. Any comments, questions? Thank you very
much, Bob. We’ll let Will digest all those figures and give them to us.
McQuade: I do have a copy of that if someone would like those.
Corrie: Thank you very much, Bob. We appreciate your comments and giving
us the information.
McQuade: It’s good to see you and I just can’t believe how this city is just
bustling over here. You actually have traffic jams and—
Corrie: We’re right in the middle of it. You’re right.
McQuade: It looks like you’re addressing it, though.
Corrie: Hopefully, we are anyway. Thank you, Bob. The Item Number 6 is a
request for Waiver of Notice Requirement for Ada County Development Services
Project, Rhonda Miller for PAL soccer.
Item 6. Request for Waiver of Notice Requirement for A.C.D.S. Project:
Rhonda Miller for PAL Soccer:
Miller: Mr. Mayor and City Council. We’re actually planning on using the turf
farm at the corner of Eagle and Fairview for PAL soccer’s next season.
Corrie: Your name and address.
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May 29, 2002
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Miller: I’m sorry. My name is Rhonda Miller. My address is 12641 West Audi
Court and that’s Boise, Idaho 83713.
Corrie: Thank you. Okay, go ahead.
Miller: We’re in the process of trying to get a Conditional Use Permit with Ada
County to play at the corner of Eagle and Fairview next fall for the soccer season
for PAL. Within that process, I have to come to Meridian, I guess, because we’re
in the impact area here and ask for a waiver of requirements. I guess your
process for waiting is four weeks compared to their three weeks.
Corrie: Okay. Do we have any comments on this from staff of any—Shari.
Stiles: I had had a request. It’s been probably over a month ago about this
request for a waiver. I felt that this project is going to seriously impact the City of
Meridian. It’s right in the heart of that commercial area over there. We do have
some traffic concerns. We didn’t feel that this was one that we should handle at
staff level, that it was certainly one we needed time comment on. We have yet to
receive any kind of a site plan or have any idea what they’re talking about. So, I
don’t know why it’s taking so long to get to this point but it seems like if they had
the time to wait this long to even request this at the Council, why couldn’t they
have come to us with the application and started the process. I mean, then, we
wouldn’t even need the waiver.
Miller: The application’s been turned in to Ada County for quite some time.
Stiles: But we haven’t received it yet. Is that—
Miller: Ada County Planning and Zoning has received it.
Stiles: But we have not.
Miller: As far as Meridian?
Stiles: The City of Meridian.
Miller: I was not told that Meridian City needed it.
Stiles: City of Meridian would receive it from Ada County.
Miller: Okay. Well, Ada County is waiting for me to get this done before they’re
going to process--
Stiles: When did you turn it in to Ada County?
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May 29, 2002
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Miller: Ada County has had it for over six months. They have the plans. They
have everything. The only thing they’re waiting on right now is this waiver from
Meridian.
Stiles: That doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know what’s going on but it doesn’t
make sense that we’d sit on an application for six months to see if we’d give a
waiver of 30 days. I just don’t understand what they’re even doing. I mean, they
certainly could have submitted—I mean, the 30 days is long gone. I mean, we
could have had six months to review it now.
Miller: Right. Yes, I don’t know. I’ve been dealing with Wendy. I guess I’ll just
call Wendy tomorrow. I talked to her today and told her I was coming to this
meeting and she was like, okay. I told her I’d call her tomorrow and let her know
so—
Stiles: But they haven’t transmitted it to any agencies at all yet?
Miller: No. Nothing has been—
Stiles: I don’t know what’s happening.
Miller: I got the letter from the State Highway Department saying that they have
no issues with us playing there at that site. I’ve got a letter from the Highway
Department stating that there is going to be a traffic light put in at the intersection
where Wal-Mart is at because that is where we’re going to access it.
Stiles: So they have transmitted it to other agencies but they just—
Miller: No, I, actually, had to do that myself.
Stiles: Oh.
Miller: They’re making me call and get all these requests and actually take the
stuff to them.
Stiles: But you have not given the City of Meridian any information?
Miller: I was told I didn’t have to. Otherwise, I would have. So, I apologize.
Stiles: Ada County said you didn’t have to?
Miller: Yes. I didn’t even know I had to do this until a couple of months ago.
Stiles: Oh. I have no idea what their staff is doing. It doesn’t make any sense.
Corrie: We might have somebody from Ada Planning or somebody contact us.
So, I would imagine what you’d better do is, tomorrow go back to who you’re
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May 29, 2002
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talking to and tell them to contact our Planning and Zoning. So that we know
what’s going on here. I haven’t the slightest idea either. I can’t imagine they’d
be saying those things and making you do it.
Miller: Yes. I have a list from them telling me what I need to get.
Stiles: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Shari.
Stiles: I’d like to ask the applicant, have they accepted your application as being
complete?
Miller: No. It’s not complete yet.
Stiles: So, what’s not complete about it?
Miller: They want this and they need the Fire Department to sign off saying that
we’re in accordance.
Stiles: But the Fire Department has seen no plans?
Miller: Well, I’ve taken a set of plans down to them. He showed me where they
want fire lanes and that’s, basically, all I’ve got for Ada County. He’s not willing
to sign off until we’ve been approved.
Stiles: This does not make any sense.
Corrie: Okay. What I would suggest—we’re going backwards instead of forward
here. Why don’t you have, when you go to Ada County tomorrow, tell them to
call Shari Stiles?
Miller: Okay.
Corrie: And what she needs to get us along the deal—thirty days isn’t going to
do us any good. We’ve lost already, five of those thirty days. So, if you’d have
them call Shari and explain what they’re trying to do and then Shari you ask them
why they’re making her do all this. Because it doesn’t make sense.
Stiles: A waiver is not required for an application to be complete.
Miller: Well, they’re telling me it does because otherwise it’s going to hold up the
process.
(inaudible)
Miller: Yes. I’ve dealt with them in the past.
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May 29, 2002
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Corrie: Okay, well, there’s not a whole lot we can do until we find out what’s
going on and maybe Shari, if you can find out, we can maybe—
Stiles: It seems like they just need to start the process and go through the
normal process like anybody else does. Get the application to us so we can
have our time to respond since they’ve had it for six months. We would like to
have the 30 days. It’s a pretty big project and pretty significant for the area so I
don’t know that you’re going to get a waiver. I mean, that’s up to the Council but
we’d like to have our 30 days or at least see what your plan is out there.
Miller: Sure. Okay. Thank you.
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: We just need to be a little clear on this because it sound like it’s kind
of lost it’s connection somewhere. The normal process for an application of this
size, it generally does go through the normal process so the waivers—the
waivers are generally granted for a small one-acre lot split or you know, real
minimal types of things. This is contiguous to our City limit, so it’s something
that’s going to heavily impact our safety services, our police and our fire and
those departments do need time to respond, as you know. Why we haven’t
gotten a copy of the application and why they’re holding it up for something like
this is beyond belief. Shari, if you could call them and see if we could a copy
instead of making Rhonda go down there and ask them to do it, we should just
request it and get Kenny and his staff in starting to do some of the review if you
have a complete application. I guess, that’s the first question that needs to be
answered.
Miller: They told me it was not complete because it’s missing the Fire Marshall’s
sign off and Meridian City. So, I’ll call Wendy tomorrow and find out what’s going
on.
Corrie: I think that would be a good idea. We don’t know which way we’re going
and for us to try to get in the middle of something we don’t know about, it’s going
to give us a real problem and they’re not going to be able to tell us anything. So,
if you can get down there and I understand what you’re saying, but if you can tell
them what we’ve told you and let them call us and tell us what they’re problem is,
that’s easier than us calling and saying, what’s the problem and they say, what
are you talking about. So, if you can kind of lead that way it’ll go faster, I think.
Miller: Sure.
De Weerd: It sounds like they’re—
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May 29, 2002
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Corrie: Well, it sounds like it but she needs (inaudible) some information.
Nary: It may just be miscommunication.
Corrie: It could be, yes.
Bird: Mayor?
Corrie: Yes.
Bird: You said they were going to put a signalized right there at Wal-Mart?
Miller: Yes.
Bird: There’s already a signal there. Is that the one you’re going to use or are
they going to go down to--?
Miller: We’re going to put the other side up. We need to put the other side up. I
mean, out of the soccer field there.
Bird: That’s what I mean. But, that’s where they’re going to signalize. They’re
not going down to the next road.
Miller: No. No.
Bird: Okay.
Miller: Same intersection.
Bird: Right there at Texas Roadhouse. I was going to say, man, they’ll have
more signals there.
Corrie: When were you going to play on this field?
th
Miller: Our soccer season starts August 24.
Corrie: Oh.
Nary: (inaudible) intersection light and an approach to that intersection?
Miller: Yes, exactly. We actually have to put a road into the field and actually to
get our cars in too. Okay?
Corrie: Good luck.
Miller: Thank you.
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May 29, 2002
Page 10 of 52
De Weerd: I think we need to share with ITD how they can get it done in a short
amount of time.
Corrie: Okay. Next is the Department Report. Finance Department. Stacy
Kilchenmann, Woodbridge.
7. Department Reports:
A. Finance Department – Stacy Kilchenmann:
3. Woodbridge Latecomers Payment Agreement:
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor and Council. The first item under my Department
Report for you to consider is actually a latecomer’s agreement type item. I think
you’ll find in your packet is a proposal by O’Neill Enterprises for the Woodbridge
Subdivision concerning a payment agreement for their latecomer’s fees. I think a
representative of O’Neill Enterprises is here to give you a presentation or explain
why they’d like to have this particular payment arrangement with your
permission.
Corrie: Okay. Mr. O’Neill. Name and address, please.
O’Neill: Derrick O’Neill,168 N. Ninth, Suite 200, Boise. Mayor and members of
the Council, thanks for hearing me tonight. Just trying to make sure you all have
the most recent document. I sent over a document this afternoon dated May 29,
2002. Do you have the document? Did you get that?
Corrie: No.
De Weerd: I didn’t pick up my mail.
Bird: I’ve got it right here.
O’Neill: I’ve got some extra copies.
Bird: I’ve got it right here. It’s in our box.
O’Neill: First, I want to start with apologizing in taking your time tonight but a
couple of other apologies. Apparently, there was some words from an employee
or a consultant of mine, Scott Beechum, today and a couple of your employees
that I don’t endorse or condone. That’s why I’m sitting here tonight. I’m talking to
you as a principle of the project and speaking to you about my feelings. So, I
want to apologize to Stacy if there was anything that came across as
unprofessional. The second thing I want to apologize is that there’s been some
words or maybe understandings that if we don’t get what we want, we’re going to
protest this whole thing. That’s not the case at all. The reason I’m sitting here is,
I think there’s a solution that’s good for the City and a solution that is good for us.
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May 29, 2002
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But, those two points, I’ve clarifications. Maybe I’ll give you some time to kind of
th
scan through the letter dated May 29. That is a revised note that gives you a
little bit of history of our view of where this project is and then a response to
somewhat curve ball, I guess, thrown at us a day or two ago in terms of the
Finance Department and Public Works Departments feelings. So, I’m going to
pause for a moment and let you scan that letter and then I’ll walk through it.
Corrie: Derrick, I have a question on this five-year plan. Was that yours or
where did that come from?
O’Neill: That came from a discussion with Public Works and them saying we’re
comfortable with the amount and if you want to put in front of Council a different
program, we’re not going to stop you from doing that. That was something we
put in front of the Public Works Department and, in fact, communicated with the
Finance Department some time ago and then we also had it in front of you as
part of a packet when you reviewed Phase Two Preliminary Plat, Final Plat.
Didn’t ask you to take action but it was there to inform you that we had this issue
on the table. So, that was our original proposal that we thought would make
sense and work. In the last three hours, I’ve reviewed the comments from Public
Works Department or the Finance Department primarily and altered that five-year
program to a program I thought was maybe more feasible for the City and
something that we could live with.
Nichols: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: Mr. Mayor, if I could ask a question of Gary? Gary, is the latecomer for
Woodbridge computed on a per acre basis or a per equivalent residential unit
basis? Maybe it’s a question for Brad.
Watson: Mr. Mayor. Council Members. Mr. Nichols, it’s computed on a per acre
basis.
O’Neill: It appears that you’ve kind of had a chance to get through that. Maybe
I’ll walk through and help re-summarize it then I’ll take any questions. As you
guys recall, we’ve been in front of you and it’s actually been quite some time
since we came in front of you with original PUD for Woodbridge. At that time, it
was still unclear of the way this latecomer’s fee would be handled and whether it
would be a per acre or for etc.,etc. We, at that time, agreed that there would be
some sort of exposure and some sort of cost but we also agreed that it would be
something that we’d have to work out. Obviously, that got to be a real tough
project for the City and I can understand why. So, it took quite some time until
they even came and said here’s a proposed amount. So, we’re—have not been
and still are not in protest that there’s some dollars that we need to contribute
towards that improvement. However, when we started that process and even
went through the first phase of this, it still was not—that issue hadn’t been
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May 29, 2002
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brought to the table. I’m not sure exactly why. It’s just been hard to finalize it, I
guess. So, in moving through that, I think we came up with a program where the
Public Works Department re-looked at the methodology. They re-looked at the
dollars and they came up with this per acre amount that we felt comfortable with.
But, given the fact that this process had been going for three or four years, we
felt that it would be reasonable to be able to have some terms to pay that. When
we go get a project financed, we usually try to put those things up front in
financing a project and when you don’t know what that exposure is or what the
dollars is, it’s very difficult to do that. As you guys are probably aware, when you
put a project in, there’s a ton of dollars that go in up front and we don’t see a
return for quite some time. So, from a cash flow standpoint, $130,000 hit is a big
hit to us when we don’t have it financed or a plan to pay for it. So, thus came the
five-year payment program that we’ve put in front of you. We actually made a
payment towards that. We had discussion with the Finance Department. Not
with Stacy. A couple of days ago they e-mailed and said that it looked like an
agreement that would make sense but the City Council, obviously, had to review
it. We understood that all along. I didn’t want to put Public Works or the Finance
group in a position where they had to make a decision. I realized fully that they
were going to put it to you guys and you were going to look at it and make the
decision. As of yesterday, they came back and said, you know, maybe we ought
to look this a little differently and so I’ve tried to react quickly to put in front of you
a program that I think is a win, win position. I understand this has been
extremely difficult for you guys in terms of latecomers fees now and in the past. I
think this is not setting precedent. I think it has got some unique circumstances
associated with it and it’s a project that was put in quite some time ago. The full
methodology and fee calculation wasn’t done absolutely up front so I could
probably go on and on but I think you understand the element of what I’m
proposing. I do think it’s a good thing. It may not be a great thing but I think it’s a
fair thing for the City. It’s a fair thing for us and we’re prepared to do it. I guess
I’d stand for questions and we can move forward.
Corrie: Okay. (inaudible) discussion?
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: Well, it looks like on the Woodbridge or O’Neill Enterprises has
moved their proposal from the five-year to the three-year and from what I read in
rd
the memo dated May 23, the City has entered into a couple of three-year plans.
Is that correct, Gary, or Brad or Stacy? I don’t know who’s the appropriate
person to answer.
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor. Members of the Council. According to Reta, there
have been two occasions in the past where the City has entered into a payment
plan. I can’t recall the exact developments. They were smaller developments.
It’s not a typical precedent of the City to enter into a payment plan but there have
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May 29, 2002
Page 13 of 52
been two occasions where it has been done. We have actually never agreed on
any particular payment plan because that’s not an area of our responsibility.
That’s your responsibility. I think an assumption was made that perhaps
payment would indicate acceptance and I don’t think either Public Works nor
Finance ever purported—or that we could sign an agreement plan. We did make
a suggestion—a member of my staff suggested to Mr. Conger a few weeks ago
that maybe we can consider an accelerated payment plan with three payments
and she was told that he would not even present that proposal to his client. Any
discussions of alternate payment—and I actually have a record of phone calls
and dates. We were told that would be an alternative.
De Weerd: It looks from this letter that now it is.
Kilchenmann: As of about 4:30 today, it did become one.
De Weerd: Is this something that is along the lines of what you were thinking
and would this be agreeable?
Kilchenmann: Obviously, it is in the best interest of the City to have the
latecomer fee paid sooner rather than later. So, that really is something that I
think the Council and the Mayor need to make a decision about.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Gary, usually on latecomers fee, when you—the—somebody puts the trunk
line through and then when you bring your development in, you pay up front or
pay as you get your development, not on payment plans normally, is it? I mean,
it’s usually you pay if you get a unit of 80 acres, you pay for the 80 acres at that
point.
Smith: Mr. Mayor. Council Members. Councilman Bird. We started recently a
policy of requiring that where the total Final Plat acreage pays the latecomer’s
fee at the time that the plat is signed. That’s for each development lot. Cost per
lot. In the past, we’ve collected latecomer fees at the building permit stage.
Each time a building permit comes in, we get the latecomer fee. We changed
that policy so that we could recover the money faster for the developer that
extended the line to serve the properties that were subject to the latecomer fee.
This was an item that was discussed with the process improvement group. I
think it was acceptable to everyone at that time.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
Page 14 of 52
Bird: On these latecomer’s agreements, Gary, I know they’re a real hassle but,
you know, the money is either put up front by us or another developer to get it out
there and neither one of us are really bankers or in the banking business. I don’t
know if Woodbridge—I’m sure that when they started selling their property in
2000 or—I’m sure it was the first of 2000 that this sewer trunk line fee was all
figured in all their lots. I don’t know how many lots they’ve sold, how many
houses they’ve built or anything like that but I have a real problem of a five-year
payment deal.
De Weerd: That’s not the request anymore.
Bird: No. I know. They’re requesting the three. Now I have a problem with that.
I have a problem with latecomer’s fees, period. I absolutely have a problem with
it. I just don’t think—we’ve put the money out. We have paid for it or some of
their developer has. I don’t know who put in the Five-Mile. Did we put in the Five
Mile Trunk?
Smith: Yes, sir, we did.
Bird: Okay. We put it out so that’s our money out. This development, this 80
acres, is getting the benefit of it right now. Am I not right?
Smith: Yes.
Bird: I just have a real problem with a payment plan but if it’s been a policy in the
past, we might have to live with it. But I think once the Final Plat comes in that
the trunk line fee is either paid and I hope that before long that we have a
different system so that we don’t have to worry about latecomer fees.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I’m curious as to what discussion was had between December from this
letter up to Brad in May when this $27,000 payment was made. Was there some
ongoing discussion as to what was going on or how this was going to get paid or
how did that evolve?
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor. Members of the Council. Councilman Nary. The first
time Finance was aware of it, we had invoiced the latecomer fee as we typically
do and it had gone through our accounts receivable system.
Nary: Is that the $120,000 invoice that’s attached for Phase One?
Kilchenmann: Yes. Then when the charge was lowered, we sent a credit memo.
Then we got the letter saying that it was going to be a five-year payment plan
and it had been approved by Public Works and the Council. Since we did not
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May 29, 2002
Page 15 of 52
have a record of that agreement, we asked Public Works and they said they had
not made that agreement. That was basically the discussion and then we got a
payment for the first payment and we went to Mr. Nichols and said we need
some sort of formal or some sort of agreement between ourselves and the
developer to do a payment plan that would be signed by both sides because we
don’t have collateral or anything. He said you’ve got to go to Council to have it
approved. There was some discussion between my staff member and different
people representing the development about what the credit memo was for and
concerning that they weren’t able to make the payment as we invoiced it.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Stacy, it says we have refunded $68,000. In other words, we credited. We
didn’t refund a check to him, did we?
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor. Members of the Council. Councilman Bird. We
literally refunded in cash. The other people that—
Bird: Oh, the other people.
Kilchenmann: Right.
Bird: Not this developer.
Kilchenmann: Correct.
Bird: Excuse me.
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: So, was it why this was prolonged for so long, was it we did not have
a clear policy. You know, I can understand what Mr. O’Neill is saying. If you
don’t budget it, it’s not there. If they were not clear that they had to pay the
whole amount up front and then it was delayed because the fees needed to be
recalculated—did we not have a clear policy and now we have tightened that up
and so now we do have a clear policy? Is that what I’m understanding?
Smith: Mr. Mayor. Council Members. Councilwoman De Weerd. We’ve always
had the policy. The policy that we’ve had in the past has been payment of the
latecomer fees at the time the building permit is taken out. We did not have an
actual and accurate number for the latecomer fee per lot for the Five Mile Trunk
extension at the time the development came, the time Woodbridge came in.
Woodbridge was aware that there would be a latecomer fee for the sewer. They
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
Page 16 of 52
were made aware of that at the time the plat was being processed. There wasn’t
an accurate number given to them at that time. I do not recall what kind of
estimated number there was given to them but a number was given to them.
De Weerd: So, Gary, did they pay then per lot?
Smith: No.
De Weerd: Then it wasn’t for the total acreage or for the first building permit
issued, they paid for the whole acreage. I’m just trying how to understand how it
was done versus now how we are doing it.
Smith: As I understand it, the invoice that was sent to the Woodbridge
developers was for the entire first phase of the subdivision.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Okay. Are you through, Gary?
Smith: I don’t know if that answered the question. Historically, we’ve—
Nary: Well, I’m looking at it and it says it was sent approximately sometime after
st
January 31 and was received on February first by O’Neill Enterprises for
$120,656. I have a hard time—I understood what you said, Mr. O’Neill, but I
have a hard time believing that on February first you didn’t think that we had
accepted that five-year proposal of that letter to Brad Watson. On February first,
we sent you a bill for $120,000 and nothing got done. Or did it? Was there
something more done?
O’Neill: I can have a response to that (inaudible). If you want to just keep asking
questions, then I want to respond to each of the comments because I think there
are some responses to it.
Corrie: All right.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: A follow-up to Gary. Gary, between the time that they started getting
building permits and we sent them out a latecomer’s bill or whatever you want to
call it, had they been charged some of the fees that supposedly that we have
been charging in the past on building permits for the latecomer or for the trunk
line? And had they purchased any?
Smith: Mr. Mayor. Council Members. Councilman Bird. They were not charged
on the per lot basis for the latecomer fee. Stacy said that the first invoice was
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May 29, 2002
Page 17 of 52
sent in September of 2001. Brad indicates that he understood or remembers that
it was a condition of the approval of the plat that the latecomer fee would be paid
for the total plat.
Bird: That’s what I’m thinking. I think that is 100 percent right and there was
nothing mentioned on payments on that. It was to be paid at the plat.
O’Neill: I think I can maybe try to respond because I think there’s a lot of other
information and I think it’s important that the information is clear. I agree with
Councilman Bird 100 percent. I don’t like latecomer’s fees. I’d rather have it
figured up front. I’d rather deal with it. However, we’re in an unfortunate
situation where we worked hard to try to deal with and it took the City over two
years to come up with a fee and a way to charge that fee and we agreed and
understand that there would be a fee paid but we didn’t know what that was and
it took them an awful long time to come to a conclusion on what the total cost or
how the fee would be and go through that process. So, I think, this is a little bit
different circumstances than the usual situation. And B, I think that prior to the
new policy, we had processed Phase One plat and the approval and that was
before the policy of charging it all up front. So, I think that is a little different
circumstance as well. If it was based on the building permits, I think, at the time,
we would have been able and agreed to do that but it wasn’t at the time.
Bird: That’s what I’m saying. We had the agreement that you would pay that at
the plat time instead of the building permits. When you didn’t pay it at the plat
time and it wasn’t taken out on the building permits, you should have realized
that you had—and I realize it’s three different prices—
O’Neill: There are some different phases, too. There was Phase One of
Woodbridge, which is 164 home sites. That was prior to any of this agreement
ever talked about in terms of the specific fees. And then Phase Two, we did
realize and the condition read that we would either pay the fee or we would come
to an agreement with Council on a fee and a payment program. That’s really
why we’re sitting here with you today. If it would have been just the condition
that said we were to pay the fee and I agreed to that, I wouldn’t be sitting in front
of you. But it said we had the opportunity to put in front of you a program that we
would think is fair and you guys could decide on that. So, it isn’t as clear cut as
just saying that we agreed to pay the fee at the time of the Phase Two final plat.
That’s not how it read. I do think it’s a little different and I agree and understand
your frustration but I think this is a little bit different circumstances. In terms of
Mr. Nary’s question, in September, we received a bill and it was based on a
methodology—
***End of Side One***
O’Neill: --and the Public Works Department and the Finance Department didn’t
discuss that we were still working on a fee that we were comfortable with, that
they were comfortable with, that they could stand behind and so a number came
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May 29, 2002
Page 18 of 52
out that was a number you guys hadn’t even approved because you didn’t
approve the sewer latecomer’s thing until January. So, we got a bill in
September that was based on something that you guys hadn’t even agreed could
be billed. So, I think that is a different issue. So, therefore, we said if the City
Council hasn’t even approved it, we’re not completely comfortable with the bill.
Then, come January or February, we got another bill and that was at the time
that the City Council had approved the fee amount and it said that the fees have
been changed and adjusted and here’s a credit based on those formulations. At
that time, we did know clearly, Mr. Nary, that there was going to be some sort of
payment but we also were relying on our condition for Phase Two that prior to the
City Engineer signing the Final Plat, you guys would have in front of you this
decision to make. And you could either decide that we pay Phase Two fees at
once or we could work out a payment program and, therefore, I proposed a
payment program. As it relates to Tammy’s question, do we have a clear policy?
Absolutely not. That’s why it was such a frustrating process to go through.
There wasn’t a clear policy. It was building permits and it was – we’re in the
middle of something, we don’t have it figured out, so we don’t have a policy, so
we’ll work through the process. So, we were getting moved all over the board.
The building permit issue was there but the City didn’t that. The Finance
Department didn’t like it because it’s very hard to measure and monitor and
check if you’re getting the fees in or not. That policy changed in mid-stream
while we were going through the project. Gary did make us aware that there was
a fee and we definitely understand that. So, I guess, I feel like we’re thrown in
the barrel a little bit. Fully understand as a developer going into a city, if there
are improvements that are serving your property that have been put in by
someone else, you should get reimbursement for that. In fact, we have had a
request in front of the City to get reimbursements for oversized sewer line and
water line we put in as Woodbridge for over eight months. We have not had any
response to that request. The water is helping serve the Police Department and
there are three lots in that subdivision that are being served by the sewer from
the oversized line in Woodbridge. We haven’t had any feedback so we’re on the
other side of it in that case and want to move that process forward. This is not a
good thing. I understand it but I think there’s a point where we can work
together, should be able to work together. Just one other thing. I got an e-mail
and partly that’s why we would be moving down the direction of thinking that
there was the ability to do this. This is an e-mail from Reta in the Finance
Department to Brad. It said, I just talked to Mr. Conger about the Woodbridge
latecomer payments and told him we were going to agree to the five-year
payment terms. This is based on 1,706 an acre for 80 acres, 136 with a 4%
interest. I wanted to let you know that we did in fact receive the first payment last
Friday so it looks like everything should be a go.
Bird: What’s the date?
th
O’Neill: The date on it was May 14. And I didn’t make that payment at all
constituting the fact that that would mean the City’s acceptance. I know full well
that you guys are going to have to deal with this issue. That led us down the
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May 29, 2002
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track that’s a little wrong and it just hasn’t been a good situation. I think there’s a
situation here that works.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: This question is for you. Were you aware of this?
Corrie: No. I—
Bird: This five—
Corrie: I see the e-mail, yes.
De Weerd: We’ve had this one for several months.
Bird: Which one?
De Weerd: Requesting a five-year plan.
Bird: Well, yes, I know but have you seen the e-mail?
Corrie: The e-mail from Rita to Brad—
th
Bird: May 14.
Corrie: Just talked to Mr. Conger and told him we were going to agree to the
five-year payment term. Is Brad here?
Bird: Yes.
Corrie: Brad, did you get this memo?
Bird: E-mail.
Corrie: Stacy?
Watson: Mr. Mayor. Council Members. I have one similar to it. I don’t think I
have that exact one in front of me. But from what I understand, they weren’t—
well, obviously, Finance doesn’t have the ability to enter into a financial
agreement on behalf of the City but from Public Works prospective, from the very
beginning, the payment schedule was not up to us. We figured out the fee and
finally came to an agreement with O’Neill Enterprises once we did that. We had
told them, subsequent to Derrick’s letter to me, that any payment plan was up to
the Finance Department and the City. This memo, this e-mail, was probably
precipitated by me because I have Woodbridge Number Two Plat in my office for
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May 29, 2002
Page 20 of 52
signature right now. One of the conditions that you approved was that they had
to make final payment or payment of latecomer fees or come to an agreement on
a payment plan prior to me signing that. So, that’s why I was acquiring at the
Finance Department whether those payments or arrangements had been made.
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor and Council. Reta, shortly after she sent this e-mail,
she was notified that she did not have the authority to agree to a payment plan
and we did immediately notify the developer that it would have to go before
Council.
Corrie: I see that, yes, you did.
O’Neill: I certainly am aware that it was going to come in front of you guys.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Brad, I didn’t recall on this second phase as that was the agreement, too,
on the plat that we would finalize the latecomer’s fees or the fees. Whatever you
want to call it. So, what is your recommendation, Public Works?
Nichols: Mr. Mayor? If I may interrupt?
Corrie: Go ahead.
Nichols: While we were considering their response, if I may ask some questions
of Mr. O’Neill?
Corrie: Okay.
Nichols: Mr. O’Neill, in the first phase, did I hear you say there were 146 lots?
O’Neill: I said 164.
Nichols: 164 lots. How many of those lots have been sold?
O’Neill: I don’t know how many of them have been sold. I think probably
somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty.
Nichols: Okay.
O’Neill: And that would be sold to a builder not to a consumer. Probably sixty
permits but I’m not sure if that’s what you’re looking for.
Nichols: In the second phase, how many lots were there.
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
Page 21 of 52
O’Neill: I think there’s 113 or 114. Brad would probably know better. I think 114.
Those don’t include common lots but those are the—I think there’s a total of 279
for the whole project.
Nichols: Okay. Thank you. When you sold these first 60 lots, did you build in a
price based on some sort of estimate of the per lot portion of the latecomer fee
even though you didn’t know exactly what it was.
O’Neill: You know, we didn’t. We built in the price as soon as we came to the
conclusion on the total amount so we now have built them in there but at the time
when we first sold them, we didn’t built it in the price because we had no clue
whether it would be 100 or 500 or 2,000.
Nichols: Did you build in that price in December when you sent the first letter or
was it—when did you build the price in?
O’Neill: I think it was December. It was right around that time, December,
January, probably.
Nichols: So, the 60 lots that have been sold, how many have been sold since
December?
O’Neill: That, I don’t know. Twenty.
Nichols: Okay.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Stacy, on this latecomer’s fee, three years at 4%, do we recoup our costs
back? I mean, we’re based of 1996 dollars.
Nichols: I think the dollars were adjusted in the fee calculation.
Bird: I don’t think when it comes from 26 down to 17, I don’t think it’s adjusted. I
have a hard problem. I can’t figure out why we all of a sudden lose $900 an
acre. I don’t know. We need to decide something instead of sit here and argue.
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Did we get an answer to that? I mean, at 4%, are we getting any—I mean,
are we spending more money to collect it? Is that a fair interest rate? I mean,
it’s—
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor. Members of the Council. I’m going to let Brad answer
that because he knows what the actual costs were.
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
Page 22 of 52
Watson: Mayor. Council Members. The latecomer’s agreement that you
approved in recent months was based on actual dollars in 1996, 1997 once the
project was closed out. The $1,706 per acre fee that is calculated in that
latecomer agreement is the initial. Those fees increase by 4% each year for ten
years in the agreement that was approved. Back to your original question, I don’t
know that we necessarily recover all our costs if we’re only—we’re starting five
years later with $97.
Corrie: So, no.
Watson: I’m not an economist but I would guess, no.
Corrie: Thank you.
De Weerd: I don’t even think he has to be an economist for that one.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Mr. O’Neill, I know you told Mr. Nichols that you had not collected on your
first lots but I’m sure the cost of your lots included some latecomer’s fee. It might
not have been the right amount but I’m sure that the businessmen that you and
your dad are, you have that figured in. That’s not the question right now. We
need to determine how we can get this settled. I think—I, for one, don’t like
payment plans but on the same token, I don’t like being unfair to the developer
either. If he was under the agreement that there would be a latecomer payment
plan, I think we have to take a look at that.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I think that, I guess, the concern to me is it appears to me, Mr. O’Neill, that
for Phase One, clearly we hadn’t come to any real consensus at the time that plat
was approved. So, I do think probably getting a bill in February for $120,000 is a
little shocking because you really hadn’t had an opportunity to really factor that
into the sale. But I think you did for Number Two. I think for Phase Two, we’re a
lot closer to where we’re at and you haven’t even sold those lots.
O’Neill: Correct.
Nary: I think, at least, from the wording that you’ve said was approved, all it said
was that we’d discuss is. I mean, you had to factor in the possibility we’d just say
no and you’re going to have to pay it. So, I guess, to me what’s proposed by
Finance, a three-year payment plan for Phase One and that Phase Two be
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
Page 23 of 52
consistent with the rest of the plats that we do now. That they all be paid up
front. At least, it’s consistent on our part and really doesn’t—it may not be what
you like but it doesn’t put you really behind the eight ball. You knew that going in
with those conditions that that may not necessarily—you may not get a payment
plan. Now we could be—your proposal, basically, is that you essentially pay
about 25%, 30% in this year for—you’re asking us to pay 30% this year and then
pick up the other in the next two years. So, basically, you paid this year and
you’re done and then you won’t have to pay another one until next year. This
$58,000 and then $56,000 the year after. That’s for both lots, right?
O’Neill: Yes. I don’t suppose I would have a problem if it’s to pay the fee up
front if the $27,000 that we’ve paid currently could be applied towards the Phase
Two fee and then you give us three years to pay the remainder for the Phase
One. I don’t have it planned. I didn’t get it budgeted. A check that’s coming out
of cash is not coming out of the project’s cash flow and you could say tough luck
but I mean, that’s reality. I’m going to have a hard time doing it so I would agree
to say take that $27,000 we’ve paid and apply it to the remainder of fees, too,
and I’ll write the additional check for Phase Two but then allow us the three year
plan on the Phase One.
Bird: On the $86,000.
O’Neill: Yes. Exactly.
Nary: One of those years will be this year, not 2003. It would be this year, 2003
to 2004.
O’Neill: Yes, if you give us until the end of this year, I guess, that would make it
a lot easier for me.
Bird: That would be about $30,000 a year.
O’Neill: If you could make that to the end of this year. Give us until the end of
this year to do that, I could do that.
Nary: You seem to have left that a little bit open in your memo. Is that going to
work?
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor. Members of the Council. I did leave it open and up to
your discretion but I completely agree with what you said. We did delay and we
have to take some responsibility for not getting them the cost for Phase One but
Phase Two should have been pretty clear what was going on so that we get
payment for Phase Two now and then do a three year payment plan for Phase
One.
Nichols: Mr. Mayor?
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
Page 24 of 52
Corrie: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: Mr. Mayor, I would—if you agree to enter into a payment plan on Phase
One, I think there needs to also be some—we could work on some language to
tie in the payments to the number of lots sold because it wouldn’t do us any good
or Mr. O’Neill any good to have all the lots in Phase One sold in a strung out
payment agreement past the time that those lots are sold.
O’Neill: I don’t have a problem with agreeing. By the time the last one is sold, if
we don’t have full and paid, we’ll pay it for sure. That’s fine.
Nichols: We could figure in something that would tie it in so that—absolutely—
and it’s not a reflection on Mr. O’Neill. With some developers, if we had to do this
sort of thing, those building permits, availability is the one hammer that we have.
I’m not saying that you’re that type of developer but if all the lots are sold and
there’s money owed, some developers could disappear.
O’Neill: I don’t have a problem with that at all, if you want to add that as a
condition.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: So, essentially, Mr. Nichols, what you’re suggesting is that we tie this three
year payment, not just to a fixed time period but also some relationship to the
number of lots that are sold. The number of building permits that are taken.
Bird: Or when the first phase is filled. The last lot. Then it has to be paid and if
that’s a year, if it’s two years. But it can’t exceed three years.
(inaudible)
O’Neill: If we do that in six months, I’d be happy to write you a check for that
because that means (inaudible)
Nary: My only concern is that I don’t want to string this out to 2005. I want to
make sure that one third of this payment is paid this year.
Bird: He’s agreed to that.
Nary: As long as we do that in that time period and only accelerate it at the other
end, I think that’s pretty reasonable.
Bird: And the $27,000, as I understand, that he’s paid already, will be credited
towards Phase Two, which he will bring a check in to pay Phase Two and then
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
Page 25 of 52
we’ll set up a payment plan on the $86,000 at 4% interest with the stipulation that
if before three years all the lots are sold, that it will be paid. Is that right?
O’Neill: That’s fine. Absolutely.
Bird: Is that fair?
Nichols: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: Mr. Mayor, what I had in mind would be to—I’ll just throw this out as a
possibility—if there were 40 lots that had been sold in the first phase before
December, that left a hundred and—let’s just use 120 lots—left to sell in Phase
One as of December when the first numbers were starting to be used, we could
st
tie this in to the end of this year, December 31, 2002 or upon the x number—
well, let’s see. If he’d sold—basically, a certain number of lots sold, which ever
st
occurs first and then on December 31, 2004 or upon the, you know the
hundredth lot which it, you know—basically, would take the number of lots left to
sell at the end of last year and divide that by three in the first phase. So, if you
had 120 lots, you divide by three. So, you sell down to where you’ve got 80 lots
st
left, that’s when the first payment is due or December 31 of this year. Which
ever occurs first. Then the next year, if you’re down, let’s say in July, you’ve sold
down to where you have only 40 lots left, then the payment would be due then.
Then the final year when either the last lot is sold or the end of the year, which
ever occurs first.
O’Neill: I wanted to look at something like that. I would—we’ll break the back on
this thing in probably the end of 2003. Prior to that, all of our money is going to
the bank so to tie it too close, I’d rather have a little bit more flexibility and I’d
rather make you put a more stringent cap on me that says by a certain date you
will have it done or a certain number of permits. In the next six to eight months,
every lot that comes in, we’re still writing a check to the bank so we have no cash
flow to fund something like that. So, I’d rather have a little more flexibility that
you know for sure you’re going to get 100% payment of the Phase One fee by
the day we have the last permit issued or the last lot closed. If we can goose it
up somehow in 2003, I’m willing to do that but I would prefer 2002 not to end up
in a situation where it—
Nary: I guess, for my purpose, it doesn’t matter to me if we tie it to the individual
st
lots or that we just make a December 31st, 2002, December 31, 2003 and once
st
the last lot is sold or December 31, 2004—
O’Neill: That’s great. That’s perfect.
Bird: That’s fine.
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
Page 26 of 52
De Weerd: That’s good.
Bird: I’m afraid we’d have a hard time—I was just going to ask who’s going to
track the lot sales?
Nary: I can certainly make a motion. Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I would move that we credit the $27,296 that’s been paid by O’Neill
Enterprises for Woodbridge Subdivision that they be credited towards Phase
Two. O’Neill Enterprises will pay the remainder upon signature of the Final Plat.
That the City enter into a payment agreement for the latecomer’s fees for Phase
One to be paid in three installments. The first installment for one third of the
amount due, at a 4% interest rate of the one third of the amount due, on
stst
December 31 of 2002. The second payment due on December 31 of 2003
st
and the third payment due December 31 of 2004 or sooner if the last lot or
building permit is sold for that subdivision that all the payments will due at that
st
juncture if it’s prior to December 31, 2004.
Bird: Second.
Corrie: Okay. Motions been made and second. Any further discussion?
Hearing none, roll call vote, Mr. Berg.
Roll Call: Bird, aye; Nary, aye; de Weerd, aye; McCandless, aye.
Corrie: All ayes. Motion is carried. So be it. Thank you.
O’Neill: Thank you, members of the Council. Sorry to put you through that.
Corrie: Stacy, your number two Finance Report.
1. Finance Report:
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor. Members of the Council. Moving back to the
financial statement, this won’t take too long. It’s pretty much good news, good
news. On the investment side, interest rates are, at last, leveling off and not
dropping. Hopefully, that means they’ll eventually begin to angle up. The
general fund continues to earn more interest than budgeted in spite of interest
rates because we were just keeping the minimum amount of money in operating
and pushing the rest to the Idaho pool or to our investment advisor. Enterprise is
doing a little less than budgeted simply because their fund balance is so
dependant upon the interest rates. They have so much of that invested. On my
financial statements, the first ones are the Wastewater and the Water on the
Enterprise side. When you look at those, I just want to continue to remind you
that we’ve made some changes. The interest income in 2001, we had all of it in
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
Page 27 of 52
maintenance and operations and now we’ve started to split it. We have 75% of
the interest income reflecting in construction and 25% we reflect in the operating
side. Also, to remind you, that we’re now splitting MUBS and Public Works.
Those administrative or over-head type costs, 50-50 between Water and
Wastewater Treatment Plant operations. When you look at your statements,
again, we’ve split it into two parts where one, the top part reflects operations and
maintenance and the bottom, we reflect the construction side. That’s where we
show the latecomer’s revenue and the assessment revenue. Both Wastewater
and Water, their operations are much less,(inaudible) much less than budgeted.
Their personnel costs are less than budgeted. On the general fund side, each
department, their personnel costs are less than budgeted. Hopefully, if this trend
continues, we’re not going to need to do any amendments on the general fund
side. The Police, if you just look at over-time by itself, it’s slightly more than
budgeted but if you look at their over-all personnel cost, because of their
vacancies, they’re still less than budgeted. The same for Fire. Their over-time is
75% more than we budgeted but over-all—partly because of—we’ve budgeted
for positions all year but they weren’t full all year and also our volunteer. The
actual cost of volunteers is so much less than we budgeted. That kind of
balances out the cost of the over-time. That’s all I have on the financial
statements themselves. Are there any questions?
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: Stacy, I noticed in our revenue that we’re down in both property tax
and the revenue sharing about $500,000. Is this going to have a significant
impact on our budget this year?
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor. Members of the Council. Councilperson De Weerd.
The property tax will come in as budgeted. It’s just in the way it’s collected.
De Weerd: And probably the same with the State revenue sharing?
Kilchenmann: The revenue sharing, there was an error—actually, the Treasurer
misread the report that we get from the—we get a report from the Association of
Idaho Cities. She added the County share to our share so that is about $200
over-stated. Actually, the revenue sharing is exactly as they had predicted. We
think that that difference will be offset by our increase in interest income. We
also have the Building Department whose revenues are so much higher than
budgeted that we should be able to make up the excess. We also have some
funds that will come in from a police grant that weren’t budgeted. The revenue
sharing, actually, has not fallen as everyone was predicting because consumers
have kept spending in spite of it all. We should be okay there.
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
Page 28 of 52
De Weerd: Okay. The only other question I had was on the amendment page.
Do we need to have any discussion at this point on any of those items? Are they
pending any action required by us?
Kilchenmann: Well, I don’t think—the only items I think I will actually have to
do—I will have to do the spending authority for the grant revenue that we didn’t
do. We’ll need to do the switch between Enterprise and the general fund for the
part of that 56-acre park that the Watertower is on that you agreed to do to pay
for the Bear Creek amendment. On the road for the police station, we actually—
that’s not going to affect the bottom line. It’s just that that amount didn’t get
carried forward into this year but it was actually paid in this year. So, those are
items that will need to be done but they’re just housekeeping items. They’re not
affecting the bottom line. Items that would change the bottom line, the increasing
the fire fighters income early and mistakes in budgeting the step program. I don’t
think we’re going to need to do those items. I think we’ll be fine in our over-all
personnel cost.
De Weerd: Okay. Under items under consideration. Are we going to have
discussion on that or is this just going to—I mean, at this point, can these things
wait until next budget year?
Kilchenmann: Yes.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. So, that we will expect seeing them?
Kilchenmann: Yes.
Corrie: I think so. Okay. Any other comments?
Kilchenmann: Excuse me, there is one item that we will need to do and that’s the
installation of the Lennox server. Down at the bottom under items under
consideration. We probably will need to do an amendment for that because that
was in capital outlay.
De Weerd: So, do you want to move that then up?
Kilchenmann: Yes. I’ll move that up. In fact, I’ll take some of these items off.
De Weerd: Do we need to address the increased building costs for the new PD
or will that somehow be absorbed?
Kilchenmann: I think that will be absorbed.
De Weerd: Do we even know how much it’s going to be?
Kilchenmann: I don’t think we know exactly how much it’s going to be and in the
new budget, we did have some money in there for the increased building
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
Page 29 of 52
operational costs that we hope will cover it and we’ve addressed it more carefully
in the 2003 budget. So, I think, by the time they’ve been in for like a month,
which will be in July, we could take a better look at that.
De Weerd: Well, we may want to move that one up, too, just to make sure that
we have it covered.
(inaudible amongst Council)
De Weerd: Stacy, the codification expense. We’ve already expended that. Is
that not correct?
Kilchenmann: That’s correct but, so far, we’re under budget in other operating
areas. So, that probably will not need to be an amendment item. We have
expended that much money.
De Weerd: So, maybe something we need to better classify a couple of those
that these were not budgeted but will probably be absorbed under—
Kilchenmann: That would be a good idea. I can do that.
De Weerd: Okay. I have nothing further.
Corrie: Okay. Thank you.
2. Purchasing Policy:
Kilchenmann: The final item I had is the draft of the purchasing policy. One
thing I need to say is, I would want to have this reviewed by Public Works one
final time before it’s completed. Some of the items that I just highlighted that are
different. On the third page, where it talks about—it starts out Point A and it says
purchase is up to $1,000 and it has to be purchases from $1,000 to $5,000.
That’s the area you had discussed and agreed on previously but we did not have
that in writing. I wanted to note that it does state in here, does put in writing, that
you would sign the purchase order before the item was actually purchased.
De Weerd: Good. That was my—and that’s under 3 C, right?
Kilchenmann: Yes. Currently, we don’t require purchase orders for items for
$1,000 and under. I understand that was the procedure policy that the City has
already adopted. Starting at B, when the purchases are $1,000 to $5,000, they
would require the Department Director to sign the purchase order and the same
with a Council member. Once they reached $25,000, then, of course, by State
statue, they need to go through the bid process.
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
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May 29, 2002
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Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: Excuse me, Stacy, but on Item A, purchases up to $1,000. We don’t
sign those any longer but I still think it should still be a policy for any purchase by
the City that a purchase order should be generated. There should be a purchase
order number for every expenditure. Is that not how we do it?
Kilchenmann: No. Apparently, it was agreed on—this is before I was here but—
there’s a stamp. They stamp the invoice with kind of a mini purchase order
stamp that has a place for the approval and so forth.
De Weerd: Yes. It doesn’t matter to me if there’s an actual purchase—or a big
full sheet of paper but they should be assigned a purchase number so you do
know it goes through a procedure and it’s accounted for. That’s why you get
purchase order numbers.
Kilchenmann: I believe they’re all assigned purchase order numbers because
each department has a separate purchase order log that they maintain. That
way, whenever they make their purchase, no matter what the amount is, they can
log it in so they can accumulate a total. So, they have something more current
than the month end financial statement.
Corrie: They have a number to come back and attach to that, right?
Kilchenmann: Right. When they actually get the invoice.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I still have a problem of us generating our purchase orders after the fact. I
really have a—and this $1,000—I mean, I can buy a lot of nice stuff at $990 for
this piece, $990 for that piece and $990 for this piece with no purchase orders.
How do you track stuff? How do you track stuff if you don’t originate a purchase
order ahead of time? If you know you’re going to purchase it, you can certainly
write out a purchase order and 99% of the stuff that would be this large, you
know what the price is before you purchase it. I can’t figure out why we can’t
generate a purchase order before (inaudible) should be handed to whoever we’re
buying it from. A white copy of a purchase order should be handed to them and
that purchase order number should show up on the invoice as it comes to us for
billing.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
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May 29, 2002
Page 31 of 52
Nary: I think some of the problem, though, is and I don’t know if $1,000 is a good
number or not but some of the problem is you do have very small purchases
that—the best example I can use and I think the City of Meridian does this
because I think a lot of businesses do the same thing—they need to get products
at Costco. They don’t generate a purchase order. They go buy it. They have to
have some way to account for it so we know where in the budget this money is
coming from but I don’t know that you’re going to have a purchase order prior to
that. You’re not going to get a bill from Costco. You’re going to go pay for it and
then you’re going to account for it in your budget. (inaudible) return point that we
need to account for it but maybe not generating a purchase order is the proper
method to get the stuff taken care of.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I agree. You go to Costco and you buy some items on—but there’s some
large items there. But, on that receipt, they can put the purchase order. We do
the same thing in private business but we generate a purchase order that we
take with us. All you have to do is give them a white copy and I don’t care what
they do with it and then you take the pink copy, we do, and it gets stapled to the
receipt. That’s how it goes to get paid.
Corrie: I understand that, but what if you got a $3.00 bill?
Bird: Well, I think $3.00 would be ridiculous but how many $3.00 items do we
purchase? How many $3.00 bills do you get in a month?
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor. Members of the Council. We do have a large number
of very small transactions. For example, the Fire Department might need light
bulbs.
De Weerd: Light bulbs? How many firefighters does it take—
Bird: How much—how much they use for(inaudible). How much?
Kilchenmann: Or the Parks Department may need a small miscellaneous part.
So, we do, do several small purchases and I believe that was just as Councilman
Nary stated. That was the reasoning behind this. It became more expensive to
do the purchase order and generate the purchase order and the time taken than
the actual amount of the purchase. At purchase order, I think some estimates
are up to the time and the cost and staff time in generating a purchase order can
be as much as $100 per purchase order.
Bird: I think anything under $50, why are we writing a check? Why are we—why
is that a cash—everybody’s got a little cash drawer. Why aren’t we paying that in
cash and turning it in?
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
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Corrie: Everybody doesn’t have a cash drawer. They may have a—each
department has a credit card but they don’t have a cash drawer.
Kilchenmann: The majority of those—many of those smaller purchases are just
on an open account. For example—
Bird: Well, I understand that, yes.
Kilchenmann: --True Value Hardware. We try to sort of discourage a lot of cash
drawers because then we have—that’s kind of a control issue and a
reconciliation issue. What I could do is, I could actually do some quarries on a
month of purchases and actually look at how many, the size of the purchases
and how they break out and so forth and how many we do, how many are on an
open account and so forth.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: One of the things I was going to suggest and I heard you say you wanted
to have Public Works Department look this a second time or another time. Have
the other departments already provided you with some input?
Kilchenmann: They have all had this since February and I have not received any
input other than from Public Works.
Nary: My only concern is there might be some practice that maybe isn’t
consistent with what policy we want to pass because we’re really leaving it with
all the departments individually to make these decisions as to application of the
State purchasing requirements without really having a purchasing agent as some
sort of central force. If they don’t want to comment, I guess they can live with it.
Kilchenmann: I don’t think they had a problem with it. I think they felt like they
like the $5,000 limit and the little bit more flexibility it gave them.
Nary: I guess my thought on adding to what Councilman Bird said is, I think
there is a point that it doesn’t make sense. That we need to account for but it
may not require this purchase order type of processing. So, we have to account
for it somewhere in the budget. I think your suggestion is probably the best way
to get at that. If we need to figure out, you know, do we have a majority of
transactions under $100 and really not a lot, you know, everything else is fairly
large, maybe $100 is a better cut-off for that. Purchase orders are maybe more
appropriate at $500 level or $300 or whatever. Something like that. But, that
might be helpful.
Kilchenmann: I agree. I’m not sure how they arrived at the $1,000 level.
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
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Nary: You can buy a lot of nice stuff at Costco for $1,000.
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: The purchase orders are not to make $100 staff time (inaudible). It’s
an accounting practice. It’s just a way to track things and if you have a $3.00
charge at True Value, you have a standard p.o. number attached to that, they
send you an itemized accounting of what comes under that p.o number. That
doesn’t mean you have to generate a new one every single time. There’s great
templates out there in both the private and other Federal or governmental
agencies that do these kinds of things and they’re not a lot of time. It’s just that
it’s an accounting practice that this person has the authority and you have a p.o.
number that shows you have the authority to buy it, whether it’s $1.50 or $1,500.
The practice is standard and it’s all the same. It’s just an accounting process.
Kilchenmann: I think the cost is in the complete tracking of—somebody on the
other end has to track and match that approval authority with the invoice and
purchase number and so forth. It has become standard practice actually to use
purchasing card—procurement cards because they do save a lot of the
generations of paper and so forth. I didn’t that was probably an area we were
ready to venture in to. Most of those purchases at Costco, those are done on
accounts. We get an account listing at the end of the month and we balance it
with the receipts turned in by each department.
De Weerd: So, some of it’s already being done.
Kilchenmann: Yes. Okay. Moving on from that, then there’s just some verbiage
and guidelines for doing informal bidding and the requirement that we get three
Idaho vendors and just some ways to award bids and some explanations of
formal bidding. Actually, the next area that I thought might be somewhat
controversial is—and I didn’t page number these—but it’s—let me count—it’ll be
on the sixth page and it starts with bid opening and evaluation. If you go down to
the bottom, it says number five, Council action for bid decisions that exceed
$25,000. The change for us are in the way our practice—well, actually, our
practice varies from department to department so this would standardize it. What
it would do for those items that are $25,000 or under, the staff would make
recommendation whether to approve the item or not. The first one is for those
that exceed $25,000. Instead of it being a separate item like on the department
report, they could place those on the Consent Agenda. If the item is something
that is outside of our normal policy or controversial, it could be taken off the
Consent Agenda and put on the regular Council agenda or if the staff member—
Gary added this—if the staff member doesn’t want to place it on the Consent
Agenda then they could present it as a regular agenda item. I have to admit that
I stole all of this from Boise. Boise’s purchasing policy. What it would mean
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
Page 34 of 52
would be that items that are under $25,000 would not be approved by Council
but they would be approved by the Mayor. I thought that might generate some
discussion. Our practice now is that all contracts are signed by the—
***End of Side Two***
Kilchenmann: --that come from State code and sole source acquisitions and the
requirements that you document and prove that it truly is a sole source and then
professional and consulting services and then we don’t have to enter into a
formal bidding for those. Again, that’s State code. There are some items in here
that are just unique to Public Works. Those are the items I want them to go
through again. Idaho Code 67-2320. They’re just unique to them. The back of
the policy is, basically, just procedure on how accounting processes the invoices.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I’m a little concerned on the sole source purchasing. It seems sometimes
to be a—sometimes can be a fairly contentious item. I guess, what I’m
concerned is, because we don’t have sort of a gatekeeper to this policy,
necessarily. But, each department director gets to make that call. I’m a little
concerned in not making sure we don’t end up violating the law when a
department director decides do I really want to buy the white cars rather than the
blue cars and that sometimes ends up being a problem. So, I guess, I’m not sure
how to address a new policy. I guess I’m kind of concerned about having that
distinction made because there is a particular legal issue that may become of
that.
Kilchenmann: That is a good point in that. I know, previously, where I was
before, one of the purchasing agents biggest job was the gatekeeper of the sole
source. We could address that by having—we could actually have—if it’s—we
could just have the Council approve those. Then the documentation would have
to be in a packet and either the Mayor, at a certain level or the Council a certain
dollar level could approve those items because those are tricky.
Nary: At least, that would cover us. The other thing on the Council approval, I
guess, on the issue about the contracts over $25,000 so that the contracts under
$25,000 don’t need Council approval but there’s still going to be—those aren’t
the types of purchase orders that we’re signing. Those are different. Those are
an agreement that we’re having.
Kilchenmann: Correct. Entering into a contract.
Nary: So, we wouldn’t see those at all under the policy.
Kilchenmann: Correct.
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May 29, 2002
Page 35 of 52
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Under leases, Stacy, I’ve got a problem. I think it says in the State statute
that all legal agreements and stuff will be filed in the Clerk’s Office. I see you’ve
got it saying that the original of every lease agreement must be retained in a
central file in the Financial Office.
Kilchenmann: That’s correct in that area. Gary clarified that and pointed it out to
me and I just haven’t put—he wrote that part out and I just haven’t put it in there.
Bird: I realize we’re pretty lax in that but that is the—
Kilchenmann: He also did some things with the insurance, too, that I need to
change. I also need to change it—because I have—it just sounds like you have
to go through competitive bidding and he pointed out that might not always be
possible so I need to change that area.
Bird: When can we get a revised copy, Stacy?
Kilchenmann: I could probably do it next week.
Bird: Okay. With all the changes and everything? You said that Public Works
were the only ones that reported back on this?
Kilchenmann: Yes. The Police Department, he read it. I think he thought it was
okay. Fire thinks it’s okay.
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: I guess, Stacy, as long as this doesn’t conflict some of the changes
with other parts of our City code in the lease or contracts or agreements, I don’t
have any problem with what’s being proposed outside of what’s been talked
about.
Kilchenmann: We probably should have Will check it and see if there are certain
ordinances that it would be in conflict with.
De Weerd: Are you familiar with any, Will, at this point?
Berg: Mr. Mayor. Members of the Council. I do know a couple of ordinances
that might be but I’ll look those up and direct them and give them to Stacy.
Another comment, I did send this draft and I did tell ICRMP, which I sent it to,
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
Page 36 of 52
that this was a very rough draft and to come back with some feedback but I
haven’t been able to make contact with the gentleman that I sent it to but he’s
been on a circuit of training policies. I will get back to him and see if there are
any real concerns that they had. They do several seminars on purchasing,
especially the bid laws that I’m sure a lot of people violate and not know it. But
this pretty much, I think, follows the State bids anyways.
De Weerd: If you can get those comments to Stacy on any of our ordinances or
codes that it affects so we know how they all intertwine together. Do we want to
th
look at this again on the 4, a month from now with all feedback. Prior, you
know, not waiting until the Friday before.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I only had one other comment and I did note in the front that it says every
City employee has a personal responsibility to conduct government business in
an ethical manner and ensure the integrity of the City purchasing, procurement
process. On the signature—I’m not trying to open the purchase order discussion
anymore but the issue regarding that, I mean, each of the purchase order levels
require—at least the first two—require the department director’s signature. The
third level requires the department director and the Council liaison and last one
requires the Council’s action to approve it. It probably would be beneficial that
maybe this would generate comment from the different department heads
because it’s very clear in here. They are responsible to comply with this
ordinance policy and that the burden is upon them. I guess I would punch it up a
little bit so that it’s clear to them because we don’t have one agent to oversee all
of that, they’re the agent. So, they have to be sure that they recognize that they
have that ultimate responsibility for their departments.
Kilchenmann: That’s a very good idea.
Nary: Maybe then they’ll have a comment.
Kilchenmann: I don’t think so. I’ve sent it out like three times.
Corrie: From what they’ve been telling me, I think they’re aware of it. Okay. So,
this is going to be back for Council re-review on the date--
De Weerd: June
Corrie: What’s the date?
th
Bird: The 25, Mayor.
thth
Corrie: The 25 or 24?
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
Page 37 of 52
th
Nary: The 24.
th
Bird: The 24. That’s right. We’re going to run Monday because we have to be
in Pocatello.
Corrie: Would you also make sure that we get that in the paper that we’re going
thth
to meet on the 24 rather than the 25?
Berg: Mr. Mayor? Just to make a comment. I will have to at least notice our
agenda for that special meeting because that’s what it is, is a special meeting.
So, when it gets closer to what we know for the agenda, at least, 72 hours in
advance, I’ll make sure we get that.
Corrie: Okay. Public Works Department.
B. Public Works Department:
1. Award of 2002 Fire Hydrant Project:
2. Award of Waste Water Treatment Plant Lighting Project:
3. White Drain Sewer Trunk – Crossing and Easement
Agreement with Settlers Irrigation District:
Smith: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council members. The first item I have is the
project for replacement and installation of some new fire hydrants. We’ve got
five fire hydrants to replace and five new fire hydrants to install. The project was
bid and the low bidder is Star Construction for $31, 958. We have approximately
$50,000 remaining in the budget line item for this type of expenditure. The other
two bidders are Bitterroot Construction at $34,890 and Irminger Construction at
$41,500. So, based on the results of the bid, we would recommend that the
Council award the contract for the 2002 Fire Hydrant Project to Star Construction
for $31, 958. Authorize the Mayor to sign and City Clerk to attest.
De Weerd: Thank you, Gary. Any discussion, Council?
Bird: Madam President?
De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Bird.
Bird: I’ve got one question, Gary. That’s five new hydrants? What do they do? I
mean, that’s—I mean, what does that include? That’s the hydrant, hooking it up,
they furnish the hydrant and everything, for that price?
Smith: Yes, sir. On the new fire hydrants, they will tap the line. They have a hot
tab from the line which is a tapping sleeve that’s installed around the line and it’s
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
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tapped into the existing water line then there’s a length of pipe that’s extended,
excuse me, a valve is installed on that tapping T. The length of pipe is extended
then, from that point out to the location of the fire hydrant. Then the fire hydrant
is installed and thrust blocks are poured and so it’s all the materials and the
installation.
Bird: Thank you.
De Weerd: Any other questions? I would entertain a motion.
McCandless: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mrs. McCandless.
McCandless: I move that we award the contract for the 2002 Fire Hydrant
Project to Star Construction in the amount of $31, 958 and authorize the Mayor
to sign and the Clerk to attest.
Nary: Second.
De Weerd: It’s been moved and second to approve the award for contract to
Star Construction. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say—oh,
do we need a roll call vote?
Berg: Madam President. I’ll do a roll call vote. Thank you.
Roll Call: Bird, aye; Nary, aye; de Weerd, aye; McCandless, aye.
MOTION CARRIED
Smith: Thank you, Mayor and Council. The second item I have is the award of
Wastewater Treatment Plant lighting project. This project was installation of
eight new light poles and the associated electrical work at the Wastewater
Treatment Plant. Three bids were received. Custom Electric, Turnkey
Construction and Guho Construction. Custom Electric was the low bidder at
$22,500, Turnkey at $24,500 and Guho Construction at $29,500. Custom
Electric has done other projects at the plant and they’ve done very good work.
I’ve been very please with the quality of their work and the timeliness of their
work. We would recommend, with the amount being available in the budget, that
we recommend the Council award the contract to Custom Electric in the amount
of $22,500 to authorize the Mayor to sign and the City Clerk to attest.
Corrie: Okay. Any questions or discussion?
Bird: I have none.
Corrie: Okay. I’ll entertain a motion on the request.
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
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McCandless: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. McCandless.
McCandless: I move that we award the contract for the Wastewater Treatment
Plant lighting project to Custom Electric for the amount of $22,500 and authorize
the Mayor to sign and Clerk to attest.
De Weerd: Second.
Corrie: Okay. Motion been made and second. Any further discussion? Hearing
none, roll call vote, Mr. Berg.
Roll Call: Bird, aye; Nary, aye; de Weerd, aye; McCandless, aye.
MOTION CARRIED
Smith: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. The last item I have is the White
Drain Sewer Trunk Project. It’s a Settler’s Irrigation District license agreement.
We’ll be paralleling some of their facilities and crossing with the White Drain
Sewer Trunk and so the license agreement was necessary from them. Our
agreement to the license agreement from the City of Meridian for them. Also,
there’s an amendment letter that was submitted to us by their manager, Nathan
Draper, that changes the completion time for the work to be done by September
stst
1. Originally, the agreement had June 1 in it and this is an amendment to that
completion date. We would recommend the Council approve this license
agreement with Settler’s Irrigation District with the amendment, authorize the
Mayor to sign and the City Clerk to attest.
Corrie: Okay. Any discussion? Okay. I’ll entertain a motion on the request.
McCandless: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. McCandless.
McCandless: I move that we approve the license agreement with Settler’s
Irrigation District, including the amendment that he talked about—just a minute
here—that all work is to be completed by September 1, 2002 and for the Mayor
to sign and the Clerk to attest.
Bird: Second.
Corrie: Okay. Motion been made and second. Any further discussion? Hearing
none, roll call vote, Mr. Berg.
Roll Call: Bird, aye; Nary, aye; de Weerd, aye; McCandless, aye.
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
Page 40 of 52
MOTION CARRIED
Smith: Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council.
9. Ordinance No. ; Allowing for Criminal Background
Checks on applicants of permits / licenses with the City Clerk’s
Office:
Corrie: Item number nine is an ordinance that has been requested to be tabled
until June 11, 2002, but I just want to make it official, Mr. Nary.
Nary: Mr. Mayor, I move that we table Item Nine, the criminal background check
ordinance, to our June 11, 2002 meeting to give the Police Department and City
Clerk’s office an opportunity to review and comment on the ordinance.
McCandless: Second.
Corrie: Motion has been made and second. Any further discussion? Hearing
none, all those in favor of the motion say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED
10. Public Hearing: Water and Sewer User Charge Modifications:
Corrie: Item number ten is a public hearing. This is water and sewer user
charge modifications. At this time, I will open the public hearing and invite staff’s
comments first.
Watson: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council members. I probably should have
started the overhead up a little bit earlier in the meeting. I’ll just give you a brief
over-view of this proposal. I believe you heard me give this same presentation
th
April 9 at your strategic planning workshop. Just a quick over-view. Water and
sewer rates have not been updated since October 1996. We started last fall to
look at updating these. The study consisted of four major components. One
included a statistical analysis of actual billing quantities. We correlated those
quantities with actual revenue provided by the Finance Department. We had a
little more categorization of administration o & m, and o & m. Finally, the rates
that we recommended, taking into account a 5% growth rate for the next 12
months as compared to the data we used for fiscal year 2001. These water and
sewer rates are based on a cost of service analysis. In other words, we take the
proposed budget and calculate based on the volume of water and sewer that we
provide or treat, the cost per 1,000 gallons. These user fees do not fund facility
expansions or extensions that are needed for new development. The only time
they’re ever used for capital projects is if they improve the overall system quality
for all residents, improve overall system reliability or to meet new regulatory
requirements. As you recall, these fees are broken into two categories. One is
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May 29, 2002
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the base fee or administration charge. That is a flat fee that’s charged to every
single account regardless of usage. It covers administration costs. They’re not
mulled in the day-to-day o & m. It does cover the utility billing service and other
indirect overhead costs. The commodity or use charge, which is the charge per
1,000 gallons, is used to fund actual day-to-day operation maintenance, repair,
debt service if there is any. There’s one major change in the structure of the
billing rates that we’re proposing. Currently, there’s a flat fee for the first 4,000
gallons whether you use it or not. This has led to a lot of confusion for
commercial accounts because that’s based on the number of eru’s that are
assessed when they’re issued a building permit. We have trouble keeping track
of change in tenants, change in use. What we’re proposing is that the
commodity charge be based on each and every thousand that you’re billed so
you pay for what you use rather than this 4,000-gallon minimum. If this overhead
would work, I would show you the table. Mr. Mayor, if you’ve all got copies we
can—I apologize. It’s always worked before.
Bird: It’s like kids. When you want them to work, they don’t do it.
Watson: Unfortunately, it was nothing flashy either, but it had a lot of information.
The table that I’ve handed out to you shows the existing and the calculated or
proposed billing amounts per each use category up through a horrendous
amount of water. It shows a column for water, sewer, and then the third set of
columns on the far right is a combined, existing combined calculated that shows
percent increases associated with each of those use categories. As we
discussed in April, the proposed water rates would decrease. The commodity
charge portion would decrease from $1.23 per thousand to $.98 per thousand.
The base fee would be $3.48 per account and that would not include any use,
whereas, the existing water base fee of $6.48 includes your first 4,000 gallons.
Sort of imbedded in that existing base fee is an administrative charge that’s much
less than the $3.48. The current water administrative fee is $1.56. The
proposed is $3.48. So, that’s going up. That’s more than doubling, as proposed.
The line that’s highlighted on that table is the median use category during the
non-irrigation months. The typical water bill would go down very slightly. The
sewer bill would jump 19%. Overall, for both water and sewer combined, would
be about a 12% increase. The sewer billings, currently, there’s a $1.33
administrative charge imbedded in the $11.73 base fee that includes your first
4,000 gallons. The proposed administrative fee is $4.07, which does not buy the
first 4,000 gallons. Again, sewer is just like water. You will pay for what you use
or what you’re contributing to the sewer. The commodity charge, as I call it, per
thousand on sewers, increasing just a shade under 7%. As we discussed in April
also, just from looking at this for so long, I think part of the reason water would go
down and sewer would go up is that we’re selling a lot more water than we did in
1996. Our costs have not increased as fast as the increase in demand. Sewer,
on the hand, the plant is way more complex than it was in 1996. We’ve added a
lot of facilities. We’ve added a lot of staff. We’ve added a swing shift. They’re
open, they’re operating 20 hours a day now. We’ve had to add a pre-treatment
program. We’ve added quite a bit of staff to the bio-solids, de-watering and
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May 29, 2002
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disposal program. Most of the water that we sell, the increase in the water that
we’re selling, we don’t see that at the plant. It seems to be—there’s definitely an
increase but a lot of that increase is being used for irrigation. I guess that’s all I
have unless you have any questions. I think we’ve gone over most of this before.
Corrie: Okay. Any questions? Since this is a public hearing, I invite the public to
testify any testimony you might give. Does anyone in the public like to testify? Is
the statement you’re about to give the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth so help you God?
Furhman: It is.
Corrie: Okay. Name and address, please.
Fuhrman: My name is James Furhman. I live at 1737 Summer Falls, Meridian,
Idaho. I don’t know how you’re going to—just looking at that, I don’t know how
you’re going to sell that fixed cost of $7.55 to the normal person. That looks like
a pretty hard sell to me because about the time that shows up on my bill, it says
it’s going to cost me $3.48 for one of them and $4.07 for the other just for
administrative fees, I’m going to think they’ve got way too many people sitting
around doing nothing. I think you’d better get that allocated down into the gallons
somehow instead of putting it there. Whether all these costs are right or not, I’ve
just got a couple of situations beings I have several rentals. I see several of
these bills every month. I think you guys ought to look at how you might save
some of the money. The other cities send me a bill once every two months
instead of once a month. They don’t read the meters every dad gum month.
They aren’t a month—my bills on mine are almost two months behind from the
day that they’re read. I’ve called up and said, can’t we do something about that
and they said, oh, you’re just unfortunate. Why do we send out the bills just once
a month out of this place? I mean, they tell me there is thousands of bills go out
on the same day. You have a computer but they don’t seem to be able to
program it so that it can send out a bill any day other than what it’s programmed
for. They just—the people that talked to me justify this by saying, you know, this
is the way we did it. I said, yes, I know. I grew up here as a kid. We used to
have less than two thousand people. They used to do them by hand. But, now
they say, no, we can’t send out staggered billings because the computer won’t let
us. I call up and I complain because you adjust the bills for sewer based on
winter usage. If you have a problem with one of these places in the winter and
then you get it corrected and you don’t irrigate in the summer, you’re still stuck
with the same bill. I said, why can’t you get your computer to realize that it’s the
average usage during the winter or the lesser of what’s used in the summer.
Well, we just don’t know. You know, it’s not that way. You can’t get that done.
And I’m going, well, when I used to have a job and worked around computers, we
used to be able to do it because you told the computer that that’s one of the two
numbers you use. Anyway, I just believe that the City has—I don’t whether this
is the second or third computer they’ve been using as an excuse or a program,
but they never change anything that seems to simplify the bills or decrease any
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cost. I would a lot rather see my bill on my units or my meter get read and my bill
come out within seven days of that reading. Right now, they read them like today
and that amount won’t even get computed into it for a month and then it gets sent
to me. If I have a problem with a rental, I can be out three months almost before
I ever see it. I just believe that it could be a lot quicker. Like I said, on your fixed
cost on this bill, I think when you start sending that out to people like me and say
we’ve got $3.48 worth of fixed cost in water and $4.07 in sewer, which is $7.55,
which means that even if a person doesn’t use anything, that they’re going to get
at least that, it’s going to be hard to justify it. That’s probably why they had the
4,000 gallon minimum calculated into the other one because, at least, it’s kind of
hidden. Otherwise, you’re going to say, Jim, it costs you $7.55 just for me to
send you this bill on all thirteen of your units. That seems a little excessive to
me. I guess, I’m done.
Corrie: Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? Okay. Any comments from Council?
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: Brad, is there a better way we can reflect this? I’m sure you’ve
probably looked at from a couple of different angles.
Watson: Mayor. Council members. Councilwoman De Weerd. We thought very
long and hard about changing this administrative fee because I knew—well,
everyone was comfortable except for the billing department on how we had been
doing it. I thought it was unfair to the people who were using low volumes. You
know, a thousand to two thousand gallons a month. Like maybe the senior
citizen, single mothers, and things like that really weren’t using that much but
they were still being billed for 4,000. I guess that’s part of the issue. The other
issue is this administrative fee going up so much since 1996. There’s two
reasons for that. One is the way administrative costs are categorized. Back in
those days, when that analysis was done by JUB Engineers, very little was
tossed into the administrative cost. We had wages for a superintendent and
assistant superintendent, a public works director and legal fees and that was it.
That was all that was considered administrative at that time. Now, based on
what the Finance Department has provided to me in their definition of
administrative costs versus operation and maintenance costs, that definition of
administration has expanded to include the entire billing department because
they are not an operation and maintenance unit of the water or wastewater
system. Whether an account is using zero or 20,000 gallons, if the meter is in
the hole, the meter reader is physically going out there reading that meter.
Whether it’s a zero read or a high read, they’re going out there and that is a labor
cost, that’s equipment cost, it’s a vehicle cost. They’re coming back and
downloading that into the computer. A bill is generated by the billing department,
whether it’s zero or 20,000 gallons a month. They are generating a bill. They
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May 29, 2002
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are doing the work. That was sort of the line of reasoning that we used in coming
up with this.
Corrie: In other words, if you don’t use any water, you’re not going to get
charged that $7.55. Use a gallon and you’re going to have that in there. It’s part
of the administration fee. They still have to go out and read your meter. Right?
Watson: Mr. Mayor. Actually, if you use zero, you still are charged that
administrative cost of $7.55.
Corrie: As long as you’ve got a meter and water.
Watson: As long as there’s an active account.
Corrie: Because we still have to go out and read it.
Watson: Correct.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Brad, approximately how many meters do we have in the city? How many
bills are we sending out a month?
Watson: Mayor. Council members. Councilman Bird. I believe it’s in the
neighborhood of 14,000, a little over.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I mean, just a rough estimate. I mean, Mr. McQuade said we have about
17,000 parcels already so it’s probably somewhere close to that number.
Bird: Fourteen.
Nary: 14,675 are residential and 1,947 commercial. So, it’s probably
somewhere in that range of 15,000. I mean, I guess, I hear what Mr. Furhman is
saying, but you know, everything has a price and trying to run a city and trying to
run the cost of the city, I don’t like hidden charges. I like people to know. They
may not like the fact that there’s an administrative cost. They were paying it.
They were already paying it. We were just hiding it in the fact that they were
getting 4,000 gallons before they were actually paying more for it. They’re still
paying it. So, to me, it’s much more up front to say, you know what, there is a
cost to having water lines. There is a cost to having sewer lines. There’s a cost
to having a treatment plant. There’s a cost to having people read those meters,
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send the bills out. There is a cost to doing business and I think it is honest to say
that’s what the cost is. On top of that, there is a cost for the product. For the
water and for the sewer service. So, I guess, I don’t have a big problem with
that. I understand what Mr. Furhman’s testimony is, but I also recognize that this
is not a small city anymore. This is a very rapidly growing city and there is going
to be a cost to that. But, having good water and wastewater treatment facilities is
a good cost. That’s what we want. We want to pay for that. That’s something
that is a benefit to our community so if that’s the cost of doing business, that’s the
cost of doing business. People are being told up front that’s what it is. It’s not
hidden in anything else. It’s not something where people think they’re getting
something for nothing when they really aren’t anyway. I guess I don’t have a big
problem with these. I think they’ve gone through a lot of work to put this
together. I think it’s a fair evaluation. I don’t have any reason to doubt these
numbers.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I don’t have any problems with the dollars either and I pay the water bills.
But, I have a problem with what they consider administrative fees.
Corrie: Yes.
Bird: I have a real problem with what administrative fees are. I can’t believe that
your meter reader is considered an administrative person. Basically, everybody
that is an employee is an administrative fee. I guarantee, we don’t get to do that.
When we take administrative fees for handling impact fees or something like that.
We don’t get to include all of that in cost. Now, if that’s an overhead cost, then I
have no problem with it. Overhead is what it costs to do business.
Administrative fee is what it costs to run the business. I can’t believe that you
would have everything be administrative in the cost of a business.
Watson: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Brad.
Watson: Council members. Councilman Bird. By no means are all employees
thrown into the administration costs. The guys that are out turning valves and
flushing lines and running the wastewater plant, the majority of people are
involved in O & M and those wages and personnel costs are included in the
commodity cost. What was thrown in the administration were the
superintendents, the assistant superintendents. I think there are one or two
managers at the Wastewater Plant that supervise programs. The MUBS
Department, the billing department, was categorized as an over—well, maybe I
don’t know the definition between administration and overhead but they’re not
involved in the actual operation and maintenance of the system.
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May 29, 2002
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Bird: I agree.
Watson: That division, those employees, have to be there no matter what. If we
stop selling water, we stop building water lines, we stop operating the
Wastewater Plant, those O & M people go away. But, they’re—
Bird: Brad, I just have a real problem in saying now as administrative—how
many of those people you just named administer the policies of that department.
Watson: Councilman Bird, I could certainly name it something different.
Bird: Yes. That’s what I’m saying. But, I’m just saying that I don’t like to see it
published as administrative fees. If you want to say it’s overhead fees, that’s
fine.
Watson: Okay. I understand.
Bird: Or whatever.
Corrie: Okay. I don’t object to that. To me—
Bird: I have no problem with the cost at all.
Corrie: It’s all rolled into the cost of doing business. You call it what you want.
That’s the schematics. It costs us $7.55 per account per gallon to do business
so it’s there. That’s your cost of personnel, paperwork, computers, everything. I
understand what you’re saying but we—you call it what you want but you could
put it as complete cost of overhead and wages and whatever you want to say.
But that’s—
Nichols: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nichols
Nichols: Mr. Mayor. Members of the Council. Just to throw another term to
maybe help get over the schematics. Perhaps the term fixed cost would fit. I
think that’s what typically gets reflected in audits. I’ve seen it used as an
accounting term. It’s a fixed cost. I think that’s the intent of the administrative
fee, wasn’t it Brad, to recover per account or to distribute the fixed cost of –not
associated with the actual—
***End of Side Three***
Nichols: --treatment, production of water and treatment of wastewater in the fee
structure. Am I—
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Watson: Mr. Nichols, I think you hit it on the head. I remember that term now.
Bird: I agree with that 100 percent.
Nichols: So, Mr. Mayor, in that context then, whether you call it administrative
fee or overhead fee, it’s representing an allocation out of the fixed cost per
account.
Corrie: Okay. I’ll buy that.
Nichols: In the vernacular, that’s what it costs per account to turn the key in the
door.
Corrie: Okay. Any other comments? May have to stay all night. I can’t get this
thing to work. This overhead. Okay. Any other comments from the public?
Okay. I’ll entertain a motion to close the public hearing.
Bird: So moved.
De Weerd: Second.
Corrie: Okay. Motion made and second to close the public hearing. All those in
favor say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED
Corrie: Discussion? Comments?
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: I think some of what Mr. Fuhrman was referring to has a lot to do
with our billing system rather than the proposal in front of us today and that
probably is something we may want to take another look at is the efficiency of
that and how we can be a little bit more customer friendly. So, those are points
that we need to address. Not tonight but a little bit down the line.
Smith: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Smith.
Smith: Council members. Councilwoman De Weerd. I wrote down all of Mr.
Fuhrman’s comments concerning the billing process and I will take those to our
water superintendent and our manager of our MUBS Department and we’ll
discuss those. I’ll get you some information back as to what we could do if we
can change things. I know right now that they’re reading meters three weeks out
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May 29, 2002
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of four of the month. I’ve got a feeling that if we increase anything with any
frequency, it’s going to require some additional personnel.
Corrie: If we slow it up, it’ll cost a lot more phone calls.
Smith: I certainly will take his comments and have a discussion and get some
more information, more detailed information back to you so that you know a
response to his concerns.
De Weerd: Gary, maybe it’s just a matter of education on the process. I don’t
think it’s necessarily that the meters aren’t read often enough but there’s a basic
lack of understanding about what the process is and how it works. I think some
of the things he was talking about we are doing but it gets a little bit muddled in
some of the other stuff. At some point, maybe even a single page question and
answer depending on—I think out of any of the phone calls that I get and I
certainly encourage them to call the Mayor is on water bills. On the bills.
Corrie: Did I hear you correctly?
De Weerd: Yes.
Corrie: I thought I did. That’s where my calls are coming from. Her office.
(inaudible) encourage them to call the Mayor.
Bird: So do I.
De Weerd: I’ve heard that from other Council members that those bills seem to
be the point of contention. I think I heard that in his testimony.
Smith: Yes. I have alerted Leslie that when we get to a point in the invoices, the
billings, that we have on hand to where we need to re-order, we’re going to get
into the format of that bill and make some changes because it is just a little
confusing.
De Weerd: Yes. Well, thank you, Gary. I have no more discussion.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: With her not having any more, I would move that we approve the water and
sewer user charge modifications and for the attorney to—I don’t know whether
we need an attachment or a mandate on existing ordinances or not. What do
you want to call it?
Corrie: Finish your motion.
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Bird: Oh. That the attorney draw up the proper attachments or changes to the
existing water and sewer ordinances, which are separate.
Corrie: Okay. Do I hear a second?
Nary: Second.
Corrie: Okay. Motion made and second. Discussion?
De Weerd: Do you know what you just seconded?
Nary: I think it’s an ordinance.
Corrie: It’s an ordinance, I think.
Nichols: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: Mr. Mayor. Members of the Council. Just a couple of things. Currently,
your ordinance sets out the rate for water and the rate for sewer that includes the
connection fee. I would ask that you consider and maybe give me some
direction as to whether you want to do it this way, the same way you’ve done it
before, or whether we amend the ordinance to allow for resolutions. To have it
set by resolution so that when you next year or two years from now when Brad
and Gary present the water fees again, instead of changing the ordinance, we
just do it by resolution. The advantage to that is that you do it in one document
and you don’t have to go in and change your code books or re-codify it. The
disadvantage is somebody has to bind and post or say, you know, what does the
resolution say as opposed to just looking in the code. We can do it either way.
It’s not a burden on us to do it one way or the other. I just offer that to you that
that’s what some places do. The ordinance doesn’t change. The resolution does
as the fees are updated.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird. Yes. Go ahead.
Bird: Are our ordinances okay to do that with? The existing ordinance? That we
could change it to a resolution? To add to the deal? I like that idea.
Nichols: Mr. Mayor. Members of the Council. We would change the ordinance
to say that the water rates will be set by resolution of the Council. We’d change
the sewer ordinance to say sewer rates will be set by resolution of the Council.
Then we will prepare a resolution that sets forth the rates. If you want to change
the ordinance, that’s what we would do. We’d do two ordinances in a resolution.
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May 29, 2002
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Then, thereafter, to change the water or sewer, we just simply do a resolution
instead of doing an ordinance change.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I think that’s a much easier process to use, too, as well. The only thing I
would—just to be sure—and the other way that this gets caught, as well, is the
State Code requires that we increase rates. I think we’re going to have to
advertise it anyway, so it’s not something the public isn’t going to be aware of.
The only thing I would just ask Mr. Nichols to just verify, there are certain
requirements in different sections of the planning code that requires it be done by
an ordinance. It doesn’t have to be an ordinance that’s published in a book. It’s
just that’s the format the State Code requires. I don’t think this does that but
certainly, we need to verify that we don’t have to do it by an ordinance. Other
than that, I think your suggestion is great. It would be a lot easier to do it that
way.
Bird: I would amend my motion to do that if it is legal.
Nary: I would concur.
Corrie: Okay. If it’s legal, we’re going to do it.
Bird: We’re going to do it.
Corrie: Okay. Any further discussion? I hope the one that types these minutes
is getting it straightened out here.
Nichols: Mr. Mayor? One other thing that needs determined is when the
effective date would be.
st
Bird: July 1.
st
Corrie: Say, June – July 1?
Bird: Yes.
st
Corrie: How about Monday, July 1?
Nichols: Well, Mr. Mayor, this should be directed to staff because they’re the
ones that have to program the computers with the rate changes.
Smith: Mr. Mayor. Council members. Mr. Nichols, I guess I have a question
first. From tonight’s meeting, we’ll prepare findings that—is it even possible,
st
based on tonight’s meeting, that they’re approved June 1 but—see what we’re
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trying to do is, the readings that would be taken during June would be based on
these new rates but people wouldn’t even see these until July. I’m seeing a lot of
st
shaking heads. Just so everyone knows, if it’s July 1, we’ll be reading in July
but nobody will see the effect of these until August billings.
Nary: But can we reflect them in the July bill that the rates will be increasing in
the next bill so people will know?
Smith: Sure. We can insert that.
Bird: That would be fine.
st
Nary: So, the effective date for the application of the rate would be July 1 but
they wouldn’t receive the bill for it until the August billing. But, we can send them
a notice in July.
Smith: Correct. On the July billing, with the old rates. Right.
Nary: If we could even send it in June, it would be nice. I don’t know if that’s too
soon. Just to send a notice.
Smith: We’ll certainly look at it.
stst
Corrie: So the effective date is—do you want it July 1 then, Brad? July 1?
st
Watson: July 1 would be fine. Right. It’s correct what you said.
st
Nary: You suggested July 1 on their August bill. Is that okay with you?
Corrie: Is that all right with the Council?
Bird: You bet. That’s great.
Corrie: Okay. Roll call vote, Mr. Berg.
Roll Call: Bird, aye; Nary, aye; de Weerd, aye; McCandless, aye.
Corrie: Okay. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED
Corrie: Okay. We have an Executive Session that we’d like to go in to. So, I will
entertain a motion for going into Executive Session.
Item 3. Executive Session as per Idaho Code § 67-2345(1)(f):
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Meridian City Council Meeting
May 29, 2002
Page 52 of 52
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move that we go into Executive Session as per Idaho Code 67-2345(1)(f).
Nary: Second.
Corrie: Okay. Motion made and second. Roll call vote, please.
Roll Call: Bird, aye; Nary, aye; de Weerd, aye; McCandless, aye.
Corrie: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED
Corrie: I’ll entertain a motion to come out of Executive Session.
Nary: So moved.
De Weerd: Second.
Corrie: Motion made and second to come out of Executive Session. All those in
favor say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: I move we adjourn.
McCandless: Second.
Corrie: All in favor of the motion say aye. Adjourned at 10:07 p.m.
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
APPROVED:
/ /
ROBERT D. CORRIE, MAYOR DATE APPROVED
ATTESTED:
WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK